bayting, fencers, and prophane spectacles at the Theatre and Curtaine, and other like places." *

Beyond Spitalfields to the east is the black povertystricken district of Bethnal Green, also chiefly inhabited by weavers. The whole population is of recent growth. Pepys went to Sir William Rider's gardens at Bethnal Green, and found there "the largest quantity of strawberries he ever saw and very good." Sir W. Rider's was supposed to be the house of "the Blind Beggar," so well known from the ballad in Percy's "Reliques"

"My father, shee said, is soone to be seene,
The siely blind beggar of Bednall-green,
That daily sits begging for charitie,

He is the good father of pretty Bessee.

His markes and his tokens are knowen very
He alwayes is led with a dogg and a bell,
A siely olde man, God knoweth, is hee,
Yet hee is the father of pretty Bessee."+

well;

"Bishop's Hall" and "Bonner's Fields" commemorate the residence of Bishop Bonner in this locality.

The district of Hoxton, beyond Shoreditch, was once celebrated for its balsamic wells, and, in the last century, in the annals of gardening. Farther east is the populous district of Hackney, of which Archbishop Sancroft was vicar. Here the popish conspirators assembled at "the Cock," Oct. 2, 1661, with the intention of assassinating Charles II. on his return from a visit to Sir Thomas Vyner; but the plot was revealed in time, though the conspirators escaped.

* See The Builder, April 17, 1875.

+ The beadle of St. Matthew's, Bethnal Green, has a staff, of 1669, on the head of which, in silver gilt, the story of the Blind Beggar and his daughter is represented.

The sign of "the King's Head" at Hackney was changed to "Cromwell's Head" under the Commonwealth, for which its landlord was whipped and pilloried at the Restoration, and afterwards called his inn "King Charles's Head."

Returning down Bishopsgate, on the left is Houndsditch, a relic, in its name, of the old foss which encircled the city, formerly a natural receptacle for dead dogs, whose filth the street was intended to remedy. Richard of Cirencester says that the body of Edric, the murderer of Edmund Ironsides, was thrown into Hounds ditch. His crime had raised Canute to the throne, but when he came to claim his promised reward-the highest position in the city-the Danish king replied, "I like the treason, but hate the traitor behead this fellow, and, as he claims my promise, place his head on the highest pinnacle of the Tower." Edric was then scorched to death with flaming torches, his head raised on the highest point of the Tower, and his body thrown to the hounds of Houndsditch.

This is the Jews' quarter-silent on Saturdays, busy on Sundays. Houndsditch has long been a street famous for its brokers. In his "Every Man in his Humour" Ben Jonson speaks of a Houndsditch man as one of the devil's near kinsmen, a broker;" and Beaumont and Fletcher allude to the brokers of Dogsditch

"More knavery and usury,

And foolery, and trickery, than Dogsditch."

Cutler Street, on the left, is the ancient centre for the

cutlers.

Duke's Place, Houndsditch, occupies the site of Christ Church Priory, founded in 1108 by Queen Maude. It was granted at the Dissolution to Sir Thomas Audley, Lord Chancellor. His daughter married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk (whence the name), and was wont to ride hither

In Bevis Marks.

through the city with one hundred horsemen in livery, preceded by four heralds. Holbein died in the Duke's house.

Behind Hounds ditch on the right runs Bevis Marks Bury's Marks), from the town-house of the Abbots of Bury

St. Edmunds, afterwards "granted to Thomas Heneage the father, and Sir Thomas Heneage the son." *

On the north side of this street, before the Dissolution, stood the Hospital of the Brotherhood of St. Augustine Papey. Here the sign of the tavern of The Blue Pig, only very recently removed, was a strange instance of the endurance of the sign of "the Blue Boar," the crest of Richard III., who, as Duke of Gloucester, resided close by in Crosby Hall.

* Maitland, ii. 782.

THE

CHAPTER IX.

IN THE HEART OF THE CITY.

labyrinthine but most busy streets which form the

centre of the City of London to the south of the Royal Exchange are filled with objects of interest, though of minor interest, amid which it will be difficult to thread our way, and impossible to keep up any continuous connection of associations. The houses, which have looked down upon so many generations of toilers, are often curious in themselves. The City churches for the most part are dying a slow death; their congregations have ebbed and will never flow back. Very few are worth visiting for their own sakes, yet almost every one contains some tomb or other fragment which gives it a historic interest. Dickens vividly describes their general aspect and the kind of thoughts which are awakened by attending a service in one of these queer old churches.

"There is a pale heap of books in the corner of every pew, and while the organ, which is hoarse and sleepy, plays in such a fashion that I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of the music, I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family. And who were they? Jane Comport must have married young Dowgate, and come into the family that way. Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comport when VOL. I.

Y