'used' a dining-house in this rowClifton's. Butchers' Row is now Pickett Street and Pickett Place.

Clement's Inn, where Justice Shallow

'No such swinge-buckler in the Halls of Court again'

ate his terms and heard the chimes at midnight with Jack Falstaff, is here at hand. The Inn is named from the well of St. Clement's; and St. Clement's Danes was a burialplace of Harold's followers, it is said.

In Clement's Inn is a blackamoor, supporting a dial, presented by Clare, Lord of the adjoining market. We are almost ashamed to quote anything more against the lawyers, for fall whom we have known have been very good fellows; but the lines once attached to Blackey are worth recalling :

From cannibals thou fledst in vain:

Lawyers less quarter give.

The first won't eat you when you're slain,
The last will while you live.'

In the church in the Strand Dr. Johnson was a constant attendant, and a brass tablet recording the fact is attached to the pillar beside which he sat. The old Angel Inn-now St. Clement's Chambers-existed a very few years ago, and had its galleries and gable-ends and large court-yard. There, when the Angel Inn stood in the Fields, was Bishop Hooper, the Protestant martyr, taken before it was light, on his way to Gloucester, where he was burnt.

Let us pass on to the via de Aldwych, or Wych Street, where some of the oldest houses in London are to be seen. New Inn, on the right, was the site of a guest inn about Henry VII.'s time, and had as a sign the Virgin Mary, and hence was called Our Lady's Inn, until it went into the law. In Edward VI.'s time it became a resort for lawstudents, and Sir Thomas More studied there before he was entered at Lincoln's Inn. It is said to be haunted, but the only spirits we have ever seen there were raised by the hospitality of literary friends. Drury House stood on its own grounds in

Drury Lane in Elizabeth's time, and Lord Craven, the hero of Creutznach, built Craven House, the site of which was bought by Philip Astley, in 1803, for his Olympic pavilion, constructed principally of old ship-timber, given to him by favour of the Duke of York; and we remember two topmasts supporting the proscenium of the old theatre, when Liston, Farren, Keeley, and Vestris trod the deck, and until it was destroyed by fire in 1859.

In Craven Buildings lived Mrs. Bracegirdle and Mrs. Pritchard, the celebrated actresses, and Dr. Arne composed the music to Comus' in the back parlour of No. 17; and opposite Craven Buildings is one of the few panelled houses still existing. The Cock and Magpie is next door, and Turpin is said to have there shot Tom King, when endeavouring to rescue him, as you may read in Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. It was also patronized, according to that celebrated biography of elevated characters, the 'Newgate Calendar,' by the notorious Sixteen-stringed Jack, so named from wearing that number of strings to the knees of his breeches.

Drury Lane was nobly tenanted until late in the seventeenth century. Pit Place was the site of the Cock Pit, and afterwards of the first Drury Lane Theatre.

In the Coal Yard, at Drury Lane end, was born Nell Gwynn. She lodged afterwards at Maypole Lane (now Little Drury Lane), and there on the 1st of May, 1667, when Mr. Pepys was on his way to Westminster, 'meeting many milkmaids with garlands upon their pails, dancing with a fiddler before them, did he see pretty Nelly standing at her lodging door, in her smock sleeves and bodice, looking upon one.' She seemed a mighty pretty creature to the susceptible Samuel.

This celebrated woman possessed great interest with Charles II., and used it generously. Her origin and progress is sufficiently known; but the English people have always entertained a peculiar liking for Nell Gwynn, as they have for Robin Hood and Maid Marian, and one or two other questionable moralists.

and a new one was set up, richly decorated. This was taken down when the new church was built, and the parish presented the maypole to Sir Isaac Newton, who gave it to the Rector of Wanstead, to support the then largest telescope in Europe.

Here was the first stand for hackney-coaches, in 1634. One Captain Bailey having appointed four to stand there, others soon joined them, until there were actually as many as twenty. They were not called so from Hackney, but from a French word, coche-à-la-haquenée. Dreadful things they were, and, O young

ladies, whose mammas do not keep carriages, be thankful that you have not to go to parties-or to improving lectures-in such vehicles. Sheridan was very right when he paid the driver of one with a bad shilling. Sir, this here's a bad shilling,' said the man. 'All right, this here's a bad coach,' said Sheridan.

The cabriolet (or vulgo, cab) was introduced in 1823, and has driven the poor old Jarvey' (also vulgo for hackney-coach) from the streets. We believe there is a No. One 'left blooming alone,' but the cabs now amount to above 6000.

The Holy Well in the Strand was once frequented for its sweet waters, which still flowed as bright and pure, when covered over by the Old Dog Tavern and surrounded by some of the worst dens of London, stored with the foulest moral po' lution, happily removed very recently. There was once an hostelry with the sign of a Lyon, until Henry VIII., when it became an Inn of Chancery and an entrance to Lyon's Inn, itself the dreariest place we knew, long haunted, no doubt, by the ghost of Mr. William Ware, who

left there with Thurtell to be murdered at Elstree.

Passing onward, we should have found Wimbledon House, on the site of which stood Doyley's warehouse, where Steele and Gay had their Doyley suits, and the little wine-glass napkins had their origin and name. Without Mr. Doyley's ingenious invention of cheap stuffs, Mr. Spectator thinks we should not have been able to have carried on the war.

In Exeter Street, Dr. Johnson, when he first came to London, lodged

and dined for 44d. a day at a staymaker's, he and Garrick having borrowed 5. on their joint note from Mr. Wilcox, the bookseller. Is it wonderful that the sturdy old Sam had little sympathy for the distresses of affectation?

In 1670 Exeter Change was built, and a Dr. Burbon, a little later, opened a sort of Bazaar. We

remember the common footway through it, and the milliners', hosiers', cutlers', and toy shops on each side. One Thomas Clarke began business there with 100l., and realized a fortune of nearly half a

million; and had his portrait, looking out of the window of a cottage, painted on the wall. His daughter married Mr. Hamlet, the celebrated jeweller. Mr. Clarke once gave the writer a glass of wine, and did not leave him a legacy. Over the Bazaar was the world-famous wild-beast show, with a big beefeater at the door, and against the wall a great picture of all the animals. It was the grand joy of a boy's holiday to go there and see the elephant stamp the mangel-wurzel to pieces, and take a halfpenny out of an iron box. The animals at the Zoological are

too genteel for such practices. One distinguished individual created a great noise at his death, for he was shot by a file of soldiers. That was Chunee, the great elephant. His death is a most affecting story, and his skeleton is now at the College of Surgeons.

Chunee once appeared at Drury Lane in a pantomime, to the great disgust of the property-man of the rival theatre, who said:

'I should be very sorry if I couldn't make a better elephant than that.'

The map of 1563 shows how thinly scattered were the houses

along the Strand of Elizabeth; there appears to have been one continuous row of houses and gardens from Drury Lane on to St. Martin's Lane, leaving Covent Garden quite an open space, with a residence possibly for the Sumpnour of Westminster Abbey, whose garden it was. At present our destination is old Whitehall and Westminster, merely looking up St. Martin's Lane as we pass. It was first named Westchurch Lane, and among its distinguished inhabitants were Suckling, the poet, and Sir Kenelm Digby, the gentleman who had a naughty but beautiful wife, for