Otway has described a similar scene in the following noble lines :-

"I passed this very moment by thy doors,
And found them guarded by a troop of villains;
The sons of public rapine were destroying.
They told me, by the sentence of the law,
They had commission to seize all thy fortune.
Here stood a ruffian, with a horrid face,
Lording it o'er a heap of massive plate,
Tumbled into a heap for public sale;
There was another making villainous jests
At thy undoing; he had ta'en possession
Of all thy ancient, most domestic ornaments,
Rich hangings intermixed, and wrought with gold.
Thy very bed was violated

By the course hands of filthy dungeon slaves,
And thrown amidst the common lumber!"

Very recently, a crying nuisance was tolerated in Street; a mock auction, to plunder the unwary, was in constant activity. A smart open shop, full of plated goods, staring jewellery, and china vases, warranted real Dresden, attracted the gaze of the country bumpkin or the loitering clerk. In each window there was an announcement of instant sale, at an immense sacrifice. Some halfdozen spectators, hired at a shilling per diem, were grouped round the auctioneer's rostrum. The moment an unwary inquirer crossed the threshold, the imaginary sale commenced; a pair of massive silver (so-called) candlesticks, was probably the first lot. The twelvepenny men each made an offer, and if bumpkin aforesaid ventured on the slightest advance, the precious goods were instantly knocked down to him, and of course he found, on examining his treasure, that the "massive silver candlesticks" were of common white metal, slightly washed over. Or a beautiful pearl ornament (glass beads filled with white wax) was the prize to be competed for. Some

stray clerk longed for it as a gift to his dear wife Patty, or his fair affianced one, and ventures to outbid the zealous touters who are jostling him. Down goes the hammer. "Yours, sir, and only £3 108.," the probable value being 3s. 6d. Yet this barefaced fraud was allowed to go on under the very nose of the Lord Mayor for many months. It may be urged that simpletons so easily imposed upon deserve no protection. Certainly their folly was egregious; yet the police of a great city like London should not have winked at such tricks for a single hour.

It is not a little curious to observe that at auctions generally the most indifferent articles, whether of furniture, plate, or jewellery, will fetch a high price, while the conscientious tradesman's honest specimens of good work at a fair charge remain unpurchased. In the auction-room a spirit of competition is excited; the coolest heads grow hot when A or B engages in a contest for some lot for which he has no use, and which he would never think of buying in the ordinary way. It would be so pleasant to get the coveted cheffonier, or elegant silver waiter, which a neighbour is so anxious to possess. Indeed, lots are eagerly purchased, merely because they seem to be bargains, as if anything could be cheap which you do not want. I knew a gentleman who bought a lot of brass cannon, merely because the price was so low. He kept them in a lumber room for twenty years, and then they were sold by his executors as old metal. Another lover of bargains conceived a passion for the old masters, and secured at high prices dozens of genuine specimens of Raphael, Titian, and Rubens, all manufactured for the Wardour-street market, and scarcely worth the canvas they were painted on.

The reader smiles, and thinks it "passing strange;" but does he reflect how often he has been ensnared by the specious window-dressing of the shops about Cornhill and

Cheapside? In truth, they are auctions on a small scale, and sadly damaging to green lads sighing for knickknacks, gold chains, so marvellously cheap-watches, at such a low figure, the fine gold entirely on the surface, and the watches hardly more trustworthy than those in gilt gingerbread, once so much in demand at Bartholomew Fair. Of course, we know there are establishments for the sale of plate, jewellery, and watches where the merest child would be certain to get the full value for his money; but there are tradesmen (do they merit the name?) who seek their profits by the open practice of deceptions gross enough to warrant a worse name, vending base metal for gold, though with the smallest mixture of the precious ore, and disgracing the City in the eyes of foreigners by selling lumps of coloured crystal for precious stones. Such dishonest shopkeepers carry on mook auctions of the most disreputable kind, and bring lasting odium on the citizens of the noblest metropolis in the world. Dealings of this sort, too, apart from their palpable dishonesty, are highly impolitic, and cannot but end in exposure and disgrace. The old style of plodding shopkeepers were not so shortsighted. If a customer came once, they wished to ensure a second visit, and this they did by serving him fairly. Of course, they must have a profit, but they did not crave 90 per cent. Robin Conscience laments the trickery of London dealers; but his account proves that the black commercial sheep of his day were absolutely blameless when contrasted with some of the unblushing tricksters who practise legerdemain behind sheets of plateglass and in a blaze of gas.

SIR THOMAS GRESHAM.

THE patriotism and high character of this remarkable man would have earned him distinction in whatever situation Providence might have placed him, and on the long list of our London worthies he justly occupies a very exalted place. In the estimate of great moral eminence it is too common to exclude from the trial persons whose claim to notice has been established in a life of commercial activity, as if trade were a blot on the aspirant's escutcheon; but such narrow-minded critics will do well to remember the poet's maxim

"Honour and fame from no condition rise:

Act well your part-there all the merit lies."

The Exchange, of which we have already spoken, is a proud monument to the liberality and public spirit of Gresham; but he had other claims to distinction, and it may be profitable to devote some space to an outline of his biography. The loving chronicler says of him, “He was the worthy descendant of the right worshipful, ancient, pious, loyal, and charitable family of Gresham,

in Norfolk."

Sir Richard, his father, and Sir John Gresham, his uncle, the former of whom was Lord Mayor in 1537, and the latter in 1547, were both first-class merchants, and were often consulted by the Government, on account of

H

their knowledge of national interests as regarded commerce. Sir Richard was once agent for Henry VIII. on the Continent, and to him the citizens owed the first suggestion of a bourse or exchange, which was eventually carried out by his illustrious son. We give a letter on the subject from Sir Richard Gresham to Sir Thomas Audeley, then (1531) Lord Privy Seal :-"The last yeare I shewyd your lordship a platte, that was drawn out for to make a goodly burse in Lombard-streete, for merchantes to repaire unto. I doo suppose yt wylle coste two thousand pounds and more, whyche shall be very beautyfulle to the Citty, and also for the honour of our soveragne Lord the King. And if you send letters from His Highness to Sir George Moneux, who owneth certaine houses in Lombardstreete, commanding him to sell them to the Citty at cost price; for without them the sayd burse cannot bee made. If they be gotten, I doubt not but to gather one thousand pounds towards the building, or ever I depart out of my office of Sheriff."

The work, however, was to be executed by his munificent heir. On its completion in 1570, it was visited by Queen Elizabeth, who, being infinitely pleased, commanded her heralds, by sound of trumpet, to name it the Royal Exchange, "so to be called perpetually, and no otherwise.' There is a romantic tradition as to the feast given by the great merchant on this occasion. The Queen went to his house, with all her Court. A right sumptuous banquet was provided, during which Sir Thomas drank to Her Majesty's health in rich wine, into which a precious pearl, previously pulverised, had been thrown. Thus, in a play of the period (1623), Gresham, who is one of the characters, says in not very elegant verse,—

"Here fifteen hundred pounds at one slap goes;
Instead of sugar, Gresham drinks this pearle
Unto his Queen and Mistress. Pledge it, Lords."