one of the Farmers of the Customs, and whilst in that situation, he advanced considerable sums of money, both to James himself, and his successors, which were never afterwards repaid. He also furnished the crown with jewels, "to his infinite loss and prejudice ;”* and assisted Charles the Second with gold, when at Oxford, in 1643 and 1644, "for transportation," as it is quaintly expressed, by his biographer, "of the Queen and her children."+

Among the services rendered to his country by this gentleman, was the support which he gave to the manufacture of alum; which was introduced from the Papal dominions into Yorkshire, by one of his Italian friends, about the year 1608. The first works were set up at the expense of the crown, which retained the monopoly of this trade, until it was finally abolished by the Parliament in 1643, previously to which, Sir Paul had farmed the manufacture during twenty-eight years, at an annual rent of £12,000. He derived great sums from this monopoly, although his grant obliged him to supply all parts of England with alum at £20. per ton; which was only one-third of the price that had been formerly charged on its importation from Italy.

In the year 1639, the estate of Sir Paul Pindar,

Sir Paul Pindar brought from Turkey a large diamond, valued at £30,000, which James I. wished to obtain on credit; but the merchant wisely declined the contract, yet favoured his sovereign with the use of the diamond, on state or particular .occasions. Charles the First afterwards became the purchaser. + Vide European Magazine, for April, 1797.

"as cast up" by his own cashiers, and consisting "of ready money, allum, and good debts upon tallies and obligations from noblemen and others at court," was computed at the enormous sum of £215,600; yet, from the distractions of the times, the subsequent civil war, and the bad faith of many whom he had trusted, his losses were so great, and his affairs became so perplexed, that his executor, William Toomes, (who had long been his accountant and assistant,) found his expectations so entirely frustrated, that he committed suicide, in 1655, " and was found a felo de se."

Sir Paul Pindar died on the 22nd of August, 1650, at the advanced age of eighty-four, and was buried in St. Botolph's Church, Bishopsgate, to which he had been a considerable benefactor. His "leaden coffin," Malcolm says, 66 may at this time, be seen by the curious, with a hole in it, through which the very curious may possibly touch a part of his decayed body."* He was an inhabitant of that parish, as his epitaph informs us, twenty-six years; and "eminent for piety, charity, loyalty, and prudence." His Mansion is still remarkable for its bow front, and ample extent of windows; but it has been otherwise much

In the same

• See "Londinium Redivivum," vol. i. p. 330. work, are numerous extracts from the parish books, relating to the gifts and charities of this worthy man. In two instances, in 1637 and 1647, he is stated to have paid £2. for a license, for three years, to eat flesh on fish days! The arms of Sir Paul, viz. a chevron between three Lions' heads, erased, ermine, crowned or, appear among the ornaments of the ceiling of bis ancient dining-room.

altered. At a little distance, in Half-Moon Alley, is an old structure, ornamented with figures, as represented in the annexed print; which is traditionally reported to have been the Keeper's Lodge, in the Park attached to Sir Paul's residence; and mulberry trees, and other park-like vestiges in this neighbourhood, are still within memory.

Whitelock says, "that Sir Paul Pindar is remembered to have laid out £19,000, of his own money, towards repairing St. Paul's Cathedral;" and also, "that in 1649, he, and the other old commissioners of the Customs, offered to advance £100,000 for the Parliament, provided a debt of £300,000 owing by the last King was secured to them;" but that offer was not accepted.*

BEN JONSON'S MASQUE OF CHRISTMAS.-PLACES IN LONDON, IN JAMES THE FIRST'S REIGN.

THIS Masque "was presented at Court," in 1616. It is more valuable for the light which it affords, as to the costume exhibited by the characters introduced in the Christmas Mummeries of that period, than for any other quality. But this singularity attends it, that all the dramatis personæ are denizens of the City. Old Gregory Christmas, the devisor of the Masque, and

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as good a Protestant as any in his parish," comes out of Pope's Head Alley; Robin Cupid is "a 'prentice in Love Lane, with a bugle-maker, that makes

* Whitelock's "Memorials," pp. 17 and 410.