m t: iiiU? Hi lU a mw. »' * fiM 'r \\\\\'h ; 1 V : . , ^ ■ I , J '}Mu']im\\\\::l Ihrl i. .\'\^'/:'\' *■:;'■'•'' ^HnMii :;^^^ "i;^.-.5;i \[. . ' '^■ ''-VUm:fy\\^{: 1 l;-:: J};|;Kl;M;|;^';'rjv,-:':!;; TT ' ' ' "/ ' J ; i i ■ • ! ' 1 ■ ) ' J :' r ; i . * J ; i ^ ^ ', ; i:|; 1 >■ )<'t ' ] 1 ■ ::!• l^-ii-ii'-iiii'^ GIFT OF P!^CFESS3R C.A. KOFQif Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/curiositiesoflonOOtimbrich .graved hj-yf KMote. from a Paintm^ by T.J. GulUck ,^/^-y^--^ ^ p/i^^^^^iT: CUEIOSITIES OP LONDON: EXHIBITING THE MOST EAEE AITD REMAEKABLE OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN THE METEOPOLIS; WITH NEARLY By JOHN/riMBS, F.S.A. " I'll see these Things !— They're rare and passing curious."— Old Plat. "I walked up to the window in my dusty black coat, and looking through the glass, saw all the world in yellow, blue, and green, running at the ring of pleasure."— Steenb. In " the wonderful extent and variety of London, men of curious inquiry may see such modes of life as very few could ever imagine." ♦ * " The intellectual man is struck with it as comprehending the whole of humau life in all its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible."- BOSWELL's Life of Johnson. " The man that is tired of London is tired of existence."— JOHNSOW. A NEW EDITION, COERECTED AND ENLARGED. LONDON : LONGMANS, GKEEN, READER, AND DYER. MDCCGLXVIII. ' : .'« '. ; : : . (C ( c, CC( • 'e* r r re GIFT OF TRCFESSOR C.A. KOFOIO PREFACE. IT is not without considerable anxiety that I submit to the public this enlarged edition of a Work in which are garnered many of the labours of a long life, for the most part passed amidst the localities and charac- teristics which it is the aim of this volume to focus and portray. The cause of the above anxiety lies chiefly in the changeful nature of the subject ; for at no period in the existence of the Metropolis have so many changes been wrought in its " scarred face," and its modern aspect, as in the Twelve Years that have elapsed since the publication of the first edition of this Work. The " Curiosities of London" originally appeared in the Spring of 1855, in a small octavo volume of 800 pages, when it was received by the Critical Press with almost unanimous approval ; or, in some respects, an inclina- tion to take the word for the deed, and in others to kindly regard the difficulties of the labour. In either case I am bound to be grateful. The edition, over 3000 copies, was sold within a comparatively short period, considering the character of the work, then regarded as almost ex- clusively antiquarian ; although the above reception induces the belief that *' the Present has its Curiosities as well as the Past." The book remained for several years entirely out of print, and second-hand could only be rarely obtained by advertisement. I then resolved upon its revision, and its reproduction, enlarged and more perfect in its details than hitherto ; and the present volume of library size, 880 pages, is the result; im- proved, it is hoped, in the value of its contents, as well as increased in bulk. iirt^l7C>4^^ PBEFAGS. The plan and arrangement of this edition are essentially the same as those of its predecessor. The type is somewhat enlarged, and more readable ; in the quotations and descriptive details, the small but clear letter has been adhered to, so as to comprise an additional amount of exact and authorized illustrative information. Meanwhile, the extent of the more important articles has been considerably augmented, though with the requisite attention to conciseness and facility of reference. Several new articles have been added ; others have been re- written and enlarged. Correctness has been the cardinal point throughout the Work ; although the many thousand facts, names, and dates contained in this large volume will, it is hoped, be taken into account. The Preface to the First Edition has been reprinted for the sake of its explanation of the design, which I have here amplified, improved, and rendered more trustworthy as well as entertaining, by the best means and opportunities at my disposal, venerating the injunction of the old poet — , " Up into the watch-tower get, And see all things despoiled of fallacies." The Annals of a great City are ofttimes to be traced in the history of its Public Edifices. In the ancient and modern Cathedral, the venerable Minster, and the picturesque Churches of the Metropolis, we not only read the history of its Architecture, but in their " solemn paths of Fame " we trace countless records of our country's greatness. The Birthplaces and Abodes of eminent Londoners are so many hal- lowed sites to those who love to cherish the memories of great men. The palace-prison of " the Tower " bears upon its very walls an index to most stirring events in our history. The Civic H alls of London are stored with memorials of past ages illustrating curious glimpses of manners and artistic skill in their Pictures, Plate, and Painted Glass. To trace the growth of great centres of population, from the village in the fields to a city of palaces, part of the Great Town itself, leads us through many vivid contrasts of life and manners : — from the times when Southwark was a Roman suburb ; Lambeth and Chelsea were Saxon villages ; Westminster was a " Thorny Island ;" St. Marylebone, a hamlet on the brook ; St. Panoras, in the fields ; and Finsbury, a swampy moor : all lying around the focus of Roman civilization, the City itself Certain localities bear names which " make us seek in our walks thQ PREFACE. very footmarks of the Koman soldier;" whilst one of our most thronged thoroughfares can be identified as a British trackway and Roman street. How often upon such sites are unearthed relics of the civilization and luxury of our conquerors and colonists. The records of the Amusements of the People, and their Sights and Shows, in all ages, are richly stored with Curiosities : from the period when Smithfield was an Anglo-Norman race-course, to the waning of the last of the City pageants, Lord Mayor's Show. Old Poets and Dramatists, Travellers and Diarists, have left us pictures-in-little of the sports and pastimes, the follies and nine-day- wonders, of the "Londiners." Fitz- stephen and Hentzner, Stow and Strype, Howell and Aubrey, Evelyn and Pepys, Ned Ward and Tom Brown, Gay and Walpole, have bequeathed us many " trivial fond records" of this anecdotic class. Again, how many amusing eccentricities are recorded in the lives of the Alchemists, Astro- logers, and Antiquaries of Old London 1 Such are the leading Archgeological features which, interwoven with the Modern History and Present Condition of the Metropolis, form the staple of the present volume. In the intermediate changes have dis- appeared many old London landmarks, which it has been my special object to describe : " Praising what is lost, Makes the remembrance dear." JOHN TIMBS. HORNSEY-ROAD, Dec, 1867. PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION LITTLE need be said to bespeak the interest of readers in the staple of the present work — the Notable Things in the History of London through its Nineteen Centuries of accredited antiquity. Still, I am anxious to offer a few words upon the origin and growth of this volume ; and the means by which I have striven to render it as complete as the extent and ever -varying nature of the subject will allow. Twenty-seven years since (in 1828), I wrote in the parlour of the house No. 3 Charing Cross (then a pubHsher's), the title and plan of a volume to be called " Curiosities of London;" and the work here sub- mitted to the public is the realization of that design. I then proposed to note the most memorable points in the annals of the Metropolis, and to describe its most remarkable objects of interest, from the earliest period to my own time, — for the Present has its Curiosities as well as the Past. Since the commencement of this design in 1828, — precisely mid- way in my lifetime, — I have scarcely for a day or hour lost sight of the subject ; but, through a long course of literary activity, have endeavoured to profit by every fair opportunity to increase my stock of materials ; and by constant comparison, " not to take for granted, but to weigh and con- sider," in turning such materials to account. In this labour I have been greatly aided by the communications of obliging friends, as well as by my own recollection of nearly Fifty Years' Changes in the aspects of " enlarged and still increasing London." " Thinking how different a place London is to different people," I have, in this volume, studied many tastes ; but its leading characteristics will PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. be found to consist in what Addison's Freeholder calls " the Curiosities of this great Town." Their bibliographical illustration, by quotations from Old Poets and Dramatists, Travellers and Diarists, presents a sort of literary chequer- work of an entertaining and anecdotic character ; and these historic glimpses are brought into vivid contrast with the Social Statistics and other Great Facts' of the London of to-day. The plan of the book is in the main alphabetical. Districts and locali- ties are, however, topographically described ; the arrangement of streets being generally in a sub-alphabet. The Birthplaces, Abodes, and Burial- places of Eminent Persons — so many sites of charmed ground — are specially noted, as are existing Antiquities, Collections of Rare Art and Virtu, Public Buildings, Royal and Noble Residences, Great Institutions? , Public Amusements and Exhibitions, and Industrial Establishments ; so to chronicle the renown of Modern as well as Ancient London. The articles describing the Churches, Exchanges, Halls, Libraries and Museums, Palaces and Parks, Parliament-Houses, Roman Remains, and the Tower of London, are, from their importance, most copious in their details. The utmost pains has been taken to verify dates, names, and circum- stances ; and it is trusted that no errors may be found in addition to those noted at the close of the volume, with the changes in the Metropolis during the progress of the printing of the work. The reader, it is hoped, will regard these inaccuracies with indulgence, when the immense number of facts sought to be recorded in this volume is considered. Lastly, it has been my aim to render the Curiosities useful as weU as entertaining; and with that view are introduced several matters of practical informa- tion for Londoners as well as visitors. JOHN TIMBS. 88, Sloane-street, Chelsea, Jan. 16, 1855. ADDITIONS, CHANGES, CORRECTIONS, Sfc, During the printing of the present Work (nearly 900 pages), several changes have been made in the Metropolis — its material aspect, as well as in circumstances affecting its government, &c. ; among which are the following, entitled to special note : — Page 36. — ■Bitnhtli-I'ielCs BtrRiAL-GRorND. By Act of Parliament, the management of this property has been transferred by the Ecclesiastical Commissioners to the Corporation of London, who are to convert the ground into a public garden ; • the Commissioners reserving the right to resume possession of the estate should their conditions be ineffectually performed. Page 37. — BwrtJiolomeiv' s (S.) Hospital. The question as to the election of the Presidents of the four great City Hospitals, stated at p. 37 to be then sub judice, was, in November, 1866, decided by the Court of Queen's Bench in favour of the Hospitals, the Governors of which have free choice in the election of their Presidents {see p. 436). His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales has since been elected President of S. Bartholomew's. Page 41.— Pantheon Bazaar was closed in 1867, and the building converted into a wine dep6t. {See p. 640.) Page 49. — Bermondsey Priory. See Annates Monastici, vol. iii., edited by H. R. Luard, 1866. Page 74. — Top line, for Jolliffe Banks, read Jolliffe and Banks. 'Pnop 80. — The Speaker's State Coach is now kept at the Speaker's stables, Millbank. 1 age 85. — Charterhouse site and buildings are to be transferred to Merchant Taylors ; and Charterhouse to be removed into the country. Page 92.— The old print of the " Bunn House at Cheisey," measures 52 by 21 inches. Page 144. — Church of S. Alhan the Martyr : the choir entirely /or the parishioners. Page 153. — S. Benet's Church, Gracechurch-street, has been taken down. Page 238. — For Peckburn read PickburH. Page 284. — Nelson Column. The bronze lions, by Landseer, on the pedestal, are described at p. 759. Page 287. — Common Council. For " the Court held," read the Court hold. Page 302. — For " Britton and Bailey," read Britton and Brayley. Page 312. — Doctors' Commons. The buildings were taken down in 1867. Page 350. — Fleet-stkeet. No. 50, (not 13,) formerly the Amicable life As- surance Office, is now the Office of the Norwich Union Society. Page 430. — Middle Bow has been taken down. Page 469. — Geat's Inn. For *' Corner-court," read Coney-court. Page 541. — Mansion House. At the close of the International Exhibition of 1851, the Corporation of London, with a view of encouraging the growth of Art in this country, voted the sum of 10,000Z. to be expended in Statuary for the Egyptian Hall; and the Statues now in the Hall were ordered. Page 608. — Strand Music Hall. For " Old," read New Exeter 'Change. Page 716. — Spitalfields. For «' Lottesworth," read Lolesworth. 1 CUEIOSITIES OF LONDON. ABELPEI, THE. A SERIES of streets in the rear of the houses on the south side of the Strand, reaching east and west from Adam-street to Buckingham -street, and facing the Thames on the south — a grand commencement of the architectural embankment of the , river, in 1768. It is named Adelphi (aSeX^oy, brother) from its architects, the four brothers Adam, who built vast arches over the court-yard of old Durham House, and upon these erected, level with the Strand, Adam-^tTQQt, leading to John, Moherty James, and William-stxQQts ; the noble line of houses fronting the Thames being the Adelphi-terrace. The view from this spot is almost unrivalled in the metropolis for variety and architectural beauty : from Waterloo Bridge on the east, with the majestic dome and picturesque campanili of St. Paul's, to Westminster Bridge on the west, above which rise the towers of Lambeth Palace and Westminster Abbey ; the massive entrance and lofty clock-tower, and pinnacled and bristling roofs of the Houses of Par- liament : beneath lies the river, spanned with manifold bridges. The prospect is, how- ever, partially disfigured with huge and shapeless railway buildings. In passing- through Parliament the Bill for the Embankment of part of the Thames adjoining Durham-yard, a violent contest arose between the City and the Court. The Lord Mayor, as Con- servator of the river, considering the rights of the citizens exposed to encroachment, they were heard by counsel in Parliament. They produced a grant of Henry VII. of all the soil and bed of the river, from Staines Bridge to a place in Kent, near the Medway ; and showed a lease granted by them, sixty- six years before this period, of a nook of the river at Vauxhall, under which they still continued to receive rent. On the other side a charter of Charles II. to the City was produced, in which he reserved the bed of the river ; and it was contended that the City, by receiving the latter grant, abandoned the former ; that the charter of Henry VII. extended only to the soil of the river within the City and subnrbs. The lease of Vauxhall was said to be a mere encroachment, and the right of the City was utterly denied. These arguments prevailed : the Bill passed both Houses : and the magnificent pile of buildings called the Adelphi was erected on the site. The brothers Adam were chosen the Court architects, through the influence of the Earl of Bute, and did not escape the satire of the day : — " Four Scotchmen, by the name of Adam, Who keep their coaches and their madam," Quoth John, in sulky mood, to Thomas, " Have stole the very river from us." Foundling Hospital for Wit, vol. iv. In the centre house of the Terrace, No. 4, David Garrick lived from 1772 till his death, Jan. 20, 1779 : the ceiling of the front drawing-room was painted by Antonio Zucchi, A.R.A. ; the white marble chimney-piece cost 300Z. Garrick died in the back drawing-room ; and here his remains lay in state, previous to their interment in West- minster Abbey, Feb. 1. Johnson says : " His death eclipsed the gaiety of nations;'* but Walpole, " Garrick is dead ; not a public loss ; for he had quitted the stage." There were not at Lord Chatham's funeral half the noble coaches that attended Garrick's ; Burke was one of the mourners, and came expressly from Portsmouth to follow the great actor's remains ; and Lord Ossory was one of the pall-bearers. Walpole writes to the Countess of Ossory : — " Yes, madam, I do think the pomp of Garrick's funeral perfectly ridiculous. It is confounding the immense space between pleasing talents and national services. What distinctions remain for a patriot hero, when the most solemn have been showered on a i)layer ? . . , Shakspere, who wrote when Burleigh counselled and Nottingham fought, was not rewarded and honoured like Garrick, who only acted."— Letter. Feb. 1,1779. ;2V; ;._; •; ; _ ; :.\ ,CJjRIOSITIES OF LONDON. Garrick's widow also died in the front drawing-room of the same house, in 1822, at the Adelphi-terrace. The floor is now the chambers of the Eoyal Literary Fund Society. In another of the Terrace houses lived Sir Edward Banks, one of the builders of Waterloo, Southwark, London, and Staines bridges, over the Thames. He was one of the earliest railway " navvies,*' and worked on the Mersthara Railway, in Surrey, about the year 1801 : by natural abilities and the strictest integrity, he raised himself to wealth and station : he died July 5, 1835. At the north-east corner of Adam-street, No. 73, Strand, Becket, the bookseller, kept shop, — the rendezvous of Garrick, who never went to taverns, seldom to coflee- houses. At No. 1, Adam-street, lived Dr. Viccsimus Knox, one of "the British Essayists ." In the first floor of the same house resided, for twenty years, in almost total seclusion, George Blamire, barrister-at-law, of very eccentric habits, but sound mind. No person was allowed to enter his chamber, his meals and all communications being left by his housekeeper at the door of his ante-room. He was found dead in an arm-chair, in which he had been accustomed to sleep for twenty years. He died of exhaustion, from low fever and neglect ; at which time his rooms were filled with fur- niture, books, plate, paintings, and other valuable property. At Osborne's Hotel, John-street, in 1824, sojciurned Kamehameha II., King of tho Sandwich Islands, and his sister the Queen, with their suites : at this time was written the song of " The King of the Cannibal Islands." The Queen died here of measles, July 8 ; and the King died of the same disease at the Caledonian Hotel on the 14th. ' Their remains lay in native pomp at Osborne's, and were then deposited in the vaults of St. Martin's Church, prior to their being conveyed in the Blonde frigate to the Sandwich Islands for interment. The poor King and Queen were wantonly charged with gluttony and drunkenness while here ; but they lived chiefly on flsh, poultry, and fruit, and their favourite drink was some cider presented to them by Mr. Canning. In John-street also, on the north side, is the house built for the Society of Arts by the Adams, and extending over part of the site of the New Exchange, Strand. In the second-floor chambers at No. 2, James-street, lived, for nearly thirty years, Mr. Thomas Hill, the " Hull " of Theodore Hook's novel of Gilbert Gurney. Hill died here December 20, 1841, in his eighty-first year, and left a large collection of curio- sities, including a cup and a small vase formed from the mulberry-tree planted by Shakspeare at Stratford -upon- Ayon. Neither of these, however, is the Shakspeare Cup presented to Garrick by the Mayor and Corporation of Stratford at the time of the Jubilee. This celebrated relic was bought on May 5, 1825, for 121 guineas, by Mr. J. Johnson ; and by him sold, July 4, 1846, for 40Z. 8*. Qd., to Mr. Isaacs, of Upper Gower-street. The Adelphi vaults, in part occupied as wine-cellars and coal-wharfs, in their grim vastness, remind one of the Etruscan Cloaca of old Rome. Beneath the " dry arches," the most abandoned characters have often passed the night, nestling upon foul straw ; and many a street-thief escaped from his pursuers in these dismal haunts, before the introduction of gas-light and a vigilant police. ADIIIBALTY OFFICE, TEF, FORMS the left flank of the detachment of Government Offices on the north side of Whitehall. It occupies the site of Walhngford House, from the roof of \vhich Archbishop Usher saw King Charles I. led out to execution in the front of Whitehall Palace, and swooned at the sad scene. Wallingford House was sold to the Crown in 1680, and thither the business of tho Admiralty was removed from Crutched Friars, and Duke-street, Westminster. The street front was rebuilt by Thomas Ripley, about 1726. " See under Ripley rise a new Whitehall." The Diinciad, B. iii. The Admiralty is a most ugly edifice. To conceal its ugliness, the court-yard was fronted with a stone screen, by Adam, in the reign of George III. This screen is a very characteristic composition; its sculptured hippocampi, and prows of ancient vessels, combining with an anchor in the pediment of the portico of the main building, ALCHEMISTS. I to denote the purposes of the office — the administration of the affairs of the Royal Navy. In one of the large rooms the body of Lord Nelson lay in state, January 8, 1806 ; and next day took place the solemn funeral procession, with a military force of nearly 8000 men, from this spot to St. Paul's Cathedral. The office of Lord High Admiral was, in 1827, revived, after the sleep of a century, and was conferred by patent (similar to that of Prince George of Denmark), upon the Duke of Clarence, who resided at the Admiralty. His Royal Highness was thought by the Duke of Wellington, then Premier, to have mixed up with the business of the office too much jaunting and cruising about, presenting of colours, and shows, on sea and land, " more expensive and foolish than in any way serviceable." On a long account for travelling expenses being sent in to the Treasury by the Duke of Clarence, the Premier endorsed the paper, " No travelling expenses allowed to the Lord High Admiral,'* and dismissed it ; when His Royal Highness retired ; the salary was 5000Z. a year. On the roof of the Admiralty Office, many years since, was placed a Semaphore (the invention of Sir Home Popham) ; the arms of which, extending laterally at right angles, communicated orders and intelligence to and from the sea-ports ; previous to which was used the shuttle telegraph, invented by R. L. Edgeworth. The Semaphore has, however, been superseded by the Electric Telegraph, of which wires are laid from the office in Whitehall to the Dockyard at Portsmouth, &c. ALCSIIMISTS. SOME sixty years since, there died in his chamber, in Barnard's Inn, Holborn, Peter Woulfe, the eminent chemist, a Fellow of the Royal Society. According to Mr. Brande, Woulfe was " the last true believer in alchemy." He was a tall, thin man ; and his last moments were remarkable. In a long journey by coach, he took cold ; inflammation of the lungs followed, but he strenuously resisted all medical advice. By his desire, his laundress shut up his chamber, and left him. She returned at midnight when Woulfe was still alive ; next morning, however, she found him dead ; his coun- tenance was calm and serene, and apparently he had not moved from the position in which she had last seen him. These particulars of Woulfe's end were received by the writer from the Treasurer of Barnard's Inn, who was one of the executors of Woulfe's last will and testament. Little is known of Woulfe's life. Sir Humphry Davy tells us that he used to affix written prayers, and inscriptions of recommendations of his processes to Providence. His chambers were so filled with furnaces and apparatus, that it was difficult to reach the fireside. Dr. Babington told Mr. Brande that he once put down his hat, and could never find it again, such was the confusion of boxes, pack- ages, and parcels, that lay about the room. His breakfast-hour was four in the morning : a few of his friends were occasionally invited, and gained entrance by a -secret signal, knocking a certain number of times at the inner-door of the chamber. He had long vainly searched for the Elixir, and attributed his repeated failure to the want of due preparation by pious and charitable acts. Whenever he wished to break •an acquaintance, or felt himself offended, he resented the supposed injuries by sending a present to the offender, and never seeing him afterwards. These presents sometimes consisted of an expensive chemical product, or preparation. He had an heroic remedy for illness, which was a journey to Edinburgh and back by the mail-coach ; and a cold taken on one of these expeditions terminated in inflammation of the lungs, of which he died. — A Century of Anecdote, vol. ii., pp. 315, 316. "About 1801, an adept lived, or rather starved, in the metropolis, in the person of an Editor of an evening' journal, who expected to compound the alkahest if he could only keep his materials digested in a lamp-furnace for the space of seven years. The lamp burnt brightly during six years, eleven months, and some odd days besides, and then, unluckily, it went out. Why it went out the adept never could guess ; but he was certain that if the flame could only have burnt to the end of the septenary cycle his experiment must have succeeded." — Paper on Adrohgy and Alchemy, hy Sir Walter Scott ; Quarterly Review, 1821, In Catherine-street, Strand, lived for many years, one John Denley, a bookseller, who amassed here a notable collection of the works of alchemist, cabalist, and astro- loger. He is the individual so characteristically portrayed by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, in the introduction to his Zanoni, B 2 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. Within the last fifteen years, there has been printed in England, a volume of consi- derable extent, entitled, A Suggestive Inquiry/ into the Sermetie Mystery : London, T. Saunders, 1850. This work, which a Correspondent of Notes and Queries describes as " a learned and valuable book," is by a lady (anonymous), and has been suppressed by the author. By this circumstance we are reminded of a concealment of alchemical practices and opinions, some thirty years since, when it came to our knowledge that a man of wealth and position in the metropolis, an adept of Alchemy, was held in ierrorem by an unprincipled person, who extorted from him considerable sums of money under a threat of exposure, which would have affected his mercantile credit. ALMACK'S ASSEMBLY-ROOMS, on the south side of King-street, St. James's, were built by Robert Mylne, architect, for Almack, a Scotchman, and were opened Feb. 12, 1765, with an Assembly, at which the Duke of Cumberland, the hero of Culloden, was present. Gilly Williams writes to George Selwyn : — " There is now opened at Alraack's, in three very elesrant new-built rooms, a ten-guinea subscription, for which you have a ball and supper once a week, for twelve weeks. You may imagine by the sum the company is chosen ; though, refined as it is, it will be scarce able to put old Soho (Mrs. Cornelys') out of countenance. The men's tickets are not transferable, so, if the ladies do not like us, they have no opportunity of changing us, but must see the same persons for ever." . . . , " Our female Almack's flourishes beyond description. Almack's Scotch face, in a bag-wig, waiting at supper, would divert you, as would his lady, in a sack, making tea and curtseying to the duchesses." The large ball-room is about one hundred feet in length, by forty feet in width ; it is chastely decorated with gilt columns and pilasters, classic medallions, mirrors, &c., and is lit with gas, in cut-glass lustres. The largest number of persons ever present in this room at one ball was 1700. The rooms are let for public meetings, dramatic readings, lectures, concerts, balls, and dinners. Here Mrs. Billington, Mr. Braham, and Signor Naldi, gave concerts, from 1808 to 1810, in rivalry with Madame Catalan!, at Hanover-square Rooms ; and here Mr. Charles Kemble gave, in 1844, his Readings from Shakespeare. Almack's Rooms are often called " Willis's," from the name of their present pro- prietor. Many public dinners now take place here. Almack's has declined of late years ; " a clear proof that the palmy days of exclusive- ness are gone by in England j and though it is obviously impossible to prevent any given number of persons from congregating and re-establishing an oligarchy, we are quite sure that the attempt would be ineffectual, and that the sense of their importance would extend little beyond the set." — Quarterly Review, 1840. Many years ago was published Almack's, a novel, in which the leaders of fashion were sketched with much freedom : they were identified in A Key to Almack's, by Ben- jamin Disraeli. ALDUEMAN. THE oldest office in the Corporation of London, and derived from the title of the superior Saxon noble. The more aged were so called ; for aide in Saxon means " old," and alder is our word " older : " hence, as the judgment is most vigorous iu persons of more mature years, the dignitary who, among the Romans, was known as " Consul " or " Senator," among us is called " Alderman." And yet, in the case of aldermen, maturity of mind is to be considered rather than of body, and gravity of manners in preference to length of years : hence it is that in the ancient laws of King Cnut, and other kings in'Saxcm times, the person was styled "Alderman" who is now called " Judge " and " Justiciar," as set forth in the Liher Custumarum. These alder- men, too, in respect of name as well as dignity, were anciently called " Barones," and were buried with baronial honoxirs ; a person appearing in the church upon a caparisoned horse in the armour of the deceased, with his banner in his hand, and carry- ing upon him his shield, helmet, and the rest of his arms.* This gorgeous ceremonial was gradually discontinued ; but the alderman still retained great state, and enjoyed special immunities. He could not be placed on inquests; he was exempt from fees on the enrolment of deeds or charters relating to himself; and any person who assaulted » See Liber Albus; the White Book, B. 1, Pt. 1, translated by Riley, 1861. ALVEBMAK or slandered him was liable to be imprisoned, to be put in the pillory, or to have his hand struck off. The aldermen were privileged to be arrayed, on particular occasions, in certain grand suits, lined with silk. But if a mayor or alderman gave away, or in any manner parted with, his robe within his year of office, he was mulcted in a forfei- ture of one hundred shillings for the benefit of the community, without remission ; or if he wore his cloak single, or not trimmed with fur, he was subjected to a penalty. Madox says : " Alderman was a name for a chief governor of a secular guild, and in time it became also a name for a chief officer in a guildated city or town ;" and he quotes, in illustration, the circumstance of the Prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, becom- ing an Alderman of London, in consequence of the grant to that priory of the " English Knightengild." According to Norton's Commentaries on London, " there is no trace when the name of Alderman was first applied to the presidents of the London wards or guilds : the probability is it was introduced after the Conquest ; and there is reason to believe that the appellation was not used in that sense until the time of Henry II.," when Aldermen are first mentioned as presiding over guilds, some of which were terri- torial and others mercantile. Each has his title from his ward, as " Alderman of Cheap," " Alderman of Queenhithe," &c. ; but, anciently, the Ward was styled after the name of its alderman ; as Tower Ward was called " the Ward of William de Hadestok." The present ward of Farringdon was bought by William Faryngdon in 1279, and remained in his family upwards of eighty years ; it was held by the tenure of presenting at Easter a gillyflower, then of great rarity. Among the early Aldermen we find, in the reign of Henry III., Arnald Fitz- Thedmar, who compiled a Chronicle of the Mayors and Sheriffs of London, from 118S to 1274, in the Liber de Antiquis Legihus, translated in 1846 and 1863. Somewhat later, we find William de Leyre, Alderman of the Ward of Castle Baynard : he had once acted as gaoler to the heroic William Wallace ; for it was in his house, situate in the parish of All Saints, Fenchurch-street, that the patriot was confined (22nd August, 1305), the day and night before his barbarous execution at the Elms in Smithfield. Aldermen have, at various times, suffered by the caprice of sovereigns. In 1545, when Henry VIII. demanded a " benevolence" from his subjects, to defray the charges of his war with France and Scotland, Richard Read, an Alderman of London, refused to pay the sum required from him. For this offence, Henry compelled the recusant Alderman to serve as a foot-soldier with the army in Scotland, where he was made prisoner; and after enduring great hardships, he purchased his discharge by a con- siderable ransom. (See Lord Herbert's Life of Henry VIII.) Alderman Barber, the first printer Lord Mayor (1733), was the friend of Boling- broke. Swift, and Pope ; and in 1721 erected a tablet to Samuel Butler, in West- minster Abbey, with an eulogistic Latin inscription, notwithstanding Butler's satiric " Character of an Alderman :" — " He does no public business without eating and drinking; and when he comes to be a lord-mayor, he does not keep a great house, but a very great house-warming for a whole year ; for though he invites all the Companies in the City, he does not treat them, but they club to entertain him and pay the reckoning before the meal. His fur gown makes him look a great deal bigger than he is, like the feathers of an owl ; and when he pulls it off, he looks as if he were fallen away, or like a rabbit, had his skin pulled off." The notorious Alderman Wilkes was a man of talent, though profligate and unprin- cipled. Alderman Boydell was a generous and discriminating promoter of the fine arts, and was honoured with a public funeral. Alderman Birch was an accomplished scholar, and wrote dramatic pieces. Alderman Salomons, who joined the Court in 1847, was the first Jew admitted to that privilege. The Aldermen form the bench of magis- trates for the City • each, on his election by Wardmote, receives a present of law- books ; and in the absence of any prisoners for examination at the Police Court in M'hich the Alderman sits, he receives a pair of white kid gloves. The Aldermen receive no salary, but exercise many influential privileges ; their duties are onerous. Probably the history of the Court presents a greater number of instances of self- advancement than any other records of personal history. Pensions or allowances are paid annually by the Court to the widows or descendants of their less fortunate brethren. Each of the twenty-six City Wards electa one Alderman for life, or " during good behaviour." The fine for the rejection of the office is 500^. ; but it is generally sought 6 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. as a stepping-stone to the Mayoralty, each Alderman being hi rota Lord Mayor, he- having previously served as Sheriff of London and Middlesex. The Aldermen form a court, the Lord Mayor presiding; and sit in a superb apartment of the Guildhall,, which has a rich stucco ceiling, painted mostly by Sir James Thornhill ; in the cornice- are carved and emblazoned the arms of all the Mayors since 1780 ; each Alderman's chair bears his name and arms : he wears a scarlet cloth gown, hooded and furred f and a gold chain, if he hath served as Mayor. Upon state visits of sovereigns to the City, the several Aldermen ride in procession on horseback. At the opening of the- New Koyal Exchange, October 28, 1844, the Aldermen rode thus, wearing their scarlet gowns and chains, and cocked hats, carrying wands, and preceding the Queen's proces- sion fi'om Temple Bar to the Exchange. ALMONRY, TEE, OB Eleemosynary, corruptly, in Stow's time, and later, the Ambry, was named from its being the place where the alms collected in the Abbey Church at Westminster were distributed to poor persons. It was situated at the east end of the Sanctuary, and was divided into two parts : the Great Almonry, consisting of two oblong portions, parallel to the two Tothill streets, and connected by a narrow lane (the entrance beings from Dean's-yard) ; and the Little Almonry, running southward, at the eastern end of the other Almonry. In the Almonry the first printing-press ever known in England was set up by William Caxton : according to Stow, in an old chapel near the entrance of the Abbey ; but a very curious placard, in Caxton's largest type, and now preserved in the library of Brasenose College, Oxford, shows that he printed in the Almonry ; for in this pla- card he invites customers to *' come to Westmonester in to the Almonestrye at the Keed Pale," the name by which was known a house wherein Caxton is said to have lived. It stood on the north side of the Almonry, with its back against that of a house on the south side of Tothill-street. Bagford describes this house as of brick, with the sign of the King's Head : it is said to have partly fallen down in Xovember, 1845, before the removal of the remainder of the other dwellings in the Almonry, to form a new line (Victoria- street) from Broad Sanctuary to Pimlico, when wooden types were said to have been found here. A beam of wood was saved from the materials of the house, and from it have been made a chess-board and two sets of chessmen, as appropriate memorials of Caxton's first labour in England, namely. The Game and Flaye of the Chesse, 1474, folio, the first book printed in England. According to a view of Caxton's house, nicely engraved by G. Cooke, in 1827, it was three-storied, and had an outer gallery, or balcony, to the upper floor, with a window in its bold gable : its precise site was immediately adjoining the spot now occupied by the principal entrance to the Westminster Palace Hotel, in digging for the foundation of which was found, at twelve feet from the surface, a statuette of the Virgin and Child, eleven inches high, carved in sandstone, and bearing traces of rich gilding. In the Little Almonry lived James Harrington, author of Oceana, in a " faire house," which, according to Aubrey, " in the upper story, had a pretty gallery, which looked into the yard (cover .... court), where he commonly dined and meditated, and took his tobacco." This " gallery" corresponds with that in Caxton's house, which we well remember : its identity has been questioned ; and in one of the appendices to Mr. Gilbert Scott's Gleanings from Westminster Ahhey, Mr. Burges suggests, not altogether without probability, that it was in the spacious triforium of Westminster Abbey that Caxton first set up his printing-press. Walcott states his " place of trade near a little chapel of St. Catherine. It is not, however, wholly improbable that at first he erected his press near one of the little chapels attached to the aisles of the Abbey, or in the ancient Scriptorium." " There is an old brick house in Tothill-street, opposite Dartmouth-street, which was probably at one time connected with the Almonry. It has upon its front, sunken in the brickwork, the letters E. (Eleeraosynaria ?) T. A. (perhaps the initials of the almoner's name), with, however, a late date, 1571. A heart, which is above the inscription, was the symbol used in the old Clog Almanacks for the Annun- ciation, the Purification, and all other Feast-days of Our Lady."— F'a?cofrs Westmimter, 1849. ALMONRY— ALMSHOUSES. ALMONRY, ROYAL. THIS OflSce, in Middle Scotland-yard, Wliitehall, is maintained expressly for the distribution of the Royal Alms, or Bounty, to the poor. The duties of the Hereditary Grand Almoner, first instituted in the reign of Richard I., are confined to the distribution of alms at a Coronation. The office of the High Almoner is of a more general description. In the reign of Edward I. his office was to collect the fragments from the royal table, and distribute them daily to the poor ; to visit the sick, poor widows, prisoners, and other persons in distress ; to remind the King about the be-' stowal of his alms, especially on Saints' days ; and to see that the cast-off" robes were sold, to increase the King's charity. Chamberlayne describes the Great Almoner's office, in 1755, to have included the disposal of the King's alms, for which use he received moneys, besides all deodands and honafelomim de se. He had the privilege to give the King's dish to whatsoever poor men he pleased ; that is, the first dish at dinner, set upon the King's table, or instead, 4'i. -per diem. Next, he distributed every morning, at the court- gate, money, bread, and beer, each poor recipient first repeating the Creed and the Lord's Prayer, in the presence of one of the King's chaplains, the Sub-Almoner; who had also to scatter newly-coined twopences, in the towns and places visited by the King, to a certain sum by the year. Besides these, there were many poor pensioners to the King and Queen below stairs. For more than a century the office of Lord High Almoner was held by the Arch- bishops of York J but on the death of Archbishop Harcourt, in November, 184-7, the office was conferred upon Dr. Samuel Wilberforce, Lord Bishop of Oxford. The distribution of Alms on the Thursday before Easter, or Maundy Thursday, takes place in Whitehall Chapel ; that at Easter, Whitsuntide, and Christmas, at the Office in Middle Scotland-yard. Thus, the Royal Maundy was distributed on Maundy Thursday, 1866, in Whitehall Chapel, with the customary formalities, to 47 aged men and 47 aged women, the number of each sex corresponding with the age of her Majesty. The procession is formed in the following order :— Boys of the Chapel Royal, Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal, Priests of the Chapel Royal, Sergeant-Major of the Yeomen of the Guard, the Sergeant of the Vestry, the Lord High Almoner, theSub-Almouer, and the Sub-Dean, six children of the National Schools, the Yeoman of the Almonry and his assistants, the Yeomen of the Guard, one carrying the Royal Alms on a gold salver, of the reign of King William and Queen Mary. A special service is then read, and after the first Anthem, 1^. 15s. is distributed to each woman, and to each man shoes and stockings. After the second Anthem woollen and linen clothes are distributed. After the third Anthem, purses. And after the fourth Anthem, two prayers composed for the occasion are read, and the prayer for the Queen, when the sermon is ended. Each red purse contained the usual gold sovereign, and a further sum of IZ. 10s. as a commutation in lieu of provisions formerly issued from the Lord Steward's department of the Queen's Household. Each white purse contained the Maundy coin, consisting of silver fourpenny, threepenny, twopenny, and penny pieces, amounting to 47, the age of Her Majesty. On Friday and Saturday in the previous week, and on Monday and Tuesday in the current week. Her Majesty's Royal Bounty of 5s., and the Royal alms, in ancient times distributed at the gate of the Royal Palace, were paid to aged and deserving poor who had been previously selected by the Lord High Almoner and the Sub-Almoner, from those who had been recommended by various clergymen and by other persons in London and its vicinity. The number reheved exceeded 1000 persons, among whom very many were blind, paralyzed, and disabled, some exceeding 90 years of age. Formerly bread, meat, and fish were distributed ui large wooden bowls, ahd the officers carried bouquets of flowers and wore white scarves and sashes ; but the earliest custom was the King washing with his own hands the feet of as many poor men as he was old, in imitation of the humility of the Saviour. The last monarch who performed this act was James II, The pious Queen Adelaide, who died in 1849, and is known to have expended one- third of her large income in private and public charity, maintained in her household an Almoner, whose duty it was to investigate all applications for the royal benevolence. ALMSKOUS^S, BUILT by Public Companies, Benevolent Societies, and private individuals, for aged and infirm persons, were formerly numerous in the metropolis and its suburbs. The Companies' Almshouses were originally erected next their Halls, that the almspeople might be handy to attend pageants and processions ; but these almshouses have mostly been rebuilt elsewhere, owing to decay, or the increased value of ground in the City. Almshouses succeeded the incorporated Hospitals dissolved by King Henry VIII. Among the earliest erected were the Almshouses founded in Westminster by Lady Mar- garet, mother of King Henry VII., for poor women ; in one of these houses lived Thomas Barker, who aided Izaak Walton in writing his Comj^lete Angler. They were con* 8 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. verted into lodgings for the singing-men of the Abbey, and called Choristers' Rents : they were taken down about 1800. Westminster contains several of these munificent foundations : as the Red Lion Alms- houses, in York-street, founded in 1577, for eight poor women, by Cornelius Van Dun, of Brabant, a soldier who served under King Henry VIII., at Tournay. Next are, in the same neighbourhood, the Almshouses for twelve poor housekeepers of St. Margaret's, with a school and chapel — the boys clad in black : these were founded in 1566, by the Rev. Edward Palmer, B.D., many years preacher at St. Bride's, Fleet-street, and who used to sleep in the church-tower. Emmanuel Hospital, James-street, was founded by the will of Lady Ann Dacre, in 1601, for aged parishioners of St. Margaret's ; and in one of its almshouses, on January 22, 1772, died Mrs. Windimore, cousin of Mary (consort of William III.) and of Queen Anne. The Drapers' Company, in 1720, maintained Almshouses at Crutched-friars, Beach- lane, Greenwich, Stratford-le-Bow, Shoreditch, St. George's-fields, St. Mary New- ington, and Mile End. The Almshouses at Crutched-friars were erected and endowed by Sir John Milborn, Mayor of London, in 1521, for thirteen decayed members of the Drapers' Company (of which Sir John was several years Master), or bedemen, who daily prayed at the tomb of their benefactor, in the adjoining church. The stone carving of the Assumption of the Virgin, over the Tudor gateway leading towards the pleasant little garden, — the shields with heraldic devices, — the old-fashioned roof, and dark, rich, red-coloured brickwork, — formed a picture well i-emembered; taken down 1862. The Almshouses and School-house at Mile End were built in 1735, with the ill- gotten fortune bequeathed by Francis Bancroft, grandson of Archbishop Bancroft, and an officer of the Lord Mayor's Court; and so hated for his mercenary and oppressive practices, that at his funeral, a mob, for very joy, rang the church-bells of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate, where a momiment to his memory had been erected in his life-time. The almsmen are twenty-four poor old members of the Drapers' Company ; and the School boards, clothes, educates, and apprentices 100 boys. The Trinity Almshouses, in the Mile End-road, were erected by the Corporation of the Trinity House, in 1695, for decayed masters and commanders of ships, mates, and pilots, and their wives or widows. The thirty houses have characteristic shipping on their roofs ; there is a chapel, and on the green is a statue of Captain Robert Sandes, a benefactor to the establishment; he died 1721. The Salters' Company had Almshouses for their decayed brethren in Monkwell- street and Bow-lane ; in 1864, they were rebuilt, at Watford, Herts, at a cost of 8000Z., besides that of the site and adjacent grounds. Traditionally, we owe the foundation of Dame Owen's School and Almshouses, at Islington, to Archery. In 1610, this rich brewer's widow, in passing along St. John- street-road, then Hermitage-fields, was struck by a truant arrow, and narrowly escaped '* braining ;" and the grateful lady, thinking such close shooting dangerous, in commemoration of her providential escape, built, in 1613, a Free School and ten Alms- houses upon the scene of her adventure. Since 1839 they have been handsomely rebuilt by the Brewers' Company, trustees for the Charity. Whittington's College, or Almshouses, founded in 1621, on College-hill, were rebuilt by the Mercers' Company, at the foot of Highgate-hill, about 1826; cost 20,000^. Upon the old site. College-hill, was built the Mercers' Schools. The Fishmongers' Company's Almshouses, or St. Peter's Hospital, Newington Butts, founded 1618, consisted of three courts, dining-hall, and chapel : they were rebuilt on Wandsworth Common, in 1850; cost 25,000^. Edward Alleyn, the distinguished actor, and friend of Ben Jonson and Shakspeare, besides founding Dulwich College, built and endowed three sets of Almshouses in the metropolis : in Lamb-alley, Bishopsgate-street ; in Bath-street, St. Luke's ; and in Soap- yard, Southwark. Of the Bath-street Almshouses, the first brick was laid by Alleyn himself, July 13, 1620 ; they were rebuilt in 1707. Cure's College, in Deadman's-place, Southwark, was founded in 1584, by Thomas Cure, saddler to King Edward VI. and the Queens Mary and Elizabeth, for 16 poor pensioners, Avith 20d. a week ; president, the Chief Justice of the Common Pleas for thQ time being. The College has been rebuilt. AIIUSEMENTS. 9 The East India Almshouses, Poplar, were estahlished at the granting of the first charter, in the l7th century, for widows of mates and seamen dying in the Company's service. There are also houses, with gardens, for the widows of captains, receiving pensions of from SOL to 80^. yearly. In Bath-street, City -road, are Almshouses for poor descendants of French Protestant Refugees, founded in 1708, after the revocation of the edict of Nantes. The Goldsmiths' Company have Almshouses at Woolwich, Acton, and Hackney ; each house has its little garden. The Clock and Watchmakers' Asylum was founded in 1857 at Colney Hatch. At Hoxton, are the Haberdashers' Company's Almshouses, founded by Robert Aske, in 1692, for poor men of the Company, and boys ; here is a statue of the founder. Morden College, Blackheath, was founded by Sir John Morden, in 1695, for decayed merchants, each 72L a year, with coals, candles, washing-bath, medical and clerical attendance. The chapel has some fine carvings, reputed to be by Gibbons. Norfolk Almshouses, or Trinity Hospital, Greenwich, is an Elizabethan building, founded by Henry, Earl of Northampton, 1613. The Trustees were the Mercers' Company ; revenue, 12,000Z. a year. Surrey Chapel Almshouses, erected 1811, were founded and principally endowed by the Rev. Rowland Hill, for twenty-three destitute females. The Marylebone Almshouses, built in St. John's-wood-terrace, Regent's-park, in 1836, originated in a legacy of 500^. from Count Woronzow ; the site being leased for ninety-nine years, at a pepper-corn rent, by Colonel Eyre, who is also entitled to two presentations to the Charity. The London Almshouses were erected by subscription, at Brixton, in 1833, to com- memorate the passing of the Reform Bill, instead of by illumination. The King William Naval Asylum, at Penge, opened 1849, for the widows of Com- manders, Lieutenants, Masters and Pursers in the Royal Navy, was founded by Queen Adelaide, to the memory of King William IV. The Dramatic College has its retreat " for poor players," a central hall, residences, and external cloisters, in the Tudor style, at Maybury, in Surrey. Recently also have been erected Almshouses for the parishes of St. Pancras, St. Martin, and Shoreditch. For Bootmakers, Mortlake ; Pawnbrokers, Forest-gate ; Booksellers, King's Langley; Aged Pilgrims, Edgware-road ; Butchers, Walham- green ; Bookbinders, Eali's-pond ; Printers, Wood-green ; Tailors (journeymen), Haver- stock -hill; and Poulterers and Fishmongers, Southgate; besides many others provided by Companies ; and Provident, Trades, and other societies, for decayed members. The Almshouses erected of late years are mostly picturesque buildings, in the old English style, with gables, turrets, and twisted chimney-shafts, of red brick, with hand- some stone dressings. In Weale's London Exhibited in 1851 will be found a more copious List of Almshouses (pp. 214 — 219) than the above. AMUSEMENTS. ARCHERY is mentioned among the summer pastimes of the London youth by Fitzstephen, who wrote in the reign of Henry II. ; and the repeated statutes from the 13th to the 16th centuries, enforcing the use of the Bow, invariably ordered 'the holidays to be passed in its exercise. Finsbury appears to have been a very early locality for Archery ; for in the reign of Edward T. there was formed a society entitled the Archers of Finsbury. Here, in the reign of Henry VIT., all the gardens were destroyed by law, " and of them was made a plain field for archers to shoot in ;" this being the early appropriation of what is now called " the Artillery Ground." There is also preserved a MS. enumeration of the Archers' Marks in Finsbury Fields, compiled in 1601 : it gives, in flight shooting, nineteen score as the distance between Allhollows and Dale's Deed marks. Indeed, Miss Banks, Sir Joseph's daughter, an enthusiastic lover of the bow, has left a MS. note that a friend, Mr. Bates, often shot eighteen score in Finsbury Fields ; the length of the plain being about one mile, and the breadth three-quarters. Among the curious books on Archery are the At/me for Finsburie Archers, 1628; and the A^me for the Archers of St. George's Fields, 1664. 10 CUBIOSITIES OF LOKDOK Henry VIII. shot with the longbow as well as any of his guards : he chartered a society for shooting ; and jocosely dignified a successful archer as Duke of Shoreditch, at which place his Grace resided. This title was long preserved by the Captain of the London Archers, who iised to summon the officers of his several divisions under the titles of Marquis of Barlo, of Clerkenwell, of Islington, of Hoxton, of Shacklewell, Sec, Earl of Pancras, &c. We read of a grand pageant in this reign, of three thousand archers, guarded by whifflers and billmen, pages and footmen, proceeding from Mer- chant Taylors' Hall, through Broad -street, the residence of their captain; thence into Moorfields by Finsbury, and so on to Smithfield, where they performed evolutions, and shot at a target for honour. Edward VI. was fond of Archery ; in his reign the scholars of St. Bartholomew, who held their disputations in cloisters, were rewarded with a bow and silver arrows. Stow (who died in 1605) informs us, that before his time it had been customary at Bartholomew-tide for the Lord Mayor, with the sheriffs and aldermen, to go into th& fields at Finsbury, where the citizens were assembled, and shoot at the standard with broad and flight arrows for games, which were continued for several days. Charles I. was an excellent archer, and forbade by proclamation the inclosure of shooting-grounds near London. Archery, however, seems then to have soon fallen into disrepute. 5Sir William Davenant, in a mock poem, entitled The Long Vacation in London, describes idle attorneys and proctors making matches in Finsbury Fields :— *' With loynes in canvas bow-case tied. Where arrows stick with mickle pride; Like ghosts of Adam Bell and Clymme, Sol sets— for fear they'll shoot at him ?" Pepys records, in his Diary, that, vvhen a boy, he used to shoot with his bow and arrows in the fields of Kingsland. In the reign of Henry VIII., a shout through the City of " Shovels and spades ! Shovels and spades !" assembled a band of 'prentice lads, who speedily levelled the •hedges, dykes, and garden-houses, by which trespassers had encroached on the shooting- fields. Even as late as 1786, the Artillery Company, preceded by a detachment of tlieir pioneers, marched over Finsbury, pulling down the fences again illegally erected. The brick wall enclosing a lead-mill was also attacked ; but, on the entreaty of the pro- prietor, the Hon. Company ordered it to be spared, contenting themselves with direct- ing one of their archers to shoot an arrow over it, in token of their prescriptive rights —Proc. Soc. Antiquaries, London, vol. iv. No. 47. In 1781, the remains of the " Old Finsbury Archers " established the Toxophilite Society, at Leicester House, then in Leicester Fields. They held their meetings in Bloomsbury Fields, behind the present site of Gower-street ; here, in 1791', the Turkish Ambassador's secretary shot, with a bow and arrow, 482 yards. In about twenty-five years they removed on " target days" to Highbury Barn ; from thence to Bayswater ; and in 1834, to the Inner Circle, Regent's Park, where they have a rustic lodge, and between five and six acres of ground. The Society consisted in 1850 of 100 members ; terms, 5/. annually, entrance-fee 5Z., and other expenses : they possess the original silver badge of the old Finsbury Archers. They meet every Friday during the Springs and Summer ; the shooting is at 60, 80, and 100 yards ; and many prizes are shot foi-^ during the season ; Prince Albert was patron. The most numerous Society of the kind now existing is, however, "The Royal Com- pany of Archers, the Queen's body-guard of Scotland," whose captain-general, the Duke of Buccleuch, rode in the coronation procession of Queen Victoria. In 1849, the Society of Cantelows Archers was established ; their shooting-ground is at Camden-square, Camden New Town ; the prize, a large silver medal. There was a fine display of Archery at the Fete of the Scottish Society of London, in Holland Park, Kensington, June 20, 21, 1849, when SQOZ.-worth of prize plate was shot for. Ballad-Singing, the vestige of the minstrelsy which Cromwell, in 1656, silenced for a time, was common in the last century. " The Blind Beggar " had conferred poetic celebrity upon Bethnal Green ; " Black-eyed Susan," and " 'Twas when the seas were roaring," were the lyrics that landsmen delighted to sing of the sea ; and " Jemmy Dawson " (set to music by Dr. Arne) grew into historic fame elsewhere than AMUSEMENTS. 11 on the scene of the tragedy, Kennington Common. To these succeeded the sea-songs of Charles Dibdin, which were commonly sung about the streets by the very tars who had first felt their patriotic inspiration : a sailor, who wore a model of the brig Nelson upon his hat, long maintained his vocal celebrity upon Tower-hill. Hogarth, in his " Wedding of the Industrious Apprentice," has painted the famous ballad-singer " Philip in the Tub ;" and Gravelot, a portrait-painter in the Strand, had several sittings from ballad-singers. The great factory of the ballads was long Seven Dials, where Pitts employed Corcoran, and was the patron of " slender Ben" and " over-head- and-ears Nic." Among its earlier lyrists were " Tottenham Court Meg," the " Ballad- singing Cobler," and " oulde Guy, the poet." Mr. Catnach, another noted printer of ballads, lived in Seven Dials ; and at his death, left a considerable fortune. He was the first ballad-printer who published yards of song a for one 'penny, in former days the price of a single ballad ; and liere he accumulated the largest stock on record of whole sheets, last-dying speeches, ballads, and other wares of the flying stationers. Another noted ballad-printer and ballad-monger kept shop in Long-lane, Smithfield. Beae akd Bull Baiting. — A map of London, three centuries ago, gives the " Spitel Field" for archers ; " Fynsburie Fyeld," with " Dogge's House," for the citizens to hunt in ; " Moore Fyeld," with marks, as if used by clothiers ; " the Banck" by the side of the river; " the Boll e Bating Theatre," near the " Beare Baitynge House," nigh where London Bridge now comvnences. Pepys describes a visit to the " beare-garden" in 1666, where he saw " some good sport of the bull's tossing of the dogs, one into the very boxes. But it is a very rude and nasty pleasure." Hockley- in-the-hole, Clerkenwell, was styled " His Majesty's Bear-Garden" in 1700, and was the scene of bull and bear-baiting, wrestling, and boxing ; but it was neglected for Figg's Amphitheatre, in Oxford-road : " Long liv'd the great Figg, by the prize-fighting swains Sole monarch acknowledged of Marybone plains." At Tothill Fields, Westminster, was in l793, a noted bear-garden, a portion of which now forms Vincent-square ; and bear-baiting and rat-hunting lingered in their Westminster haunts longer than elsewhere. Bowls was formerly a popular game in the metropolis: it succeeded archery before Stow's time, when many gardens of the City and its suburbs were converted into bowling-alleys ; our author, in 1579, wrote : — " Common bowling-alleyes are privy mothes that eat up the credit of many idle citizens, whose gaynes at home are not able to weigh downe theyr losses abroad ;" elsewhere he says : — " Our bowes are turned into bowls." The game of bowls, however, is as old as the 13th century, and in the country was played upon greens ; but the alleys required less room, and were covered over, so that the game could be played therein all weathers, whence they became greatly multiplied in London. Bowls was played by Henry VIIL, who added to Whitehall " tennise-courtes, howling-alleys, and a cock-pit." Spring Garden, Charing-cross, had its ordinary and bowling-green kept by a servant, of Charles the First's Court j and Piccadilly Hall, at the corner of Windmill-street and Coventry- street, had its upper and lower bowling-greens. The grave John Locke, in one of his private journals (1679), records ** bowling at Marebone and Putney by persons of quality j wrestling in Lincoln's Inn Fields on summer evenings ; bear and bull baiting at the Bear-Garden ; shooting in the long-bow and stob-ball in Tothill Fields." In the last century. Bowls was much played in the suburbs, especially at Marybone Gardens, mentioned by Pepys in 1668 as "a pretty place." Its bowling-greens were frequented by the nobility, among whom was Sheffield, Duke of Buckingham, to whose partiality for the game Lady Mary Wortley Montague refers in the oft-quoted line — " Some dukes at Marybone bowl time away." The place grew into disrepute, and was closed in 1777 ; it is made by Gay a scene of Macheath's debauchery in the Beggar's Opera. Greens remain attached to a few old taverns round London. In the town, bowling alleys were abolished in the last century, and gave rise to long-bowling, or bowling in 12 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. a narrow inclosure at nine-pins upon a square frame. They have been succeeded by the American bowling alley, sometimes in the cellar of the tavern. Bowling-street, Westminster, commemorates the spot where the members of the Convent of St. Peter amused themselves at bowls. We have also Bowling-street in Marylebone and Turnm ill-street ; Bowling-green-lane in Clerkenwell and Southwark ; Bowling-green-buildings, Bryanston-square ; and Bowling-green-walk at Hoxton. Caed-Plating would appear to have become early a favourite pastime with the Londoners ; for in 1643 a law was passed on a petition of the cardmakers of the City, prohibiting the importation of playing-cards. It was a very fashionable Court amuse- ment in the reign of Henry VII. ; and so general, that it became necessary to prohibit by law apprentices from using cards, except in the Christmas holydays, and then only in their masters' houses. Agreeable to this privilege. Stow, speaking of the customs at London, says : " From Allhallow-eve to the day following Candlemas-day, there was, among other sports, playing at cards, for counters, nails, and points, in every house, more for pastime than for gayne." Basset was a fashionable card-game at the end of the l7th century ; and Basset-tokens are preserved : — " Who the bowl or rattling dice compares To Basset's heavenly joys and pleasmg cares?"— Pope's Eclogue— Basset-table. Whist, in its present state, was not played till about 1730, when it was much studied by a set of gentlemen at the Crown Coffee-house in Bedford-row. Gaming in public was formerly a royal pastime at Christmas : George I. and George II. played, on certain days, at hazard, at the Groom -porter's, in St. James's Palace ; and this was continued some time in the reign of George III. The name of "hells," applied in our day to gambling-houses, originated in the room in St. James's Palace formerly appropriated to hazard being remarkably dark, and on that account called " hell." {Theodore Hook.) A few years ago there were more of those infamous places of resort in London than in any other city in the world. The handsome gas-lamp and the green or red baize door at the end of the passage were conspicuous in the vicinity of St. James's j and of St. George's, Hanover-square ; and the moral nuisances still linger about St. James's parish and Leicester- square. Cock-Fighting was a London pastime 1190, and very fashionable from the reign of Edward III. almost to our time. Henry VIII. added a cock -pit to Whitehall Palace, where James I. went to see the sport twice a week ; this pit being upon the site of the present Privy Council Office : hence the Cockpit Gate, built by Holbein, across the road at Whitehall. Besides this Royal Cockpit, there was formerly a Cockpit in Drury-lane, now corrupted to Pitt-place, and there was the Cockpit or Phoenix Theatre. There were other Cockpits, in Jewin-street, Cripplegate, Tufton- street, whence the Cock- pit Yards there; another in Shoe-lane, temp, James I., whence Cockpit-court in that neighbourhood ; and another noted Cockpit was " behind Gray's Inn." Hogarth's print best illustrates the brutal refinement of the Cock-fighting of the last century ; and the barbarous sport was, we believe, last encouraged at Westminster, not far dis- tant from the spot, where in kindred pastime, Royalty relieved the weighty cares of State. The famous Westminster cock-pit was in Park-street. Cock-fighting is now forbidden and punishable by statute. Ceicket is stated to have been played at Finsbury, in the Royal Artillery Ground, before the year 1746. Some thirty years later, in 1774, a committee of noblemen and gentlemen was formed, under the presidency of Sir William Draper ; they met at the Star and Garter in Pall Mall, and laid down the first rules of Cricket, which rules form the basis of the laws of Cricket to this day. The next great step was the establishment of the White Conduit Club, in the year 1799 ; and among its members, in addition to the before-named patron of the game, we find the names of Lord Winchilsea, Lord Strathaven, and Sir P. Burrell. Their place of meeting was still the Star and Garter, and their Ground was in White Conduit-fields. One of the attendants, Thomas Lord, was persuaded to take a ground ; and under the patronage of the old White Conduit Club, a new club, called the Marylebone Club, was formed at " Lord's Cricket Ground," which was the site of the present Dorset-square. Lord's Ground is now in St. John's- AMUSEMENTS. 13 wood-road, and is about 1\ acres in extent, and devoted almost exclusively, in May, June, and July, to the matches and practice of the Marylebone Club j at the annual meeting, early in May, the Laws of Cricket are revised, and matches for the season arranged. Attached to Lord's Ground are a Tennis Court and Baths. Here is an old painting of the game, in which the bat has the lend of the club, which, it is thought, denotes Cricket to have been a gradual improvement of the Club and Ball. Amongst the other principal Cricket-grounds are the Oval (larger than Lord's) at Kennington : the Royal Artillery Ground, Finsbury, is, perhaps, the oldest ground in London ; for here a match was played between Kent and All England in 1746. There was for- merly a ground in Copenhagen-fields; there is one at the Brecknock Arms, Camden- town ; at Brixton, near the church ; the Middlesex County, Islington Cattle Market, Tufnell Park, Highbury ; Victoria Park, Battersea Park ; Rosemary Branch, Peckham ; Crystal Palace, Sydenham ; Sluice House, Hornsey ; Primi'ose Hill ; Vincent-square, Westminster ; and at Bow, Millwall, and Putney. Of the younger London clubs is the Civil Service, consisting exclusively of members of the Civil Service. DxTCK-HuNTiNa with dogs was a barbarous pastime of the last century in the neighbourhood of London, happily put an end to by the want of ponds of water. St. George's Fields was a notorious place for this sport ; hence the infamous Dog and Duck Tavern and Tea Gardens, from a noted dog which hunted ducks on a sheet of water there : Hannah More makes it a favourite resort of her Cheapside Apprentice. The premises were afterwards let to the School for the Indigent Blind, and were taken down in 1812, when Bethlem Hospital was built upon the site; in its front wall is preserved the original sign-stone of the tavern — a dog with a duck thrown across its back. Ingenious lesson this — in setting up a memorial of profligacy and cruelty upon a site devoted to the restoration of reason ! Duck-hunting was also one of the low sports of the butchers of Shepherd's Market, at May Fair, where, to this day, is a spot known as the *' duck-hunting pond ;" and within memory, on the site of Hertford- street, was the Dog and Duck publichouse, with its ducking -pond, boarded up knee- high and shaded by willows. Equesteianism appears to have been a favourite amusement with the Londoners for more than a century past. One of the first performers was Thomas Johnson, who exhibited in a field behind the Three Hats, at Islington, in 1758 ; he was succeeded by one Sampson, in 1767, whose wife was the first female equestrian performer in England. In the same year, rode one Price at D'Aubigny's, or Dobney's Gardens, nearly opposite the Belvedere Tavern, Pentonville, and where Wildman exhibited his docile bees, in 1772 ; the site is at this day marked by Dobney's-place. About this time Hughes established himself in St. George's Fields, and Astley in Westminster-bridge-road; the latter was succeeded by Ducrow and Batty. Horses in England were taught dancing as early as the 13th century ; but the first mention of feats on horseback occurs in the Privy Purse expenses of Henry VIII. Faxes. — The three great Fairs of old London belonged, in Catholic times, to the heads of religious houses : Westminster to its abbot ; and St. Bartholomew and South- wark (or St. Mai'y Overie, as it is oftener called), to the Priors of those monasteries. Westminster, or St. Edward's Fair (held on that Saint's Day), was commanded by proclamation of Edward III., in 1248 ; it was first held in St. Margaret's churchyard, and then was removed to Tothill-fields, where the Fair continued to be held, but of considerably less extent, so lately as 1823. Two Fairs were held in Smithfield at Bartholomew-tide : that within the Priory precincts was one of the great Cloth Fairs of England : the other, Bartholomew Fair, Avas held in the Field, and granted to the City of London, for cattle and goods. The latter was proclaimed, for the last time, in the year 1855. Southwark Fair was held on St. Margaret's-hill, on the day after Bartholomew Fair ; and was by charter limited to three days, but usually lasted fourteen. Evelyn records among its wonders, monkeys and asses dancing on the tight rope ; and the tricks of an Italian wench, whom all the Court went to see. Pepys tells of its puppet-shows, especially that of Whittington ; and of Jacob Hall's dancing on the ropes. The Fair was suppressed in 1762; but it hves in one of Hogarth's prints. 14 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. St. James's Fair, held in the month of May, in Brook Field, acquired the name of ** May Fair." It was abolished in 1709 ; but was revived, and was not finally sup- pressed until late in the reign of George III. It gave the fashionable quarter in which it was held the name of May Fair ; and the Brook to Brook-street. FiEEWOEKS, for pastime, are rarely spoken of previous to the reign of Elizabeth; when the foyste, or galley, with a great red dragon, and " wilde men casting of fire," accompanied the Lord Mayor's barge upon the Thames. A writer in the reign of James I. assures us there were then " abiding in the City of London men very skilful in the art of pyrotechnic, or of fireworkes ;" which were principally displayed by persons fantastically dressed, and called Green Men. In the last century, the train of Artillery displayed annually a grand firework upon Tower -hill on the evening of his Majesty's birthday. Fireworks were exhibited regularly at Marybone Gardens and at Ranelagh; not at Vauxhall until 1798, and then but occasionally. At Bermondsey Spa, and va- rious tea-gardens, they were also displayed, but in inferior style. Fireworks were first exhibited at the Surrey Zoological Gardens, in illustration of picture-models ; and similar galas at Cremorne Gardens, Chelsea, have been very successful. There have been some grand Firework displays at the Government expense : as in the Green Park at the Peace of Aix-la-ChapeUe, in 1748 ; and on August 1, 1814-, in celebration of the general Peace, and the Centenary of the accession of the Brunswick family to the British throne, these fireworks being by Sir William Congreve, of rocket celebrity. There have been similar firework galas in Hyde Park at coro- nations and Peace celebrations. At the coronation of King William IV. and Queen Adelaide, Sept. 1831, the amount expended for fireworks, and for keeping open the public theatres, was 3034Z. 18*. ^d. Football was played in the twelfth century by the youth of the City in the fields ; and five centuries later, we find football players in Cheapside, Covent Garden, and the Strand ; Moorfields and Lincoln's Inn Fields. There is an old print of football play in Fleet-street. Hunting. — " The Common Hunt" dates from a charter granted by Henry 1. to the citizens to " have chaces, and hunts :" and Strype, so late as the reign of George L, reckons among the modern amusements of the Londoners " riding on horseback, and hunting with my Lord Mayor's hounds, when the Common Hunt goes out." The Epping Hunt was appointed from a similar charter granted to the citizens. Strype describes a visitation of the Lord Mayor Harper, and other civic authorities, to the Tyburn Conduits, in 1562, when " afore dinner they hunted the hare and killed her," at the end of St. Giles's, with great hallooing and blowing of horns. Much later, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen enjoyed this sport on Easter Monday, when a stag was turned out. The kennel for the hounds, and a house adjoining, was rebuilt about 1800. The ofiicer of the Common Hunt has not long been abolished in the Lord Mayor's household ; the " hunt" exists but in the verse of Tom D'Urfey, or Thomas Hood. Poaching was common in the metropolis three centuries since j for, in a proclamation of Henry VIII., 1546 (preserved in the library of the Society of Antiquaries), the King is desirous to have the " Games of Hare, Partridge, Pheasant, and Heron," preserved from Westminster palace to St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, &c. Masquerades were introduced into England from Italy in 1512-13, by Henry VIII. They were i'requent among the citizens at the Restoration. In 1717-18, a very splendid masquerade was given at the Opera House by Heidegger, at which there was high play with heaps of guineas. Soon after the bishops preached against these amuse- ments, which led to their suppression, 9 George I., 1723. They were, however, revived, and cairied to shameful excess by connivance of the Government, and in direct viola- tion of the laws. During the food-riots, in 1772, there was given at the Pantheon, Oxford-street, a masquerade, in which 10,000 guineas were expended by the revellers in dress and other luxuries : Oliver Goldsmith masqueraded there in " an old English dress." At the Pantheon, in 1783, a masquerade was got up by Delpini, the famous clown, in celebration of the Prince of Wales attaining his majority ; tickets, three AMUSEMENTS. 15 guineas each. In the same year Garrick attended a masked fete at the Pantheon as King of the Gipsies. But the most eccentric entrepreneur was Madame Teresa Cornelys, "the Heidegger of the age," who, at Carlisle House, Soho-square, gave masquerades in extravagant style, and was soon ruined. These entertainments were never encouraged hy George III., at whose request Foote ahstained from giving a masquerade at the Little Theatre in the Haymarket. At Ranelagh they were given occasionally. At the Opera House and Argyle Rooms, masquerades were given ; and at Drury-lane and Covent Garden Theatres : towards the close of a masquerade, or masked ball, May 5, 1856, the latter theatre was entirely destroyed by fire. Mayings and May-Games were celebrated by " the citizens of London of all estates" with Maypoles and warlike shows, " with good archers, morrice-dancers, and other devices for pastime, all day long ; and towards evening they had stage-plays and bonfires in the streets." The games were presided over by the Lord and Lady of the May, decorated with scarves, ribbons, and other finery ; to which were added Robin Hood and Maid Marian. May-poles were regularly erected in many parts of London on Mayday morning ; as in Leadenhall-street, before the south door of St. Andrew's Church, therefore called Under Shaft ; this pole being referred to by Chaucer as " the great Shaft of Cornhill :" it was higher than the church-steeple (91 feet). After Evil Mayday, 1517, this pole was, in 1549, sawn into pieces, and burnt as " an idol.'* Another celebrated Maypole was that placed in the Strand, upon the site of the present church of St. Mary: this pole was 134 feet high, and was set up with great pomp and festivity in 1661 ; it was broken with a high wind a fe\y years after. Opposite is Maypole- alley, at the top of which and over against the gate of Craven House, were the lodgings of Nell Gwyn ; and Mr. Peter Cunningham, in his piquant Story of Nell, says : — " This Maypole, long a conspicuous ornament to the West-end of London, rose to a great height above the surrounding houses, and was surmounted by a crown and vane, and the royal arms richly gilded." Stow tells us that this pole was put up by the farrier, Clarges, to commemorate his daughter's good fortune of arriving to the dignity of Duchess of Albemarle, by being married to General Monk, when he was a private gentleman. The Maypole being grown old and damaged, was, in I7l7, obtained by Sir Isaac Newton (who then lived in St. Martin's-street, Leicester-fields)^ and being taken down was carried away to Wanstead, in Essex ; there it was placed in Sir Richard Child's park, for raising a telescope, the largest in the world, stated to have belonged to Newton's friend, Mr. Pound, rector of Wanstead, to whom it had been presented by M. Hugon, a French member of the Royal Society. Another famous Maypole stood in Basing-lane : Stow described it as a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof of Gerard's Hall Inn, and was fabled to be the justice-staff" of Gerard the giant, of whom a carved wood figure stood by the gate until the demolition of the inn in 1852. There are other places in London which indicate the site of Maypoles : as Maypole-alley, St. Margaret's-hill, Southwark; and Maypole-alley, from the north side of Wych-street into Stanhope-street. In the Beaufoy Collection are two tokens : one Nat. Child, *' near y** May poal, in y^ Strand, Grocer ;" and Philip Complin, " at the Maypole in the Strand, Distiller," and the Maypole, with some small building attached. The Paeks had their pastimes upwards of two centuries ago. The French game of Paille-mail (striking a ball with a wooden mallet through an iron ring) was introduced in the reign of Charles I. Skating was first brought into vogue in England on the new canal in St. James's Park : Evelyn enters it, 1st Dec, J 662, " with scheets after the manner of the Hollanders." Pepys records, 10th Aug. 1664, Lords Castlehaven and Arran running down and killing a stout buck in St. James's Park, for a wager, before the King ; and Evelyn enters, 19th Feb. 1666-67, a wrestUng-match for 1000^. in St. James's Park, before his Majesty, a world of lords, and other spectators, 'twixt the western and northern men, when the former won. At this time there were in the park flocks of wild-fowl breeding about the Decoy, antelopes, an elk, red-deer, roe- bucks, stags, Guinea fowls, Arabian sheep, &c. : and here Charles II. might be seen playing with his dogs and feeding his ducks. Birdcage Walk was named from the aviary established there in the reign of James L, and the decoy made there in tho reign of Charles II. - 16 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. Hyde Park was formerly much celebrated for its deer-hunts, foot and horse races, musters and coach-races, boxing-matches, and Mayings. Peisok Baes, or Base, is as old as the reign of Edward III., when it was, by proclamation, prohibited to be played in the avenues of the Palace at Westminster during the session of Parliament, from its interruption of the members and others in passing to and fro. About 1780, a grand match at base was played in the fields be- hind Montagu House, by twelve gentlemen of Cheshire against twelve of Derbyshire, for a considerable stake. ** Punch" has for nearly two centuries delighted the Londoner ; there being entries of Punchinello's Booth at Charing-cross, 1666, in the Overseers' Books of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields. (Cunningham's Handbook, 2nd edit.) Punch's costume closely resembles the Ehzabethan peasecod-bellied doublets. Covent Garden was another of Punch's early " pitches," where Powell's performances thinned the congregation in St. Paul's Church, as we learn from No. 14 of the Spectator ; and in 1711-12, he lessened the receipts at the Opera and the national theatres : the showman worked the wires, and " by a thread in one of Punch's chops, gave to him the appearance of animation." Such was the olden contrivance : at present the puppets are played by putting the hand imder the dress, and making the middle finger and thumb serve for the arms, while the forefinger works the head. Mr. Windham, when one of the Secretaries of State, on his way from Downing-street to the House of Commons, was seen to stop and enjoy the whimsicalities of Punch. " We are never ashamed of being caught gazing at Punch," wrote Albert Smith. In 1828, George Cruikshank produced his grotesque etchings of Punch, to illustrate Mr- Payne Colher's very agreeable volume. Punch and Judy. Haydon painted Punch, with Hogarthian humour, in 1829 ; and Webster, R.A., painted with equal humour " Punch in the Country," in 1840. Street Shows and Performers have become very numerous in the present day. Such are Punch, Fantoccini, Chinese Shades, and Galantee Shows; jugglers, conjurors, balancers, posturers, stiff tumblers, pole-balancers, salamanders or fire-eaters, and sword and snake followers ; street dancers ; and performances of trained animals, as dancing dogs, acting birds, and mice. The street musicians include brass and other bands, Ethiopians, farm-yard fiddlers, horse organs, Italian organ-boys, hurdy- gurdy players, blind and crippled fiddlers, and violoncello and clarionet players. Next are the peep- showmen and the proprietors of giants, dwarves, industrious fleas, alligators, " happy families," and glass ships ; together with street telescopes, microscopes, thaumascopes, and weighing, lifting, and measuring machines. Porsini and Pike were celebrated Punch exhibitors ; the former is said to have frequently taken 10^. a day ; but he died in St. Giles' workhouse. A set of Punch figures costs about 15Z., and the show about 3^. The speaking is done by a " call," made of two curved pieces of metal about the size of a knee-buckle, bound together with black thread, and between them is a thin metal plate. Porsini used a trumpet. The present artists maintain that " Punch is exempt from the Police Act." The most profitable performance is that in houses ; and Punch's best season is in the spring, and at Christmas and Midsummer : the best " pitches " in London are Leicester-square, Regent- street (corner of New Burlington-street), Oxford Market, and Belgrave-square. There are sixteen Punch and Judy frames in England, eight of which work in London. Fantoccini are puppets, which, with frame, cost about 10^. Chinese Shades consist of a frame like Punch's, with a transparent curtain and movable figures ; shown only at night, with much dialogue.— -Seiec^ed from a Letter by Henry Mayhew ; Morning Chronicle, May 16, 1850. Punch has not, however, been always a mere puppet : for we read of a farce called *' Punch turned Schoolmaster ;" and in 1841, was commenced " Punch ; or, the London Charivari," which under excellent editorship has effected considerable moral service.* Puppet-shows were common at the suburban fairs in the early part of the last cen- tury ; they also competed with the larger theatres, until they were superseded by the revival of Pantomimes. But the Italian Fantoccini was popular early in the present C3ntury. The puppet-showman, with his box upon his back, is now rarely seen in the street, but we have the artist of Punch, with his theatre. Clockwork figures appeared early in the last century. In the reign of Queen Anne, a celebrated show of this kind was exhibited at the great house in the Strand over against the Globe Tavern, near Hungerford Market. A saraband, danced with castanet;s, and throwing balls and knives alternately into the air and catching them as they full, with catching oranges upon forks, formed part of the puppet-showman's exhibition. * In a 14th-century manuscript of the French romnnce of Alexander, in the Bodleian Library, is an illumination of Punch's show, the figures closely resembling the modem Punch and Judy. AIIUSEMENTS. 17 Men and monkeys dancing upon ropes, or walking upon wires; dogs dancing ■minuets, pigs arranging letters so as to form words at their master's command, hares beating drums, or birds firing off cannons — these were favourite exhibitions early in the last century. Raree-shows, ladder-dancing, and posturing, are also of this date. Rackets is nearly coeval with Tennis, which it so much resembles ; Rackets being striking a ball against a wall, and Tennis dropping a ball over a central net. There are Racket-grounds at the Belvedere, Pentonville ; at the Tennis Court, Haymarket ; and at Prince's Club Racquets Courts, Chelsea. Rackets was also much played in the Fleet Prison, taken down in 1841< ; in the Queen's Bench Prison ; and at Copenhagen House, St. Pancras. Salt-box Music will be remembered by the middle-aged reader. It was played with a rolling-pin and salt-box beaten together, the. noise being modulated so as to resemble a sort of music. It was formerly played by Merry Andrews, at country fairs. Bonnel Thornton composed a burlesque Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, which Dr. Burney, in 1769, set for Smart and Newbury. It was performed at Ranelagh, by masks : Beard sang the salt-box song, which was admirably accompanied on that instrument by Brent, the fencing-master; Skeggs, on the broomstick, as bassoon; and a remark- able performance on the Jew's harp. Cleavers were cast in bell-metal for this enter- tainment. All the performers of the Old Woman's Oratory, employed by Foote, were engaged at Ranelagh on this occasion. Price, landlord of the Green Man, formerly the Farthing Pye-house, was a famous salt-box player. Skittles, corrupted from kayles of the fourteenth century, and afterwards kettle, or kettle-pins, was much played in and near London until 1780, when the magistrates abolished all Skittle-grounds. To this succeeded Nine-holes, or " Bubble-the-justice," on the supposition that it could not be set aside by the justices, as it was not named in the prohibitory statutes : it is now called " Bumble-puppy," and the vulgarity of the term is characteristic of the company who play it. Nine-pins, Dutch-pins, and Four- corners are but variations of Skittles ; which games originated in the covering of open grounds in London and its neighbourhood with houses. Tea Gaedens were the favourite resorts of the middle classes in the last century ; and, in most cases, they succeeded the promenade at mineral springs. Such was Bagnigge Wells, Battle Bridge-road, taken down a few years since : we remember its concert-room and organ, its grottoes and fountains, and grotesque figures, and bust of Nell Gwynne, who is traditionally stated to have resided here. Next were Sadler's Wells Music House, before it became a theatre; Tunbridge Wells, or Islington Spa ; and the Three Hats, at Islington, mentioned in Bickerstaff"'s comedy of the Hypocrite : the house remained a tavern until 1839, when it was taken down. White Conduit House, Pentonville, was originally a small ale and cake house, built in the fields, in the reign of Charles I., and named from a conduit in an adjoining meadow. An association of Protestant Dissenters, formed in the reign of Queen Anne, met at this house : the Wheal Pond, close by, was a famous place for duck-hunting ; Sir William Davenant describes a city wife going to the fields to " sop her cake in milk ;" and Goldsmith speaks of tea-drinking parties, with hot rolls and butter, at White Conduit House. A description of the place in 1774 presents a general picture of the Tea Garden of that period : " The garden is formed into walks, prettily disposed. At the end of the principal one is a painting, which seems to render it (the walk) longer in appearance than it really is. In the centre of the garden is a fish pond. There are boxes for company, curiously cut into hedges, adorned with Flemish and other paintings. There are two handsome tea-rooms, one over the other, and several inferior ones in the house." The fish-pond was soon after filled up, and its site planted, the paintings removed, and a new dancing and tea saloon, called the Apollo-room, built. In 1826, the gardens were opened as a " Minor Vauxhall ;" and here Mrs. Bland, the charming vocalist, last sang in public. In 1829, the small house, the original tavern, was taken down, and rebuilt upon a more extensive plan, so as to dine upwards of 2000 persons in its largest room. But in 1849 these premises were also taken down ; the tavern was re-erected on a smaller scale, and the garden-ground let on building leases, for White Conduit-street, &c. 18 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. Next we reach Highbury, where originally stood the Barn of the Monks of Clerken- well: hence the old name of the Tavern, Highbury Barn. In the fields, opposite Pentonville Prison, was Copenhagen House (Coopen Hagen, in Camden's Britannia, 1695), first opened by a Dane. In Islington there remain the Canonbury Tea Gardens, a very old resort (the tavern has been rebuilt) ; and in Barnsbury remains an old tea-garden. Hoxton had also several tea-gardens. Toten Hall, at the north-west extremity of Tottenham-court-road, was the ancient court-house of that manor, and subsequently a place of public entertainment. In the parish books of St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, year 1645, is an entry of Mrs. Stacye's maid and others being fined " for drinking at Tottenhall Court on the Sabbath dale, xij(^. a-piece." The premises next became the Adam and Eve Tea Gardens : before the house is laid the scene of Hogarth's March to Finchley ; and in the grounds. May 16, 1785, Lunardi fell with his burst balloon, and was but slightly injured. The Gardens were much frequented ; but the place falling into disrepute, the music-house was taken, down, and upon the site of the Skittle-grounds and Gardens was built Eden-street, Hampstead-road, the public-house being rebuilt. Chalk Farm, corrupted from the old village of Chalcot, shown in Camden's map, was another noted tea-garden. This was " the Wliite House," to which, in 1678, the body of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was carried, after it had been found, about two fields distant, upon the south side of Primrose Hill. Several duels have been fought here : here John Scott (of the London Magazine), was shot by Mr. Christie, Feb. 16, 1821 ; and the poet Moore, and Jeffrey, of the 'Edinburgh Review ^ met in 1806. Chalk Farm now gives name to the railway station here. The above were the most celebrated Tea-gardens north and north-west of London. Westward lay Marybone Gardens, open for public breakfasts and evening concerts to high-class company ; fireworks being added. In 1777-8 these gardens were shut up, and the site let to builders; the ground being now occupied by Beaumontand Devon- shire streets, and part of Devonshire-place. Next were the Bayswater Gardens, once the "Physic Garden" of Sir John Hill; and Ranelagh, the costly rival of Vauxhall, as well as a Tea-garden in the present century. Mulberry Garden, upon the present site of Buckingham Palace and its gardens, dated from tem'p. Charles I. Pimlico was noted for its tea-gardens and ale to our day : the Gun Tea Gardens, Queen's-row, with its arbours and grotesque figures, were the last to disappear: here were the Dwarf Tavern and Gardens ; the Star and Garter, Five-fields-row, famous for its equestrianism, fireworks, and dancing; and the Orange, upon the site of St. Barnabas Church. Here, too, was New Ranelagh ; and Jenny's Whim, Bowling- green, and gardens, the site now covered by St. George's-row : it was opened temp. George T. for fireworks ; and it had its duck-hunting pond, alcoves, and character figures, and was much frequented for bull -baiting in the adjoining fields. Knightsbridge was noted for its Spring Gardens, and houses of entertainment. Southward were Cumberland Gardens and Assembly Booms, the site now occupied by Price's Candle Company's Works, Vauxhall Bridge ; Spring Garden, Vauxhall ; the Dog and Duck, and Apollo Gardens, St. George's Fields ; and Cuper's Gardens, through the site of which runs Waterloo-bridge-road. Bermondsey had its Spa Gardens in the Grange-road; and Cupid's Gardens upon Jacob's Island, the ill-fated locality in which the cholera (1848-9) first broke out in the metropolis, and where it lingered last. Few of these old Tea Gardens remain. In the increase of London within the last half-century, the environs have lost their suburban character, and have become part of the great town itself; and steamboats and railways now, for very small sums, convey the over- worked artisan out of its murky atmosphere into pure air and rural scenery. Tennis, from the French Hand-ball or Palm-play, was played in London in the six- teenth century, in covered courts erected for the purpose. Henry VII. and VIIL were fond of Tennis ; and the latter added to the palace of Whitehall " tennise-courts.'* James I. recommended Tennis to his son, as becoming a prince. Charles II. was an accomplished Tennis-player, and had particular dresses for playing in. We have a relic of these times in the Tennis-court in James-street, Haymarket, which bears the date 1676, and was formerly attached to the gaming-house, or Shavers' Hall. In AF0LL0NIC0N—ARGADE8. 1 9 Windmill-street was another Tennis-court, which belonged to Piccadilly Hall, also a gaming-house. Another famous Tennis-court was Gibbon's, in Clare Market, where Killigrew's comedians performed for some time. There are in Holborn, Blackfriars, and Southwark thoroughfares known as " Tennis-courts," denoting the game to have been formerly played there. Thames Sports. — Fitzstephen relates of the ancient Londoners fighting " battles on Easter holidays on the water, by striking a shield with a lance." There was also a kind of water tournament, in which the two combatants, standing in two wherries, rowed and ran against each other, and fought with staves and shields. In the game of the Water Quintain the shield was fixed upon a post in the river, and the champion, stationed in a boat, struck the shield with a lance. Jousting' upon the ice was likewise practised by the young Londoners. Each mansion upon the Thames bank had its private retinue, of barge and wherry, and the sovereign a gilded and tapestried barge. There were also public boats, with gay awnings, for tea-parties. All this gay water-pageantry has disappeared, including the state barges of the Sovereign and the Admiralty, the Lord Mayor, and a few of the wealthier of the City companies. In 1850, the old Barge of the Goldsmiths' Company was let at Richmond, " for Pic-nic, Wedding, and Birthday Parties," at 5Z. 5^. per day. The great civic barge, the Maria Wood, is likewise let for similar occasions. Of Boat-races, the oldest is that for Dogget's Coat and Badge, on August 1 : the prizes are distributed by the Fishmongers' Company. We have also Regattas and Sailing Matches, to aid in the enjoyment of which steamers are employed. Theatees originated in Miracle Plays, such as were acted in fields and open places and inn-yards. The playhouse dates from the age of Elizabeth ; and between 1570 and 1629, London had seventeen theatres. {See Theatees.) AJPOLLONICON, TRU. A CHAMBER-ORGAN of vast power, supplied with both keys and barrels, was built by Messrs. Flight and Robson, of 101, St. Martin's-lane, and first exhibited by them at their manufactory in 1817. The denomination is formed from Apollon, and the Greek termination icon. "The Apollonicon," says a contemporary description, "is either self-acting-, by means of machinery, or may be played on by keys. The music, when the organ is worked by machinery, ispinned on three cylinders or barrels, each acting on a distinct division of the instrument ; and these, in their revolution, not only admit air to the pipes, but actually regulate and work the stops, forming, by an instantaneous action, all the necessary combinations. Tlie key-boards are five in number ; the central and largest comprising five octaves, and the smaller ones, of which two are placed on each side the larger, two octaves each. To the central key-board are attached a swell and some compound pedals, enabling the performer to produce all the changes and variety of effect that the music may require. There is also a key-board, comprising two octaves of other pedals, operating on the largest pipes of the instrument. There are 1900 pipes, the largest twenty-four feet in length, and one foot eleven inches in aperture, being eight feet longer than the corresponding pipe in the great organ at Haarlem, The number of stops is forty-five, and these in their combinations afford very good imitations of the various wind instruments used in an orchestra. Two kettle-drums, struck by a curious contrivance in the machinery, are, with the other mechanism, inclosed in a case twenty-four feet high, embellished with pilasters, and paintings of Apollo, Clio, and Erato." This magnificent instrument performed Mozart's overtures to the Zauherfldie, Figaro, and Idomeneo ; Beethoven's Frometheus ; Weber's to the Freischuiz and Oberon ; Cherubini's to Anacreon, &c., without omitting a single note of the score, and with all the fortes and pianos, the crescendoes and diminuendoes, as directed by the composers, with an accuracy that no band can possibly exceed, and very few can reasonably hope to rival. The Apollonicon was five years in building, and at an expense of about 10,000?., under the patronage of George IV. Its performances were popular for many years. AECADFS. ONLY a few of these covered passages (series of arches on insulated piers) have been constructed in London; although Paris contains upwards of twenty jpawaye* or galleries of similar design. c-2 20 CUBI0SITIE8 OF LONDON. BUELINGTON Aecade. — When, in 1815, Burlington House was purchased of the Duke of Devonshire by his uncle, Lord George Cavendish, that nobleman converted a narrow slip of ground on the west side of the house and garden into a passage, with a range of shops on each side, called Burlington Arcade, making a covered communication for foot passengers from Piccadilly to Burlington Gardens, Cork-street, and New Bond- street. This Arcade was built by Samuel Ware, in 1819. It consists of a double row of shops, with apartments over them, a roof of skylights, and a triple arch at each end ; it is about 210 yards long, and the shops, seventy-two in number, produce to the noble family of Cavendish 4000^. a year ; though the property, by sub-letting and otherwise, is stated to yield double that amount a year. Exeter Change (the second building of the name, but on a different site from tlie first) was an Arcade built in 1844, on the estate of the Marquis of Exeter, and ran ob- liquely from Catherine-street to Wellington-street North, Strand. It was designed by Sydney Smirke; and consisted of a polygonal compartment at each extremity, the in* termediate passage being coved and groined, and lighted from above ; it contained ten neat shops with dwellings over. The cove, fascia, piers, &c., had polychromic ara- besque decorations : at each entrance to the Arcade was an imitative bronze gate ; and the fronts in Catherine-street and Wellington-street, were of fine red brick, with stone dressings, in the Jacobean style. The " Change," however, proved unprofitable ; it was taken down in 1863, and upon its site was erected a portion of the Strand Music Hall, externally and internally, of elaborate design. LowTHER Arcade (named from Lord Lowther, Chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests when it was built) leads from the triangle of the West Strand to Adelaide- street, north of St. Martin's Church. It was designed by Witherden Young, and far surpasses the Burlington Arcade in architectural character : the ceiling vista of small pendentive domes is very beautiful, and the caducei in the angles are well executed. The length is 245 feet, breadth 20 feet, and height 35 feet. The sides consist of twenty-five dwellings and shops, principally kept by dealers in foreign goods, who, by mutual consent, hold in the avenue a sort of fair for German and French toys, cheap glass and jewellery, &c. At the north end of the Arcade is the Adelaide Gallery, where Mr. Jacob Perkins exhibited his Steam Gun. A living electrical eel was shown here from August, 1838, to March 14, 1843, when it died; and in 1832 was formed here a Society for the Exhibition of Models of Inventions, &c. The rooms were sub- sequently let for concerts, dancing, and exhibitions. The Arcade oe Covent Gaedek, miscalled piazza, was designed about 1631 for Francis, Earl of Bedford, but only the north and east sides were built, and half of the latter was destroyed by fire about the middle of the last century. The northern was called the Great Piazza, the eastern the Little Piazza : Inigo Jones, the architect, probably took his idea from an Italian city, Bologna, for instance. " The proportions of the arcades and piers, crossed -with elliptical and semicircular arches into groins, are ex- quisitely beautiful, and are masterpieces of architecture." (Elmes.) The elevation was originally built with stone pilasters on red brick, which have for many years been covered with compo and white paint ; at the north-east corner two arcades and piers have been removed for the intrusion of the Covent Garden Floral Hall. Had Inigo Jones's picturesque square been completed, its entirety would probably have been preserved. ABCRIJS. LONDON differs essentially from many other European capitals in the paucity of its Arches, or ornamental gateways. It has only three triumphal Arches, whereas Paris, not half the size of our metropolis, has four magnificent Arches, and ' the principal entrances are graced with trophied gateways and storied columns. The Parisian Arc de VEtoile is without exception the most gigantic work of its kind either in ancient or modern times ; within its centre arch would stand eight such structures as Temple Bar, that is, four in depth, and as many above them. The Paris Arch cost 417,666/. ABCEES. 21 The Geeen Paek Aech, at Hyde Park Corner, was built by Decimus Burton in 1828. It is Corinthian, and each face has six fluted pilasters, with two fluted columns flanking the single archway, raised upon a lofty stylobate, and supporting a richly decorated entablature, in which are sculptured alternately G. E. IV. and the imperial crown, within wreaths of laurel. The soffite of the arch is sculptured in sunk panels. The gates, by Bramah, are of massive iron scroll-work, bronzed, with the royal arms in a circular centre. Within the pier of the arch are the porter's apartments, and stairs ascending to the platform, where, upon a vast slab, laid upon a brick arch, the colossal equestrian statue of the Duke of Wellington was placed, September 30, 1846. The height of the arch, its attic, and platform is about 90 feet; of the statue, 30 feet. {See Statues.) Opposite the above Arch is the elegant entrance to Hyde Park, by three carriage archways and sides, in a Screen of fluted Ionic columns, of 107 feet frontage, designed and built by Decimus Burton, in 1828. The blocking of the central archway has a beautiful frieze (Grecian naval and military triumphal processions), designed by the son of Mr. Henning, known for his successful models of the Elgin marbles. The gates, by Bramah, are a beautiful arrangement of the Grecian honeysuckle in bronzed iron j the hanging, by rings of gun metal, is very ingenious. Altogether, these two Park entrances, with St. George's Hospital north, and the Duke of Wellington's palatial mansion south, form one of the finest architectural groups in the metropolis, and its most embellished entrance. Sir John Soane, how- ever, proposed two triumphal arches, connected by a colonnade and arches, stretching across the main road — a design of superb grandeur. The third Arch was one originally designed and constructed in St. James's Park for the especial entrance of the Sovereign and the Royal Family to Buckingham Palace. In 1851 it was removed to Cumberland Gate, Hyde Park Corner. This was the largest work of mere ornament ever attempted in Great Britain. It was adapted by Nash from the Arch of Constantine, at Rome ; but it is by no means so richly em- belhshed. The sculpture is omitted in the attic, and in place of the reversed trusses above the columns were to have been figures of Dacian warriors, and panels of sculpture intervening. The fascia was to have been more highly enriched ; the attic carried considerably higher, and surmounted with an equestrian statue of George the Fourth, flanked with groups of military trophies, vases at the angles, &c. The Arch has a centre and two side openings ; the sculpture is confined to a pair of figures, and a key-stone on each face of the central archway ; with panels above the side openings and wreaths at the end. These sculptures are by Flaxman, Westmacott, and Rossi. The statue of George the Fourth was executed by Chantrey for 9000 guineas ; it was not placed upon the Arch at the Palace, but at the north-east angle of Trafalgar-square. Upon the Arch was hoisted the Royal Standard to denote the presence of the Sovereign. The central entrance-gates were designed and cast by Samuel Parker, of Argyll-street j they are the largest and most superb in Europe, and cost 3000 guineas. They are of a beautiful alloy, the base refined copper, and are bronzed : design, scroll-work with six circular openings, two filled with St. George and the Dragon, two with G. R., and above, two lions passant-gardant ; height to the top of Arch, 21 feet; width, 15 feet; extreme thickness, 3 inches ; weight, 5 tons and 6 cwt. Although cast, their enriched foliage and scroll-work have the elaborate finish of fine chasing. They terminate at the springing of the Arch ; but Mr. Parker had designed and cast for the semicircular heading a rich frieze and the royal arms in a circle, flanked by state crowns. This portion, however, was irreparably broken in removal from the foundry. The fi\ce of the Arch is Carrara marble, altogether unfitted for the sooty atmosphere of London. When it was resolved to enlarge Buckingham Palace by the erection of the present front towards the Park, the Arch could not be made to form part of the design, and it was removed and rebuilt at Hyde Park Corner, at the cost of 4,340^. The original cost of the Arch was 75,000/. Of the two arches, St. Jokn's Gate and Temple Bae, separate histories will be given. CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. ARGYLL HOOMS. THIS place was originally a large lioiise purchased by Col. Greville, of sporting notoriety, and converted into a place of public entertainment, where balls, concerts, masquerades, and amateur plaj^s were much patronized by the haul ton. In 1818, the Rooms were rebuilt in handsome style, by Nash, at the north corner of Little Argyll- street, Regent-street, and contained a splendid suite for the above purposes: they were burnt down in February, 1830, when Mr. Braithwaite first publicly applied steam- power to the working of a fire-engine ; it required eighteen minutes to raise the water in the boiler to 212°, when the engine threw up from thirty to forty tons of water per hour to a height of ninety feet. The premises were rebuilt, but not upon the same scale as heretofore. At the Argyll Rooms, June 9, 1829, Signer Velluti, the contralto singer, gave a concert. In the same year, M. Chabert, " the Fire- King," exhibited here his power of resisting the effects of poisons, and withstanding extreme heat. He swallowed 40 grains of phosphorus, sipped oil at 333° with impunity, and rubbed a red-hot fire- shovel over his tongue, hair, and face unharmed. Sept. 23, on a challenge of 50Z., Chabert repeated these feats, and won the wager; he next swallowed a piece of burn- ing torch ; and then, dressed in coarse woollen, entered an oven heated to 380°, sang a song, and cooked two dishes of beef-steak ! Still, the performances were suspected, and in fact proved, to be a chemical juggle. ART -UNION OF LONDON, A SOCIETY established 1836, and incorporated by 9th and 10th Vict., c. 48, " to aid in extending the love of the Arts of Design within the United Kingdom, and to give encouragement to artists beyond that afforded by the patronage of individuals." The annual subscription is one guinea, which entitles the subscriber to one chance for a prize in the scheme, ranging from lOZ. to 200Z., to be selected from one of the London exhibitions of the year. There are also prize medals, bronze casts, porcelain statuettes, works in cast-iron ; line engravings, outlines, and mezzotints ; lithographs and chromo-lithographs ; etchings and photographs and wood engravings ; and bas-reliefs in fictile ivory ; and every subscriber is entitled to a print or prints. The Art-Union has, unquestionably, fostered a taste for art; and the increased means of art-education has benefited the country in increased exports of articles of taste, — such as plate, silk manufactures, pottery, and paper-hangings. The demand in England at this time for pictures is very great, and the prices paid for the works of our hest painters are larger than has ever been the case before. Money judiciously spent in this way is well invested. The first purchaser of " The Strawberry Girl ' gave l{eynolds fifty guineas for it ; the last, the Marquis of Hertford, was delighted m obtaining it for 2100 guineas, — Art Union Beport. 1864, Few who assisted at our first meeting, in the little gallery in Regent-street, now the Gallery of Illus- tration, were sanguine enough to expect a course of such continuing success as that through which the institution has run ; or ventured to prognosticate that it would by this time have raised (mainly from the classes at that date spending little on art), and would have distributed in aid of art and artists, the sum of 324,000^.; producing during that period 35 engravings of high class, 15 volumes of illustrative outlines, etchings, and wood-engravings ; 16 bronzes, 12 statues and statuettes, with figures and vases in iron, and a series of medals commemorative of British artists — to say nothing of the main operation of the Association, the distribution throughout the United Kingdom and the Colonies, of some thousands of pictures by native modern artists, and some hundreds of thousands of impressions from the engravings referred to. Such, however, has been the case, notwithstanding the difficulty with which the subscriptions for the first year were made to mount to 489Z. For the present year the sum of 11,743/. has been subscribed. The subscriptions for the year amount to the sum of 13,648i., shewing aa increase of 1941Z. on Ijist -^eax.— Report, 1866, Mr. Noel Paton's Illustrations of " The Ancient Mariner," given in 1864, with the text, was then allowed to be the greatest work offered to the subscribers. The Society has about 600 honorary secretaries in the provinces, in the British Colonics, in Amei'ica, &c., including Canton ; it has expended about 15O,0OOZ. in the purchase and production of works of art ; and in one morning the honorary secretaries paid to artists of the metropolis no less than 10,000/. The drawing of the prizes is usually held in ARTESIAN WELLS. 23 one of the metropolitan theatres, in April, and the subscribers are admitted by tickets : office, 445, West Strand. AUTESIAN WELLS* HAVE been sunk or bored in various parts of the metropolis, the London Basin being thought well adapted for them, there being on it a thick lining of sand, and a deep bed of " London blue clay," on boring which, into the chalk formation, the water rises to various heights : hence it was thought that an abundant and unfailing supply might be obtained. The first boring was made at Tottenham, Middlesex. To test the practicability of this method of procuring water in sufficient quantity for the use of the metropolis, the New River Company sank a vast well at the foot of their reservoir in the Hampstead-road : the excavation was steined with brick, 12ft. 6 in. in diameter, and then reduced and continued with iron cylinders (like those of a tele- scope), to 240 feet. The expense was 12,412Z. The operations, which occupied three years, were detailed by Mr. Mylne, engineer of the company, to the Institution of Civil Engineers, 1839. It is remarkable that chalk should have been reached at so small a depth as in the Hampstead-road. Water was found at 170 feet, but so mixed with sand as not to be easily separable, which is the chief difficulty in forming wells in the London clay ; hence the workmen passed through the quicksand with the cylinders at an expense of 4000^., independent of the 8000^. which the well cost, hoping to obtain water in the chalk below ; but this was found too inconsiderable for the purpose. Artesian Wells are mostly formed by boring and driving pipes, varying from 6 to 10 inches or more in diameter ; but many of these only enter the sand immediately below the clay, instead of obtaining the supply of water from the chalk. Thus, an Artesian Well sunk in Covent Garden, for more than fourteen years failed to supply the ordinary wants of the market ; but having been deepened and carried ninety feet into the chalk, it yielded an abundant supply, and is constantly worked, without mate^ rially reducing the level of the water, or lowering it in neighbouring wells, as in cases where the chalk is not reached. It has been long known that the well in the Thames- street Brewery, late Calvert's, 240 feet, and Barclay's well, 367 feet, at the Southwark Brewery, affect each other so much — even though the Thames lies between them — that the two firms agreed not to pump at the same time. The following are the depths of a few of the Wells bored in London : Berkeley-square, 320 feet; Meux and Co.'s Brewery, 435 feet ; Norwood, Middlesex, 414 feet, unsuccessful at this depth ; West India Export Dock, 360 feet; Zoological Gardens, Eegent's-park, 227 feet, cost 1957^.; Barclay and Perkins* Brewery, 367 feet ; Combe and Delafield's Brewery, 522 feet ; North Western Railway Station, 400 feet ; Nicholson's Distillery, 160 feet ; Truman, Hanbury, and Co.'s Brewery, 390 feet, cost 4444^. ; Reid and Co.'s Brewery, shaft sunk the whole depth, 259 feet, cost 17001. ; Blackwall Railway, depth not given, cost 8000^.; Pentonville Prison, 370 feet, cost 1600^. ; St. Mary Woolnoth, Lombard-street, 252 feet, cost 200/. ; Whitbread and Co.'s Brewery, 160 feet ; Combe and Co.'s Brewery, 190 feet ; Covent-garden Market, 3JX) feet; Piccadilly (St. James's Church), 240 feet; Elliott's Brewery, 390 feet; Royal Mmt, Tower-hill, 400 feet. At Kentish Town, in 1856, an Artesian Well was abandoned when the borings had reached 1302 feet, no water having been met with, though a copious supply had been predicted from the lower greensands natui-ally expected to occur immediately below the gault; but the gault was found to be succeeded by 176 feet of a scries of red clays, with intercalated sandstones and grits— a fact which set geologists pondering. The two Wells for the Government Water-works, Trafalgar-square, by C. E. Amos, C.E., were sunk in 1844, 300 feet and 400 feet deep ; cost nearly 8000^. ; these works will be further described. At Kensington there has been sunk and bored, for the supply of the Horticultural Gardens, a well 401 feet deep, and 5 feet clear in diameter, the bore-hole being 201 feet deep from the bottom of the well ; water rises 73 feet in the shaft, the pumps lifting 144,000 gallons daily, of excellent chalk spring-water. The question of supply from these wells is beset with so many difficulties, the altera- tions in the London strata being so great, that no one experienced in wells will venture to infer from one place what will occur in another. Dr. Buckland, the eminent geologist, one of the first to show the fallacy, states that although there are from 250 to 300 so-called Artesian Wells in the metropolis, there is not one real Artesian Well within three miles of St. Paul's : such being a well that is * The term Artesian has been applied from the supposed fact of these wells having been originally ■constructed in the county of Artois (the ancient Artesium), in the north of France. They were, how- «yer, rather found than originated in Artois, for they had long existed in Italy and a few other parts of Europe, and appear to have been common generally in the East at a very early period. 24 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. always overflowing, either from its natural source or from an artificial tube : and when the overflowing ceases, it is no longer an Artesian Well. The wells which are now made by boring through the London clay are merely common wells. It has been said that a supply of water, if bored for, will rise of its own accord ; but the water obtained for the fountains in Trafalgar-square does not rise within forty feet of the surface, and is pumped up by means of a steam-engine — the same water over and over again. Dr. Buckland maintains that the supply of water formerly obtained from the so-called Artesian Wells in London has been greatly diminished by the sinking of new wells; of the more than 250 wells, one-half have broken down, and others are only kept in action at an enormous expense. The average depth at which water can be obtained from these defective wells is 60 feet below the Trinity House water-mark. In 1856, it was stated that the level of the London wells, since 1822, had sunk fifty feet ; and falls at the rate of 18 or 24 inches in a year. The rapid increase in the number of these wells, of late years, has been attended with so constant a reduction of the quantity of water they respectively furnish, that it is now generally considered that any additional supply for public purposes cannot be expected from this source, as it seems already overtaxed by private work. Mr. Prestwich, jun., F.G.S., in his Geological Inquiry, considers " it would be diffi- cult to account for the generally unfavourable opinion entertained regarding Artesian Wells as a means of public supply, were it not that the annually decreasing yield of water from the tertiary sands and the chalk beneath London has produced an im- pression of uncertainty as to all such sources of supply ; which, with the constantly increasing expense caused by the depth from which the water has to be pumped, and the proportion of saline ingredients being so much greater in them than in the river waters, have been taken as sufficient grounds of objection. But it is to be observed, in explanation of the diminished supply from the present source, that the tertiary sands are of very limited dimensions ; that the chalk is not a freely permeable deposit ; and that the peculiarities of the saline ingredients depend upon the chemical composition of these formations. All these causes, however, are local, and can by no means be con- sidered as grounds of objection against the system of Artesian Wells generally." Mr. Prestwich suggests a fresh system of Artesian Wells, especially as none have as yet been carried through the chalk ; though it is shown that the conditions in this country are more favourable than in France. AETILLIIBY COMFANY. THIS ancient body of Civic Volunteers, the oldest armed force in the kingdom, originated in the Guild of St. George, in the reign of Edward I. They were also known as the Archers of Finsbury, and were incorporated by Henry VIII., whose signature is on the great book of the Company. We next trace it as the old City Trained Band, raised, or rather augmented in 1585, at the period of the menaced Popish invasion. Within two years there were enrolled nearly 300 merchants and others, *' very sufficient and skilful to train and teach common soldiers the management of their pieces, pikes, and halberds; to march, countermarch, and ring. Some of them, in the dangerous year of 1588, had charge of men in the great camp at Tilbury, and were generally called Captains of the Artillery Garden, the place where they exercised" (Stoio, hy Howell) in " the Old Artillery Ground," demised to them out of the ancient manor of Finsbury, or Feusbury, originally a field called Tassel (or Teasel, from teasels being grown here for cloth-workers) Close ; then let for archery practice ; and next enclosed with a wall for the Gunners of the Tower to exercise in. After 1588, the City Artillery neglected their discipline; but in 1610 they formed anew, and in a few years numbered nearly 6000. In 1622, they removed to a larger ground with- out Moorgate, the present Artillery ground, west of Finsbury-square. In the Civil War, the Company marched with Essex to raise the siege of Gloucester, which was the distinguishing crisis of the contest ; and in the second battle of Newbury their steady valour repulsed the fiercest charges of Rupert's cavalry, and proved the main safeguard of the Parliamentary Army. The reluctant testimony of Clarendon to these " Londoners" is very remarkable : — AETILLERY C03IPANY. 25 " The London Trained Bands and Auxiliary Regiments (of whose inexperience of danger, or any kind of service, by the easy practice of their postures in the Artillery Garden, men held till then, too cheap in estimation) behaved themselves to wonder, and were in truth the preservation of that army that day, for they stood as a bulwark and rampire to defend the rest ; and when their wings of horse were ■scattered and dispersed, kept their ground so steadily, that though Prince Rupert himself led up the choice horse to charge them, and endured their storm of small shot, he could make no impression upon their stand of pikes, but was forced to wheel about ; of so sovereign benefit and use is that readiness, order, and dexterity in the use of their arms, which hath been so much neglected."— ^w<. Rebellion^ edit. 1826. iv. 236. Howell, in his Londonopolls, 1657, tells us that London had then " 12,000 Trained Band Citizens perpetually in readiness, excellently armed j" and in the unlucky wars with the Long Parliament, the London firelocks did the King most mischief. Cromwell knew the value of this force, and for some years its strength was 18,000 foot and 600 horse. They were, however, disbanded at the Restoration, but continued their evolutions, the King and the Duke of York becoming members, and dining in public with the new Company. When Queen Anne went to St. Paul's, the City Train Bands lined the streets from Temple Bar to the Cathedral. The last time they were in active service was at the riots of 1780, when they aided in saving the Bank of England from the pillage of the rioters. The Artillery Company have always been the only military body in the kingdom which bears arms under the direct authority of the reigning Sovereign, and which is wholly free from the control of Parliament. From time immemorial the post of Captain-General and Colonel, which is the ancient title of the oificer in supreme com- mand of the corps, has been held, sometimes by the reigning Sovereign, by a Prince Consort, and by a Prince of Wales or heir-apparent of the throne. Its roll of Captains- General and Colonels includes the names of Charles I., James II., the Prince of Orange, Prince George of Denmark, George I. (who gave the Company 500Z.), George II., George IV., William IV., the Duke of Sussex, and Albert, Prince Consort, who was succeeded by the Prince of Wales : on its muster-roll are the names of Prince Rupert, the Duke of Buckingham, General Monk, and the Duke of Monmouth. Upon royal visits to the City, the Artillery Company attend as a guard of honour to the Sovereign. In cases of apprehended civil disturbance the Company muster at their head -quarters, the Artillery Ground, Finsbury, granted to them in trust, in 1641, at the rent of 6*. Sd. per annum. This ground, with the houses adjoining, realizes to the Company a yearly income of 2000Z., which is expended for the benefit of the members, and in payment of managerial officers. Strype describes the ground as " the third great field from Moorgate, next the Six Windmills." Here is the spacious Armoury House, finished in 1735 ; the collection of arms, &c., includes some fine pieces of ordnance, among which is a pair of handsome brass field-pieces, presented by Sir William Curtis, Bart., President ; besides portions of the ancient uniforms and arms of the corps, as caps and helmets, pikes and banners. A new set of colours was formally presented to the regiment, in 1864, by the Princess of Wales. The corps comprises six companies of Infantry, besides Artillery, Grenadiers, Light Infantry, and Yagers. They exercise on occasional field-days in the Artillery Ground, and meet for rifle practice in the vicinity of the metropolis, the prize being a large gold medal. Besides the Armoury, here is a workshop for cleaning guns, a long shooting gallery, &c. Each member, for a subscription, has the use of arms and accoutrements from the Company's stores, but finds his uniform according to regulations. The musters and marchings of the City Trained Band have not escaped the whipping of dramatists and humorists. Fletcher ridicules them in the Knight of the Burning Pestle ; as does Steele in the Tatler, more especially in No. 41, with the Company's way of giving out orders for " an exercise of arms," when the greatest achievements were happily performed near Grub-street, where a faithful historian, being eye-witness of these wonders, should transmit them to posterity, &c. The Company were then (l709) mercilessly quizzed, and we may judge of the reason from Hatton's observation, in 1708 : — " They do by prescription march over all the ground from the Artillery Ground to Islington, and Sir George Whitmore's at Hoxton, hreaJcing doion gates, ^c, that obstructed them in such marches." Hatton tells of their former splendid public feasts, when four of the nobility and as many citizens were stewards, and to which the 26 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. principal nobility and foreign ministers were invited. The Company's armorial ensigns are very characteristic : — The Shield and Cross of St. Georpe, charged with a lion of England ; on a chief azure, a portcullis furnished or ; between two ostrich feathers, argent. Crest, a dexter-arm armed, holding a leading staff, * or, fringed gules. Supporters, two military men equipped according to the laws of the Militia, the dexter with a pike, the sinister with a musket proper. Motto— Arma Pacis Fulcra. The Barracks in Artillery-place, designed by Jennings, in the style of the early castellated mansion, and erected of stone in 1857, are the head-quarters of the London Militia. BALLOON ASCLNTS. THE following are the more memorable Balloon Ascents made from the metropolis since the introduction of aerostation into England. In most cases the aeronauts were accompanied by friends, or persons who paid for the trip various sums. Nov. 25, 1783, the first Balloon (filled with hydrogen) launched in England, from the Artillery Ground, Finsbury, by Count Zambeccari. The Balloon was found 48 miles from London, near Petworth. Sept. 15, 1784, Lunardi ascended from the Artillery Ground, Moorfields ; being the first voyage made in England ; he was accompanied by a cat, a dog, and a pigeon. March 23, 1785, Admiral Sir Edward Vernon, accompanied by Count Zambeccari. June 29, 1785, ascent of Mrs. Sage, the first Englishwoman aeronaut. July 5, 1802, M. Garnerin made his second ascent in England, from Lord's Crictet Ground. The same year he ascended three times from Ranelagh Gardens; and descended successfully from a Balloon by a Parachute, near the Small-pox Hospital, St. Pancras. 1811, James Sadler, ascended from Hackney ; his two sons, John and Windham, were also aeronauts ; the latter killed, Sept. 29, 1824, by falling from a Balloon. July 3 9, 1821, Mr. Charles Green first ascended in a Balloon inflated with coal gas, substituted for hydrogen, on the coronation day of George IV. Cost of inflation, from 261. to 50^. : this wa^ Mr. Green's first aerial voyage. "Up to May, 1850, he had made 142 ascents from London only. Ten persons named Green have ascended in Balloons.* Sept. 11, 1823, Mr. Graham ascended from White Conduit House. May 25, 1824, Lieutenant Harris, R.N., ascended from the Eagle Tavern, City Road, with Miss Stocks ; the former killed by the too rapid descent of the Balloon. July, 1833, Mr. Graham ascended from Hungerford Market; day of opening. One of Mr. Graham's companions, on this occasion, shortly after made a second ascent, which caused a derangement of intellect, from which he never entirely recovered. Sept. 17, 1835, Mr. Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, and remained up during the whole of the night. August 22, 1836, the Duke of Brunswick ascended. Sept. 9, 1836, Mr. Green's first ascent in his great Vauxhall Balloon. Nov. 7, 1836, Mr. Green, Mr. Monck Mason, and Mr. Holland ascended in the great Vauxhall Balloon, and descended, in eighteen hours, at Weilburg, in Nassau. Of this ascent, Mr. Mason published a detailed account. July 24, 1837, Mr. Green ascended from Vauxhall Gardens, in his great Balloon, with Mr. Cocking in a parachute, in which the latter was killed in descending. May 24, 1838, unsuccessful attempt to ascend with a large Montgolfier Balloon from the Surrey Zoological Gardens. The Balloon was destroyed by the spectators ; it was the height of the York Column, and half the circumference of the dome of St. Paul's, and would contain, when fully inflated, 170,000 cubic feet of air. Sept. 10, 1838, Mr. Green and Mr. Rush ascended from Vauxhall Gardens in the Nassau Balloon, and descended at Lewes, Sussex ; having reached the then greatest altitude ever attained — 27,146 feet, or 5 miles 746 feet. July 17, 1840, the Vauxhall, or great Nassau Balloon, sold to Mr. Green for 500Z. ; in 1836 it cost 21001. August 19, 1844, perilous night ascent with Mr. Gypson's Balloon from Vauxhall * Mr. Green has made, altogether, a larger number of ascents than any other aeronaut ; they exceed 600. Of this veteran a fine portrait (private plate) has been engraved. BANK OF ENGLAND. Gardens, with fireworks. Mr. Albert Smith and Mr. Coxwell accompanied the aero- naut. At 7000 feet high the Balloon burst, but, by Mr. Coxwell cutting some lines, the Balloon assumed a parachute form, and descended safely. Aug. 7, 1850, Mrs. Graham's Balloon destroyed by fire, after her descent, near Edmonton. Sept. 7, 1854, ascent of Mr. Coxwell's War Balloon, from the Surrey Zoological Gardens, with telegraphic signals. June 15, 1857, night voyage from Woolwich to Tavistock, 250 miles, made by Mr. Goxwell, in five hours. July 17, 1862, Mr. Glaisher and Mr. Coxwell first ascended in a large Balloon made by the latter for the experiments of the British Association : ascent from Wolver- hampton ; elevation attained, 26,177 feet above the sea-level. Sept. 5, 1862, the highest and most memorable ascent on record. Mr. Glaisher and Mr. Coxwell attained an elevation of 37,000 feet, or 7 miles. Mr. Glaisher became insensible ; and Mr. Coxwell, his hands being frozen, had to pull the valve-cord with his mouth, and thus escaped death. Jan. 12, 1864, Mr. Glaisher's seventeenth scientific ascent in Mr. Coxwell's large Balloon ; the only ascent made in England during the month of January. Aug. 3, 1864, M. Godard ascended from Cremorne Gardens, in his huge Montgolfier Balloon, and made a perilous descent at Walthamstow. Mr. Glaisher, by his scientific ascents, has proved that the Balloon does afibrd a means of solving with advantage many delicate questions in physics ; and the Com- mittee of the British Association report that Science and the Association owe a debt of gratitude to Mr. Glaisher for the abilitj^ perseverance, and courage with which he has voluntarily undertaken the hazardous labour of recording meteorological phenomena in the several ascents. The following survey of London, Oct. 9, 1863, sixteenth ascent, as the Balloon passed over London Bridge, at the height of 7000 feet, in an unusually clear atmosphere, is picturesquely descriptive. " The scene around," says Mr. Glaisher, " was probably one that cannot be equalled in the world at one glance— the homes of 3,000,000 of people were seen, and so distinctly that every large building at every part was easily distinguished ; while those almost under us— viz,, the Bank and Newgate, the Docks and surrounding buildings, &c., in such detail that their inner courts were visible, and their ground-plans could have been drawn. Cannon-street was easily traced; but it was difficult to believe at first sight that small building to be St. Paul's. Looking onward, Oxford-street was visible; the Parks, the Houses of Parliament, and Millbank Prison, with its radiating lines from the centre, at onccs attracted notice. In fact, the whole of London was visible, and some parts of it very clearly. Then all around there were lines of detached villas, imbedded as it were in shrubs ; and beyond, the country, like a garden, with its fields well marked, but becoming smaller and smaller as the eye wandered further away. "Again looking down, there was the Thames, without the slightest mist, winding throughout its ■whole length, with innumerable ships, apparently very long and narrow, and steamboats like moving toys. Gravesend was visible, as were the mouth of the Thames and the coast leading on to Norfolk. The southern boundary of the mouth of the Thames was not quite so clear, but the sea beyond was discernible for many miles ; and when higher up I looked for the coast of France, but I could not see it. On withdrav/ing the eye it was arrested by the garden-like appearance of the county of Kent, till again London claimed attention. Smoke, thin and blue, was curling above it and slowly moving away in beautiful curves, from all but south of the Thames ; here the smoke was less blue and became apparently inore dense, till the cause was evident, it being mixed with mist rising from the ground, the southern limits of which were bounded by an even line, doubtless indicating the meeting of the subsoils of gravel and clay. "The whole scene was surmounted by a canopy of blue, the sky being quite clear and free from cloud everywhere except near the horizon, where a circular band of cumuli and strata clouds, extending all round, formed afitthig boundary for such a scene. The sun was seen setting, but was not itself visible, except a small part seen through a break in a dark stratus cloud — like an eye overseeing all. Sunset, as seen from the earth, is described as fine, the air being clear and shadows sharply defined. As we rose the golden hues decreased in intensity and richness both right and left of the place of the sun ; but their effects extended to fully one-fourth part of the circle, where rose-coloured clouds limited the scene. The remainder of the circle was completed partly by pure white cumulus of very rounded and symme- trical forms. 1 h.'ive seen London from above by night, and I have seen it by day when four miles high, but nothing could exceed the view on this occasion at the height of one mile, varying to one mile and three-quarters, with a clear atmosphere. The roar of London even at the greatest height, was one unceasing rich and deep sound, and added impressive interest to the general circumstances in which we were placed." BANK OF ENGLAND, THE, S an insulated assemblage of buildings and courts, occupying three acres, minus nine or ten yards, north of the Royal Exchange, Cornhill ; bounded by Prince's-street, west ; I 28 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. Loth bury, north ; Bartholomew -lane, east ; and Threadneedle-street, south. Its exterior measurements are 365 feet south, 410 feet north, 245 feet east, and 440 feet west. Within this area are nine open courts ; a spacious rotunda, numerous public offices, court and committee-rooms, an armoury, engraving and printing-offices, a library, and apartments for officers, servants, &c. The Bank, " the greatest monetary establishment in the world," was projected in 1691, by Mr. William Paterson, a Scotsman; was established by a company of Whig merchants, and incorporated by William III., July 27, 1694, Paterson being placed on the list of Directors for this year only j the then capital, l,2OO,O0OZ., being lent to Government. The first chest used was somewhat larger than a seaman's. The first Governor was Sir John Houblon, whose house and garden were on part of the site of the present Bank ; and the first Deputy-Governor was Michael Godfrey, who, July 17, 1695, was shot at the siege of Namur, while attending King William with a communication relating to the Bank aiFairs. The Bank commenced business at Mercers' Hall, and next removed to Grocers' Hall, then in the Poultry ; at this time the secretaries and clerks numbered but 54, and their united salaries amounted to 4350^. In 1734 they removed to the premises built for the Bank, the earliest portion of which part is still remaining — the back of the Threadneedle-street front, towards the court — was designed by an architect named Sampson. To this building Sir Robert Taylor* added two wings of columns, with projections surmounted by pediments, and other parts. On Jan. 1, 1785, was set up the marble statue of William III., amid the firing of three volleys, by the servants of the establishment, Cheere, sculptor, in the Pay Hall, 79 feet by 40 feet, which, in the words of Baron Dupin, would " startle the administration of a French bureau, with all its inaccessibilities." In 1757, the Bank premises were small, and surrounded by St. Christopher-le-Stocks Church (since pulled down), three taverns, and several private houses. Between 1766 and 1786 east and west wings were added by Taylor : some of his work is to be seen in the architecture of the garden court. Upon Sir Kobert Taylor's death, in 1788, Mr. John Soane was appointed Architect to the Bank ; and, without any interruption to the business, he completed the present Bank of brick and Portland stone, of incom- bustible materials, insulated, one-storied, and without external windows. The general architecture is Corinthian, from the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli, of which the south- west angle exhibits a fac-simile portion. The Lothbury court is fine ; and the chief Cashier's office is from the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome. The embellish- ments throughout are very beautiful ; and the whole well planned for business — high architectural merit. The Rotunda has a dome 57 feet diameter ; .and the Bank Parlour, where the Governor and Company meet, is a noble room by Taylor. Here the Divi- dends are declared ; and here the Directors are baited half-yearly by every Proprietor who has had 500^. Bank-stock in his possession for six months. In the Parlour lobby is a portrait of Daniel Race, who was in the Bank service for more than half a century, and thus amassed upwards of 200,000Z. In the ante-chamber to the Governor's room are fine busts of Pitt and Fox, by Nollekens. The ante-room to the Discount Office is adapted from Adrian's Villa at Tivoli. The private Drawing Office, designed in 1836, by Cockerell (Soane's successor), is original awd scenic ; and the Drawing Office, com- pleted by the same architect in 1849, is 138 feet 6 inches long, and lit by four large circular lanterns. In 1850, the Cornhill front was heightened by an attic ; and a large room fitted up as a Library for the clerks. The entrance to the Bullion Yard is copied from Constantine's Arch at Rome, and has allegories of the Thames and Ganges, by T. Banks, R.A. The Bullion Office, on the northern side of the Bank, consists of a public chamber and two vaults — one for the public deposit of bullion, free of charge, unless weighed ; the other for the private stock of the Bank. The duties are discharged by a Principal, Deputy-Principal, Clerk, Assistant-Clerk, and porters. The public are on no account allowed to enter the Bullion Vaults. Here the gold is kept in bars (each weighing 16 lbs. and worth about * The late Professor Cockerell, in his earlier lectures, used to exhibit, as a specimen of clever arrange- ment, a plan of the triangular block of buildinars, by Sir Kobert Taylor, that formerly stood between the Bank and the Mansion House, where the Wellington Statue is now. BANK OF ENGLAND. 29 800Z.), and the silver in pigs and bars, and dollars in bags. The value of the Bank bullion in May, 1850, was sixteen millions. This constitutes, with their securities, the assets which the Bank possess against their liabilities, on account of circulation and deposits : and the difference between the several amounts is called " the Rest,"- or balance in favour of the Bank. For weighing, admirably-constructed machines are used : the larger one, invented by Mr. Bate, for weighing silver in bars from 50 lbs. to 80 lbs. troy ; second, a balance, by Sir John Barton, for gold ; and a third, by Mr. Bate, for dollars, to amounts not exceeding 72 lbs. 2 oz. troy. Gold is almost ex- clusively obtained by the Bank in the bar form ; although no form of deposit would be refused. A bar of gold is a small slab, weighing 16 lbs., and worth about 8001. In the Weighing Office, established in 1842, to detect light gold, is the ingenious machine invented by Mr. William Cotton, then Deputy-Governor of the Bank. About 80 or 100 light and heavy sovereigns are placed indiscriminately in a round tube j as they descend on the machinery beneath, those which are light receive a slight touch, which moves them into their proper receptacle ; and those which are of legitimate weight pass into their appointed place. The light coins are then defaced by a machine, 200 in a minute; and by the weighing-machinery 35,000 may be weighed in one day. There are six of these machines, which from 1844 to 1849 weighed upwards of 48,000,000 pieces without any inaccuracy. The average amount of gold tendered in one year is nine millions, of which more than a quarter is light. The silver is put up into bags, each of one hundred pounds value, and the gold into bags of a thousand ; and then these bagfuls of bullion are sent through a strongly -guarded door, or rather window, into the Treasury, a dark gloomy apartment, fitted up with iron presses, and made secure with huge locks and bolts. The Bank-note machinery, invented by the Oldhams, father and son, exerts, by the steam-engine, the power formerly employed by the mechanic in pulling a note. The Bank-notes are numbered on the dexter and sinister halves, each bearing the same figures, by Bramah's machines : as soon as a note is printed, and the handle reversed to take it out and put another in its place, a steel spring attached to the handle alters the number to that which should follow. The Clock in the roof is a marvel of mechanism, as it is connected with all the clocks in the Stock offices : the hands of the several dials indicate precisely the same hour and second, by means of connecting brass-rods (700 feet long, and weighing 6 cwt.), and 200 wheels ; the principal weight being 350 lbs. • The Bank has passed through many perils : it has been attacked by rioters, its notes have been at a heavy discount, it has been threatened with impeachment, and its credit has been assailed by treachery. In 1696 (the great re-coinage) the Directors were compelled to suspend the payment of their notes. They then increased their capital to 2,201,27lZ. The Charter has been renewed from 1697 to the present time. The earliest panic, or run, was in 1707, upon the threatened invasion of the Pre- tender. In the run of 1745, the Corporation was saved by their agents demanding payment for notes in sixpences, and who, paying in the same, thus prevented the bond fide holders of notes presenting them. Another memorable run was on February 26, 1797, upon an alarm of invasion by the French, when the Privy Council Order and the Restriction Act prohibited the Bank from paying cash, except for sums under 20*. During the panic of 1825, from the evidence of Mr. Harman before Parliament, it appears that the quantity of gold in the treasury, in December, was under 1,300,000Z. It has since transpired that there was not 100,000?., probably not 50,000Z. ! The Bank then issued one-pound notes, to protect its remaining treasure ; which worked wonders, though by sheer good luck : " because one box containing a quantity of one- pound notes had been overlooked, and they were forthcoming at the lucky moment." Panics have been produced sometimes by extraordinary means. In May, 1832, a " run upon the Bank of England " was produced by the walls of London being placarded with the emphatic words, " To stop the Duke, go for Gold ;" advice which was followed, as soon as given, to a prodigious extent. The Duke of Wellington was then very unpopular ; and on Monday, the 14th of May, it being currently believed that the Duke had formed a Cabinet, the panic became universal, and the run upon the Bank of England for coin was so incessant, that in a few hours upwards of half a million was carried off, Mr. Doubleday, in his Life of Sir Robert Feel, states it to be well known that the above placards were "the device of four gentlemen, two of whom were elected members of the reformed Parliament. Each put down 201. : and the sum thus clubbed was expended in printmg thousands of these terrible missives, 30 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. which were eagerly circulated, and were speedily seen upon every wall in London. The effect is hardly to be described. It was electric," The Bank is the banker of the Government; for here are received the taxes, the interest of the National Debt paid, the Exchequer business transacted, &c. The amount paid by the Government to the Bank for the management of the National Debt is at the rate of 340Z. per million for the first 600,000,000Z,, and SOOl. per million for the remainder. This amounts to about 250,000Z. a year. " The Old Lady of Threadneedle-street," applied to the Bank, is a political sobriquet now almost forgotten. The forgeries upon the Bank supply a melancholy chapter in its history. The first forger of a note was a Stafford linendraper, who, in 1758, was convicted and executed. Through the forgeries of one person, Robert Aslett, the Bank lost 320,000?. ; and by another, Fauntleroy, 360,000?. In 1862, there were forgeries to a large amount, by paper expressly manufactured for the Bank, which had been stolen, for which four persons suffered penal imprisonment. The Committee of Treasury sit weekly, and is composed of all the Directors who have passed the chair. The Accountant, the Secretary, and the Cashier reside within the Bank ; and a certain number of Clerks sit up nightly to go the round of the build- ing, in addition to the military guard. The Bank possesses a very fine collection of ancient coins. Visitors are shown in the old Note Office, paid notes for ten years ; and some bank-notes for large amounts which have passed between the Bank and the Government, including a single note for one million sterling, kept in a frame. Madox, who wrote the History of the HxcTiequer, was first Cashier ; but more popu- larly known was Abraham Newland, Chief-Cashier from 1778 to 1807, who had slept twenty-five years within the Bank, without absenting himself a single night. He signed every note : his name was long remembered in a popular song, " as one that is wrote upon every bank-note," to forge which, in street slang, was to "sham Abraham." In 1852 was placed in the Garden Court a fountain, constructed by the then Go- vernor, Mr. Thomas Hankey. The water is thrown by a single jet, 30 feet high, amongst the branches of two of the finest lime-trees in London, and is part of the Bank system of waterworks. An Artesian well sunk 330 feet — 100 in the chalk — yields soft water, free from lime, and without a trace of organic matter. The water is pumped into the tanks at the top of the building, which contain 50,000 gallons, and the fountain is connected with these tanks j the pumping being by the steam-engine employed also in printing the bank-notes. The fountain is placed on the site of St. Christopher's churchyard. The last person buried there was Jenkins, a Bank clerk, *7\ feet in height, and who was allowed to be buried within the walls of the Bank, to prevent disinterment, on account of his unusual height. There are in the Bank upwards of eight hundred clerks, at salaries ranging from 65?. per annum to 800Z. ; the patronage is in the hands of the directors, of whom there are twenty-four, eacli having a nomination to admit one clerk, provided he be found qualified on examination. The vacancies are not, as in most public ofiices, filled up as they occur by deaths, resignations, &c., but by electing from twenty-five to thirty junior clerks every four or five months ; it is also usual to admit one-fifth of this num- ber from the sons of clerks already in the service. The scale of pensions for length of service is the same as in the Government offices. Among the Curiosities are the bank-note autograph-books — two splendidly-bound folio volumes, each leaf embellished with an illuminated border, exactly surroimding the space required to attach a bank-note. When any distinguished visitor arrives he is requested to place his autograph to an unsigned note, which is immediately pasted over one of the open spaces. They are thus illustrated by the signatures of various royal and noble personages. That of Napoleon III., Henry V., the Kings of Sweden, Portugal, and Prussia, a whole brigade of German Princes, Ambassadors from Siam, Persia, Turkey — the latter in Oriental characters— and some of our higher nobility. There are some scientific names, but few Utcrary celebrities; among them those of Lady Sale; and Mehemet Ali, the Pasha of Egypt. BANK OF ENGLAND. 31 " The circulation of the Bank of England has been stationary or slightly retrogressive for some years past, notwithstanding the increase of trade, wealth, and population. The authorities even of the Cur- rency principle no longer insist upon tlie variations of the bank-note circulation as the symptoms to be chiefly regarded. They, with the rest of the world, have discovered that the state of the banking reserve at the Bank of England, the condition of credit, and the effects of a high or low rate of interest, are the circnrastances which really control the financial phenomena of the country from week to week and month to month." — Economist. Upwards of a million is paid into the Bank daily, in the shape of notes. When' cashed a corner is torn off, and this now valueless piece of paper, after being duly entered in the books, is deposited in chambers beneath the sorting-room, where it is kept ten yeai*s, in case it may be required as testimony at some future trial, or to settle any other legal difficulties. In one of the court-yards of the building is a large circular cage, within which is an octagonal furnace constructed of bricks, laid only half over each other, so as to afford ample ventilation. In this furnace, once a month, all the notes that were received during the month previous ten years back are consumed. The furnace is five feet high, by at least ten in diameter ; yet we are assured that it is completely filled by the number retunied during one month. Jfotes of the Bank, at its establishment, 20 per cent, discount ; in 1745 under par. Bank Bills paid in silver, in 1745. Bank Post Bills first issued, 1754. Small Notes issued, 1759. Cash payments dis- continued, Feb. 25, 1797, and Notes of \l. and 21. put into circulation. Cash payments partially resumed, Sept. 22, 1817. Eestriction altogether ceased, 1821. May 14, 1832, upwards of 300,000^. weighed and paid to bankers and others. Quakers and Hebrews not eligible as Directors. Qualification for Director, 2000Z. Bank Stock; Deputy-Governor, 3000/. ; Governor. 4000Z. Highest price of Bank Stock, 299; lowest 91. The Bank has paid Dividends at the rate of 21 per cent., and as low as 4^ per cent, per annum. Silver Tokens issued, Jan., 179S. Issue on paper securities not permitted to exceed 14,000,000Z. Capital punishment for forgery, excepting only forgeries of wills and powers of attorney, abandoned in 1832. — (See Francis's popular History of the Bank of England, 3rd edit. 1848.) 1852, Oct. 1, West-end Branch opened at Uxbridge Hoiise, Burlington Gardens. The total of deposits held ten years ago by the Bank of England was about 14,300,000^. ; it is now (1866) 20,140,000^. In the Riots of 1780, the Bank was defended by military, the City volunteers, and the officers of the establishment, when the old inkstands were cast into bullets. It was at- tacked by the mob, when Wilkes rushed out and seized some of the ringleaders. Since this date a military force has been stationed nightly within the Bank ; a dinner is pro- vided for the officer on guard and two friends. (See a clever sketch in Melibceus in London^ In the political tumult of November, 1830, provisions were made at the Bank for a state of siege. At the Chartist Demonstration of April 10, 1848, the roof of the Bank was fortified by Sappers and Miners, and a strong garrison within. The Bank has now its own company of Rifles, 150 strong, with two subdivisions each, having a lieutenant and ensign, and fully armed and equipped. BANKSIBE. THAT part of the Liberiy of Paris Garden called by old writers the "Bank" simply, and afterv;ards Bankside, bordering on the Thames, was the site of several early theatres, namely, the Globe, the Hope, the Rose, and the Swan -, and superseded the circus for " Bull-bayting" and " Bear-baiting," shown in Aggas's Map, about 1560. {See Theatres.) The stews here were as old as the reign of Henry II., and in the time of Richard II. belonged to Sir William Walworth who slew Wat Tyler, who had several stew-houses on the Bankside. They had signs painted on the walls ; as a Boar's Head, the Cross Keys, the Gun, the Castle, the Cranes, the Cardinal's Hat, the Bell, the Swan, &c. These stews, which were regulated by Parliament, were put down by sound of trumpet in 1546; about 1506 this part was known as Stews-bank. Bears were baited here from a very early period, but the bear-garden was removed to Clerkenwell about 1686; the site at Bankside is now occupied by the Eagle iron foundry and Bear-garden wharf. In 1720, the Bank was chiefly inhabited by dyers, " for the conveniency of the water." In the reigns of Queen Elizabeth and James I., Edward AUeyn, the founder of Dulwich College, kept the garden on the Bankside, in conjunction with his father-in-law, Philip Henslowe, who was originally a dyer here. Here were the Bishop of Winchester's park and garden and palace : of the latter a fragment remains ; and here is " Cardinal's Cap-alley," and " Pike-garden." 32 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. BARBICAN, THIS old street, which is a portion of the line of thoroughfare, eastward from West Smithfield to Finsbnry-square, is named from its proximity to a barbican, or watch-tower, attached to the City wall, the remains of which were visible within the last eighty years. It was the advanced post of Cripplegate; and, like the others that surrounded the City, was intrusted to some person of consequence in the State. This tower was granted by Edward III. to the Earl of Suffolk, and he made it his town re- sidence. After the removal of the City gates all vestiges of the Barbican dis- appeared, except its name ; this became applied to the street, which R, B., in Strype, describes as " a good broad street, well inhabited by tradesmen, especially by salesmen for apparel both new and old ; and, fronting Redcross-street, is the watcbhouse, where formerly stood a watch-tower called Burgh, and Ken, a place to view or ken from," which is the derivation given by Sir Henry Spelman, the antiquary, who resided in this street at the time of his death in 1640. Camden, in his Britannia (published 1586), says : " The suburb also which runs out on the north-west side of London is large, and had formerly a watch-tower or military fence, from whence it came to be called by an ArabicJc name — Barbacan." The tower is described as built on high ground, and of some good height : from thence " a man," says Stow, " might behold and view the whole city towards the south, and also into Kent, Sussex, and Surrey, and likewise every other way, east, north, or west." Mr. Godwin, F.S.A., in 1850 read to the British Archaeological Association an ingenious paper illustrative of the term Barbican. Milton lived here, 1646-7, in a house, No. 17, on the north side of the street : it was taken down in 1 864. In Barbican was the mansion of the poet's early patrons, the Bridgewater family; and here lived Sir Thomas Wriothesley, Garter King-at-arms; whence Bridgewater-square, Brackley-street, and Garter-court. Beech-street, the east continuation of Barbican, was, peradventure, named from Nicholas de la Beech, Lieu- tenant of the Tower of London, temp. Edward III. Here, in Drury House, lived Prince Rupert. Its remains in 1766 were engraved by J. T. Smith. Barbican was, in 1865-6, in part taken down, to make room for the Metropolitan (Extension to Finsbury) Railway. BAETSOLOMHTF FAIR, THIS ancient Fair presents, through its seven centuries' existence, many phases of our social history with such graphic force, that " he may run that readeth it." The Fair originated in two Fairs, or Markets, one begun by a grant of land from Henry I. to his jester, Rayer, or Rahere, who founded a Priory to St. Bartholomew, in West Smith field, previous to which, however, a market called "the King's Market," had been held near Smithfield. Out of the two elements, the concourse of pilgrims to the Miraculous Shrine of St. Bartholomew, and the concourse of traders to the King's Market, Bartholomew Fair grew up. Rayer's miracles were most ingenious, for he cured a woman who could not keep her tongue in her mouth : if the wind went down, as sailors far at sea were praying to the denuded saint, they called it a miracle, and presented, in procession, a silver ship at the Smithfield shrine. The forged miracles gave way to the imitative jugglers and mastery players; and these three ele- ments — the religious, the dramatic, and the commercial — flowed on till the Refor- mation. The Priory Fair, which was proclaimed on the Eve of St. Bartholomew, and con- tinued during the next day, and the next morrow, was granted for the clothiers of England and the drapers of London, who had their booths and standings within the Priory churchyard (the site now Cloth Fair), the gates of which were locked every night, and watched, for the safety of the goods and wares. Within its limits was held a court of justice, named Pie Poudre, from pieds poudreux — dusty feet — by which, persons infringing upon the laws of the Fair, its disputes, debts, and legal obligations, &c., were tried the same day, and the punishment of the stocks, or whipping-post. ( BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 33 summarily inflicted ; and this court was held, to the last, at the Hand and Sheai's, Cloth Fair, by the Steward of the Lord of the Manor. " Thus we have in the most ancient times of the Fair, a church full of worshippers, among whom were the sick and maimed, praying for health about its altar ; a graveyard full of traders, and a place of jest- ing and edification, where women and men caroused in the midst of the throng ; where the minstrel anb the story-teller and the tumbler gathered knots about them ; where the sheriff caused new laws to de published by loud proclamation in the gathering places of the people; where the young men bowled at nine-pins, while the clerks and friars peeped at the young maids ; where mounted knights and ladies curvetted and ambled, pedlars loudly magnified their wares, the scholars met for public wrangle, oxen lowed, horses neighed, and sheep bleated among their buyers; where great shouts of laughter answered to the ' Ho ! ho r of the devil on the stage, above which flags were flying, and below which a band of pipers and guitar bearers added music to the din. That stage also, if ever there was presented on it the story of the Creation, was the first Wild Beast Show in the Fair; for one of the dramatic effects connected with this play, as we read in an ancient stage direction, was to represent the creation of beasts by unloosing and sending among the excited crowd as great a variety of strange animals as could be brought together, and to create the birds by sending up a flight of pigeons. Under foot was mud and filth, but the wall that pent the city in shone sunlit among the trees, a fresh breeze came over the surrounding fields and brooks, whispering among the elms that overhung the moor glittering with pools, or from the Fair's neighbour, the gallows. Shaven heads looked down on the scene from the adjacent windows of the buildings bordering the Priory inclosure, and the poor people whom the friars cherished in their hospital, mada holiday among the rest. The curfew bell of St. Martin's-le- Grand, the religious house to which William the Conqueror had given with its charter the adjacent moorland, and within whose walls there was a sanctuary for loose people, stilled the hum of the crowd at nightfall, and the Fair lay dark under the starlight."— JLfemoirs of Bartholomew Fair. By Henry Morley. 1858. After the Reformation, Bartholomew Fair flourished with unabated vigour, the clergy having no longer any interest in veiling its debaucheries. The Priory, together with the rights formerly exercised by the monks, had been granted to the founder of the Rich family, who was Solicitor-General to Henry VIII., and afterwards Lord Chancellor ; they were enjoyed by his descendants till the year 1830, when they were purchased from Lord Kensington by the Corporation of London. The Fair greatly declined, as a cloth fair, from the reign of Queen Elizabeth ; and the mysteries and moralities being succeeded by productions more nearly resembling the regular drama, the Corporation granted licences to mountebanks, conjurors, &c., and allowed the Fair to be extended to fourteen days, the Sword-bearer and other City officers being paid out of the emolu- ments. Hentzner, in 1578, describes a tent pitched for the proclamation of the Fair, and wrestling after the ceremony, with the crowd hunting wild rabbits, for the sport of the Mayor and Aldermen. Here was also formerly a burlesque proclamation on the night before, by the drapers of Cloth Fair snapping their shears and loudly shouting all through Smithfield. Ben Jonson, in his play of Bartholomew Fath, tell us of its motions, or puppet- shows, of Jerusalem, Nineveh, and Norwich ; and the " Gunpowder Plot, presented to an eighteen or twenty pence audience nine times in an afternoon." The showman paid three shillings for his ground ; and a penny was charged for every burden of goods and little bundle brought in or carried out. A rare tract, of the year 1641, describes the " variety of Fancies, the Faire of Wares, and the several enormityes and mis- demeanours" of the Fair of that period. At these, the sober-minded Evelyn was shocked. Pepys (Aug. 30, 1667) found at the Fair " my Lady Castlemaine at a puppet-show," her coach waiting, " and the street full of people expecting her." The sights and shows included wild beasts, dwarfs, and other monstrosities ; operas, and tight-rope dancing, and sarabands ; dogs dancing the Morrice, and the hare beating the tabor ; a tiger pulling the feathers from live fowls ; the humours of Punchinello, and drolls of every degree. An ox roasted whole, and piping-hot roast pig, sold in savoury lots, were among the Fair luxuries : the latter, called Bartholomew Pigs, were railed at by the Puritans, and eating them was " a species of idolatry." The pig- market was at Pye Corner, and pig was not out of fashion in Queen Anne's time. Among the celebrities of the Fair was Tom Dogget, the old comic actor, who " wore a farce in his face," and was famous for dancing the Cheshire Round. One Ben Jonson, the actor, was celebrated as the grave-digger in Hamlet, in which he intro- duced a song preserved in Durfey's Pills. Tom Walker, the original Macheath, was another Bartholomew hero. William Bullock, from York, is alluded to by Steele, in The Father, and is censured for " gagging :" in 1739 he had the largest booth in the Fair. Theophilus Cibber was of the Fair, but there is no evidence that Colley Cibber ever appeared there. Cadman, the famous flyer on the rope, immortalized by Hogarth, D 34 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. was a constant exhibitor at Bartholomew, as well as Southwark Fair. William Phillips was a famous Merry Andrew, and some time fiddler to a puppet-show, in which he held many a dialogue with Punch. Edward Phillips wrote Britons Strike Some for the Pair ; and Kitty Clive played at the booth of Fawkes, Winchbeck, &c., in that very farce. Harlequin Phillips was in Mrs. Lee's company, and afterwards became the celebrated Harlequin at Drury-lane, under Fleetwood. Penkethman and Dogget, though of very unequal reputation, are noticed in the Spectator. The first in that humorous account of the Projector, in the 31st number, where it is proposed that " Penkethman should personate King Poms upon an elephant, and be encountered by Powell, representing Alexander the Great, upon a dromedary, which, nevertheless, Mr. Powell is desired to call by the name of Bucephalus." Dogget is commended (No. 502) as an admirable and genuine actor. The public theatres were invariably closed at Bartholomew Fair time ; drolls, like Estcourt and Penkethman, finding Bartholomew Fair a more profitable arena for their talents than the boards of Dorset-garden or old Drury-lane. Here Elkanah Settle, the rival for years of Dryden, was reduced at last to string speeches and con- trive machinery J and here, in the droll of St. George for England, he made his last appearance, hissing in a green leather dragon of his own invention. Here we may mention another class of sights, — " a large and beautiful young camel from Grand Cairo, in Egypt," says the advertisement : " this creature is twenty-three years old ; his head and neck are like that of a deer," and he " was to be seen or sold at the first house on the pavement from the end of Hosier-lane, during Bartholomew Fair." And we read that later. Sir Hans Sloane employed a draughtsman to sketch the wonderful foreign animals in the Fair. There are scores of other Bartholomew celebrities — actors, mummers, tumblers, nonjurors, and exhibitors of various grades, as Burling and his famous monkey; William Joy, the English Samson ; Francis Battalia, the Stone Eater ; Topham, the Strong Man ; Hale, the Piper ; the Auctioneer of Moorfields, who regularly, for a series of years, transferred his book-stall to Smithfields Bounds ; James Spiller, the original Mat o' the Mint of the Beggar's Opera, at one time the " glory of the Fair :" this piece was played at Smithfield in 1728. Punchinello was another Bartholomew attraction : — " 'Twas then, when Auffust near was spent. That Bat, the grilliado'd saint, Had ushered iii his Smithfield revels, "Where Fujichinellos, popes and devils. Are by authority allowed. To please the giddy, gaping crowd." Hudibras Eedivivus, 1707. Powell, too, the Puppet-show man, was a great card at the Fair, especially when his puppets played such incomparable dramas as Whittington and his Cat, The Children in the Wood, Dr. Faustus, Friar Bacon, Mohin Hood and Little John, Mother Shipton, " together with the pleasant and comical humours of Valentini, Nicolini, and the tuneful warbling pig of Italian race." No wonder that such attractions thinned the theatres, and kept the churches empty. Steele makes mention of " Powell's books if they were books of his performances, what a treasure they would be in our day ! | The two great characters of Jewish history — Judith and Holophernes — long kept in j popular favour; for Setchel's fan-print of 1728 depicts Lee and Harper's great] theatrical booth, with an announcement of the play of Judith's Adventures as its chief j attraction : elevated from puppet performers to regular living actors, Judith herself j being seated on the platform of the show in a magnificent dress, and the high head- dress and false jewellery that captivated the wicked Holophernes, who strides towards] her in the full costume of a Roman general. Among Bagford's collection in the British Museum, is a Bartholomew Fair bill of I the time of Queen Anne, of the playing at Heatly's booth, of "a little opera, called] the Old Creation of the World newly revived, with the addition of the Glorious battle] obtained over the French and Spaniards by his Grace the Duke of Marlborough P* ' Between the acts, jigs, sarabands, and antics were performed, and the whole entertain- ment concluded with The Merry Humours of Sir John Spendall and Punchinello ; j BARTHOLOMEW FAIR. 35 tvith several other things not yet exposed'' Heatly is supposed to have had no better scenery than the pasteboard properties of our early theatres : — " The chaos, too, he had descried And seen quite through, or else he lied; Not that of pasteboard which men shew For groats at Fair of Barthol'mew."— ^wiiJrcw, canto i. Henry Fielding had his booth here. Dr. Rimbault tells us, after his admission into the Middle Temple. That Fielding should have turned " strolling actor," and have the audacity to appear at Bartholomew at the very moment when the whole town was ringing with Pope's savage ridicule of the " Smithfield Muses," would of com'se be an unpardonable offence. Fielding's last appearance at Bartholomew Fair was in 1736, as usual, in the George Inn Yard, at " Fielding and Hippisley's Booth." Don Carlos and the Cheats of Scapin, adapted from Moliere, were the two plays ; and Mrs. Pritchard played the part of Loveit, in which she had made her first hit at Bartholomew. Other celebrities, who kept up the character of the Fair for another quarter of a century, were Yates, Lee, Woodward, and Shuter, the two last well known for their connexion with Goldsmith's comedies. Shuter played Croaker in the Good- natured Man, and Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer. Woodward played Lofty in the former piece. With Shuter, " the history of the English stage " (says Mr. Morley) *' parted entirely from the story of the Fair." Garrick's name is connected only with the Fair by stories which regard him as . a visitor : although Edmund Kean is stated to have played here when a boy. Among the notorieties of the Fair was Lady Holland's Mob (Lord Rich having been ancestor of the Earl of Warwick and Holland), — hundreds of loose fellows, principally journeyman tailors, who used to assemble at the Hand and Shears, in Cloth Fair. They were accustomed to sally forth knocking at the doors and ringing the bells of the peaceable inhabitants, and assaulting and ill-treating passengers. These ruf- fians frequently united in such strength as to defy the civil power. As late as 1822, a number of them exceeding 5000 rioted in Skinner-street, and were for hours too powerful for the police. The Fair was annually proclaimed by the Lord Mayor, on the 2nd of September, his lordship proceeding thither in his gilt coach, " with City Officers and trumpets ;" and the proclamation for the purpose read before the entrance to Cloth Fair. It was the custom for the Lord Mayor, on this occasion, to call upon the keeper of Newgate, and partake, on his way to Smithfield, of " a cool tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar." This custom, which ceased in the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood in 1818, was the cause of the death of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor in 1688. In holding the tankard, he let the lid slip down with so much force, that his horse started, and he was thrown to the ground with great violence. He died the next day. The Fair dwindled year by year : the writer remembers it at midnight, before gas had become common : viewed from Richardson's, the shows, booths, and stalls, with their flaring oil-lamps and torches, shed a strange glare over the vast sea of heads which filled the area of Smithfield and the adjacent streets. As lately as 1830, upwards of 200 booths for toys and gingerbread crowded the pavement around the Fair, and over- flowed into the adjacent streets. Richardson, Saunders, and Wombwell were late in the ascendant as showmen. Among the latest " larks " was that of young men of caste disguising themselves in working clothes, to enjoy the loose delights of "Bartlemy" Fair, in September. For 300 years the Lord Mayor and Aldermen had in vain attempted to suppress the Fair ; when, in 1840, upon the recommendation of the City Solicitor, Mr. Charles Pearson, having purchased Lord Kensington's interest, they refused to let the ground for the shows and booths but upon exorbitant prices, and limited the Fair to one day ; and the State proclamation of the Lord Mayor was given up. In 1849, the Fair was reduced to one or two stalls for gingerbread, gambling-tables for nuts, a few fruit- barrows and toy-stalls, and one puppet-show. In 1852, the number was still less. "The Mayors had withdrawn the formality as much as possible from public observation, until in the year 1850, and in the mayoralty of Alderman Musgrove, his lordship having walked quietly to the appointed gateway, with the necessary attendants, found that there was not any Fair left worth a Mayor's proclaiming. After that year, therefore, no Mayor accompanied the gentleman whose duty it D 2 86 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. was to read a certain form of words out of a certain parchment scroll, under a quiet gateway. After five years this form also was dispensed with, and Bartholomew Fair was proclaimed for the last time in the year 1855. The sole existing vestige of it is the old fee of three and sixpence still paid by the City to the Kector of St. Bartholomew the Great, for a proclamation in his ■parish."— Morley. It was held that the proclamation was part of the charter for holding the market, on which account it continued to he read, until the Act of Parliainent for removing the market to Copenhagen-fields at length relieved the Corporation of going through the useless ceremony. Hone, in his JEvery-day Book, describes the Bartholomew Fair of 1825, with the minuteness of Dutch painting : Hone visited the several sights and shows, accom- panied by Samuel Williams, by whom the wood-cut illustrations were cleverly drawn and engraved. Mr. Morley's History of the Fair, which has been referred to, is a laborious work, with some original views. BAETHOLOMJETf^'S (ST.) SOSPITAL, IN West Smithfield, is one of the five Royal Hospitals of the City, and the first institution of the kind established in the metropolis. It was originally a portion of the Priory of St. Bartholomew, founded by Rahere, in 1102, who obtained from Henry I. a piece of waste ground, upon which he built an hospital for a master, brethren and sisters, sick pers?ons, and pregnant women. Both the Priory and the Hospital were surrendered to Henry VIII., who, at the petition of Sir Richard Gresham, Lord Mayor, and father of Sir Thomas Gresham, re-founded the latter, and endowed it with an annual revenue of 500 marks, the City agreeing to pay an equal sum ; since which time the Hospital has received princely benefactions from charitable persons. It was first placed under the superintendence of Thomas Vicary, sergeant-surgeon to Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth ; Harvey was physician to the Hos- pital for thirty- four years; and here, in 1619, he first lectured on the discovery of the Circulation of the Blood. The Hospital buildings escaped the Great Fire in 1666 ; but becoming ruinous, were taken down in 1730, and the great quadrangle rebuilt by Gibbs ; over the en- trance next Smithfield is a statue of Henry VIII., and under it, " St. Bartholomew's Hospital, founded by Rahere, a.d. 1102, re-founded by Henry VIIl., 1546;" on the pediment are two reclining figures of Lameness and Sickness. The cost of these buildings was defrayed by public subscription, to which the munificent Dr. Radclifie contributed largely ; besides leaving 500Z. a year for the improvement of the diet, and lOOZ. a year to buy linen. The principal entrance, next Smithfield, was erected in 1V02 ; it is of poor architectural character. The Museums, Theatres, and Library of the Hospital are very extensive ; as is also the New Surgery, built in 1842. The Lectures of the present day were established by Mr. Abernethy, elected Assistant-Surgeon in 1787. Prizes and honorary distinc- tions for proficiency in medical science were first established in ] 834 ; and their annual distribution in May is an interesting scene. In 1843 was founded a Collegiate Establishment for the pupils' residence within the Hospital walls. A spacious Casu- alty Room has since been added. The interior of the Hospital, besides its cleanly and well-regulated wards, has a grand staircase ; the latter painted by Hogarth, for which he was made a life-governor. The subjects are — the Good Samaritan ; the Pool of Bethesda ; Rahere, the founder, laying the first stone ; and a sick man carried on a bier, attended by monks. In the Court Room is a picture of St. Bartholomew holding a knife, as the symbol of his martyrdom; a portrait of Henry VIII. in Holbein's manner ; of Dr. Radclifie, by Kneller ; Perceval Pott, by Reynolds ; and of Abernethy, by Lawrence. In January, 1846, the election of Prince Albert to a Governorship of the Hospital was commemorated by the president and treasurer presenting to the foundation three costly silver-gilt dishes, each nearly twenty-four inches in diameter, and richly chased with a bold relief of^l. The Election of the Prmce; 2. The Good Samaritan; 3. The Plague of London. The Charity is ably managed by the Corporation : the president must have served as Lord Mayor; the qualification of a Governor is a donation of 100 guineas. I BATES, OLDEN. 37 " From a search made in the official records of the City, it appears that for more than three hundred years, namely, since 1549, an alderman of London had always been elected president of St. Bartholomew's Hospital; until 1854, whenever a vacancy occurred in the presidency of the Royal Hospitals (St. Bartholomew's, Bethlehem, Bridewell, St. Thomas's, or Christ's Hospitals), it was customary to elect the Lord Mayor for the time beinpr, or an alderman who had passed the chair. This rule was first broken when the Duke of Cambridge was chosen President of Christ's Hospital over the head of Alderman Sidney, the then Lord Mayor ; and again when Mr. Cubitt, then no longer an alderman, was elected President of St. Bartholomew's in preference to the then Lord Mayor. This question is, how- ever, contested by the foundation-governors or the Corporation, and the donation-governors." It has been shown that King Henry VIII. in 1546 vested the Hospital of St. Bartholomew in the mayor, commonalty, and citizens of London, and their successors, for ever, in consideration of a payment by them of 500 marks a year towards its maintenance, and with it the nomination and appointment of all the officers. In September, 1557, at a general court of the Governors of all the Hospitals, it was ordered that St. Bartholomew's should henceforth be united to the rest of the Hospitals, and be made one body with them, and on the following day ordinances were made by the Corporation for the general government of all the Hospitals. The 500 marks a year have been paid by the Corporation since 1546, besides the profit of many valuable leases. This charity has an existence of nearly seven centuries and a half. The Hospital receives, upon petition, cases of all kinds free of fees; and accidents, or cases of urgent disease, without letter, at the Surgery, at any hour of the day or night. There is also a " Samaritan Fund," for relieving distressed patients. The present buildings contain 25 wards, consisting of 650 beds, 400 being for surgical cases, and 250 for medical cases and the diseases of women. Each ward is presided over by a " sister" and nurses, to the number of nearly 180 persons. In addition to a very ex- tensive medical staff, there are four resident surgeons and two resident apothecaries, who are always on duty, day and night, throughout the year, to attend to whatever may be brought in at any hour of the twenty-four. It further possesses a College within itself, a priceless museum ; and a first-class Medical School, conducted by thirty- six professors and assistants. The "View-day," for this and the other Royal Hospitals of the City, is a day specially set apart by the authorities to examine, in their official collective capacity, every portion of the establishment ; when the public are admitted. BATHS, OLBBN. THE most ancient Bath in the metropolis is " the old Roman Spring Bath'^ in Strand-lane ; but evidently unknown to Stow, though he mentions the locality as " a lane or way down to the landing-place on the banks of the Thames." This Bath is in a vaulted chamber, and is formed of thin tile-like brick, layers of cement and rubble-stones, all corresponding with the materials of the Roman wall of London ; the water is beautifully clear and extremely cold. The property can be traced to the Danvers, or D'Anvers, family, of Swithlaiid Hall, Leicestershire, whose mansion stood upon the spot. St. Agnes-le-Clair Baths, Tabernacle-square, Finsbury, are supposed originally to have been of the above age, from finding the Roman tiles through which the water was once conveyed. Stow mentions them as " Dame Anne's the clear." The date assigned to these Baths is 1502. This famous spring was dedicated to St. Agnes ; and, from tlie transparency and salubrity of its waters, denominated St. Agnes-le- Clair. It has claims to antiquity, for it appears that in the reign of Henry VIII. it was thus named : — " Fons voc" JDame Agnes a Clere." It is described as belonging to Charles Stuart, late king of England. This spring was said to be of great efficacy in all rheumatic and nervous cases, headache, &c. Peerless Pooly Baldwin-street, City-road, is referred to by Stow as near St. Agnes-le- Clair, and " one other clear water, called Perilous Pond, because divers youths, by swimming therein, have been drowned ;" but this ominous name was change to Peerless Pool ; in 1743, it was enclosed, and converted into a bathing-place. The Cold Bath, Clerkemoell, was originally the property of one Walter Baynes, who purchased a moiety of the estate, in 1696 ; when it comprised Windmill-hill, or Sir John Oldcastle's Field, extending westward from Sir John Oldcastle's to the River CUBIOSITIES OF LONDON. Fleet, or, as it was then called, Turiimill-brook ; and southward, by Coppice-row, to the same brook, near the Clerks' Wells : while Gardiner's Farm was the plot on which stands the Middlesex House of Correction. Baynes's attention was first directed to the Cold Spring, which, in 1697, he converted into a Bath, spoken of, eleven years afterwards, in Hatton's New View, as " the most noted and Jirst about London," wliich assertion, written so near the time at which it states the origin of our Cold Bath, disproves the story of its having been the bath of Nell Gwynn, whom a nude figure, on porcelain, preserved by the proprietor, is said to represent. In Mr. Baynes's time, the charge for bathing was 2s. : or, in the case of patients who, from weakness, required the " chair," 2^. 6d. The chair was suspended from the ceiling, iu such a manner that a person placed in it could be thereby lowered into the water, and drawn up again in the same way. The spring was at the acme of its reputation in 1700. Of its utility, in cases of weakness more especially, there can be no ques- tion. Besides which, its efiicacy is stated in the cure of scorbutic complaints, nervous afiections, rheumatism, chronic disorders, &c. It is a chalybeate, and deposits a saline incrustation. The spring is said to supply 20,000 gallons daily. The height to which it rises in the marble receptacles prepared for it, is four feet seven inches. Until the sale of the estate in 1811, the Bath House, with the garden in which it stood, comprised an area of 103 feet by 60, enclosed by a brick wall, with a summer- house (resembling a little tower) at each angle : the house had several gables. The garden was let on building-leases, and the whole is now covered with houses, the Bath remaining in the midst. In 1815, the exterior of the Bath House was nearly all taken down, leaving only a small portion of its frontage, which it still retains. The Duke's Bath, or Bagnio, is minutely described by Samuel Haworth, in 1683, as " erected near the west end of Long Acre, in that spot of ground called Salisbury Stables." Here dwelt Sir William Jennings, who obtained the royal patent for making all public bagnios or baths, either for sweating, bathing, or washing. " In one of the ante-rooms hangs a pair of scales, to weigh such as out of curiosity would know how much they lose in weight while they are in the bagnio. The bagnio itself is a stately oval edifice, with a cupola roof, in which are round glasses to let in light. The cupola is supported by eight columns, between which and the sides is a * sumptuous walk,' arched over with brick. The bagnio is paved with marble, and has a marble table ; the sides are covered with white gully-tiles, and within the wall were ten seats, such as are in the baths at Bath. There are also fourteen niches in the walls, in which are placed so many fonts or bashis, with cocks over them of hot or cold water. On one side of the bagnio hangs a very handsome pendulum-clock, which is kept to give an exact account how time passeth away. Adjoining to the bagnio there are four little round rooms, about eight feet over, which are made for degrees of heat, some being hotter, others colder, as persons can best bear and are pleased to use. These rooms are also covered with cupolas, and their walls with gully-tiles." We refer the reader to Haworth's account for the details of "the entertainment," as the bath is termed. On the east side of the Bagnio fronting the street, is •* The Duke's Bagnio Coffee- house." A great gate opens into a courtyard, for coaches. In this courtyard is visible- the front of the Bagnio, having this inscription upon it in golden letters, upon a carved stone : — " The Duke's Bagnio." On the left of the yard is a building for the accom- modation required for the bath, on the outside of which is inscribed in like manner — « The Duke's Bath." The building is about 42 feet broad, 21 feet deep, and three stories high. There is on the lower story a room for a laboratory, in which are chemic furnaces, glasses, and other instruments necessary for making the bath waters. On the accession of the Duke of York to the throne, the Baths were improved, and re- opened, under the name of the " King's Bagnio," in 1686, by Leonard Cunditt, who, in his advertisement, says — " There is no other Bagnio in or about London besides this and the Boyal Bagnio in the City." This, Malcolm supposes, was in allusion to the Bagnio we shall next describe, which seems to have been the first we had in the capital. TJie Bagnio, in Bagnio-court (altered to Bath-street in 1843), Newgate-street, was built by Turkish merchants, and first opened in December, 1679, for sweating, hot bathing, and cupping. It has a cupola roof, marble steps, and Dutch tile walls, and was latterly used as a cold Bath. I BATHS, OLDEN. 39 Queen Anne's Bath was at the back of the house No. 3, Endell-street, Long-acre, on the west side of the street. It has been converted into a wareroom by an iron- monger whose shop is in the front of the premises. The part occupied by the water has been boarded over, leaving some of the Dutch tiles which line the sides of the Bath visible. The water, which flows from a copious spring, is a powerful tonic, and contains a considerable trace of iron. Thirty years ago it was much used in the neighbourhood, when it was considered good for rheumatism and other disorders. The house in which the Bath is situate was formerly No. 3, Old Belton-street : it was newly-fronted in 1845 ; the exterior had originally red brick pilasters, and a cornice, in the style of Inigo Jones. It does not seem clear how this place obtained the name of Queen Anne's Bath. It might be supposed that this had been a portion of the King's Bagnio. Old maps of London, however, show this could scarcely be correct, for the Duke's, afterwards the King's Bagnio was on the south side of Long-acre, and the above Bath is about a hundred yards to the north of that thoroughfare. " Queen Anne's Bath" is engraved from a recent sketch in the Builder, Oct. 12, 1861 ; whence the preceding details of the three Baths are abridged. The BCummums, in Covent- garden, now an hotel, with baths, was formerly *'a Bagnio, or Place for Sweating ;" in Arabic " Hammam.'* Malcolm says : " The Arabic root hama, \.^^, signifies calescere, to grow warm : hence by the usual process of deriv- ing nouns from verbs in that language, hummum, ^,^», a warm bath. They are known by that name all over the East." The Bagnio at the hot Baths at Sophia, in Turkey, is thus described by Lady Mary Wortley Montague, in her Letters, vol, i., and probably her description suggested the name of the Old and New Hummums :" — " It is built of stone, in the shape of a dome, with no window but in the roof, which gives light enough. There are five of these domes joined together ; the outermost being less than the rest, and serving as a hall, where the portress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally gave this woman a crown or ten shillings. The next room was a large one, paved with marble, and all round it are two raised sofas of marble, one above the other. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins, and then running on the floor in little channels cut for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, which is something less, and fitted with the same sort of marble sofas; but from the streams of sulphur proceeding from the bath adjoining to it, it is impossible to stay with one's clothes on. Through the other two doors were the hot baths; one of which had cocks of cold water turned into it— tempering it to what degree of warmth the bather please to have." Queen JElizaheth's Bath formerly stood among a cluster of old buildings adjoining the King's Mews, at Charing Cross, and was removed in 1831. Of this Bath a plan and view were presented to the Society of Antiquaries, Feb. 9, 1832, and are engraved in the Archceologia, XXV. 588-90. The building was nearly square on the plan, and was constructed of fine red brick. Its chief merit consisted in its groined roof, which was of very neat workmanship, and formed by angular ribs springing from corbels. The form of the arch denoted the date of this building to be the fifteenth century. The Floating Baths (of which there were two in our day) upon the Thames, in plan remind one of the Folly described by Tom Brown as a " musical summer-house," usually anchored opposite Somerset House Gardens. The Queen of William III. and her court once visited it ; but it became a scene of low debauchery, and the bath build- ing was left to decay, and be taken away for firewood. The Turkish Bath, which closely resembles the Bath of the old Eomans, was introduced into Ireland and England in 1856 : and in London handsome baths were erected in Victoria-street, Westminster; those were taken down in 1855-6. Tlie most extensive establishment of this class in London is the Hammam, or hot-air Batli, opened in 1862, No. 76, Jermyn-street, St. James's, and formed under the superintendence of Mr. David Urquhart j its cost is stated at 6000Z. j the architecture is from Eastern sources. Baths and WAsn-noiiSES, for the working classes, originated in 1844, with an " Association for Promoting Cleanliness among the Poor," who fitted up a Bath-house and a Laundry in Glass-house Yard, East Smithfield; where, in the year ending June 1847, the bathers, washers, and ironers amounted to 84,584; the bathers and washers costing about one penny each, and the ironers about one farthing. The Association also gave whitewash, and lent pails and brushes, to those willing to cleanse their own wretched dwellings. And so strong was the love of cleanliness thus encouraged, that 40 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. women often toiled to wash their own and their children's clothing, who had heen com- pelled to sell their hair to purchase food to satisfy the cravings of hunger. This successfial experiment led to the passing of an Act of Parliament (9 and 10 Vict. c. 74), " To Encourage the Establishment of Baths and Wash-houses." A Committee sat at Exeter Hall for the same object ; a Model Establishment was built in Goulston- square, Whitechapel ; and Baths and Wash-houses were established in St. Pancras, Maryle- bone, St, Martin-in-the-Fields, and other large metropolitan parishes. BAYNARD'S CASTLE. A STRONGHOLD, « built with walls and rampires," on the banks of the Thames below St. Paul's, by Bainiardus, a follower of William the Conqueror. In 1111 it was forfeited, and granted by Henry I. to Robert Fitzgerald, son of Gilbert, Earl of Clare ; from whom it passed, by several descents, to the Fitzwalters (the chief ban- nerets of London, probably in fee for this castle), one of whom, at the commencement of a war, was bound to appear at the west door of St. Paul's, armed and mounted, with twenty attendants, and there receive from the Mayor the banner of the City, a horse worth 201., and 201. in money. In 1428, the castle became, probably by another forfeiture, crown property ; it was almost entirely burnt, but was granted to Hiimphrey, Duke of Gloucester, by whom it was rebuilt ; upon his attainder, it again reverted to the Crown. Here Stafford, Duke of Buckingham, presented to Richard, Duke of Gloucester, a parchment purporting to be a declaration of the three estates in favour of Richard; and in the "Court of Baynard's Castle" Shakspeare has laid scenes 3 and 7, act iii., of King Richard III. ; the latter between Buckingham, the Mayor, Aldermen, and citizens, and Gloucester. Baynard's Castle was repaired by Henry VII., and used as a royal palace until the reign of Queen Ehzabeth, when it was let to the Earls of Pembroke ; and here, in 1553, the Privy Council, " changing their mind from Lady Jane," proclaimed Queen Mary. The castle subsequently became the residence of the Earls of Shrewsbury. Pepys records King Charles II. supping here, 19th June, 1660 ; and six years after the castle was destroyed in the Great Fire. ' The buildings surrounded two court-yards, with the south front to the Thames, and the north in Thames-street, where was the principal entrance. Two of the towers, incorporated with other buildings, remained till the present century, when they were pulled down to make way for the Carron Iron Company's premises. The ward in which stood the fortress-palace is named Castle-Baynard, as is also a wharf upon the site ; and a public-house in the neighbourhood long bore the sign of " Duke Humphrey's Head." In Notes and Queries, No. 11, it is shown that Bainiardus, who gave his name to Baynard's Castle, held land here of the Abbot of Westminster ; and in a grant of 1653 is described " the common field at Paddington" (now Bayswater Field), as being " near to a place commonly called Baynard's Watering." Hence it is concluded " that this portion of ground, always remarkable for its springs of excellent water, once si;pplied water to Baynard, his household, or his castle ; that the memory of his name was pre- served in the neighbourhood for six centuries ;" and that this watering-place is now Bayswater. ," BAZAARS. THE Bazaar is an adaptation from the East, the true principle of which is the classifi- cation of trades. Thus, Paternoster-row, with its books; Newport Market, with its butchers' shops ; and Monmouth- street with its shoes; are more properly Bazaars than the miscellaneous stalls assembled under cover, which are in London designated by this name. Exeter 'Change was a great cutlery bazaar ; and the row of attorneys' shops in the Lord Mayor's Court Office, in the second Royal Exchange, were a kind of legal Bazaar, the name of each attorney being inscribed upon a projecting signboard. The Crystal Palace of 1851, and the Great Exhibition of 1862, were vast assemblages of Bazaars. The Crystal Palace at Sydenham partakes of this character. The introduction of the Bazaar into the metropoUs dates from 1816, when was opened the Soho Bazaar, at 4, 5, and 6, Soho-square. It was planned solely by Mr. BAZAARS. 41 John Trotter, with a truly benevolent motive. At the termination of the War, when a great number of widows, orphans, and relatives of those who had lost their lives x)n foreign service were in distress and without employment, Mr, Trotter conceived that an establishment in the hands of Government would promote the views of the respect- able and industrious (possessing but small means) by affording them advantages to begin business without great risk and outlay^ of capital. Mr. Trotter having at that time an extensive range of premises unoccupied, without any idea of personal emolu- ment, offered them to Government, free of expense, for several years, engaging also to undertake their direction and management on the same disinterested terms. His scheme was, however, considered visionary, and his offer rejected. Mr. Trotter then undertook the responsibility himself; the Bazaar was opened 1st February, 1816, and by excellent management, the establishment has since flourished ; this success being mainly attributable to the selection of persons of respectability as its inmates, for whose protection an efficient superintendence of several matrons is provided. The counters are mostly for fancy goods, and to obtain a tenancy requires a testimonial respectably signed. The success of the Soho Bazaar led to establishments formed by private individuals, but with only temporary success. The Westeen ExcnANGE, Old Bond-street (with an entrance from the Burlington Arcade), was burnt down, and not re-established. The Queen's Bazaar, on the north side of Oxford-street, the rear in Castle-street, was destroyed. May 28, 1829, by a fire which commenced at a dioramic exhibition of *' the Destruction of York Minster by fire." The Bazaar was rebuilt ; but proving unsuccessful, was taken down, and upon the site was built the Princess* Theatre. The Pantheon Bazaar, on the south side of Oxford-street, with an entrance in Great Marlborough-street, was constructed in 1834, from the designs of Sydney Smirke, A.R.A., within the walls of the Pantheon Theatre, built in 1812; the fronts to Oxford- street and Poland-street being the only remains of the original structure. The mag- nificent staircase leads to a suite of rooms, in which pictures are placed for sale ; and thence to the great Basilical Hall or Bazaar, which is 116 feet long, 88 feet wide, and 60 feet high ; it is mostly lighted from curved windows in the roof, which is richly decorated, as are the piers of the arcades, with arabesque scrolls of flowers, fruit, and birds ; the ornaments of papier-maeM by Bielefield. The style of decoration is from the loggias of the Vatican. The galleries and the floor are laid out with cou-nters, and promenades between. From the southern end of the hall is the entrance to an elegant conservatory and aviary, mostly of glass, ornamented in Saracenic style. Here are birds of rich plumage, with luxuriant plants, which, with the profusion of marble, gilding, and. colour, have a very pleasing effect in the heart of the smoky town. The Bazaar in Baker-street, Portman-square, was originally established for the sale of horses; but carriages, harness, furniture, stoves, and glass are the commodities now sold here. Madame Tussaud's Wax-work Exhibition occupies the greater part ; and here, annually, in December, the Smithfield Club Cattle Show formerly took place. The Pantechnicon, Halkin-street, Belgrave- square, is a Bazaar chiefly for carriages and furniture. Here, too, you may warehouse furniture, wine, pictures, and carriages, for any period, at a light charge compared with house-rent. The LowTHER Bazaar, nearly opposite the Lowther Arcade, Strand, was a reposi- tory of fancy goods, besides a " Magic Cave," and other exhibitions. The establish- ment was frequently visited by Louis Philippe from 1848 to 1850. The Magic Cave, with its cosmoramlc pictures, realized 1500/. per annum, at Gd. for each admission. This and the house adjoining, eastward, have fronts of tasteful architectural design. St. James's Bazaar, King- street, St. James's-street, was built for Mr. Crockford, in 1832, and has a saloon nearly 200 feet long by 40 wide. Here were exhibited, in 1841, three dioramic tableaux of the second obsequies of Napoleon, in Paris, at Decem- ber, 1841. And in 1844 took place here the first exhibition of Decorative Works for the New Houses of Parliament. The CosMORAMA, No. 207-209, Regent-street, originally an exhibition of views of 42 CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. places through large convex lenses, was altered into a Bazaar, subsequently, the Prince of Wales's Bazaar. The Anti-Coen-Law League Bazaar was held in the spring of 1845, when the auditory and stage of Covent-garden Theatre were fitted up for this purpose, and in six weeks 2o,000l. was cleared by the speculation, partly by admission-money. The Theatre was painted as a vast Tudor Hall, by Messrs. Grieve, and illuminated with gas in the day-time ; the goods being exhibited for sale on stalls, appropriated to the great manufacturing localities of the United Kingdom. At this time the Theatre was let to the League at 3000 guineas for the term of holding the Bazaar, and one night per week for public meetings throughout one year. The PoETLAND Bazaar, 19, Langham-place, is noted for its « German Fair," and its display of cleverly-modelled toy figures of animals. BUGGABS. BEGGING, although illegal, and forbidden by one of our latest statutes, is followed as a trade in the metropolis, perhaps more systematically than in any other European capital. It has been stated that the number of professional Beggars in and about London amounts to 15,000, more than two-thirds of whom are Irish. The vigilance of the Police, and the exposure of Beggars' frauds by the press and upon the stage (from the Beggar's Opera to Tom and Jerry), have done much towards the suppression of Begging. The Mendicity Society, in Ked Lion-square, Holborn, established in 1818, has also moderated the evil by exposing and punishing impostors, and relieving deserving persons. The receipts of this institution are upwards of 4000Z. a year. In one day it has distributed 3300 meals. The Society has a mill, stone- yard, and oakum-room, m which, during one day, there have been employed 763 persons, who would otherwise have been begging in the streets. A record is kept of all begging-letter cases, from which police-magistrates obtain information as to the character of persons brought before them. There are other societies for similar objects. Sir John Fielding, in his " Cautions," published in 1776, gives a curious picture of the SJcy Farmers who imposed upon the benevolent, as " good old charitable ladies," with dreadful stories of losses by fire, inundations, &c., for which the cheats collected subscriptions entered in a book, setting out with false names. Sir John says : — There are persons in this town who get a very good livehhood by writing letters and petitions of this- ; Btamp. A woman stufled up as if she was ready to lie in, with two or three borrowed children and a.^ letter, giving an account of her husband's falling off a scaffold and breaking his limbs, by being drowned { at sea, is an irresistible object. Many years ago, there died in Broad-street Buildings, aged 81, John Yardley^ Vernon, who wore in the streets the garb of a beggar, though he possessed 100,000^,, which he realized as a stockbroker. Mr. Henry Mayhew has given us the fullest report of the Beggar-life of our time ! which has been supplemented by Mr. Halliday : all tending to prove that indiscrimi*] nate relief of street-beggars is most delusive and dangerous. With the ordinary types of " disaster beggars," such as shipwrecked mariners, blown-up miners *' those having real or pretended sores vulgarly known as the scaldman dodge," we are all familia But there are oddities and niceties even in this humble department of the Begging art. There are for instance, the lucifer droppers. The business of these persons is to take a box or two of lucifers, anfl offer them for sale at a crowded and dirty corner. They choose a victim, and contrive to get in his way Down go the lucifers in the mud, and the professional sets up a piteous howl. The gentleman ' ashamed of having done so much mischief, and to quiet the complainant, who is generally of the softi Bex, he gives her many times the worth of her dropped lucifers. " Famished Beggars " seem highlj successful in their own line, but their success demands the natural advantages of a corpse-like face, ar* emaciated frame, and a power of enduring the winter's cold in rags. Among those endowed with Ihes requisites, the more accompUshcd performers have invented many ingenious subtleties. One device * the " choking dodge." The famished beggar seizes on a crust and eagerly devours it ; but he has ber too long without food— he tries in vain to swallow it, and it sticks in his throat. Another device is th of the " offal-eaters." These people decline absolutely to eat anything but what they find in the gutter Wlien we hear of all the trouble and ingenuity that is expended in deceiving us, we may well feel "iclme to ask, as a beggar was once asked, " Don't you think you would have found it more profitable had yo taken to labour or to some honester calling than your present one ?" But the candid answer returne is suggestive, " Well, sir, p'raps I might," he replied; "but going on the square is so dreadfully cor ^umS'"— Saturday Review, 1862. BELGBAVIA— BELLS AND CHIMES. 43 SJSLGBAVIA WAS originally applied as a sobriquet to Belgrave and Eaton Squares and the radiating streets, but is now received as the legitimate name of this aristocratic quarter. In 1824, its site was " the Five Fields," intersected by mud-banks, and occu- pied by a few sheds. The clayey swamp retained so much water, that no one would build there ; and the " Fields " were the terror of foot-passengers proceeding from London to Chelsea after nightfall. At length, Mr. Thomas Cubitt found the strata to con- sist of gravel and clay, of considerable depth: the clay he removed, and burned into bricks j and by building upon the substratum of gravel, he converted this spot from the most unhealthy to one of the most healthy, to the immense advantage of the ground-land- lord and the whole metropolis. This is one of the most perfect adaptations of the means to the end to be found in the records of the building art. In 1829, the same land, consisting of about 140 acres, was nearly covered with first and second class houses, the nucleus being Belgrave-square, designed by George Basevi ; the detached mansions, at the angles, by Hardwick, Kendall, and others; the area, originally a nursery garden, about ten acres. The level is low ; for it has been ascertained that the ground-floor of Westbourne-terrace, Hyde Park Gardens, 70 feet above the Thames high-water mark, is on a level with the attics of Eaton and Belgrave Squares. Yet Chelsea acquired a proverbial salubrity in the last century by Doctors Arbuthnot^ Sloane, Mead, and Cadogan residing there. Mr. Thomas Cubitt, who died in 1856, was, in his nineteenth year, working as a journeyman car- penter ; he then took one voyage to India and back as captain's joiner, and on his return to London with his savings, commenced business in the metropolis as a carpenter. In about six years, upon a tract of ground in Gray's Inn-road, he erected large workshops. About 1824, he engaged with the Duke of Bedford and Lord Southampton for the ground on which Tavistock-square and Gordon-square, with Woburn-place, and adjoining streets, now stand. In the same year he engaged with the Marquis of West- minster and Mr. Lowndes, to cover large portions of " the Five Fields," and ground adjacent : the results are Belgrave-square, Lowndes-square, Chesham-place, and other ranges of houses. He subsequently engaged to cover the vast open district lying between Eaton-square and the Thames, now South Bel- gravia. His works and establishment were at Thames Bank: they were destroyed by fire, by which Mr. Cubitt lost 30,000Z. ; when he was apprised of the calamity, his noble reply was, " Tell the men they shall be at work within a week, and I will subscribe 600^. towards buying them new tools." His large engagements as to Belgrave-square, begun in 1825, had just been completed in the year of his death ; and his own dwelling-house at Denbies, in which he died, had only been just finished, as the future residence of his family. His portrait has been painted and engraved. He had two brothers. Alderman Cubitt, twice Lord Mayor ; and Lewis Cubitt, the eminent engineer, architect of the Great Northern Railway Terminus. — Memoir in the Builder, 1856. bi:lls and chimes. THE histories of the various peals of Bells in the metropolis, and the Societies by which their ringing has been reduced to scientific standards are interesting. Commencing from the Conquest, we have The Cuefew. — Although the Couvrefeu law was abolished by Henry I., who restored the use of lamps and candles at night after the ringing of the Curfew-bell, which had been prohibited by his predecessors ( Will. Malmesb., fol. 88), yet the custom of ringing the bell long continued ; and in certain parishes of the metropolis, and in some parts of the country, to the present time, " The curfew tolls the knell of parting day." Among the charges directed for the wardmote inquests of London, in the second mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet (a.d. 1495), it is said : " Also yf there be anye paryshe clerke that ryngeth curfewe after the curfewe be ronge at Bowe Chyrche, or Saint Brydes Chyrche, or Saint Gyles without Cripelgat, all suche to be presented." (Knight's Life of Dean Colet). The same charge is in the wardmote inquest 1649. " The church of St. Martin's-le-Grand, with those of Bow, St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and Barkin, had its Curfew-bell long after the servile injunction laid on the Londoners had ceased. These were sounded to give notice to the inhabitants of those districts to keep within, and not to wander in the streets; which were infested by a set of ruffians, who made a practice of insulting, wounding, robbing, and murdering the people whom they happened to meet abroad during the mghty—Strype's Stow, v. L book iii. p. 106. "The Coiiore-feu is still rung, at eight o'clock, at St. Edmund the King, Lombard-street. At Bishopsgate (St. Botolph's) ; St. Leonard's, Shoreditcli; Christchurch, Spitalfields; St. Michael's, Queenhithe; St. Mildred's, Bread -street ;* St. Antholin's, Budge-row ; and in some other City churches, * The bell at this church was silenced by order of vestry, December, 1847. 44 CUBI08ITIE8 OF LONDON. there are bells, whicli are popularly known as the caavre-fm, but some of which are really, I believe prayer-bells. " On the southern side of the Thames, the couvre-feu was, till within these six or seven years, nightly rung at St. George's Church, Borough." — Mr. Syer Cuming : Proceedings of the British Archceological Association, April 12, 1848. Mr. Cuming also states that at St. Peter's Hospital, Newington (the Fishmongers' Almshouses, taken down in 1851), there was " a bell rung every evening from eight o'clock till nine, which the old parishioners were wont to denominate the couvre-feu ; but it is now said that this was rung to warn all strangers from the premises, and the ahnspeople to their several apartments." The Curfew was not always rung at eight o'clock, for the sexton in the old play of the Merry Devil of Ddmonton (4to. 1631) says : — " Well, 'tis nine a cloke, 'tis time to ring curfew." The Curfew-bell, strictly as such, had probably fallen into disuse previous to the time of Shakspeare, who, in Borneo and Juliet, applies the term to the morning bell : — " The second cock hath crow'd. The curfew-bell has rung, 'tis three o'clock." At Charterhouse, the Chapel-bell (which bears the arms and initials of Thomas Sutton, the founder, and the date 1631) is rung at eight and nine to warn the absent pensioner of the approaching hour ; and this practice is, we think, erroneously adduced as a relic of Curfew-ringing. " There is one peculiarity attached to the ringing, which is calculated to serve the office of the ordinary passing-bell ; and that is the number of strokes, which must correspond with the number of pensioners. So that when a brother-pensioner has deceased, his companions are informed of their loss by one stroke of the bell less than on the preceding evening." — Chronicles of Charterhouse, p. 180. The Couvre-feu formerly in the collection of the Rev. Mr. Gostling, and so often engraved, passed into the possession of Horace Walpole, and was sold at Strawberry Hill, in 1842, to Mr. William Knight. It is of copper, riveted together, and in general form resembles the " Dutch-oven" of the present day. It is stated to have been used for extinguishing a lire, by raking the wood and embers to the back of the hearth, and then placing the open part of the couvre-feu close against the back of the chimney, in February, 1842, Mr. Syer Cuming purchased of a curiosity-dealer in Chancery-lane a couvre-feu closely resembling Mr. Gostling's; and Mr. Cuming considers both specimens to be of the same age, of the close of the loth or early part of the 16th century ; whereas Mr. Gostling's specimen was stated to be of the Norman period. A third example of the couvre-feu exists in the Canterbury Museum. Another Couvre-feu was sold by Messrs. Foster, in Pall Mall, April 11, 1866; reputed date 1063. The Bell of the Clochard, or Bell-tower, of the ancient Palace at Westminster had a curious destination. Although we find the details of building the tower, by King Edward III., we find nothing respecting the construction or even placing of the clock, or the casting of not one, but three bells ; but bell-ropes and a vice or engine are mentioned. In later accounts (Henry VI.) we, however, have the expense of maintain- ing the clock and bells, for the superintendence of which Thomas Clockmaker received 135. M. a year as his salary ; he was but a subordinate officer ; the account being rendered by Agnes de la Van, the wife of Jeffrey de la Van, who was himself the deputy of John Lenham, who is designated " Custos orologii domini Regis infra pala- tium suum Westmonasterio." — Rev. J. Hunter, F.S.A. : ArchcBologia, xxxvii. 23. Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, ed. Britton, p. 102, has this note : " The great bell at Westminster, in the Clockiar at the New Palace Yard, 36,000 lih. weight. * * It W5\s given by Jo. Montacute, Earle of (Salisbury, I think). Part of the inscription is thus, sc* annis ah acuto monte Johannis.' " The three clock-bells when taken down, however, weighed less than 20,000 lb. The metal of the largest bell is now part of the great bell of St. Paul's Cathedral. The Geeat Bell for the Westminster Palace Clock was cast at Norton, near Stockton-on-Tees, from the design of E. B. Denison, Q.C., in 1856, by Warner and Sons, Cripplegate ; its metal was nearly as hard as spring-steel, and it cracked in the sounding at Westminster, before it was attempted to be raised. It was then broken into pieces, and carted away to Mears's Foundry, Whitechapel, and there re-cast, with 2|; tons less metal ; the clapper weighs about 6 cwt. : the former weighed 12 cwt. It was raised Nov. 18, 1858 j weight of bell, \\\ tons : name, " St. Stephen ; " note, nearer the true E natural than that of the first bell. This great bell having cracked, the clock for a time struck the quarters on the four quarter-bells, and the hour also on the largest of them, which is smaller, but more powerful, as well as sweeter in tone, than the great bell of St. Paul's : its weight is 4 tons. The great or hour bell has been repaired, and is now in use. BELLS AND CRIMES. 45 St. Paul's Cathedkal has four bells, — one in the northern, and three in the southern or clock-tower : the former is tolled for prayer three times a day, and has a clapper ; but neither of the four can be raised upon end and rung, as other church-bells. In the clock-tower are hung two bells for the quarters, and above them is hung the Great Bell, on gudgeons or axles, on which it moves when struck by the hammer of the clock. It was cast principally from the metal of a bell in the clock-tower opposite Westminster Hall Gate, which, before the Reformation, was named "Edward;'* subsequently to the time of Henry VIII., as appears by two lines in Eccles's Glee, it was called "Great Tom," as Gough conjectures, by a corruption of grand ton, from its deep, sonorous tone. On August 1, 1698, the clochard, or tower, was granted by William III. to St. Margaret's parish, and was taken down: when the bell was found to weigh 82 cvvt. 2 qrs. 21 lbs., and was bought at lOcZ. per lb., producing 385Z. 17*. Qd., for St. Paul's. While being conveyed over the boundary of West- minster, under Temple Bar, it fell from the carriage ; it stood under a shed in the Cathedral Yard for some years, and was at length re-cast, with additional metal, the inscription stating it to have been "brought from the ruins of Westminster." It was cast in 1709, by Richard Phelps, of Whitechapel, whose successors in the foundry, Charles and George Mears, state the dimensions, &c., as follows : — " Diameter, 6 feet 9| inches; height to top of crown, 6 feet 4|- inches; thickness at sound bow, 5|- inches; weight, 5 tons 4 cwt. We have a portion of the agreement made between the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's and Mr. Phelps, dated July 8th, 1709, it which it is stipulated that the hour-bell and quarters should be delivered at the Cathedral by the 1st of October in the same year." " The key-note (tonic) or sound of this bell is A flat (perhaps it was A natural, agreeably to the pitch at the time it was cast), but the sound heard at the greatest distance is that of E flat, or a fifth above the key-note; and a musical ear, when close by, can perceive several harmonic sounds." — W. Farry. The Great Bell is never used, except for the striking of the hour, and for tolling at the deaths and funerals of any of the Royal Family, the Bishop of London, the Dean of tiie Cathedral ; and the Lord Mayor, should he die in his mayoralty. The same hammer which strikes the hours has always been used to toll the TdcH', on the occasion of a demise; but the sound then produced is not so loud as when the hour is struck, in consequence of the heavy clock-weight not being attached when the bell is tolled, and causing the hammer to strike with greater force than by manual strength. It was the Westminster " Great Tom " which the sentinel on duty at Windsor Castle, during the reign of William III., declared to have struck thirteen instead of twelve times at midnight, and thus cleared himself of the accusation by the relief- guard of sleeping upon his post. The story is told of St. Paul's Bell ; but the Cathedral had no heavy bell until the above grant by King William, who died in 1702 ; the circumstance is thus recorded in the Fublic Advertiser, Friday, June 22, 1770 : — "Mr. John Hatfield, who died last Monday at his house in Glasshouse Yard, Aldersgate, aged 103 years, was a soldier in the reign of William and Mary, and the person who was tried and condemned by a court-martial for falling asleep on his duty upon the Terrace at Windsor. He absolutely denied the charge against him, and solemnly declared that he heard St. Paul's clock strike thirteen; the truth of which was much doubted by the court, because of the great distance. But whilst he was under sentence of death, an affidavit was made by several persons, that the clock actually did strike thirteen instead of twelve ; whereupon he received his Majesty's pardon." This striking thirteen, instead of twelve, is mechanically possible, and was caused by the lifting-piece holding on too long. The ancient Societies of Bell-ringers in London, called " College Youths," " Cumber- land Youths," &c., it is very probable, are relics of the ancient Guilds ; for, as early as the time of Edward the Confessor, there was in Westminster a guild of ringers. They were re-organized by Henry III.; and by a patent roll in the 39th year of his reign, the brethren of the Guild of Westminster, who were appointed to ring the great bells there, were to receive annually out of the exchequer 100 shillings — 50 at Easter and 50 at Michaelmas — until was provided the like sum for them payable out of lands for the said ringing. And "that the brethren and their successors for ever enjoy all the privileges and free customs which they have enjoyed from the time of Edward the Con- fessor, to the date of these presents.'^ In the library of All Souls', Oxon, is a manuscript of " The orders agreed upon by 46 CUEIOSITIES OF LONDON. the company exercising the arte of ringing, knowne and called by the name of the Schollers of Cheapsyde, in London, begun 2nd February, 1603." This MS. contains the names of all the members down to the year 1634. After this date, in 1637, the Society of College Youths was established by Lord Brereton, Sir Cliff Clifton, and several other gentlemen, for the practice of ringing. They used to ring at St. Martin's Vintry, on College-hill, near Doctors' Commons, upon a peal of six bells. This church was burnt in the Great Fire of London, and never rebuilt; but the Society still retains the name derived from College-hill, and has in its possession a massive silver bell, which formed the top of the staff which used to be carried by the beadle of the Society when the members attended divine service at Bow Church, on the anniversary of its foundation, and other occasions ; also an old book, in which the names of its members are entered. This book was lost at the time of the Great Fire, but was subsequently recovered. The names in it are sufficient to show that ringing was considered an amusement worthy of nobles, divines, and scholars. Among the notables who have been elected members are the Hon. Robert Cecil (Marquis of Salisbury), Sir John Bolles and Sir Watkin W. Wynne, baronets ; Sirs Francis Withins, Martin Lomly; Richard Everard, Henry Tulse, aldermen, Richard Atkins, Henry Chauncey, Thomas Samnell, Gilbert Dolbin, William Culpeper; John Tash, alderman; Henry Hicks, and Watkin Lewis, knights. About 1700, another Society was formed, which was called *' The London Scholars." In 1746, the name was changed to the present title, " The Cumberland Youths," in consequence of the great victory under the Duke of Cumberland, at the battle of Culloden in that year. The London Scholars rang the bells of Shoreditch Church as the victorious Duke passed by on his return from the battle ; for which a medal of the Duke and his chargers was presented to the Society, and is still worn by the master of the Society of Cumberland Youths, at their general meetings. The St. James's Youths, another society, was established on St. James's-day, 25th July, 1824, at St. James's Church, Clerkenwell. The grandsire ringing principally belongs to this society, as it is the first rudiment of the half-pull ringing. About 1841, the Society rang a peal of 12,000 changes of grandsire quatres at All Saints' Church, Fulham j also 7325 of grandsire cinques at St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, in 1837 ; and many other peals besides, as recorded in London church-belfries. The head-quarters of the society are at St. Clement Danes, Strand. The parochial ringing churches are St. Andrew's, St. Sepulchre's, St. Dunstan's in the West, St. Clement's, West- minster Abbey, St. John's, Waterloo-road; and St. Mary's, Lambeth : — There are certain Bells still remaiiiing in London, notwithstanding the Great Fire, which have historical notes. That, for instance, at the top of the Bell-tower which adjoins the Governor's lodgings in the Tower, which was probably tolled at the execution of Lady Jane Grey, Anne Boleyn, and other State prisoners, and probably sounded alarms of fire and other calamities in early days. This bell seems to have been more particularly used by the Tower authorities than that in St. Peter's Church, which stands near the spot where the scaffold was usually erected. The bells of St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield, are old, and were probably rung when the Court has come to the tournaments and jousting at Smithfield. With the exception of Westminster Abbey, St. Saviour's, All Hallows Barking, Cripple- gate, and Old St. Pancras, there are few of the ancient bell-towers of the metropolis remaining. Several of the bells, however, may have been saved from the ruins of the Great Fire. There is also the bell of the Charter-house, which has tolled at the departure of a brother from soon after the death of Thomas Sutton. Many will still remember that, while the fire of the second Royal Exchange was raghig, the self-acting bells played merrily the tune of " There is nae luck about the house," and eventually fell with a crash amidst the blazing ruins. — Communications to the Builder, The curious custom of a new rector tolling himself into his new benefice, is observed in the City churches. Before the Reformation, no layman was allowed to be a *• ringer," and the ecclesiastics had to perform their office in surplice. The " tolling- in" is as follows : — " The rector is met at the door of the church by the trustees of the church property belonging to the parish, and the churchwardens. Having obtained possession of the keys of the church, the new rector unlocks the doors : then, having closed them, he proceeds alone to the belfry, and for a few minutes tolls one of the bells, thus complying with the custom imposed by the ordinances of the Church, by announcing to the parishioners at large his acceptance of the rectorship, and his pos- session of the church property. Bow Bells are of ancient celebrity; and it was from the extreme fondness of tb citizens for them in old times that a genuine Cockney has been supposed to be bo; I BELLS AND CHIMES. 47 within the sound of Bow Bells. According to Fynes Morison, the Londoners, and all within the sound of Bow Bells, are, in reproach, called Cockneys, and eaters of " but- tered toasts." Beaumont and Fletcher speak of " Bow Bell suckers," i.e., as Mr. Dyce properly explains it, " children born within the sound of Bow Bells." From a book of ordinances of the City of Worcester, Mr. Burtt quotes certain annual payments, dating from very early times, for ringing " day-bell" and " bow-bell," the latter being doubtless the same as the curfew, although now rung at eight instead of at nine, as at the time of the ordinances. There is no local explanation of the term bow-bell, but Mr. Burtt considers Mr. Wolf's suggestion feasible— that as the curfew bell of London was rung at Bow Church, the name of that church was adopted in other places, and applied to the bell. — Proceedings of the British Archceological Association, April, 1866. In 1469, by an Order of Common Council, Bow bell was to be rung nightly at nine o'clock, and lights were to be exhibited in the steeple to direct the traveller. When the church was rebuilt, the belfry was prepared for twelve bells, but only eight were placed : these got out of order, and in 1758 the citizens petitioned the vestry, that the tenor bell being the completest in Europe, and the other seven very inferior, they requested to be allowed, at their own expense, to recast the seven smaller bells, and to add two trebles. This was permitted, after Dance and Chambers, the architects, had reported that "neither such additional weight, nor any weight that can be put upon the steeple, will have any greater effect than the bells now placed there." Accordingly, the set of ten bells was completed by subscription, and was first rung June 4, 1762, the anniversary of the birth of King George III. In the year 1822, some fear was expressed that the use of the bells would endanger the steeple, when, by order of vestry, the bells were rung for trial; and from a subsequent examination, there did not appear to be any cause for alarm. The present set is much heavier, and much more powerful in tone, than the first peal of bells : it requires two men to ring the largest (the tenor, 53 cwt., key C), in conse- quence of its not having been properly hung. In 1837, the College Youths rang a grand peal of Stedman quatres on Bow Bells; also, in 1840, a peal of triple ten, at the same church. Mr. W. H. Burwash, the sexton of St. James's, Clerkenwell, rang the triple to both peals, and conducted them j and Mr. A. C. Frost rang the tenor to both : weight, 2 tons 13 cwt. 22 lb., stated to be the greatest bell rung by a single man in England. St. Bride's has a fine peal. A century ago, the College Youths, at their own expense, placed the two small bells in St. Bride's tower, to make the present peal of twelve beUs ; and, about 1730, twelve members of the Society rang the first peal of triple-bob maximus that was ever known to be rung on twelve bells. Rear-Admiral Sir Francis Grey and Lord Chief- Justice Hale were members of this Society, and rang in the peal. There is still a record of this feat in St. Bride's ringing-room. On Monday evening, March 13, 1843, the Cumberland Society rang a complete peal of cinques on Stedman's principle, consisting of 5146 changes, in four hours two minutes, at St. Bride's ; it being the first peal in that scientific method ever performed on the bells. Cheistchtjech, Spitalfields', Bells are scarcely inferior to any in the kingdom ; the tenor weighs 44 cwt., or 4928 lbs. In the spring of 1836, by a fire which broke out in the belfry, and reached the loft, the tenor fell upon the other bells, and the whole were shivered to pieces, or fused by the heat of the conflagration ; the clock and chimes were also destroyed : they have all been replaced. St. Leonaed's, Shoreditch. — Here the London Society of Cumberland accomplished their greatest achievement in olden times — a peal of 12,000 changes of triple-bob royals, which took nine hours and five minutes on 10 bells, March 27th, 1784, of which there is a record in the tower, written on copper. The Society, in 1820, added two new small bells to St. Leonard's, to make a peal of 12 bells, at their own cost- over lOOZ. ; but it is to be regretted that the great bell of the peal has been cracked. St. Maetin's-in-the-Fields. — The peal of 12 bells has been put in good ringing order, and all the bells made to strike true, to the satisfaction of the parochial ringers and the Cumberland Society, who regard the ringing as now more easy and more 48 CTTBI0SITIE8 OF LONDON. merry, as well as more musically true. The hammer of the church-clock, too, has been altered so as to strike downwards instead of upwards, thus givinj^ greater force and clearness to the tone. The ringing-room itself has also been improved; boxes have been placed to the bells, and the place lit with gas, as well as the staircase and bell-chamber. On Nov. 19, 1862, the Cumberland Society rang here a peal of 5050 changes of Stedman's quatres, in three hours and twenty-eight minutes, in honour of the Prince of Wales attaining his majority. St. Michael's, Comhill, had in Stow's time, six bells, the sixth being " rung by one man by the space of 160 yeares"; (?) Upon one St. James's night, on the ringing of a peal, during a storm, the lightning entered at the north window, which so terrified the ringers that "they lay down as dead." The present tower, rebuilt 1723, has a fine peal of 12 bells, with which, in March, 1866, twelve members of the College Youths rang a fine and good peal of treble-bob maximus, consisting of 5088 changes, occupying three hours and fifty-two minutes ; this being the first peal on treble-bobs, on twelve bells ever rung, when the tenor man conducted the peal. St. Saviour's, Southwark, has a beautiful tenor and 12 large bells ; a spacious ringing- room with great marble tablet, put up at the expense of the various societies of ringers in London : a record of a grand peal by the Cumberland Society cost 20 guineas. The 12 bells of St. Saviour's, were not rung at the opening of New London Bridge, in 1831, on account of the alleged insecurity it would occasion to the tower. The tenor of this peal weighs 52| cwt. ; that of Bow, 53 cvvt. St. Sepulchee's Bell has a melancholy history. In 1605, Mr. R. Dowe left 50Z. to this parish, on condition that a person should go to Newgate in the still of the night before every execution-day, and, standing as near as possible to the cells of the con- demned, should, with a hand-bell (which he also left), give twelve solemn tolls, with double strokes, and then deliver this impressive exhortation : — " All you that in the condemned hole do lie, Prepare you, for to-morrow you shall die; Watch, all, and pray, the hour is drawing near That you before the Almighty must appear; Examine well yourselves, in time repent, That you may not t' eternal flames be sent. And when St. Sepulchre's Bell to-morrow tolls. The Lord have mercy on your souls ! Past twelve o'clock I" Dowe likewise ordered that the great bell of the church should toll on the morning j and that, as the criminals passed the wall to Tyburn, the bellman or sexton should look over it and say, "All good people, pray heartily unto God for these poor sinners, who are now going to their death ;" for which he who says it is to receive 11. 6s. 8d.; let us hope that the gift ere long will be a free one. St. Stephen's, Rochester-row, Westminster. — Miss Burdett Coutts has given to this church, built at her cost, a fine peal of eight bells, with a tenor of 1 ton 5 cwt. j and to St. Ann's, Highgate-rise, a peal of eight bells. Chimes. — The only church chimes now existing in the metropolis are those of St. Clement Danes, in the Strand; St. Giles's, Cripplegate; St. Dionis, Fenchurch-street ; and St. Bride's, Fleet-street. The Cripplegate chimes are the finest in London ; they were constructed by a poor working man. Formerly, several churches in London, includ- ing those of St. Margaret and St. Sepulchre, had chime-hammers annexed to their bells. In each Royal Exchange, the business has been regulated by a bell : in Gresham's original edifice was a tower " containing the bell, which twice a day summoned mer- chants to the spot — at twelve o'clock at noon, and at six o'clock in the evening." (Burgon's Life and Times of Sir T. Oresliam, ii. 345). The Chimes at the Royal Exchange, destroyed by fire in 1838, played, at intervals of three hours, " God save the Queen," " Life let us cherish," " The Old 101th Psalm (on Sundays), and " There's nae luck about the house," which last air they played at twelve o'clock on the night of the fire, just as the flames reached the chime-loft. In the new Exchange, chimes have not been forgotten. The airs have been arranged BEBMONDSEY. 49 by Mr. E. Taylor, the Gresham Professor of Music ; which Mr. Dent has applied on the chime-barrel. The airs are : — 1. A Psalm tune, by Henry Lawes, the friend of Milton; it is in the key of B flat, so as to exhibit the capability of the chimes to play in different keys. 2. God save the Queen, in E flat. 3. Rule Britannia. 4. An air selected by Professor Taylor to exhibit the power of the bells. The key in which the bells are set is E flat. There are fifteen bells, and two hammers to several, so as to play rapid passagres. There are frequently three hammers striking different bells simultaneously, and sometimes five. Tho notes of the bells are as follows :— B flat, A natural, A flat, G, F, E flat, D natural, D flat, C, B flat, A natural, A flat, G, F, and E flat. The flrst bell, B flat, weighs 4cwt.261bs., and its cord, 8c wt. 2qrs. 5 lbs.; the four bells, A flat, G, F, and E flat, weigh severally, lOcwt. Iqr. 9 lbs., 12cwt. 2qrs. 27 lbs,, 15 cwt. 2 qrs. 141bs., and 23 cwt. 2 qrs. 24 lbs. The united weight of them is 131 cwt. 1 qr. They were cast by Messrs. Mears, of Whitechapel. SJEBMONDSET IS a large parish in Surrey, adjoining the borough of Southwark ; and named Beor- mund's eye, or island, from its having been the property of some Saxon or Danish Thane, and the land being insulated by watercourses connected with the Thames, In 1082, a wealthy citizen built here a convent, wherein some Cluniac Monks settled in 1089, to whom William Rufus gave the manor of Bermondsey ; and numerous dona- tions and grants followed, until this became one of the most considerable alien priories in England. From its vicinity to London, the monastery occasionally became the residence of royal personages. Katherine of France, widow of Henry V., retired to this sanctuary, and died here, Jan. 3, 1437; and Elizabeth Widvile, relict of Edward IV., was committed to the custody of the monks by her son-in-law, Henry VII., and ended her days here, in penury and sorrow, in 1492. Among the persons of note interred here is said to have been Margaret de la Pole, wife of Edmund de la Pole, afterwards Earl of Suffolk, who was executed by Henry VIII., in 1513. The Abbey occupied the ground between Grange-walk (where was a farm) and Long-walk, which w^as a passage between the monastic buildings and the conventual church ; the latter a little south of the present parish church of St. Mary Magdalene, originally founded by the Priors of Bermondsey for their tenantry; rebuilt in 1680, and since repaired. Among the communion-plate is an ancient silver alms-dish, supposed to have belonged to the abbey. A drawing formerly in Mr. Upcott's collection shows the monastery as rebuilt early in the reign of Edward III., and the cloisters and refectory in 1380. After the surrender of the establishment to Henry VIII., he granted it to Sir Robert Southwell, Master of the Rolls : it was by him sold to Sir Thomas Hope, who, in 1545, pulled down the ancient Priory Church, and with the materials built Bermondsey House, where died Thomas Ratcliffe, Earl of Sussex (Lord Chamberlain to Queen Elizabeth), in 1583. The east gate of the monastery was taken down about 1760 j the great gate-house was nearly entire in 1806, shortly after which all the ancient buildings were removed, and Abbey- street built on their site. Bermondsey-square now occupies the great close of the Abbey, and Grange-road was its pasture-ground, extending to the farm ; the ancient watercourse, Neckinger, was once navigable from the Thames to the Abbey. Adjoining was an Almonry, or Hospital, for " indigent children and necessitous converts," erected by Prior Richard in 1213, but not to be traced after the Reformation. There is, in the Spa-road, St. James's Chapel, a Grecian edifice, opened in 1829 j the altar-piece is a large picture of " the Ascension," painted by John Wood, in 1844, and the prize picture selected from among eighty competitors for 500^. bequeathed for this purpose by Mr. Harcourt, a parishioner, and awarded by Eastlake and Haydon. St. Paul's Gothic Church and Schools were opened in 1848 ; and Christ Church and Schools, Neckinger-road (Romanesque), in 1849. The Roman Catholic population of Bermondsey exceeds 5000 persons ; they have a large church near Dockhead, opened in 1835. Precisely three centuries after the Dis- solution of the Monasteries, was founded here, in 1838, a Convent for the " Sisters of Mercy." The inmates are mostly ladies of fortune, and support a school for 200 chil- dren. Sister Mary, the Lady Barbara Eyre, second daughter of the sixth Earl of Newburgh, took the vows December 12, 1839 ; with Miss Ponsonby, Sister Vincent. At Bermondsey, perhaps, is carried on a greater variety of trades and manufactures CURIOSITIES OF LONDON. than in any other parish of the kingdom. It has heen the seat of the Leather Market for nearly two centuries ; its series of tidal streams from the Thames twice in twenty- four hours supplying water for the tanners and leather-dressers. At the Neckinger Mills here, nearly half a million of hides and skins are converted into leather yearly ; and in the great Skin Market are sold the skins from nearly all the sheep slaughtered in London. Steam -machinery is much employed in the manufactories ; and in Long- lane is an engine chimney -shaft 175 feet high. Here is Christy's Hat Manufactory, employing 500 persons, and considered the largest establishment of the kind in the world. Here, too, abound paper and lead mills, chemical works, boat and ship builders, mast and block makers, rope and sail makers, coopers, turpentine works, &c. The tidal ditches, with their filthy dwellings, produced cholera in 1832 and 1848-49 j in the latter year 189 deaths occurred in 1000 inhabitants. Here is Jacob's Island, so powerfully pictured in Dickens's novel of Oliver Tioist. Bermondsey Spa, a chalybeate spring, discovered about 1770, was opened in 1780, as a minor Vauxhall, with fireworks, and a picture-model of the siege of Gibraltar, painted by Keyse, and occupying about four acres. He died in 1800, and the garden was shut up about 1805. There are toTcens of the place extant ; the Spa-road is named from it. In the parish was born Mary Johns, the daughter of a cooper, in 1752, who wrote the Lord's Prayer in the compass of a silver penny. In the Eegisters, 1604, is the " forme of a solemne Vowe made betwixt a Man and his Wife, having been longe absent, tlirough which occasion the Woman beinge married to another Man, took her again." "Viewed from the Greenwich Railway, which crosses its north-eastern side, Ber- mondsey presents a curious picture of busy life, amid its streams and tan-pits, its narrow streets, close rents and lanes, by no means tributary to the public health. Yet the district has long been noted for longevity; and from 90 to 105 years are not uncommoa in the burial registers. JBjSTRNAL GBJEUN, A VILLAGE or large green, formerly a hamlet of Stepney, but made a parish (St. Matthew) in 1743. The old English ballad of The Blind Beggar of Bednall Green has given the district a long celebrity ; the story " decorates not only the sign- posts of the publicans, but the stafi" of the parish beadle." — (JLysons.) The incidents have been poetically wrought into a drama by Sheridan Knowles. The mansion tradi- tionally pointed to as " the Blind Beggar's House" was, however, built by John Thorpe, in 1570, for a citizen of London, and called after him, " Kirby's Castle." Pepys describes his visits to this house, then Sir W. Rider's, to dinner : his " fine merry walk with the ladies alone after dinner, in the garden ; the greatest quantity of strawberries he ever saw, and good." It was then said that only some of the outhouses, and not the man- sion, were built by the Blind Beggar of Bethnal Green. Robert Ainsworth, author of the Latin Dictionary which bears his name, kept an academy at Bethnal Green. Here was a large house said to have been a palace of Bishop Bonner's, and taken down in 1849, in forming Victoria Park. Between 1839 and 1849, there were built here ten district chm-ches, principally through the exertions of Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of London : the tenth of these churches (St. Thomas's) was erected at the sole cost of a private individual. Silk-weavers live in great numbers at Bethnal Green. Nichol-street, New Nichol-street, Half Nichol-street, Nichol-row, Turvil-street, comprising within the same area numerous blind courts and alleys, form a densely-crowded district in 13ethnal Green. Among its inhabitants may be found street vendors of every kind of produce, travellers to fairs, tramps, dog-fanciers, dog-stealers, men and women sharpers, shoplifters and pickpockets. It abounds with the young Arabs of the streets, and its outward moral degradation is at once apparent to any one who passes that way. Here the police are certain to be found, day and night, their presence being required to quell riots and to preserve decency. Sunday is a day much devoted to pet pigeons and to bird-singing clubs : prizes are given to such as excel in note, and a ready sale follows each award. Time thus employed was formerly devoted to cock-fighting. In this locality, twenty-live years ago, an employer of labour, Mr. Jonathan Duthoit, made an attempt to influence the people for good by the hire of a room for meeting purposes. The first attendance consisted of one person. Per- sistent efforts were, however, made ; other rooms have from time to time been taken and enlarged; here is a Hall for Christian instruction ; and another for Educational purposes ; Illustrated Lectures are delivered; a Loan Library has been established, also a Clothing Club and Penny Bank, and Training Classes for industrial purposes.— 4