usually took him in at the public-houses, where they knew him, and would give him drink and victuals, and sometimes farthings; and he, in return, would pipe and sing, and talk simply, which diverted the people, and thus he lived. During the plague the poor fellow went about as usual, but was almost starved; and when any body asked how he did, he would answer,' the dead-cart had not taken him yet, but had promised to call for him next week.' It happened one night that this poor fellow, having been feasted more bountifully than common, fell fast asleep," and was laid all along upon the top of a bulk or stall, in the street near London Wall, towards Cripplegate, and, that upon the same bulk or stall, the people of some house hearing a bell, which they always rung before the cart came, had laid a body, really dead of the plague, just by him, thinking too, that this poor fellow had been a dead body as the other was, and laid there by some of the neighbours.

Accordingly, when John Hayward, with his bell and the cart, came along, finding two dead bodies lie upon the stall, they took them up with the instruments they used, and threw them into the cart, and all this while the piper slept soundly. From hence they passed along, and took in other dead bodies, till, as honest John Hayward told me, they almost buried him alive in the cart, yet all this while he slept soundly. At length the cart came to the place where the bodies were to be thrown into the ground, which, as I do remember, was at Mount Mill, and as the cart usually stopt some time before they were ready to shoot out the melancholy load they had in it, as soon as the cart stopped, the fellow awakened, and struggled a little to get his head out from among the dead bodies, when raising himself up in the cart, he called out' Hey! where

am I?' This frightened the fellow that attended about the work; but, after some pause, John Hayward, recovering himself, said, 'Lord, bless us! there's somebody in the cart not quite dead.' So another called to him, and said, 'Who are you?' The fellow answered, 'I am the poor piper. Where am I?' 'Where are you?' says Hayward, 'why you are in the dead-cart, and we are agoing to bury you.' 'But I an't dead tho', am I?' says the piper, which made them laugh a little, though, as John said, they were heartily frightened at first; so they helped the poor fellow down, and he went about his business."

MERCHANT TAYLORS' COMPANY AND HALL.

THIS ancient and respectable Company arose from a Guild or Fraternity, dedicated to St. John Baptist; and called "time out of mind," says Stow, "Taylors and Linen Armourers of London." This Guild received a confirmatiou from Edward the First, in his 28th year, with power to "hold a feast, at Midsummer, to choose a master and wardens." At that period, and during a long succession of years, the master was denominated "the Pilgrim,— -as one that travelled for the whole Companie, and the four wardens were then called Purveyors of Alms."* In the year 1466, a more regular incorporation took place, under the authority of the Letters Patent of Edward the Fourth, who was himself a freeman of this company, as all his predecessors in the sovereignty had also been

• Stow's "Survey," edit. 1633: p. 142.

from the time of Edward the Third. Henry the Seventh, who was likewise a member, re-incorporated the company in the year 1503, by the new description of "The Master and Wardens of the Merchant Taylors, of the Fraternity of St. John Baptist," &c. This was done, according to Stow, "for that divers of that Fraternitie had (time out of mind) beene great Merchants, and had frequented all sorts of marchandises into most partes of the world, to the honor of the Kinge's realme, and to the great profit of his subjectes, and of his progenitors; and the men of the said mistirie, had, during the time aforesaid, exercised the buying and selling of all wares and marchandises; especially of woollen clothe, as well in grosse, as by retayle, throughout all this realme of England, and chiefly within the said citie."

The members of this Company compose a very affluent body, consisting principally of merchants, mercers, drapers, taylors, &c. to the amount of upwards of 500 in number. They are governed by a Master, four Wardens, and about forty Assistants. In the long list of distinguished characters, who have been enrolled among its freemen, are included eleven sovereigns, about as many princes of the blood-royal, thirteen dukes, two duchesses, nearly thirty archbishops and bishops, fifty earls, five countesses, between seventy and eighty lords and barons, upwards of twenty lord mayors, fifteen abbots and priors, many knights, esquires, and other persons of the greatest respectability.