nature was roused at this; he committed the away in his own coach.
principal governors of Furnival's, Clifford's, and
Barnard's inns to the castle of Hertford, and sent
for several aldermen to Windsor Castle, where he
either rated or imprisoned them, or both.

Fleet Street often figures in the chronicles of Elizabeth's reign. On one visit it is particularly said that she often graciously stopped her coach to speak to the poor; and a green branch of rosemary given to her by a poor woman near Fleet Bridge was seen, not without marvellous wonder of such as knew the presenter, when her Majesty reached Westminster. In the same reign we are told that the young Earl of Oxford, after attending his father's funeral in Essex, rode through Fleet Street to Westminster, attended by seven score horsemen, all in black. Such was the splendid and proud profusion of Elizabeth's nobles.

James's reign was a stormy one for Fleet Street. Many a time the ready 'prentices snatched their clubs (as we read in "The Fortunes of Nigel"), and, vaulting over their counters, joined in the fray that surged past their shops. In 1621 particularly, three 'prentices having abused Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, as he passed their master's door in Fenchurch Street, the king ordered the riotous youths to be whipped from Aldgate to Temple Bar. In Fleet Street, however, the apprentices rose in force, and shouting "Rescue!" quickly released the lads and beat the marshalmen. there had been any resistance, another thousand sturdy 'prentices would soon have carried on the

war.

If

Nor did Charles's reign bring any quiet to Fleet Street, for then the Templars began to draw out their swords. On the 12th of January, 1627, the Templars, having chosen a Mr. Palmer as their Lord of Misrule, went out late at night into Fleet Street to collect his rents. At every door the jovial collectors winded the Temple horn, and if at the second blast the door was not courteously opened, my lord cried majestically, "Give fire, gunner!" and a sturdy smith burst the panels open with a huge sledge-hammer. The horrified Lord Mayor being appealed to soon arrived, attended by the watch of the ward and men armed with halberts. At eleven o'clock on the Sunday night the two monarchs came into collision in Hare Alley, now Hare Court. The Lord of Misrule bade my Lord Mayor come to him; but Palmer omitting to take off his hat, the halberts flew sharply round him, his subjects were soundly beaten, and he was dragged off to the Compter. There, with soiled finery, the new year's king was kept two days in durance, the attorney-general at last fetching the fallen monarch

33

At a court masque soon

afterwards the king made the two rival potentates join hands; but the King of Misrule had, nevertheless, to refund all the five shillings' he had exacted, and repair all the Fleet Street doors his too handy gunner had destroyed. The very next year the quarrelsome street broke again into a rage, and four persons lost their lives. Of the rioters, two were executed within the week. One of these was John Stanford, of the duke's chamber, and the other Captain Nicholas Ashurst. The quarrel was about politics, and the courtiers seem to have been the offenders.

In Charles II.'s time the pillory was sometimes set up at the Temple gate; and here the wretch Titus Oates stood, amidst showers of unsavoury eggs and the curses of those who had learnt to see the horror of his crimes. Well said Judge Withers to this man, "I never pronounce criminal sentence but with some compassion; but you are such a villain and hardened sinner, that I can find no sentiment of compassion for you." The pillory had no fixed place, for in 1670 we find a Scotchman suffering at the Chancery Lane end for telling a victualler that his house would be fired by the Papists; and the next year a man stood upon the pillory at the end of Shoe Lane for insulting Lord Coventry, as he was starting as ambassador for Sweden.

In the reign of Queen Anne those pests of the London streets, the "Mohocks," seem to have infested Fleet Street. These drunken desperadoesthe predecessors of the roysterers who, in the times of the Regency, "boxed the Charlies," broke windows, and stole knockers-used to find a cruel pleasure in surrounding a quiet homeward-bound citizen and pricking him with their swords. Addison makes worthy Sir Roger de Coverley as much afraid of these night-birds as Swift himself; and the old baronet congratulates himself on escaping from the clutches of "the emperor and his black men," who had followed him half-way down Fleet Street. He, however, boasts that he threw them out at the end of Norfolk Street, where he doubled the corner, and scuttled safely into his quiet lodgings.

From Elizabethan times downwards, Fleet Street was a favourite haunt of showmen. Concerning these popular exhibitions Mr. Noble has, with great industry, collected the following curious enumeration :—

"Ben Jonson," says our trusty authority, "in Every Man in his Humour, speaks of a new motion of the city of Nineveh, with Jonas and the whale, at Fleet Bridge.' In 1611 'the Fleet Street

mandrakes' were to be seen for a penny; and not nineteen years old, though seven feet high, years later the giants of St. Dunstan's clock caused who died in 1737. At the Blew Boar and Green the street to be blocked up, and people to lose Tree' was on view an Italian giantess, above seven their time, their temper, and their money. During feet, weighing 425 lbs., who had been seen by ten Queen Anne's reign, however, the wonders of reigning sovereigns. In 1768 died, in Shire Lane, Fleet Street were at their height. In 1702 a Edward Bamford, another giant, seven feet four model of Amsterdam, thirty feet long by twenty inches in height, who was buried in St. Dunstan's, feet wide, which had taken twelve years in making, though £200 was offered for his body for diswas exhibited in Bell Yard; a child, fourteen years section. At the Globe,' in 1717, was shown old, without thighs or legs, and eighteen inches Matthew Buchinger, a German dwarf, born in 1674, high, was to be seen at the "Eagle and Child," a without hands, legs, feet, or thighs, twenty-nine grocer's shop, near Shoe Lane;' a great Lincoln- inches high; yet can write, thread a needle, shuffle shire ox, nineteen hands high, four yards long, as a pack of cards, play skittles, &c. A facsimile of lately shown at Cambridge, was on view at the his writing is among the Harleian MSS. And "White Horse," where the great elephant was seen;' in 1712 appeared the Black Prince and his wife, and 'between the "Queen's Head" and "Crooked each three feet high; and a Turkey horse, two feet Billet," near Fleet Bridge,' were exhibited daily odd high and twelve years old, in a box. Modern 'two strange, wonderful, and remarkable monstrous times have seen giants and dwarfs, but have they creatures—an old she-dromedary, seven feet high really equalled these? In 1822 the exhibition of and ten feet long, lately arrived from Tartary, and a mermaid here was put a stop to by the Lord her young one; being the greatest rarity and novelty Chamberlain." that ever was seen in the three kingdomes before.' In 1710, at the 'Duke of Marlborough's Head,' in Fleet Street (by Shoe Lane), was exhibited the 'moving picture' mentioned in the Tatler; and here, in 1711, 'the great posture-master of Europe,' eclipsing the deceased Clarke and Higgins, greatly startled sight-seeing London. 'He extends his body into all deformed shapes; makes his hip and shoulder-bones meet together; lays his head upon the ground, and turns his body round twice or thrice, without stirring his face from the spot; stands upon one leg, and extends the other in a perpendicular line half a yard above his head; and extends his body from a table with his head a foot below his heels, having nothing to balance his body but his feet; with several other postures too tedious to mention.'

"And here, in 1718, De Hightrehight, the fireeater, ate burning coals, swallowed flarning brimstone, and sucked a red-hot poker, five times a day! "What will my billiard-loving friends say to the St. Dunstan's Inquest of the year 1720? Item, we present Thomas Bruce, for suffering a gamingtable (called a billiard-table, where people commonly frequent and game) to be kept in his house.' A score of years later, at the end of Wine Office Court, was exhibited an automaton clock, with three figures or statues, which at the word of command poured out red or white wine, represented a grocer shutting up his shop and a blackamoor who struck upon a bell the number of times asked. Giants and dwarfs were special features in Fleet Street. At the Rummer,' in Three Kings' Court, was to be seen an Essex woman, named Gordon,

In old times Fleet Street was rendered picturesque not only by its many gable-ended houses adorned with quaint carvings and plaster stamped in patterns, but also by the countless signs, gay with gilding and painted with strange devices, which hung above the shop-fronts. Heraldry exhausted all its stores to furnish emblems for different trades. Lions blue and red, falcons, and dragons of all colours, alternated with heads of John the Baptist, flying pigs, and hogs in armour. On a windy day these huge masses of painted timber creaked and waved overhead, to the terror of nervous pedestrians, nor were accidents by any means rare. On the 2nd of December, 1718 (Queen Anne), a signboard opposite Bride Lane, Fleet Street, having loosened the brickwork by its weight and movement, suddenly gave way, fell, and brought the house down with it, killing four persons, one of whom was the queen's jeweller. It was not, however, till 1761 (George II.) that these dangerous signboards were ordered to be placed flat against the walls of the houses.

When Dr. Johnson said, "Come and let us take a walk down Fleet Street," he proposed no very easy task. The streets in his early days, in London, had no side-pavements, and were roughly paved, with detestable gutters running down the centre. From these gutters the jumbling coaches of those days liberally scattered the mud on the unoffending pedestrians who happened to be crossing at the time. The sedan-chairs, too, were awkward impediments, and choleric people were disposed to fight for the wall. In 1766, when Lord Eldon came to London as a schoolboy, and

CHAPTER IV.

FLEET STREET (continued).

Dr. Johnson in Ambuscade at Temple Bar-The First Child-Dryden and Black Will-Rupert's Jewels-Telson's Bank-The Apollo Club at the "Devil"—"Old Sir Simon the King"-"Mull Sack"-Dr. Johnson's Supper to Mrs. Lennox-Will Waterproof at the "Cock"-The Duel at "Dick's Coffee House"-Lintot's Shop-Pope and Warburton-Lamb and the Albion-The Palace of Cardinal Wolsey-Mrs. Salmon's Waxwork-Isaak Walton-Praed's Bank-Murray and Byron-St. Dunstan's-Fleet Street Printers-Hoare's Bank and the "Golden Bottle"-The Real and Spurious "Mitre"-Hone's Trial-Cobbett's Shop-" Peele's Coffee House."

their hopes or fears, their pleasures or their pains. No. 1-formerly a quiet, grave-looking house, But in the afternoon, when they have all dined, or next to Temple Bar, but now replaced by a composed themselves to pass the day without a building more worthy of the site is the oldest dinner, their passions have full play, and I can banking-house in London except one. perceive one man wondering at the stupidity of the centuries gold has here been shovelled about, and public, by which his new book has been totally reams of bank-notes have been shuffled over by neglected; another cursing the French, who fright practised thumbs. Private banks originated in the away literary curiosity by their threat of an invasion; stormy days before the Civil War, when wealthy

another swearing at his bookseller, who will advance no money without 'copy'; another perusing as he walks his publisher's bill; another murmuring at an unanswerable criticism; another determining to write no more to a generation of barbarians; and another wishing to try once again whether he cannot awaken the drowsy world to a sense of his merit." This extract seems to us to form an admirable companion picture to that in which we have already shown Goldsmith bantering his brother Jacobite, Johnson, as they looked up together at the grim heads on Temple Bar.

citizens, afraid of what might happen, entrusted their money to their goldsmiths to take care of till the troubles had blown over. In the time of the Stuarts, Francis Child, an industrious apprentice of the old school, married the daughter of his master William Wheeler, a goldsmith, who lived one door west of Temple Bar, and in due time succeeded to his estate and business. In the first London Directory (1677), among the fifty-eight goldsmiths, thirty-eight of whom lived in Lombard Street, "Blanchard & Child," at the "Marygold," Fleet Street, figure conspicuously as "keeping

BLACK WILL AND HIS CUDGEL