The foundation of the fair must be ascribed to the famous Rahere, the minstrel, and founder of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, of whom many interesting particulars are given in Stow's "Survey of London." Rahere was the first prior of St. Bartholomew; "and to this priory," says Stow, "King Henry II. granted the privilege of a fair to be kept yearly at Bartholomew tide for three days, to wit, the eve, the day, and the next morn, to the which the clothiers of England and the drapers of London repaired, and had their booths*."

The fair had been long an eye-sore to the corporation, and may now be said to be virtually suppressed. It was at one time feared that any attempt to suppress it would be attended with dangerous consequences; but this fear has long died away, and this annual scene of debauchery and riot will no doubt show no signs of existence next year. The character of the age has improved: the increase of information among the people, the extension of the principles of temperance have already elevated the character of the working classes, who now more than ever manifest a pleasure in spending their holidays in rural excursions, for which steam-boats and railroads offer so many facilities, and in visiting the works of art and collections of pictures which are open in the vicinity of London. Lady Holland's mob, which used to be the terror of Smithfield and its neighbourhood, has now disappeared altogether; a circumstance, which is of itself a great improvement.

The annual supply of cattle to this market, for the consumption of the Londoners, has averaged for the last eight or nine years, 153,288 head of horned cattle; 1,265,958 sheep; 20,780 fatted calves; and 130,000 pigs.

We have now to speak of the Church of St. Bartholomew, occupying the site of the priory, which, as we have already mentioned, was founded by Rahere, the minstrel. Pennant talks of the profligate life of the good Rahere, falsely imagining that the profession of minstrel was in those days a profligate and abandoned one. "There is a legend," he adds, "that he had a most horrible dream, out of which he was relieved by St. Bartholomew himself, who directed him to found the house, and dedicate it to him." The minstrel was buried in the church, where a handsome monument described by Pennant, was erected to his memory. The last prior was William Bolton.

An anecdote is related of him, which, as a trait of popular

* A full account of all the humours of the fair has been published in the first volume of Mr. Hone's "Every Day Book," to which work the reader, who is curious upon the subject, is referred for further information.

manners in the age in which he flourished, is worth preserving. In the year 1523, the astrologers of London, of whom and similar vagabonds there were great numbers in the city at this time, predicted that on the 1st of February, 1524, the waters of the Thames would overflow, and wash away 10,000 houses. The prophecy was reiterated again and again, and at last met belief. As the time drew near, people became so alarmed that many families packed up their goods and removed into Kent and Essex, out of the reach, as they imagined, of this awful inundation. As the dreadful day approached, the number of these emigrants increased. In January, droves of workmen might bė seen, followed by their wives and children, trudging on foot to the villages within fifteen or twenty miles, to await the catastrophe. People of a more wealthy condition hired carts and waggons, and hastened away on the same errand. It is calculated that, by the middle of January, nearly 20,000 persons had left the city, leaving nothing but the bare walls of their dwellings to be swept to destruction by the impending floods. A great many clustered about Highgate, Hampstead, and Blackheath; and those who could afford to remove to a greater distance, went as far as Guildford and Dorking on the one side, and Barnet, Waltham Abbey and St. Alban's, on the other. Among those who were most alarmed, was the portly prior of St. Bartholo mew's. He resolved to take up his abode at Harrow on the Hill, where at very great expense he erected a sort of fortress, in which to shut himself and brethren during the prevalence of the floods. He stocked it with provisions for two months; and on the 24th of January, just a week before the awful day which was to see the destruction of London, he removed thither with all the brethren and officers of the priory, and several boats, which were conveyed in waggons to the fortress. He also hired expert rowers, to be available in case of emergency. Many of the wealthy citizens prayed that they might be allowed to share his retreat, but the prior was deaf to their entreaties, and told all the applicants that he had scarcely sufficient room for his own brethren, and could receive no strangers. At last the awful morn, big with the fate of ten thousand houses, dawned in the east, and anxious crowds stationed themselves within sight of the river, to watch the rising of the waters. But the waters would not rise beyond the usual high-water mark; and the tide ebbed as peaceably as it had flowed. The crowds were not yet assured of their safety-the inundation might come upon them in the evening or the night; and so they waited with undiminished anxiety till the tide flowed again. All went quietly and regu

larly as before, and another day dawned without the slightest symptom of the threatened floods having been observed. The people thereupon began to grow clamorous, and some one started the notion that it would serve the false prophets and astrologers but right to duck them in the river. The proposition was favourably received-it would be a show for the people after all; not quite so grand a one as the inundation, but still a show; and a mob of people proceeded in search of the astrologers, to inflict a summary punishment upon them. Luckily, the astrologers invented an excuse, which allayed the popular fury. The stars were right, they said, after all; it was they, erring mortals, who were wrong. The inundation would most certainly take place, as the stars had foretold; 10,000 houses in London would assuredly be washed away by the Thames, but they had made a slight error in the date-an error of one figure only, for they had reckoned a five instead of a six, and thus fixed the date of the catastrophe a whole century too early. London was therefore safe until 1624, and there was no cause of alarm for the present generation. The popular wrath was appeased-the account was spread through the city-Bolton, the prior, dismantled his fortress, and came back to St. Bartholomew's; and the other refugees followed his example, and gradually came back, until London was as cheerful and as populous as it had ever been before.

CHAPTER VI.

Founder of St. Bartholomew's Hospital-Long Lane, acts of incendiarsm plotted there-The Barbican-Noble mansions there formerly-Chapel founded in Red-cross Street-Prince Rupert's house there-Newgate Street--Bagnio Court-Account of Christ's Hospital, or Blue Coat School -Navigation School founded there by Charles II.-Munificence of Sir Robert Clayton to this foundation-The New Hall-Scholarships fromPublic suppers-Founder's intention now defeated-The Cock of Westminster-Christ Church, a remnant of the monastery of Grey FriarsLibrary founded by Sir Richard Whittington-The Spital SermonsMagnificent monuments formerly in the Church of the Grey Friars-The burial-place of Baxter; of Sir John Mortimer, a victim to the House of Lancaster; of an ancestor of Sir Francis Burdett tyrannically murdered; of a murderess-Pontack's, the first genteel metropolis eating-house-The Queen's Arms Tavern-Warwick Lane, site of the mansion of Kingmaking Warwick.

ST. BARTHOLOMEW'S HOSPITAL also owes its origin to the benevolent Rahere. He obtained from Henry I. a piece of

waste ground adjoining the priory, where he built and endowed an hospital "for a master, brethren and sisters, and for the entertainment of poor diseased people till they got well; of distressed women big with child, till they were delivered and able to go abroad; and for the support of all children whose mothers died in the house, until they attained the age of seven years." The present building was begun in the year 1729.

Before leaving the neighbourhood of Smithfield, we must take a turn into Cock Lane, so notorious for the ghost which alarmed all London in the year 1762. The story is too well known to need repetition.

Long Lane and Barbican, both in the close vicinity of Smithfield, deserve a word of mention before we return to the direct course towards St. Paul's. Long Lane is distinguished by some dreadful acts of incendiarism. An ample memorial of the event is exhibited in the following inscription on a stone affixed to the house of a linendraper, at the corner :

"On Saturday, Nov. 20, 1790, the two incendiaries were executed, who wilfully set on fire, on the 16th of May in the same year, several houses which stood on this ground, and occasioned a loss of upwards of 40,000l. for no other purpose but to plunder the sufferers."

66 A person named Flindall, then detected in stealing, wrote a letter to Mr. Alderman Skinner, which led to the disclosure of the whole particulars of that calamity. Flindall being admitted king's evidence, it also appeared that this act of deliberate villany had no other object but that of plunder. Edward Love and William Jobbins being convicted of this crime at the Old Bailey, on the 30th of October, were executed on the spot where the depredation was committed, on the 20th of November, 1790, and confessed their guilt at the place of execution."

"The Barbican," says Mr. Pennant, "originally a Roman speculum, or watch-tower, lay a little to the north of this street. It was an appendage to most fortified places. The Saxons gave them the title of Burgh-kenning. They were esteemed so important, that the custody was always committed to some man of rank.

"This was entrusted to the care of Robert Ufford, Earl of Suffolk, by Edward III., by the name of Basse Court, which descended by the marriage of Cecilia, one of his daughters, to Sir John Willoughby, afterwards Lord Willoughby of Parham. Here was of old a manor-house of the king's, called Basse Court, or Barbican, destroyed in 1251, but restored as appears

above."

Lord Willoughby of Eresby had his mansion here in the reign of Edward VI. His lady, a zealous protestant, having offended Stephen Gardiner, was compelled with the family to fly to the continent, and being delivered of a son near a church porch in Bruges, he was named Peregrine, a name taken by several of the Ancaster family. Pennant says, the cause of offence was, that the lady in her zeal against popery, had dressed a dog in a rochet or surplice worn by bishops, and in affront to Bishop Gardiner, named her dog after him. Willoughby House, in Barbican, was very large, and one of its tenants was Peregrine Bertie, lord Willoughby of Eresby, father of Lord Robert Bertie, the great Earl of Lindsey, who was killed at the battle of Edgehill, under Charles I.

On the top of an ancient house near Redcross Street, called Garter Place, Sir Thomas Wriothesly founded a chapel, which he dedicated by the name of Sanctæ Trinitatis in alto.

The Earls of Bridgewater had also a house in the Barbican. Their name is preserved in the adjoining square. The house was burnt down in 1675, when Lord Brackly, the eldest son of the Earl, and his tutor, perished in the flames. Prince Rupert also lived in the Barbican. An account of the house, with a print of it, is given in the "European Magazine" for 1791, page 328; from which it appears that Charles II. visited the prince there, and that the bell-ringers of the neighbouring church received a guinea for ringing a peal on the occasion.

We now return to Newgate Street, named after the gate and prison, both of which have been already mentioned. Bagnio Court in this street is said to have derived its name from the first bagnio or public bath ever established in England.

Taking the left-hand side of the street first, we pass the ancient public-house known by the sign of the "Magpie and Stump," and arrive at the handsome iron railing across the opening recently made to throw open to public view the national structure of Christ's Hospital, or the Blue-Coat School. This is another of the many foundations for which the city of London is indebted to King Edward VI. The hospital stands in the precincts of the abolished convent of the Grey Friars; and its original object was to provide for the relief and education of young and helpless children. The three hospitals he founded have each its separate purpose:-this for poor children; St. Thomas's, Southwark, for the sick and the maimed; and Bridewell for the reformation of the thriftless and ill-disposed. The three hospitals were incorporated by a charter dated the 6th of