Thames, and over many rich acres beside those on which Whitechapel now stands. No Earl of Salisbury now goes “sounding” through the City streets, with his long train of five hundred mounted followers, clad in his household livery, and causing the old shopkeepers to cease their cry of “What do you lack?” while they watched the gay cavalcade until it was lost under the low-browed archway that stood before his ancient City mansion by Dowgate.

Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his ambassadors, and in which the crafty Cecil plotted against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has long ago been numbered amongst the things that were; and seldom do the “silver snarling trumpets,” with their loud acclaim, disturb the deep sleep of the old City, to announce the in-coming or the out-going of royalty. The archers of Mile-end, with their chains of gold, have departed. The spot on which the tent stood where bluff Hal regaled himself after having witnessed their sports, is now covered with mean-looking houses: the poetry of ancient London is dead. The voice of the stream is for ever hushed that went murmuring before the dwellings of our forefathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch-street, and past the door of Sir Thomas Gresham’s house in Lombard street, until it doubled round by the Mansion House and emptied itself into the river. There is still a sound of waters by the wharf at London Bridge; but, oh, how different from the “brawling brook” of former days is the evil odour that now arises from the poisonous sewer which there empties itself into the Thames!

Remains of ancient London are still to be found in the neighbourhood of Smithfield. The courts and alleys about Cloth Fair, and behind Long-lane, are perfect labyrinths, and so full of ins and outs, that they astonish the stranger who ventures to thread his way through them. Bartholomew’s Church is also one of the very oldest in the City; and we never look upon its weather-beaten tower without recalling the scenes which have taken place in the vast area which stretches out before it.

There is no spot in London richer in historical associations than Smithfield. There the marshal of England presided over the lists; and there also the mitred bishops congregated to gaze upon the poor martyr who was burnt at the stake: that old church-tower has many a time glared redly as it was lit up by the blaze of those consuming fires; its vaulted roof has echoed back the clang of arms, when battle-axe and sword clashed against helmet and shield, while scarcely a murmur arose from the lips of the mighty multitude that stood silent and breathless around the combatants.

Shakspeare and Ben Jonson have doubtless passed through those old narrow courts which still surround Bartholomew’s Church. It was to Smithfield Bardolph went to buy a horse, which we know he would steal if once allowed to get astride, and that, if any inquiries were made after it at the Boar’s Head in Eastcheap, Falstaff would avouch for Bardolph’s honesty. To us the whole neighbourhood is hallowed by a thousand poetical associations, and we never journey through it without feeling as if we were living again amid the past. As for Bartholomew Fair, though it now only lives in name, it will be remembered for ever in the works of rare Ben Jonson. To the thoughtful man it is a land of pleasant and solemn memories.

Then the streets of ancient London, what must they have been? In the west the roads were in such a state that the king could not open parliament in wet weather, unless faggots were first thrown into the deep pits and ruts. Foot and carriage-way had no other distinction than a row of posts; and if the passenger missed running his head against the low pent-house-lids, which here and there projected over the way, ten to one he came to some opening where a grim-headed and grinning spout sent down its torrents of water from the old-fashioned gabled building, and drenched him to the very skin. If he rushed out into the road, there