in me what may be done by the earnest application of honest industry; and I trust that my example may induce others to aspire, by the same means, to the distinguished situation which I have now the honour to fill." Self-made men are too fond of such glorifications, and forget how much wealth depends on good fortune and opportunity. 1839. Alderman Wilson, mayor, signalised his year of office by giving, in the Egyptian Hall, a banquet to 117 connections of the Wilson family being above the age of nine years. At this family festival, the usual civic state and ceremonial were maintained, the sword and mace borne, &c.; but after the loving cup had been passed round, the attendants were dismissed, in order that the free family intercourse might not be restricted during the remainder of the evening. A large number of the Wilson family, including the alderman himself, have grown rich in the silk trade. In 1842, Sir John Pirie, mayor, the Royal Exchange was commenced. Baronetcy received on the christening of the Prince of Wales. At his inauguration dinner at Guildhall, Sir John said: "I little thought, forty years ago, when I came to London a poor lad from the banks of the Tweed, that I should ever arrive at so great a distinction." In his mayoralty show, Pirie, being a shipowner, added to the procession a model of a large East Indiaman, fully rigged and manned, and drawn in a car by six horses. Alderman Farncomb (Tallow-chandler), mayor in 1849, was one of the great promoters of the Great Exhibition of 1851, that Fair of all Nations which was to bring about universal peace, and wrap the globe in English cotton. He gave a grand banquet at the Mansion House to Prince Albert and a host of provincial mayors; and Prince Albert explained his views about his hobby in his usual calm and sensible way. the suggestion of Mr. G. Godwin, arranged a show on more than usually æsthetic principles. There was Peace with her olive-branch, the four quarters of the world, with camels, deer, elephants, negroes, beehives, a ship in full sail, an allegorical car, drawn by six horses, with Britannia on a throne and Happiness at her feet; and great was the delight of the mob at the gratuitous splendour. Alderman Salomons (1855) was the first Jewish Lord Mayor-a laudable proof of the increased toleration of our age. This mayor proved a liberal and active magistrate, who repressed the mischievous and unmeaning Guy Fawkes rejoicings. Alderman Rose, mayor in 1862 (Spectaclemaker), an active encourager of the useful and manly volunteer movement, had the honour of entertaining the Prince of Wales and his beautiful Danish bride at a Guildhall banquet, soon after their marriage. The festivities (including £10,000 for a diamond necklace) cost the Corporation some £60,000. The alderman was knighted in 1867. He was (says Mr. Timbs) Alderman of Queenhithe, living in the same row where three mayors of our time have resided. His Alderman Lawrence, mayor in 1863-4. father and brother were both aldermen, and all three were in turns Sheriff of London and Middlesex. The brother, Alderman James Clarke Lawrence, M.P., was mayor in 1868-9, and was created a baronet at the close of his mayoralty. Alderman Phillips (Spectacle-maker), mayor in 1865, was the second Jewish Lord Mayor, and the first Jew admitted into the municipality of London. Alderman Allen, who was mayor in 1867-8, abandoned the old state-coach and pageantry in his procession to Westminster. Alderman Sir Sydney H. Waterlow, mayor in 1872-3, received a baronetcy on the occasion of the visit of the Shah of Persia to London during The Early Home of the London Poulterers-Its Mysterious Desertion-Noteworthy Sites in the Poultry-The Birthplace of Tom Hood, SeniorA Pretty Quarrel at the Rose Tavern-A Costly Sign-board-The Three Cranes-The Home of the Dillys-Johnsoniana-St. Mildred's Church, Poultry-Quaint Epitaphs-The Poultry Compter-Attack on Dr. Lamb, the Conjurer-Dekker, the Dramatist-Ned Ward's Description of the Compter-Granville Sharp and the Slave Trade-Important Decision in favour of the Slave-Boyse-Dunton. THE busy street extending between Cheapside and Cornhill is described by Stow (Queen Elizabeth) as the special quarter, almost up to his time, of the London poulterers, who sent their fowls and feathered game to be prepared in Scalding Alley, anciently called Scalding House, or Scalding Wike. The pluckers and scorchers of the feathered fowl occupied the shops between the Stocks' Market (now the Mansion House) and the Great Conduit. Just before Stow's time the poulterers seem to have taken wing in a unanimous covey, and settled down, for reasons now unknown to us, and not very material to any one, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles (afterwards Newgate Market). Poultry was not worth its weight in silver then. The chief points of interest in the street (past and present) are the Compter Prison, Grocers' Hall, Old Jewry, and several shops with memorable associations. Lubbock's Banking House, for instance, is leased of the Goldsmiths' Company, being part of Sir Martin Bowes' bequest to the Company in Elizabeth's time. Sir Martin Bowes we have already mentioned in our chapter on the Goldsmiths' Company. The name of one of our greatest English wits is indissolubly connected with the neighbourhood of the Poultry. It falls like a cracker, with merry bang and sparkle, among the graver histories with which this great street is associated. Tom Hood was the son of a Scotch bookseller in the Poultry. The firm was "Vernor and Hood." "Mr. Hood," says Mrs. Broderip, “was one of the 'Associated Booksellers,' who selected valuable old books for reprinting, with great success. Messrs. Vernor and Hood, when they moved to 31, Poultry, took into partnership Mr. C. Sharpe. The firm of Messrs. Vernor and Hood published 'The Beauties of England and Wales,' The Mirror,' Bloomfield's poems, and those of Henry Kirke White." At this house in the Poultry, as far as we can trace, in the year 1799, was born his second son, Thomas. After the sudden death of the father, the widow and her children were left rather slenderly provided for. "My father, the only remaining son, preferred the drudgery of an engraver's desk to encroaching upon the small family store. He was articled to his uncle, Mr. Sands, and subsequently was trans ferred to one of the Le Keux. He was a most devoted and excellent son to his mother, and the last days of her widowhood and decline were soothed by his tender care and affection, An opening that offered more congenial employ. ment presented itself at last, when he was about the age of twenty-one. By the death of Mr. John Scott, the editor of the London Magazine,' who was killed in a duel, that periodical passed into other hands, and became the property of my father's friends, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey. The new proprietors soon sent for him, and he became a sort of sub-editor to the magazine." Of this period of his life he says himself:: "Time was when I sat upon a lofty stool, At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen, Began each morning, at the stroke of ten, To write to Bell and Co.'s commercial school, Blogg Brothers-Milton-Grote and Prescott-Pope, at the Restoration by William King, a staunch the door of the tavern in his good-natured way, and saluted her. The King's Head Tavern, which stood at the western extremity of the Stocks' Market, was not at the "Rose." Machin, in his diary, Jan. 5, 1560, first known by the sign of the "King's Head," but thus mentions it :-" A gentleman arrested for debt: Master Cobham, with divers gentlemen and serving men, took him from the officers, and carried him to the Rose Tavern, where so great a fray, both the sheriffs were fain to come, and from the Rose Tavern took all the gentlemen and their servants, and carried them to the Compter." The house was distinguished by the device of a large, well-painted rose, erected over a doorway, which was the only indication in the street of such an establishment. Ned Ward, that coarse observer, in the "London Spy," 1709, describes the "Rose," anciently the "There was no parting," he says, "without a glass; "Rose and Crown," as famous for good wine. where the wine, according to its merit, had justly so we went into the Rose Tavern in the Poultry, gained a reputation; and there, in a snug room, warmed with brush and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night's adventure. The tavern door was flanked by two columns twisted with vines carved in wood, which supported a small square gallery over the portico, surrounded by handsome ironwork. On the front of this It consisted of a gallery was erected the sign. which the artist had introduced a tall silver cup, central compartment containing the Rose, behind called "a standing bowl," with drinking glasses. Beneath the painting was this inscription: "This is THE ROSE TAVERN, Kept by WILLIAM KING, Citizen and Vintner. This Taverne's like its sign-a lustie Rose, About the time that King altered his sign we find the authorities of St. Peter-upon-Cornhill determining "That the King's Arms, in painted glass, should be refreshed, and forthwith be set up (in one of their church windows) by the churchwarden at the parish charges; with whatsoever he giveth to the glazier as a gratuity." The sign appears to have been a costly work, since there was the fragment of a leaf of an old accountbook found when the ruins of the house were cleared after the Great Fire, on which were written these entries" pd. to Hoggestreete, the Duche paynter, for ye picture of a Rose, wth a Standingbowle and glasses, for a signe, xx li., besides diners and drinkings; also for a large table of walnut-tree, for a frame, and for iron-worke and hanging the picture, v li." The artist who is referred to in this memorandum could be no other than Samuel Van Hoogstraten, a painter of the middle of the seventeenth century, whose works in England are very He was one of the many excellent artists of the period, who, as Walpole contemptuously says, "painted still life, oranges and lemons, plate, damask curtains, cloth of gold, and that medley of familiar objects that strike the ignorant vulgar." At a subsequent date the landlord wrote under the sign rare. "Gallants, rejoice! This flow're is now full-blowne! The tavern was rebuilt after the Great Fire, and Another noted Poultry Tavern was the "Three Cranes," destroyed in the Great Fire, but rebuilt and noticed in 1698, in one of the many paper controversies of that day. A fulminating pamphlet, entitled "Ecclesia et Factio: a Dialogue between Bow Church Steeple and the Exchange Grasshopper," elicited "An Answer to the Dragon and Grasshopper; in a Dialogue between an Old Monkey and a Young Weasel, at the Three Cranes Tavern, in the Poultry." Here, No. 22 was the house of Johnson's friends, Edward and Charles Dilly, the booksellers. in the year 1773, Boswell and Johnson dined with the Dillys, Goldsmith, Langton, and the Rev. Mr. Toplady. The conversation was of excellent quality, and Boswell devotes many pages to it. They discussed the emigration and nidification of birds, on which subjects Goldsmith seems to have been deeply interested; the bread-fruit of Otaheite, which Johnson, who had never tasted it, considered surpassed by a slice of the loaf before him; toleration, and the early martyrs. On this last subject, Dr. Mayo, "the literary anvil," as he was called, because he bore Johnson's hardest blows without flinching, held out boldly for unlimited toleration; Johnson for Baxter's principle of only "tolerating all things that are tolerable," which is no toleration at all. Goldsmith, unable to get a word in, and overpowered by the voice of the great Polyphemus, grew at last vexed, and said petulantly to Johnson, who he thought had interrupted poor Toplady, “Sir, the gentleman has heard you patiently for an hour; pray allow us now to hear him." Johnson replied, sternly, "Sir, I was not interrupting the gentleman; I was only giving him a signal proof of my attention. Sir, you are impertinent." Johnson, Boswell, and Langton presently adjourned to the club, where they found Burke, Garrick, and Goldsmith, the latter still brooding over his sharp reprimand at Dilly's. Johnson, magnanimous as a lion, at once said aside to Boswell, "I'll make Goldsmith forgive me." Then calling to the poet, in a loud voice he said, "Dr. Goldsmith, something passed to-day where you and I dined; I ask your pardon." Goldsmith, touched with this, replied, "It must be much from you, sir, that I take ill "--became himself, "and rattled away as usual." Would Goldy have rattled away so had he known what Johnson, Boswell, and Langton had said about him as they walked up Cheapside? Langton had observed that the poet was not like Addison, who, content with his fame as a writer, did not attempt a share in conversation; to which Boswell added, that Goldsmith had a great deal of gold in his cabinet, but, not content with that, was always pulling out his purse. "Yes, sir," struck in Johnson, "and that is often an empty purse." In 1776 we find Boswell skilfully decoying his great idol to dinner at the Dillys to meet the notorious "Jack Wilkes." To Boswell's horror, when he went to fetch Johnson, he found him covered with dust, and buffeting some books, having forgotten all about the dinner party. A little coaxing, however, soon won him over; Johnson roared out, "Frank, a clean shirt!" and was soon packed into a hackney coach. On discovering "a certain gentleman in lace," and he Wilkes the demagogue, Johnson was at first somewhat disconcerted, but soon recovered himself, and behaved like a man of the world. Wilkes quickly won the great man. They soon set to work discussing Foote's wit, and Johnson confessed that, though resolved not to be pleased, he had once at a dinner-party been obliged to lay down his knife and fork, throw himself back in his chair, and fairly laugh it out"The dog was so comical, sir: he was irresistible." Wilkes and Johnson then fell to bantering the Scotch; Burke complimented Boswell on his successful stroke of diplomacy in bringing Johnson and Wilkes together. Mr. Wilkes placed himself next to Dr. Johnson, and behaved to him with so much attention and politeness, that he gained upon him insensibly. No man ate more heartily than Johnson, or loved better what was nice and delicate. Mr. Wilkes was very assiduous in helping him to some fine "Pray give me leave, sir-it is better there -a little of the brown-some fat, sir-a little of the stuffing-some gravy-let me have the pleasure of giving you some butter-allow me to recommend a squeeze of this orange; or the lemon, perhaps, may have more zest." "Sir-sir, I am obliged to you, sir," cried Johnson, bowing, and turning his head to him with a look for some time of "surly virtue," but, in a short while, of complacency. "He But the most memorable evening recorded at Dilly's was April 15, 1778, when Johnson and Boswell dined there, and met Miss Seward, the Lichfield poetess, and Mrs. Knowles, a clever Quaker lady, who for once overcame the giant of Bolt Court in argument. Before dinner Johnson took up a book, and read it ravenously. knows how to read it better," said Mrs. Knowles to Boswell, "than any one. He gets at the substance of a book directly. He tears out the heart of it." At dinner Johnson told Dilly that, if he wrote a book on cookery, it should be based on philosophical principles. "Women," he said, contemptuously, "can spin, but they cannot make a good book of cookery." They then fell to talking of a ghost that had appeared at Newcastle, and had recommended some person to apply to an attorney. Johnson thought the Wesleys had not taken pains enough in collecting evidence, at which Miss Seward smiled. This vexed the superstitious sage of Fleet Street, and he said, with solemn vehemence, "Yes, maʼam, this is a question which, after five thousand years, is yet undecided; a question, whether in theology or philosophy, one of the most important that can come before the human understanding." Johnson, who during the evening had been very thunderous at intervals, breaking out against the Americans, describing them as "rascals, robbers, and pirates," and declaring he would destroy them all-as Boswell says, "He roared out a tremendous volley which one might fancy could be heard across the Atlantic," &c.-grew very angry at Mrs. Knowles for noticing his unkindness to Miss Jane Barry, a recent convert to Quakerism. "We remained," says Boswell, writing with awe, like a man who has survived an earthquake, "together till it was very late. Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at the time to a warm West Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxurious foliage, luscious fruits, but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightning, and earthquakes in a terrible degree." St. Mildred's Church, Poultry, is a rectory situate at the corner of Scalding Alley. John de Asswell was collated thereto in the year 1325. To this church anciently belonged the chapel of Corpus Christi and St. Mary, at the end of Conyhoop Lane, or Grocers' Alley, in the Poultry. The patronage of this church was in the prior and canons of St. Mary Overie's in Southwark till their suppression. This church was consumed in the Great Fire, anno 1666, and then rebuilt, the parish of St. Mary Cole being thereunto annexed. Among the monumental inscriptions in this church, Maitland gives the following on the well-known Thomas Tusser, of Elizabeth's reign, who wrote a quaint poem on a farmer's life and duties : "Here Thomas Tusser, clad in earth, doth lie, That some time made the points of husbandrie. Among the curious epitaphs in St. Mildred's, Stow mentions the following, which is worth quoting here : "HERE LIES BURIED THOMAS IKEN, SKINNER. "In Hodnet and London God blessed my life, |