fire in 1730; so it is not impossible that the author of "The Polyolbion," that good epic poema, once lived at the present No. 180, though the next house eastward is certainly older than its neighbour. We have given a drawing of the house.

"Pewter

translators lay three in a bed at the Platter Inn" at Holborn. He published the most disgraceful books and forged letters. Curll, in his revengeful spite, accused Pope of pouring an emetic into his half-pint of canary when he and Curll and That shameless rogue, Edmund Curll, lived at Lintot met by appointment at the "Swan Tavern,"

"

the "Dial and Bible," against St. Dunstan's Church. When this clever rascal was put in the pillory at Charing Cross, he persuaded the mob he was in for a political offence, and so secured the pity of the crowd. The author of "John Buncle" describes Curll as a tall, thin, awkward man, with goggle eyes, splay feet, and knock-knees. His

Fleet Street. By St. Dunstan's, at the "Homer's Head," also lived the publisher of the first correct edition of "The Dunciad."

Among the booksellers who crowded round old St. Dunstan's were Thomas Marsh, of the "Prince's Arms," who printed Stow's "Chronicles;" and William Griffith, of the "Falcon," in St. Dunstan's

published "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." | was given to the British Museum in 1852, by Samuel Richard Marriot, another St. Dunstan's bookseller, Rogers, the banker poet. published Quarles' "Emblems," Dr. Donne's "Sermons," that delightful, simple-hearted book, Isaak Walton's "Complete Angler," and Butler's "Hudibras," that wonderful mass of puns and quibbles, pressed close as potted meat. Matthias Walker, a St. Dunstan's bookseller, was one of

Nor in this list of Fleet Street printers must we forget to insert Richard Pynson, from Normandy, who had worked at Caxton's press, and was a contemporary of De Worde. According to Mr. T. C. Noble, to whose work we are deeply indebted, Pynson printed, at his office, the "George," first

in the Strand, and afterwards beside St. Dunstan's chiefly because it was a favourite resort of Pepys, Church, in Fleet Street, no less than 215 works. who frequently mentions it in his quaint and The first of these, completed in the year 1483, was graphic way. probably the first book printed in Fleet Street, afterwards a gathering-place for the ink-stained craft. A copy of this book, "Dives and Pauper," was sold some years since for no less than £49. In 1497 the same busy Frenchman published an edition of "Terence," the first Latin classic printed in England. In 1508 he became printer to King Henry VII., and after this produced editions of Fabyan's and Froissart's "Chronicles." He seems to have had a bitter feud with a rival printer, named Robert Rudman, who pirated his trade-mark. In one of his books he thus quaintly falls foul of the enemy: "But truly Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men. . . . . Truly I wonder now at last that he hath confessed it in his own typography, unless it chanced that even as the devil made a cobbler a mariner, he made him a printer. Formerly this scoundrel did prefer himself a bookseller, as well skilled as if he had started forth from Utopia. He knows well that he is free who pretendeth to books, although it be nothing more."

To this brief chronicle of early Fleet Street printers let us add Richard Bancks, who, in 1600, at his office, "the sign of the White Hart," printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the compositors-nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched a passage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the first correct folio English translation of the Bible, by permission of Henry VIII. When in Paris, Grafton had to fly with his books from the Inquisition. After his patron Cromwell's execution, in 1540, Grafton was sent to the Fleet for printing Bibles; but in the happier times of Edward VI. he became king's printer at the Grey Friars, now Christ's Hospital. His former fellowworker in Paris, Edward Whitchurch, set up his press at De Worde's old house, the "Sun," near the Fleet Street conduit. He published the "Paraphrase of Erasmus," a copy of which, Mr. Noble says, existed, with its desk-chains, in the vestry of St. Benet's, Gracechurch Street. Whitchurch married the widow of Archbishop Cranmer.

The "Hercules Pillars" (now No. 27, Fleet Street, south) was a celebrated tavern as early as the reign of James I., and in the now nameless alley by its side several houses of entertainment nestled themselves. The tavern is interesting to us

No. 37, south (Hoare's Bank), is well known by the golden bottle that still hangs, exciting curiosity, over the fanlight of the entrance. Popular legend has it that this gilt case contains the original leather bottle carried by the founder when he came up to London, with the usual half-crown in his pocket, to seek his fortune. Sir Richard Colt Hoare, however, in his family history, destroys this romance. The bottle is merely a sign adopted by James Hoare, the founder of the bank, from his father having been a citizen and cooper of the city of London. James Hoare was a goldsmith who kept "running cash" at the "Golden Bottle" in Cheapside in 1677. The bank was removed to Fleet Street between 1687 and 1692. The original bank, described by Mr. Timbs as a low-browed building with a narrow entrance," was pulled down about sixty years since. In the records of the debts of Lord Clarendon is the item, "To Mr. Hoare, for plate, £27 10s. 3d. ;" and, by the secret service expenses of James II., "Charles Duncombe and James Hoare, Esqrs." appear to have executed for a time the office of master-workers at the Mint. A Sir Richard Hoare was Lord Mayor in 1713; and another of the same family, sheriff in 1740–41 and Lord Mayor in 1745, distinguished himself by his preparations to defend London against the "Pretender." In an autobiographical record still extant of the shrievalty of the first of these gentlemen, the writer says:-" After being regaled with sack and walnuts, I returned to my own house in Fleet Street, in my private capacity, to my great consolation and comfort." This Richard Hoare, with Beau Nash, Lady Hastings, &c., founded, in 1716, the Bath General Hospital, to which charity the firm still continue treasurers; and to this same philanthropic gentleman, Robert Nelson, who wrote the well-known book on "Fasts and Festivals," gave £100 in trust as the first legacy to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Noble quotes a curious broadside, still extant, in which the second Sir Richard Hoare, who died in 1754, denies a false and malicious report that he had attempted to cause a run on the Bank of England, and to occasion a disturbance in the City, by sending persons to the Bank with ten notes of £10 each. What a state of commercial wealth, to be shaken by the sudden demand of a mere £100!

Next to Hoare's once stood the "Mitre Tavern," where some of the most interesting of the meetings between Dr. Johnson and Boswell took place.

Fleet Street.]

DR. JOHNSON AT THE “MITRE.”

Jacobite. It was at the "Mitre" that Johnson
urged Boswell to publish his "Travels in Corsica ;"
and at the "Mitre" he said finely of London, “Sir,
the happiness of London is not to be conceived
but by those who have been in it. I will venture
to say there is more learning and science within the
circumference of ten miles from where we sit than
in all the rest of the kingdom." It was here the
famous "Tour to the Hebrides" was planned and
laid out. Another time we find Goldsmith and
Boswell going arm-in-arm to Bolt Court, to prevail
on Johnson to go and sup at the "Mitre ;" but he
was indisposed. Goldsmith, since "the big man
could not go, would not venture at the "Mitre"
with Boswell alone.
with Boswell alone. At Boswell's last "Mitre "
evening with Johnson, May, 1778, Johnson would
not leave Mrs. Williams, the blind old lady who
lived with him, till he had promised to send her
over some little dainty from the tavern.
This was
very kindly and worthy of the man who "had the
coat but not the heart of a bear."
From 1728
to 1753 the Society of Antiquaries met at the
"Mitre," and discussed subjects then wrongly con-
sidered frivolous. The Royal Society held also
conclaves at the same celebrated tavern; and here,
in 1733, Thomas Topham, the strongest man of
his day, in the presence of eight persons, rolled up
with his iron fingers a large pewter dish. In 1788
the "Mitre" ceased to be a tavern, and became,.
first Macklin's Poet's Gallery, and then an auction-
room. The present spurious "Mitre Tavern," in
Mitre Court, was originally known as "Joe's Coffee-
House."

The old tavern was pulled down, in 1829, by the from the house of Hanover abusing him as a Messrs. Hoare, to extend their banking-house. The original "Mitre" was of Shakespeare's time. In some MS. poems by Richard Jackson, a contemporary of the great poet, are some verses beginning, "From the rich Lavinian shore," inscribed as Shakespeare's rime, which he made at ye 'Mitre,' in Fleet Street." The balcony was partly burnt during the Great Fire, and had to be pulled down. Here, in June, 1763, Boswell came by solemn appointment to meet Johnson, so long the god of his idolatry. They had first met at the shop of Davis, the actor and bookseller, and afterwards near an eating-house in Butcher Row. Boswell describes his feelings with delightful sincerity and self-complacency. "We had," he says, "We had," he says, "a good supper and port wine, of which Johnson then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox High Church sound of the Mitre, the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordinary power of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever before experienced." That memorable evening Johnson ridiculed Colley Cibber's birthday odes and Paul Whitehead's "grand nonsense," and ran down Gray, who had declined his acquaintance. He talked of other poets, and praised poor Goldsmith as a worthy man and excellent author. Boswell fairly won the great man by his frank avowals and his adroit flattery. "Give me your hand," at last cried the great man to the small man: "I have taken a liking to you." They then finished a bottle of port each, and parted between one and two in the morning. As they shook hands, on their way to No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, where Johnson then lived, Johnson said, "Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope we shall pass many evenings, and mornings too, together." A few weeks after the Doctor and his young disciple met again at the "Mitre," and Goldsmith was present. The poet was full of love for Dr. Johnson, and speaking of some scapegrace, said tenderly, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson." At another "Mitre" meeting, on a Scotch gentleman present praising Scotch scenery, Johnson uttered his bitter gibe, "Sir, let me tell you that the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England." In the same month Johnson and Boswell met again at the "Mitre." The latter confessed his nerves were much shaken by the old port and the late tavern hours; and Johnson laughed at people who had accepted a pension

It was at No. 56 (south side) that Lamb's friend, William Hone, the publisher of the delightful "Table Book" and "Every-day Book," commenced business about 1812. In 1815 he was brought before the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop on Sundays, and for carrying on a retail trade as bookseller and stationer, not being a freeman. The Government had no doubt suggested the persecution of so troublesome an opponent, whose defence of himself is said to have all but killed Lord Ellenborough, the judge who tried him for publishing blasphemous parodies. In 1815 Hone took great interest in the case of Eliza Fenning, a poor innocent servant girl, who was hung for a supposed attempt to poison her master, a law stationer in Chancery Lane. It was afterwards believed that a nephew of Mr. Turner really put the poison in the dough of some dumplings, in revenge at being kept short of money.

Mr. Cyrus Jay, a shrewd observer, was present at Hone's trial, and has described it with vividness: