-and the most revolting forms of distress and vice might be noticed in every street. It was quite a Saturnalian age for the City Arabs, and up to a certain point each might do what was good in his own eyes.

We could never learn anything of Sir Harry's connexions or antecedents. When we first knew him he must have been over forty, and he had been a street celebrity for many years. He continued his strange perambulations for a very long period after this, helplessly drunk every evening, save when he was sober from necessity-howling in the frenzy produced by his fiery draughts, or uttering the low, dismal plaint caused by hunger or pain. At length he was missed, and seen no more. Some said he had fallen into the Thames at Millbank, and been suffocated in the mud; others, that he had been inveigled by some resurrection-men, who had smothered him in his drunken sleep, and then sold his body to the surgeons. Inquiries were made by the parish authorities at his wretched lodgings, but nothing certain could be discovered, only the mistress of the house said that poor Sir Harry was by no means so wicked as people thought him; for that several times she had heard him praying during the severe nights, and that once she had found him endeavouring to spell over some loose leaves from a Bible; besides which he was a good lodger, for he seldom owed more than eighteenpence, though his room cost him 2d. a night.

No doubt this miserable creature was an idiot, with only such erring power of choice as led him perpetually into follies or crimes-if, indeed, we can reasonably admit that such a condition of mind implies responsibility at all. Society, if it performed its imperative duty, should remove such unfortunate beings wholly from the public gaze. There are some idiot asylums at present, but they are by no means adequate to the extent of the evil, and are

merely the results of private benevolence. Lunatics, when found among the poorer classes, are maintained at the expense of the community, and who can dispute its propriety? Why should not idiots receive the same succour, since the sufferers in both cases labour under an awful burden of providential calamity?

812

CROSBY HALL.

A FEW particulars as to the founder of this remarkable "remainder" from the " days of old" will not be out of place, and we give them first, that our notice of the structure itself may be unmixed with merely personal matter. Of Sir John Crosby's family we find no record. According to Stow, a tradition existed of his being illegitimate and a foundling-the name Cross-by, it was asserted, having been given from the cross near which his cradle was deposited. The historian treats this as fabulous, and speaks of a John Crosby to whom, in 1406, Henry IV. granted the wardship of Joan, the daughter of one Jordaine, a rich fishmonger of London. He imagines this Crosby was the father or grandfather of the founder of Crosby-place. There can be no certainty on the subject, for Crosby was a common name at the time our Sir John Crosby came first into notice as a zealous partizan of the Yorkists, in 1461-in which year he represented London in Parliament, was an Alderman, Warden of the Grocers' Company, and Mayor of the Calais Staple.

He appears to have acquired great political importance. In 1466 he obtained a lease of the site of Crosby-place, at a ground-rent of £11 68. 8d. In 1470 he became Sheriff, and next year he was knighted by Edward IV., after his landing at Ravenspur. Hume informs us that several of

the citizens had advanced money to the king; probably Crosby was one of these. In 1472 he was sent as a plenipotentiary to the Duke of Burgundy.

His death happened in 1475, and he was buried in the Church of St. Helen's, under a costly altar tomb. This monument still exists, and is well preserved, considering its antiquity. On the ledges of the tomb recline alabaster figures of Sir John and Agnes his wife. He wears plate armour, his head rests on a helmet, his feet on a griffin; he has a mantle with a collar of roses, and wears a dagger at his right side, but no sword. Dame Crosby is attired in a long gown, covering her feet, with a wide mantle, tight sleeves, and a tasselled girdle; she wears a close cap, with a veil, which falls on the pillow, placed on her head; the hair is turned up under her cap, and a rose ornament encircles her neck. Two couchant dogs supply the place of a footstool. The inscription has long been obliterated, but Weever gives a copy, and it commences, "Orate pro animabus Johannis Crosbie, militis Ald."

He bequeathed his estates to his daughter Johanne Talbot Crosbie, but she probably died before her father, for none of his issue succeeded him; and in 1501, the executor, William Bracebridge, assigned the original leaso of Crosby-place to Bartholomew Reed, who was no connexion. He gave by his will a sum of money towards building a steeple for Gernon Church, Essex. There is reason to suppose that, failing heirs, his possessions were appropriated, as his will directed, by members of tho Grocers' Company.

Such, and so scanty, are the particulars now to bo gathered relative to the large-hearted citizen who built Crosby Hall. The structure would have deserved notico as connected with any period of our history, but it becomes infinitely more remarkable as the work of a single individual in the middle of the fifteenth century. Sir John

Crosby obtained his lease of the ground on which it was built from Dame Alice Ashfelde, "Pryoresse of the House or Convent of St. Helene," for a term of ninety-nine years. The deed grants him "all that great tenement, with the appurtenances formerly in the possession of Catanei Pinelli, merchant of Genoa" (many Genoese resided in London at the period, the velvet of their country being then fashionable). The ground so leased extended from north to south, along the line of the "King's-street" (now Bishopsgate-street), a distance of about 110 feet. Besides this land, however, Sir John possessed the mansion in which he then lived, on the same spot, and there were, no doubt, extensive gardens in the rear. It may be at present impossible to ascertain the exact extent of the property, but the area must have been considerable, and was, with the priory to which it adjoined, in an open country situation.

Of the building itself, as it originally appeared, we have no information, for it was much modified, no doubt, when Stow described it as "built of stone and timber, very large and beautiful, and the highest at that time in London." Quadrangular houses were preferred in the fifteenth century, and they seldom included more than a single court; but Crosby-place was double-courted-a fashion which for grandeur as well as utility was then coming into vogue. Indications of this style are quite evident; a quadrangle may be made out next Bishopsgate-street, having the hall easterly, and a dwelling-house to the north. On the south, the remains of a range of buildings rise above the present level, and the crumbling fragments of an old wall, till within a few years, enclosed the court on the west. The inner court is scarcely traceable, but vaults under the houses of Crosby-square extend about 130 feet in a line with the hall. In most early quadrangular mansions the hall divided the two courts.

It