labour, directed by an accomplished architect, we may reasonably hope that our posterity for many generations will employ it for the increasing locomotive necessities of commercial London, and that the visit of Lord Macaulay's meditative New Zealander to its ruins may be indefinitely deferred.

THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.

OUR first Exchange was founded September 7, 1567, not at the cost of the City or the nation, but through the munificence of that princely merchant, Sir Thomas Gresham. Previous to that period, no public building in London could be pointed out as "a place where merchants most do congregate," though the yearly increasing commerce of the rising metropolis must long have made such an ambulatory desirable for the busy enterprise of trading Europe. Anterior to the Wars of the Roses, in the reign of Edward III. especially, England had extensive commercial relations with most of her neighbours, exporting her staple raw material-wool, and importing Flemish manufactures and French wines to a great extent. Indeed, the wines of the South of France were then the common drink of her people-the favourite beverage of the million, beer, being at that time completely unknown. Possibly tho next generation, should the new Commercial Treaty flourish, may see a revival of the old taste. The misery and depopulation occasioned by the wars of the two royal houses almost annihilated the growing trade of the country, and much is due to the wise and pacific Henry VII., whose wholesome laws and paternal care for his subjects aroused once more their dormant energies, and excited anew their love for traffic, which was ultimately

to be the source of their wealth and glory. During the reign of Henry VIII., the treasures of his economical father were scattered with a profuse hand. Commerce evidently increased, and no better proof is needed of the riches of the people generally than the gorgeous display made by that monarch in the Field of the Cloth of Gold. That prosperity was checked by the fierce outbreak of dissensions on the subject of religion, and although they finally ushered in our blessed Reformation, the unsettled times of Edward VI. and Queen Mary, with the burnings in Smithfield and at Oxford, afforded no encouragement for the peaceful arts of life. Foreign nations feared to trust us with their wealth, and our native products were scantily produced and tardily sold. Mutual distrust kept those apart who had the strongest interest in confidential intercourse.

The Flemings and Lombards-many of them, no doubt, Jews were our earliest financiers, and, notwithstanding the cruelty and injustice experienced by the latter, they tenaciously retained their connexion with a market which they had found so profitable. Probably, an open space where the Exchange now stands was the ordinary meeting-place of these industrious strangers, and thus the citizens found neutral ground for their merchandize. Trade recovered all its old vigour in the opening days of Queen Elizabeth, and a Pactolian stream began to flow through a City where the noblest commercial emporium in the world was to be established. Private liberality was prompt to provide a home for the buyers and sellers of the whole earth. It is a praiseworthy peculiarity of England that individual enterprise or liberality does for us what on the Continent is the work of governments. We owe nearly all our great societies and noblest achievements in science and art to private persons—either alone or in combination-the national exchequer being seldom

or ever drawn upon for the cost. Hence, cathedrals, bridges, railways, hospitals-and hence our Royal Exchange. Queen Elizabeth knew how to tickle the organ of self-esteem; she knighted Gresham, and paid him a royal visit on the opening of the building, in 1570. Nor did he confine his liberality to this noble structure; still the Gresham lecture exists-though we fear not now so useful as it should be. The Gresham Lectures were for a long time delivered exclusively in Latin, then the sole language of learned men; and though at present a translation is afterwards given, the discourses are of so dry and unpopular a character, that they attract a very small audience; and being delivered in the afternoon, as if to make the hearers as few as possible, are of little benefit except to the lecturers themselves, who earn their stipends very easily. In little over a century, Gresham's Exchange was destroyed in the Great Fire. That century had produced vast changes: the last lingering lights of chivalry had died out-monarchy had perished-the stern rule of Cromwell had crushed the spirit of the royalists; he, in turn, had passed away, and kingly rule was restored in the person of Charles II., by whom the first stone of the new building was laid, with much pomp, August 23, 1667. It was completed and opened for business in 1669. With this structure I was familiar, often walking and wondering in its fine area-for the long ranges of kings and queens which adorned the quadrangle were well calculated to arrest a boy's attention-and for the purposes intended it was really much superior to Mr. Tite's commercial palace. My visits were usually paid early in the day, when the space was nearly vacant, though here and there a bearded foreigner or two strolled, in evident expectancy of some friendly trader; or you might meet a London merchant in earnest discourse with a Hebrew bill-broker or Dutch importer. Some of the stony Plantagenets,

leaning on their swords in stern silence, quite awed me; and I used to feel it a relief to turn to the statue of the Merry Monarch in the centre, about whom there was little of majesty save his wig. Only two of these royal effigies were saved from the fire in. 1838-Elizabeth and Charles II. They, very properly, are preserved in the new Exchange, the first stone of which was laid by Prince Albert, in 1842, and which was opened by Queen Victoria, October 28, 1844.

The destruction of the second Exchange was, doubtless, owing to carelessness as to flues or stoves in some outbuilding, for it was surrounded on all sides by small shops -a very unsightly arrangement, still perpetuated in the modern building. The sole inducement for this sad breach of proper caution and sin against good taste must have been to secure an increase of income in the shape of rental. Much the finer part of the modern structure is the portico the columnar entrance is really grand; and the inscription over the whole, "The earth is the Lord's, and the fulness thereof," is quite sublime;* but the interior is bare, cold, and ineffective. The marble statue of our gracious Queen, weather-stained and dirty as it is, amounts to absolute caricature, while the frescoes recently added at a large outlay, as a roofing to the colonnade, are pretty, bright-coloured patterns, but have no meaning, and in our damp climate will soon grow as dull and dirty as the Queen's statue. It would add materially to the comfort and usefulness of the present Exchange if the central area were roofed with glass. We have many cold, wet, or windy days, when it must need considerable courage to pass an hour within so exposed a space. When persons are chilly or wet, they

* An inscription was suggested by Prince Albert, but the words were chosen by Dean Milman.