returned to the College and continued to hold their meetings there till they moved to Crane Court in 1710. From that time the College fell into decay, and in 1768 it was sold to the Commissioners of Excise, and an Excise Office was built upon part of its site.

Almost concealed by its parasitic houses, so that we might easily pass it unobserved, is (right) the Gothic arch which forms an entrance to the solemn little Church of St. Ethelburga, dedicated to the daughter of King Ethelbert, one of the few churches which survived the Fire. It contains some good fragments of old stained glass, and its existence is mentioned as early as 1366. At the junction of Camomile and Wormwood Streets, a large episcopal mitre on a house-wall marks the site of the old Gate of the City called Bishops' Gate. Tradition ascribed the foundation of this gate (frequently rebuilt) to St. Erkenwald in 675, and the Bishops of London had an ancient right to levy one stick from every cart laden with wood which passed beneath it, in return for which they were obliged to supply the hinges of the gate.

street is called Bishopsgate Without.

Beyond this, the

On the left of Bishopsgate Without is St. Botolph's Church, an ugly building of 1728. It occupies the site of an earlier edifice, one of the four churches at the gates, dedicated to this popular English saint, who travelled with his brother Adulph into Gaul, and coming back with accounts of the religious institutions he had seen there, and recommendations from two English princesses then in France, sisters of Ethelmund, King of the East Saxons, was given a piece of land in Lincolnshire by that prince-“a forsaken uninhabited desert, where nothing but devills and

1

goblins were thought to dwell; but St. Botolphe, with the virtue and sygne of the holy crosse, freed it from the possession of those hellish inhabitants, and by the means and help of Ethelmund, built a monastery therein." Of this Benedictine monastery, of which Boston, Botolph's town, is supposed to mark the site, Botolph was abbot, and there he died in the odour of sanctity, June, 680.

The church contains the monument (a tablet with a flaming vase) of Sir Paul Pindar (1650), a famous merchant and Commissioner of the Customs in Charles II.'s time. It is inscribed to "Sir Paul Pindar, Kt., his Majesty's Ambassador to the Turkish Emperor, Anno Dom. 1611, and nine years resident: faithful in negotiations foreign and domestick, eminent for piety, charity, loyalty, and prudence ; an inhabitant twenty-six years, and bountiful benefactor to this parish. He died the 22nd of August, 1650, aged 84 years." The sunny churchyard is now a garden full of ornamental ducks and pigeons. It contains the tomb of Coya Shawsware, a Persian merchant, around which his. relations sang and recited funeral elegies, morning and evening, for months after his death.

It is not far down Bishopsgate Street to (left) the beautiful old House of Sir Paul Pindar, "worthie benefactor to the poore," with overhanging oriel windows, very richly decorated with panel-work, forming a subject well worthy of the artist's pencil. The house was begun by Sir Paul Pindar on his return from Italy at the end of the reign of Elizabeth. He was born in 1566. His reputation of the richest merchant of the kingdom brought him frequent visits here from James I. and Charles I. to beg for a loan in their necessities. At the request of the

Turkey Company he was sent by James I. as ambassador to Constantinople, where he did much to improve the English trade in the Levant. On his return in 1620, he brought back with him, amongst other treasures, a great diamond which was valued at £30,000, and which he was wont to lend to James I. to wear at the opening of his

Parliaments; it was afterwards sold to Charles I. At the time of the civil wars it was Sir Paul Pindar who provided funds for the escape of the Queen and her children. He lived to give £10,000 for the restoration of St. Paul's, which was begun in Charles II.'s reign before the Great Fire. When he died the King owed no less than £300,000 to Sir Paul and the other Commissioners of the Customs, and Pindar's

affairs were found to be in such confusion, that his executor, William Toomer, was unable to bear the responsibility of his trust, and destroyed himself. When the great merchant was living, the house had a park attached to it behind, of which one of the richly ornamented lodges and some old mulberry trees, planted to please James I., existed till a few years ago in Half-Moon Alley. Now all is closely hemmed in by houses.

The name of Devonshire Street (on the right) commemorates the town-house of the Cavendishes, Earls of Devonshire, who lived in Bishopsgate during the seventeenth century, and some of whom are buried in St. Botolph's. The corner house has a chimney-piece with the arms of Henry Wriothesley, Earl of Southampton, the adored friend to whom the sonnets of Shakspeare are addressed.

[To the left, by Liverpool Street, are Finsbury Circus and Finsbury Square, occupying the site of Moorfields, a marshy ground which was a favourite Sunday walk with the citizens. Here, says Shadwell," you could see Haberdashers walking with their whole fireside." Shakspeare alludes to the popularity of this walk in his Henry IV.

"And giv'st such sarcenet surety for thy oaths,

As if thou never walk'st farther than Finsbury."

John Keats the Poet was born at No. 28 on the Pavement in Moorfields in 1795, being the son of a livery stable keeper, who had enriched himself by a marriage with his master's daughter

Tradition and an old ballad say that the name of Finsbury is derived from two ladies, daughters of a gallant knight who went to the Crusades :

"And charged both his daughters
Unmarried to remain

Till he from blessed Palestine
Returned back again :

And then two loving husbands

For them he would attain."

The eldest of them, Mary, became a nun of Bethlehem, spending day and night in prayer for her father

"And in the name of Jesus Christ

A holy cross did build

Which some have seen at Bedlam-gate
Adjoining to Moorfield."

The younger, Dame Annis, opened a well

"Where wives and maidens daily came,

To wash, from far and near."

So the sisters lived on

"Till time had changed their beauteous cheeks
And made them wrinkled old."

But when the King of England returned from the Crusades, it was only the heart of their brave father which he brought back to his loving daughters, which they solemnly buried, and gave the name of their father to its resting-place

"Old Sir John Fines he had the name

Being buried in that place,

Now, since then, called Finsbury,

To his renown and grace;

Which time to come shall not outwear

Nor yet the same deface.

And likewise when those maidens died

They gave those pleasant fields

Unto our London citizens,

Which they most bravely hield.

And now are made most pleasant walks,

That great contentment yield.