favour and patronage were Inigo Jones, Vandyke, Hollar, Nicholas Stone, and Le Sœur. The Earl's treasures were thus arranged :-the principal statues and busts were ranged along the gallery, the others in the garden, where he had the inscribed marbles let into the wall. The collection comprised not less than 37 statues, 128 busts, and 250 inscribed marbles. When the mansion was about to be pulled down about 1678, the entire collection was offered for sale, but, no single purchaser appearing, it was divided into several portions, and dispersed. Enough, however, ultimately found their way to Oxford to give name to a collection which comprises many of the Earl's most valued relics. From the Earl of Arundel the house passed by marriage into the hands of the Howard family, and became the seat of the Dukes of Norfolk, when it received its latest designation of Norfolk House. The Countess of Nottingham, who plays so important a part in the romantic episode in the tragical history of the Earl of Essex, died here, as before mentioned, in 1603. Her husband was a Howard, so she was probably on a visit at the time. The next visitor of importance was the Duke de Sully, during the performance of his mission from Henry IV. of France to James I., immediately after the accession of the latter; Norfolk House having been temporarily appointed as his place of residence. The great French statesman speaks of it as one of the finest and most commodious mansions in London, having a great number of apartments on the same floor. From hence he appears to have removed to Crosby Place. After the Great Fire of London learning' also found shelter within its walls. The Royal Society, being burnt out of Gresham College, were invited by the Duke to reside here; they did so, and remained for some years. On their removal the whole was pulled down, and the present Arundel, Norfolk, Surrey, and Howard Streets, rose on the site.

AMONG those curious narrow lanes which extend from the Strand downwards to the Thames, there is one called Strand Lane, through which ran the watercourse from Strand Bridge, and which we have in our former article incidentally referred to as containing an important remain. It is a place which few persons besides the inhabitants are at all familiar with-a circumstance that may account for the little notice that has been paid to the announcement seen in front of No. 5 of the lane in question. We were roaming carelessly through these lanes, thinking there could be little or nothing in them to repay the curious visitor, when that announcement attracted our attention, and we read "The Old Roman Spring Bath!" With some surprise and a great deal of incredulity we desired to be shown this piece of antiquity, which the chief historians of the metropolis had said nothing about. Descending several steps we found ourselves in a lofty vaulted passage, evidently ancient; and its antiquity became still more apparent on walking to the end of the passage, where the ceiling of the opposite or terminal wall exhibits half of a great circular arch, the upper portion of the other half being occupied by a descending piece of masonry, supported by a beam, which appears to be at least two or three centuries

VOL. II.

M

old, possibly much more. The age of this beam speaks significantly as to the age of the arch, which it and the accompanying masonry have mutilated. On the left of the passage is a door, leading into a vaulted chamber, measuring we should suppose about twenty feet in length, the same in height, and in breadth about nine feet. In the massive wall between the chamber and the passage is a recess, passing which, and standing at the farther end of the room, we have the view seen in the above engraving. The Bath itself is about thirteen feet long, six broad, and four feet six inches deep. The spring is said to be connected with the neighbouring holy well, which gives name to Holywell Street, and their respective position makes the statement probable. Through the beautifully clear water, which is also as delightful to the taste as refreshing to the eye, appear the sides and bottom of the Bath, exhibiting, we were told, the undoubted evidences of the high origin ascribed to it. Minutely as the height and peculiar coldness of the water would permit, did we and the artist of the above drawing examine the structure of these supposed Roman walls and pavement. The former consisted, we found, of layers of brick of that peculiar flat and neat-looking aspect which certainly seemed to imply the impress of Roman hands, divided only by thin layers of stucco; and the latter of a layer of similar brick, covered with stucco, and resting upon a mass of stucco and rubble. The construction of the pavement is made visible by a deep hole at the end near the window, where the spring is continually flowing up; and in pursuing our inquiries among those persons best calculated to satisfy them, we were told by a gentleman connected with the management of the estate, who had had a portion of the pavement purposely removed, that the rubble was of that peculiar character well known among architects as Roman. The bricks are nine inches and a half long, four inches and a half broad, and an inch and three quarters thick. On this point it may be necessary to observe that Roman bricks are often, but most incorrectly, stated to have been invariably square. The evidences in disproof of the assertion are as numerous as they should be well known. In Woodward's account, for instance, of the Roman walls of London, the dimensions of the bricks or tiles are stated at about a foot wide by a foot and a half long. In Rickman's 'Life of Telford,* the floor of the baths at Wroxeter is described as " paved with tiles sixteen inches long, twelve wide, and an inch and a half thick." The remainder of the passage might be applied, with the mere alteration of the proportions in depth of the different layers, to the Bath in Strand Lane :-"The tiles lie on a bed of mortar one foot thick, under which are rubble-stones to a considerable depth." These were the larger Roman bricks. We are told the Roman wall discovered in Lombard Street in 1786 was constructed" of the smaller sized;" but no dimensions are given. At the farther end of the Bath is a small projecting strip or ledge of white marble, and beneath it a hollow in the wall slanting towards one corner: these are the undoubted remains of a flight of steps leading down into the water. Immediately opposite the steps, we learn from the authority of the gentleman before referred to, was a door connected with a vaulted passage still existing below-and towards the back of-three houses in Surrey Street, and continuing from thence upwards in the direction of the Strand. These vaults have some remarkable features: among others, there is a low arch of a very peculiar form, *Page 28.

the rounded top projecting gradually forward beyond the line of its sides, in the house immediately behind the Bath. But the history of the Bath-is there nothing known of it? All we can say in reply is-that the property can be traced back into the possession of a very ancient family, the Danvers (or D'Anvers), of Swithland, in Leicestershire, whose mansion stood on the spot ;-that, although the existence of the Bath was evidently unknown to Stow, Maitland, Pennant, and Malcolm, or the later historians of London, from the absence of any mention of it in their pages, yet from time immemorial in the neighbourhood the fact of its being a Roman bath has been received with implicit credence ;-and, lastly, that a kind of dim tradition seems to exist that it had been closed up for some long period, and then re-discovered. It will not be thought we have spent too much of our attention on this matter when it is considered how great an interest has always been felt on the subject of any remaining traces of the residences of the former masters of the world in our own island, and particularly in London; and that among those remains, consisting chiefly of fragments of walls, mosaic pavements, and articles of use or ornament, a bath, presenting to-day, probably, the precisely same aspect that it presented sixteen or seventeen centuries ago, when the Roman descended into its beautiful waters, must hold no mean place. The proprietors, we are happy to say, rightly estimate its value, and have long ago caused another bath to be built and supplied from it; and it is in the latter alone that persons are allowed to bathe.

Continuing our route, and passing King's College and Somerset House-subjects too large to be considered in the present paper-we descend another narrow

lane, bearing a name suggestive of a long train of historical memories. We are now in the precincts of the ancient palace of the Savoy; and that rather low but

long and antique-looking edifice, with its beautiful windows and curious little tower, is its chapel, the last remnant of its architectural glories. In front extends the burial-ground, a peculiarly neat one for London, with its well-gravelled walks, and fresh-looking evergreens. The founder of the Savoy was Peter de Savoy, brother to the Boniface Archbishop of Canterbury whom we have mentioned in our account of Lambeth Palace, and uncle to Eleanor, the queen of Henry III. This Peter, coming over to England on a visit to his niece, was created Earl of Savoy and Richmond, and solemnly knighted in Westminster Abbey. The date of 1245 is ascribed to the original erection. From the Earl of Savoy, the palace passed, most probably by gift, to the Friars of Mountjoy, and then again returned into the possession of the family by Eleanor's purchasing it for her son Edmund, afterwards Earl of Lancaster. His son Thomas Earl of Lancaster was beheaded during the reign of Edward II., and the Savoy then became the property of his brother Henry, who enlarged it, and made it so magnificent in 1328, at an expense of 52,000 marks, ("which money," says Stow," he had gathered together at the town of Bridgerike,") that there was, according to Knighton, no mansion in the realm to be compared with it in beauty and stateliness. After the decease of the Earl's son, the first Duke of Lancaster, in 1351, one of the daughters of the latter married the famous John of Gaunt, who became in consequence the possessor of the Savoy. Six years later occurred an event which has bequeathed to the locality one of its most interesting memories, namely, the residence of the captive King John of France. The battle of Poictiers took place on the 19th of September, 1356, and on the 24th of April following the King with his illustrious conqueror, the Black Prince, the darling of our old historians, entered London. With the same touching delicacy of feeling which characterized all the proceedings of the Prince towards his prisoner, from their first supper after the battle, when he served the French monarch kneeling, and refused to sit at table with him, John was now mounted on a richly caparisoned creamcoloured charger, while the Prince rode by his side on a little black palfrey. The accompanying procession was most magnificent. The Savoy was appropriated to the use of the King during the period of his stay. “And thither,” says Froissart," came to see him the King and Queen oftentimes, and made him great feast and cheer." The negotiations as to John's ransom were long protracted, and it was not till October, 1360, that the terms were settled; when, all the parties being at Calais, the French King and twenty-four of his barons on the one side, and Edward with twenty-seven of his barons on the other, swore to observe the conditions, and John was liberated on the following day. We must rapidly follow his history to its conclusion. He returned to France; was unable to fulfil his portion of the treaty; and to add to his mortification, his son, the Duke of Anjou, entered Paris from Calais, where he had been permitted by the English, whose prisoner he was, to reside, and which he had only been enabled to leave by breaking his parole. These, and it is said various other (and more doubtful) circumstances, made him resolve upon a line of conduct which his courtiers vainly strove to drive him from by ridicule; and to the astonishment, no doubt, more or less, of all parties, he suddenly returned to London, where he was received with open arms by Edward, and took up his final residence at the Savoy. Under the date 1364, we find in Stow's Chronicles the following passage:-"The 9th day of