* In the days of Fitzstephen, Finsbury or Fensbury was one
     vast lake, and the citizens practised every variety of
     amusement on the ice. "Some will make a large cake of ice,
     and, seating one of their companions upon it, they take hold
     of one's hand, and draw him along. Others place the leg-
     bones of animals under the soles of their feet, by tying
     them round their ancles, and then, taking a pole shod with
     iron into their hands, they push themselves forward with a
     velocity equal to a bolt discharged from a crossbow."

     We learn from an old ballad called "The Life and Death of
     the Two Ladies of Finsbury that gave Moorfields to the city,
     for the maidens of London to dry their cloaths," that Sir
     John Fines, "a noble gallant knight," went to Jerusalem to
     "hunt the Saracen through fire and flood," but before his
     departure, he charged his two daughters "unmarried to
     remain," till he returned from "blessed Palestine." The
     eldest of the two built a "holy cross at 'Bedlam-gate,
     adjoining to Moorfield and the younger "framed a pleasant
     well," where wives and maidens daily came to wash. Old Sir
     John Fines was slain; but his heart was brought over to
     England from the Holy Land, and, after "a lamentation of
     three hundred days," solemnly buried in the place to which
     they gave the name of Finesbury. When the maidens died "they
     gave those pleasant fields unto the London citizens,

     "Where lovingly both man and wife May take the evening air;

     And London dames to dry their cloaths May hither still
     repair!"