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FISH STREET HILL, EASTCHEAP, GRACECHURCH STREET, ST. OLAVE'S, HART STREET.

"KING'S HEAD TAVERN."-ST. MAGNUS THE MARTYR.-PUDDING LANE.-BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN.-SIR JOHN FALSTAFF.-LOMBARD MERCHANTS.-EARL OF SUFFOLK.-FENCHURCH STREET.-QUEEN ELIZABETH.-ST. OLAVE'S CHURCH.-SIR JOHN MENNIS.—MONUMENT TO PEPYS'S WIFE.-DR. MILLS.-WHITTINGTON'S RESIDENCE. -LADY FANSHAWE.

IN In addition to its connection with the great fire, many interesting associations are attached to Fish Street Hill. Shakespeare makes Jack Cade exclaim, when at the head of his rabble followers,

-"Up Fish Street! down Saint Magnus corner! kill and knock down! throw them into Thames ! What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat or parley, when I command them kill?"-King Henry VI., Second Part, act iv.

scene 8.

In the fourteenth century, when the Kings of England held their court in the Tower, and when the populous thoroughfares, now occupied by shops and warehouses, constituted the court district of the metropolis, we find Edward, the Black Prince, residing on Fish Street Hill. The house, or inn, of the Black Prince, which was of stone, and of considerable size, stood at the end of Crooked Lane,

facing Monument Yard. In the reign of Elizabeth it had been converted into an inn, or hostelry, and was known by the sign of the Black Bell.

King's Head Court, within a few paces of the Monument, still points out the site of the "King's Head" tavern, rendered classical by Ben Jonson, and famous, in the days of Elizabeth, for its excellent wine and noisy revels.

Let us not omit to mention, that, in the days of his extreme distress, Oliver Goldsmith obtained the situation of journeyman to a chemist of the name of Jacob, at the corner of Monument Yard, Fish Street Hill. In this situation he was discovered by his old college friend Dr. Sleigh, who relieved his immediate necessities, and enabled him to establish himself in medical practice in Bankside, Southwark.

Close to Fish Street Hill is the church of St. Magnus the Martyr, standing nearly on the site of the old parish church, which was destroyed by the great fire in 1666. As early as the year 1302, we find a chantry founded here by Hugh Pourt, Sheriff of London, and Margaret, his wife. The first rector mentioned by Newcourt, is Robert de S. Albano, who resigned the living in 1323. The most illustrious name connected with the church is that of Miles Coverdale, under whose direction the first complete English version of the Bible was published in October, 1535: he resigned the rectorship in 1566. The body of the present handsome and well-proportioned church was built by

Sir Christopher Wren in 1676; the steeple having been added in 1705. It contains no monuments of any particular interest or beauty. In the vestryroom, however, is an interesting painting of old London Bridge, and also a curious drawing of the presentation of a pair of colours to the military association of Bridge Ward. The altar-piece, richly carved and decorated, is considered one of the handsomest in London, and the lantern and cupola have considerable merit.

Gracechurch

Between Fish Street Hill and Street, diverging to the right and left, is Eastcheap, famous, in the olden time, for its scenes of jollity, where, "the cooks cried hot ribs of beef roasted, pies well baked, and other victuals; with clattering of pewter, pots, harp, pipe, and sawtrie." Close by is Pudding Lane,* descending to the Thames, anciently called Rother, or Red-rose Lane, from one of the houses having the sign of a redrose; but which, doubtless, received its more modern denomination from its vicinity to the scenes of gormandizing and revelry in Eastcheap. It was the conviction of the Puritan portion of the inhabitants of London, that the fire of London was a direct manifestation of the anger of Heaven, inflicted as a punishment for the sins and gluttony of the age.

* See ante, p. 31. It is "commonly called Pudding Lane, because the butchers of Eastcheap have their scalding-house for hogs there, and their puddings, with other filth of beasts, are voided down that way to their dung-boats on the Thames.-Stow's "Survey of London," p. 79.

This conviction was not a little strengthened by the singular coincidence of the fire commencing in Pudding Lane, and ending in Pye Lane, near Smithfield. On a house, in the latter place, was formerly to be seen the figure of a boy, with an inscription, which attributed the fire of London to the sin of gluttony.

There is, perhaps, no spot in London, which recalls so vividly to our imaginations the romance of the olden time as Eastcheap. Who is there who has ever strolled along this classic ground without a longing to be able to point out the identical spot, where the Boar's Head Tavern resounded to the jokes and merriment of Sir John Falstaff, and his boon companions? Who is there who has not peopled it in imagination with Bardolph, and his "malmsey nose;" with "ancient Pistol," and kind-hearted Dame Quickly; with the jokes of frolic Prince Hal, and, lastly, with the dying scene of the jovial old Knight, where "he made a finer end, and went away, an it had been any christom child; fumbling with the sheets, and playing with flowers, and smiling upon his fingers' ends, and babbling of green fields."-" The character of old Falstaff," says Goldsmith, in one of his charming Essays, "even with all his faults, gives me more consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom: I here behold an agreeable old fellow, forgetting age, and showing me the way to be young at sixty-five. Sure I am well able

to be as merry, though not so comical as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much

wit, at least as much vivacity? Age, care, wisdom, reflection, begone! I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle; here's to the memory of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap! Such were the reflections that naturally arose while I sat at the Boar's Head Tavern, still kept at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire, in the very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted by his immoral merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the follies of youth; wished to be young again, but was resolved to make the best of life while it lasted." The "Boar's Head" of Shakespeare, which stood in Great Eastcheap, perished in the Fire of London. A tavern, bearing the same name was erected on its site, having in front of it a boar's head cut in stone, with the date 1688. was taken down in 1831, to make room for the approaches to New London Bridge. The object which most nearly marks the site of the old tavern, is the statue of King William the Fourth.

It

Gracechurch Street, originally styled Grasse Street, or Grassechurch Street derives its name from a herb-market which was anciently held on its site. It was corrupted in the first instance into Gracious Street, and thence into Gracechurch Street. In a poem styled the "Nine Worthies of London,' printed in black letter, in 1592, we find :

In Gracious Street, there was I bound to serve,
My master's name hight Stodie in his time.

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