Thus welcomed, and almost worshipped, the young monarch passed over London Bridge amidst the roar of cannon and the acclamations of thousands. The houses on each side of the bridge, as well as in the different streets through which he passed, were hung with tapestry and garlands of flowers; bands of music struck up their congratulatory notes at stated places; the train-bands of the city, in rich dresses, lined the principal streets, and the cityconduits flowed with wine. At night the sky was alight with illuminations, bonfires, and fireworks, and the people were regaled with a profusion of wine and food.

We have already alluded to the number of ghastly heads, which, elevated on poles on London Bridge, grinned horribly on the passer-by. To enumerate the names of the host of decapitated persons whose heads were thus exposed, would comprise a long and melancholy catalogue. After the destruction of the drawbridge-tower in the sixteenth century, the building, on which the heads of malefactors was exposed, was the tower at the Southwark end of the bridge. It is a fact, that within this tower was a cooking apparatus and cauldron, in which the heads and quarters, of those who had been executed for high treason, were parboiled, and underwent a regular process for preserving them against the effects of the atmosphere. The heads were then elevated on the defences of the bridge, and the quarters packed off to be exposed on the gates of the principal cities in the kingdom. Among

the most remarkable persons whose remains were thus mangled, and whose heads were exposed on London Bridge, may be mentioned the illustrious Scottish patriot, William Wallace, and his dauntless companion in arms, Sir Simon Frazer: the Earls of Fife and Monteith, who were taken prisoners at the battle of Neville's Cross; Simon Sudbury, Archbishop of Canterbury, who was murdered by the rebels in Wat Tyler's insurrection; the Earl of Huntingdon, brother-in-law to Henry the Fourth; the stout and venerable Earl of Northumberland, father of Harry Hotspur; the bastard Falconbridge; the wise and witty Sir Thomas More, and the pious and learned John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester.

With regard to the exposure of the head of Bishop Fisher, a curious anecdote is related by Hall. "The head," he says, "being parboiled, was prickt upon a pole, and set on high upon London Bridge, among the rest of the holy Carthusians' heads that suffered death lately before him. And here I cannot omit to declare unto you the miraculous sight of this head, which, after it had stood up the space of fourteen days upon the bridge, could not be perceived to waste nor consume, neither for the weather, which was then very hot, neither for the parboiling in hot water, but grew daily fresher and fresher, so that in his life-time he never looked so well; for his cheeks being beautified with a comely red, the face looked as though it had beholden the people passing by, and

would have spoken to them. Wherefore," adds Hall, "the people coming daily to see this strange sight, the passage over the bridge was so stopped with their going and coming, that almost neither cart nor horse could pass; and therefore, at the end of fourteen days, the executioner was commanded to throw down the head in the night time into the river of Thames, and in the place thereof was set the head of the most blessed and constant martyr, Sir Thomas More, his companion and fellow in all his troubles, who suffered his passion the 6th of July [1535] next following."

The head of More is said to have retained, in a scarcely less singular manner, and for a still longer period, the appearance of vitality and health. At the time of his death, his hair had become grey, but (as in the case of Charles the First, whose remains were discovered in St. George's Chapel at Windsor in 1813) the colour changed after death to a "reddish or yellow" hue. The head of this great man, it is said, was about to be thrown into the Thames, in order to make room for that of some later victim, when his beloved daughter, Mrs. Roper, contrived to obtain possession of it. She preserved it in a leaden box till the day of her death, when, agreeably with her own wish, it was placed in her arms, and interred with her in the same coffin, in the family vault of the Ropers, in St. Dunstan's Church, Canterbury. The headless trunk of Sir Thomas More lies in Chelsea Church.

We must not omit to mention, that the illustrious

painter, Hans Holbein, is said to have resided at one period of his life in one of the houses on London Bridge. According to Horace Walpole,

The father of the Lord Treasurer Oxford, passing over London Bridge, was caught in a shower, when, stepping into a goldsmith's shop for shelter, he found there the picture of Holbein, who had lived in that house, and of his family. He offered the goldsmith a hundred pounds for it, who consented to let him have it, but desired first to show it to some persons. Immediately after happened the Fire of London, and the picture was destroyed." In London Bridge also resided, at later periods, two eminent painters of marine subjects, Peter Monamy, and Dominic de Serres.

THE FIRE OF LONDON.

WHERE THE FIRE ORIGINATED. CHARLES II'S. NOBLE CONDUCT.— PEPYS'S ACCOUNT OF THE FIRE.—EVELYN'S "DIARY."-FARRYNER'S ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN OF THE FIRE. ATTRIBUTED TO ROMAN CATHOLICS.-THE MONUMENT.-ORIGINAL INSCRIPTION.DAMAGE CAUSED BY THE FIRE. DESCRIPTION OF THE MONUMENT.

THE

How few are there, who have stood on Fish Street Hill,

Where London's column, pointing at the skies,
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies—

our

who have not lingered to ruminate on that fearful conflagration, that scene of terrible and sublime beauty, which the magnificent column before us was raised to commemorate! After perusing the inscription engraved on its base, we glance to the exact spot which it points out; reflecting that there was kindled that raging flame, which, driven irresistibly forward by a furious wind, fed itself in its fierce course alike with the gilded palaces of the rich, and the humble dwellings of the poor, deafening the ear with the sound of falling roofs and crackling timbers, and lighting up the Thames till it gleamed like a lake of fire; destroying out of the twenty-six wards of the city no fewer than fifteen, and leaving the remainder scorched, ruinous, and uninhabitable; consuming