plause is admirably displayed by the quantity of dactyls in the second line of this stanza. Let us proceed : "And he made her first lieutenant Of the valiant Thunder Bomb." Many are shocked at the apparent indifference of the lady; and foolishly condemn the poet for inconsistency. Such ignorant critics know nothing of the matter. Our poet, who is the poet of nature, did not mean to draw a perfect character, a "sine labe monstrum," but, like Homer and Euripides, which latter he greatly resembles in his tenderness of expression, draws men and women such as they are. Still there is another objection started: how could a woman be made a lieutenant? It must be confessed that though such things are not entirely unprecedented, that they are very singular; some have therefore thought this a decent allegory of the poet to express that she was the captain's chief mistress, his Sultana; and we must remember that she was a free lady, and after the murder she had committed glad of the protection of a captain. I hope the ladies will not be offended at this interpretation, and, since a recent enquiry, will pardon me the expression that conveys it. (To be resumed.) HORRIBLE!-MOST HORRIBLE! SOME children at play in a new-mown field, near Kensington gardens, horrid to relate, found the head of a female, with the skull split, the back part of it broken entirely off, and the nose cut away close to the face; the eyes were scooped out, and an iron spike was driven straight up the head through where the neck was amputated. To add to the horror of this occurrence, the head being extremely small, the children brought it, as a matter of curiosity, to show their parents. With a view to the discovery of the perpetrators of this deed, the circumstances were withheld from the neighbours for a time, when, in a lane adjoining the same field, the headless trunk was found extremely mutilated," the arms and thighs having been cut off close to the body. The limbs could not be traced. A hue-and-cry was now raised throughout the vicinity, where horror only kept pace with anxiety for a full investigation of all the circumstances. The result proved to be that some person, not having the fear of mischief before his eyes, had thus treated—a wooden doll! LONDINIANA, BEING A COLLECTION OF FRAGMENTS, ANECDOTES, AND REMARKS RELATIVE TO LONDON. How wanton sits she, amidst Nature's smiles! Nor from her highest turrets has to view But golden landscapes and luxuriant scenes, A waste of wealth, the storehouse of the world!"-YOUNG. THE BOAR'S HEAD TAVERN; EASTCHEAP. (Original.) WHERE be your gibes now? your gambols? your songs? your flashes of merriment ?-And the Boar's Head was once as full of gibes, and gambols, and songs, and flashes of merriment, as ever was the head of Yorick; witness the mad-cap Prince Hal, and his fat associate, the Prince of wit, wine, and wassail, the never-to-be-forgotten Falstaff. But time has gone by, and carried away the merry Eastcheap tavern, though either from kindness, or inability to take him off on his broad shoulders, he has left the Boar behind him, a little fallen, it is true, from his former high estate; instead of dangling on a sign-post between heaven and earth, as an invitation to the good cheer within, he is now built into the parting line of the two houses, which stand on the scite of the old tavern; there he sturdily defies the elements, which nevertheless have used him much as the small-pox is wont to use his patients, his face being brought to a near resemblance of a floor long submitted to the operations of a school-boy's peg-top. Two memorial reliques of the Tavern and its former boon companions still remain at the Church of St. Michael's, Crooked Lane; both are of old date, and, if the tales of the gossip nieghbourhood may be credited, of most unquestionable authenticity. The first of these is a huge iron tobacco-box, which the vestry monarchs are said to have used from its first presentation up to the present hour in all their meetings, when they thought it requisite to eat, drink, and smoke, for the benfit of their neighbours. On the outside of this iron implement is pourtrayed the Boar's Head Tavern, before the door of which, the whole convivial groupe is seated at their usual occupation of feast and revel, no bad memo randum, by the bye, for a modern church-warden. It is impossible so mistake the characters of the groupe, unless a man were like Old Gobbo, "high gravel blind," for,-on the bottom of each chair,-the name of the person is inscribed; an excellent hint to painters in general, and one which would save a world of trouble both to them and their admirers. Upon the inside of the cover is an inscription, nearly obliterated, signifying that the box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern ; it, moreover, goes on to state, (for we all would be famous if we could) that the said box was repaired and beautified by his successor, Mr. John Packard, 1767. The second relique is a drinking-cup, or goblet; it is a lineal descendant of the Boar's Head, from whom the vestry inherited it, at what time the legendary gossips say not, but we presume it must have been at the breaking-up of the Tavern, when the old Boar may be literally said to have died, and been after bricked up in the wall like a mummy in its case, where he stands as a memento to posterity. This cup, however, has no inscription or figures that connect it with the merry times, yet even this remote relationship is enough to give it a value in the eyes of the true antiquarian. It belonged to the Boar's Head, Tavern !-Heavens! what an association of ideas is called up by these words: Prince Hal, Falstaff, Bardolph, Pistol, Nym, Dame Quickly, nay, even my little Anon, Anon, seem to be with us again; perhaps, too, it is the very "parcel gilt goblet," on which Falstaff swore," sitting in the (my) Dolphin chamber, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday, in Whitsun-week, when the Prince broke his (thy) head for likening his father to a singing-man of Windsor."-Yet, no; that cannot be; there is an inscription, The Devil take the inscription; it destroys a finer building than the glass palace of Alnaschar;-but there is an inscription, stating it to be the gift of Francis Wythers, Knight-a plague upon his knighthood! Had it not been for his greediness of fame, the parcel gilt goblet had been worth its weight in gold; whereas, now, it is only the gift of Sir Francis Wythers! THE TEMPLE CHURCH Was founded by the Templars in the time of King Hen ry II. upon the model of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. The square choir was built afterwards. The groupe of Knights in the circle are not known with any certainty. One of them was thought to be Geoffroy de Magnaville, Earl of Essex, in 1184, (King Stephen.) The Coffin of a rigid shape is the tomb of William Plantagenet, fifth son of Henry III. It is conjectured that three of the others are, William Earl of Pembroke, and his sons William and Gilbert, likewise Earls of Pembroke in the year 1219, &c.—PENNANT. THE MONUMENT. The celebrated Duke of Buckingham is said to have written on the Monument, in chalk, the following lines: Here stand I, The Lord knows why. But if I fall, Have at ye all. THE CORONATION. The first Coronation Ceremonial recorded to have been performed in the Metropolis, was that of Edmond Ironsides. 1016. SIR THOMAS GRESHAM, Who built the Royal Exchange, was the son of a poor woman who left him in a field when an infant, but the chirping of a grasshopper leading a boy to the place where he lay, his life was preserved. From this circumstance the future merchant took the grasshopper for his crest; and hence the cause of that insect being placed over the Royal Exchange. ANCIENT RESIDENCES. Stationers' Hall was formerly the house of John, Duke of Bretagny and Earl of Richmond, in the reigns of Edward 11. and III. and the Earls of Pembroke in Richard 11. and Henry VI. and Lord Abergavenny in Queen Elizabeth's reign. The house was destroyed in 1666, and the present hall erected. A little to the west of Vintners-hall, Thamesstreet, lived John Tiptoft, Earl of Worcester, Lord High Treasurer. In Thames-street, also, lived Lord Hastings, beheaded by Richard III. Edward the Black Prince, lived in a house opposite the monument. Tower Royal, Watlingstreet, was the residence of King Stephen, and afterwards of the Duke of Norfolk, adherent of Richard III. In the place where the present Exeter 'Change stands, formerly stood Burleigh or Exeter House, where lived and died the great Statesman, Lord Burleigh; and close by, in Exeterstreet, lived the "unfortunate" Earl of Essex.* William, Earl of Craven, the most accomplished nobleman of his age, married Elizabeth, widow of the Elector Palatine, and Queen of Bohemia; and lived in Drury-lane, on the spot where Craven-buildings now stands. Richard Neville, the "King-Making" Earl of Warwick, lived in Warwick-lane. His statue is now in the front of a house there. STREETS IN LONDON IN THE SAXON TIMES. London is mentioned by Bede as the metropolis of the East Saxons in the year 504, lying on the banks of the Thames," the emporium of many people coming by sea and land." In a grant dated 889, a court in London is conveyed "at the ancient stony edifice, called by the Citizens hwæt mundes stone from the public street to the wall of the same City."+ From this we learn, that so early as A.Ď. 889, walls of London existed. the In 857 we find a conveyance of a place in London, called "Caolmundinge haga," not far from the West Gate. This West Gate may have been either Temple or Holborn bars. Ethelband, the Mercian King, gave a court in London between two streets called Tiddberti-street and Savinstreet.§ DUCK-LANE. From a passage in one of Oldham's satires, Duck-lane seems to have been famous for refuse book-shops: And so may'st thou perchance pass up and down, LONG-ACRE. Among the entries in the Council-books of the time of * In Devereux Court is a bust of his Son, the Parliamentary General against Charles I. + Heming, 42. Hems. 41. § Dugd. Mon. Aug. vol. i. p. 138.-Turner's History of the AngloSaxons, vol. iv. p. 237. |