raises the soil from a valley to a level, and ultimately to a positive elevation—so in London and all ancient cities, if we open the surface and descend a few feet, our picks and mattocks strike on the remains of other towns; and we are reminded that the spot has had other tenants, of races and languages quite foreign to our own.

In 1785 a new sewer was necessary in Lombard-street and Birchin-lane, when innumerable Roman antiquities were found. We shall condense an account of them from the Archæologia. The sewer was commenced near the Mansion House and Sherbourne-lane; at the depth of twelve feet a Roman pavement was found, "composed of small irregular bricks, in length two inches, in breadth one and a half; mostly red, but a few black and white; they were strongly cemented with a yellowish mortar, and were laid in a thick bed of cement and stones " The breadth of this pavement was twenty feet. Near the Post Office, on the north side, " was a wall of smaller-sized Roman bricks, in which were perpendicular flues, making it probable that the Romans introduced chimneys into Britain. Opposite the Post Office was another wall, and a pavement of red bricks, much decayed. In many cases the mortar must have been mixed with powdered bricks, and was exceedingly hard. In penetrating along Lombard-street, great quantities of charred wood and wood ashes were met with. In Birchin-lane, a tesselated pavement, composed of white, black, green, and red squares, forming a very beautiful border, was laid open, but it soon dipped under the adjacent footway and houses. Fragments of pottery and earthenware were found in abundance, as well as Roman coins, pieces of glass, urns, bottles, keys, and horns or bones of various animals. Some of the pottery was of the fine coral colour called Samian, being ornamented with figures, or impressed with names and inscriptions. On one beautiful vessel of red earthenware a combat was depicted,

of naked figures, including two horsemen, very spirited in design, and in admirable taste. Other fragments represented warriors, satyrs, hares, dogs, birds, foliage, a boar's head, and much fancy ornamentation. There were vessels of coarse clay, with broad rims, which seemed to have been worn by trituration. The coins were of gold, silver, and brass. Those of the nobler metals were of Galba, Nero, Antoninus Pius, and Alexander Severus. Those of brass were of Claudius, Nerva, Vespasian, and Diocletian. Nearly 300 coins of Constantinus and Tetricus were found together near Nicholas-lane. These discoveries were all made within sixteen feet of the surface. Many similar excavations were equally successful.

Soon after the Great Fire, and more recently, richer relics have been met with in the same neighbourhood. In December, 1803, a tesselated pavement was opened in Leadenhall-street. In the centre was a highly finished figure of Bacchus, reclining on the back of a tiger; he was represented with a Roman drinking-cup in his right hand. The countenance was beautifully placid. It was a fine artistic work. The pavement was broken in raising it, but the fragments were deposited in the library of the East India House. A small urn, with part of a human jawbone, was found near it. Thus the whole City, but especially the immediate vicinity of Lombard-street, teems with silent but indisputable evidence of the greatness of old Rome, of its influence over our countrymen, and of the civilization our foreign conquerors brought with them. Thus does an all-wise Providence afford compensation in the most untoward events; even national slavery results in national improvement, and prepares to develop the free and glorious England of our own day.

Our knowledge of the Saxon period is not so full as might be desired, but during the reign of Edward the Confessor, the whole land being united under one monarch,

London was rich and populous; and the centre of the City, including what was soon to be styled the street of the Lombards, engrossed a large share of the wealth and commerce of the realm. Many foreign bankers had found it worth their while to traffic with the islanders, and the earliest germs of the system of credit now so marvellously extended began to fructify. Tallies were probably used instead of the precious metals in the operations of trade, but the lesson was then first taught that an exchange of surplus products was the surest and safest mode of accumulating riches.

Norman William-ought we to hate or honour him most? True, our noble Harold perished at Hastings, and his country's freedom seemed to perish with him; but it was not so. The handful of knights and gentlemen adventurers who formed the train of the Conqueror might oppress, but they could not annihilate, the Saxon people. In a few generations the many absorbed the few, and a comparatively rude nation became lastingly imbued with the refinement of Normandy- and, indeed, of France. English commerce made prodigious strides in a few years. Then the citizens ceased to be mere homely tradesmen. The mercer, the armourer, and the goldsmith rivalled in luxury the merchants who ministered to the pride of the Plantagenets; and there were cellars in Lombard-street where accumulated ingots of gold and silver, or precious heaps of plate, and inestimable collections of precious stones, foreshadowed the bullion of the Bank of England. Most of the merchants who dealt in the precious metals, and in equally precious gems, for which the taste of the times caused an immense demand, were foreigners, and many of them natives of Lombardy. The street where they trafficked soon took their name, and retains it still. It was called Lombard-street by the subjects of Henry I., Lombard-street by king Jamie, when Heriot, the royal goldsmith, dwelt there, and it bears the same denomination

in the reign of Victoria our Queen. One day Henry II. was sorely in want of a supply; he could neither wheedle nor force it from his good church dignitaries, and necessity drove him into Lombard-street. Peter de Brock, a Flemish Jew, was known to have unlimited funds, and might be induced to part with them "for a consideration" -which, in Henry's case, was certain wonderfully large pearls. His degenerate son, King John, having no pearls to pawn, but having resolved to "put money in his purse," entered the City-perhaps Lombard-street-with his menat-arms, and bade then extract tooth after tooth from an unfortunate Hebrew's mouth, till he consented to grant him the loan required. That terrible warrior and acute politician, Edward I., needed money like his brother kings. Sometimes he made the City gold shrink under the screw of a "benevolence," and sometimes he summoned all the landholders with more than forty marks of yearly income to come and be knighted. Of course the fees were heavy. Besides which methods, he raised money on bonds as readily then in Lombard-street as modern merchants now do on Exchequer bills. Edward III. and his Black Prince dabbled in the funds. They wanted the sinews of war, and the noble merchant Whittington was a liberal moneylender. Once, when the King came to banquet with him, his reception chamber was warmed by a sandal-wood fire, in which, as a return for the honour of a royal visit, he burnt the King's unpaid bonds to the amount of 30,000 crowns.

Lombard-street did not flourish during the Wars of the Roses, but did good business under Henry VII., despite the trickery of Empson and Dudley. As for bluff Hal, while his father's money-chest was full, he lavished his gold with reckless extravagance, but as he grew older, when he could find leisure from decapitating his wives or subjects, he was a frequent borrower, and every moneyed Fleming trembled at his visits, granting loans on easy

terms, as a kind of composition for the privilege of keeping his head. Neither could good Queen Bess do without supplies, and the royal ruff was familiar enough among the bankers of Lombard-street. A mighty change was silently in progress. The Civil War shook the whole frame of society; a different and improved monetary system was soon to follow. That mighty national establishment, now known over the whole world as the Bank of England, was first set up, but comparatively on a very unpretending basis, early in the reign of William III. Kings and governments left the private bankers of Lombard-street for the wholesale dealers of the Threadneedle-street Plutonian temple. A happy change; for public credit can never again be at the mercy of a few avaricious or dangerous men, nor private individuals incur the loss of their gains through the grasping cupidity of unprincipled greatness.

I have a vivid recollection of Lombard-street in 1805. More than half a century has rolled away since then, yet there, sharply and clearly defined before the eye of memory, stand the phantom shadows of the past. I walked through the street a few weeks ago. It is changed in many particulars, yet enough remains to identify it with the tortuous, dark vista of lofty houses which I remember so well. Then there were no pretentious, stuccofaced banks or offices; the whole wall surface was of smoke-blacked brick; its colour seemed to imitate the mud in the road; and, as coach or waggon or mail cart toiled or rattled along, the basement stories were bespattered freely from the gutters. The glories of gas were yet to be. After three o'clock p.m.. miserable oil lamps tried to enliven the foggy street with their "ineffectual light," while through dingy, greenish squares of glass you might observe tall tallow candles, dimly disclosing the mysteries of bank or counting-house. Passengers needed to walk with extreme caution; if you lingered on the pavement,