of the West Saxons, I find noted of lands or rents in London, belonging to the said Church, whereof one parcel is described to lye near unto London Stone. Of later time we read that, in the year of Christ 1135, the 1st of King Stephen, a fire which began in the house of one Ailwarde, neare unto London Stone, consumed all east to Ealdgate, [Aldgate] in which fire the Priorie of the Holy Trinity was burnt, and west to S. Erkenwald's Shrine in St. Paul's Church : and those be the eldest notes that I read thereof.

"Some have saide this Stone to have beene set as a marke in the middle of the Cittie within the walles; but in truth, it standeth farre nearer unto the river of Thames than to the walls of the City. Some others have saide the same to bee set for the tendering and making of paymentes by debtors to their creditors at their appointed daies and times, till of later time, paymentes were more usually made at the font in Pontes Church, and nowe most commonly at the Royall Exchange. Some againe have imagined the same to bee set up by one John, or Thomas, Londonstone, dwelling there against it; but more likely it is, that such men have taken name of the Stone, rather than the Stone of them; as did John at Noke, Thomas at Stile, William at Wall, or at Well, &c."*

Fabian has been quoted by different historians, namely, Strype, Maitland, and Malcolm, as noticing London Stone in the doggerel rhymes which he has

Survey of London; edit. 1598, pp. 177-8.

attached, by way of Prologue, to the second volume. of his "Chronicle;" yet, on referring to the original, it will be evident that London only was intended to be described. Rome, Carthage, and Jerusalem, says Fabian, have been caste downe,' with many other Cytyes,' yet

Thys, so oldely founded,

Is so surely grounded,

That no man may confounde yt,

It is so sure a Stone,

That yt is upon sette,

For though some have it thrette
With Manasses, grym, and great,

Yt hurte had yt none :
Chryste is the very Stone
That the Citie is set upon ;
Which from all hys foon
Hath ever preserved it.
By meane of dyvyne servyce,
That in contynuall wyse
Is kept in devout guyse

Within the mure of yt.'

This ancient monument is mentioned by Holinshed, in his account of the insurrection of Jack Cade. When that rebellious chieftain of the populace, he says, had forced his way into the capital, he struck his sword upon London Stone, exclaiming, "Now is Mortimer lord of this City ;"-as if, Pennant remarks, "that had been a customary way of taking possession."

Most of our antiquaries, since Camden's time, consider this Stone as a Roman Milliary, or more pro

perly, as the Milliarium Aureum, of Britain, from which the Romans began the measurement of their roads, as from a centre. This is stated to be confirmed by the exact coincidence which its distance bears with the neighbouring stations mentioned in Antonine's Itinerary." But Sir Christopher Wren was of opinion, as stated in the "Parentalia," that "by reason of its large foundation, it was rather some more considerable monument in the Forum; for, in the adjoining ground to the south, upon digging for cellars after the Great Fire, were discovered some tessellated pavements, and other extensive remains of Roman workmanship and buildings."+

It is evident, from the above particulars, that London Stone was in former ages of much greater magnitude, and held in far higher estimation than at present. It was probably mutilated after the Great Fire, when its large foundations' were seen. Strype, who appears to consider it as anterior to the Roman times, ‡

Milliarium Aureum fuit columna in capite fori Romani, sub Saturni æde, prope arcum Septimii, in quæ omnes Italiæ viæ incise finerunt, et a qua ad singulas portas mensuræ regionum currerunt. Plin. Lib. 111. Cap. v.

+ Parentalia, p. 265-6. "Probably this might in some degree have imitated the Milliarium Aureum at Constantinople, which was not in the form of a Pillar, as at Rome, but an eminent building; for under its roof, according to Cedrenus and Suidas, stood the statues of Constantine and Helena; Trajan; an equestrian statue of Hadrian ; a statue of Fortune; and many other figures and decorations." Ibid.

"Survey," Vol. 1. edit. 1720; B. II. p. 194.

speaks thus," This Stone before the fire of London was much worn away, and as it were but a stump remaining. But it is now, for its preservation, cased over with a new stone handsomely wrought, cut hollow underneath, so as the old Stone may be seen, the new one being over it to shelter and defend the old venerable one."* The inclosing stone, which is shaped somewhat like a Roman altar, or pedestal, admits the ancient fragment, "now not much larger than a bomb shell," to be seen through a large elliptical aperture in front, near the top.

When Strype wrote, London Stone stood on the south side of the street; but it was removed in December, 1742, to the opposite edge of the curb-stone on the north side. About the beginning of 1798, it underwent another removal: at that period, St. Swithin's Church was on the eve of undergoing a complete repair, and this venerable relic had, by some of the parishioners, been doomed to destruction as a nuisance; but it was saved by the praise-worthy interposition of Mr. Thomas Maiden, a printer in Sherbourn Lane, who prevailed on one of the parish officers to have it placed against the Church-wall, on the spot which it now occupies.

ROMAN ANTIQUITIES IN LOMBARD STREET.

In excavating the ground to make a new Sewer beneath Lombard Street and Birchin Lane, in the autumn and winter of 1785, numerous Roman Anti

Strype's Slow, ut supra, p. 200.

quities were found, as coins, fragments of earthen. ware, tessellated and other pavements, glass, &c. of which a very particular account, from communications by different gentlemen, has been printed in the eighth volume of the "Archæologia," from which the ensuing particulars have been derived. The sewer was commenced towards that end of Lombard Street next the Mansion House; and near Sherbourn Lane, at the depth of twelve feet, a Roman pavement was found,

composed of small irregular bricks, in length two inches, in breadth one and a half, mostly red, but some few black and white: they were strongly cemented with a yellowish mortar, and were laid in a thick bed of coarse mortar and stones.' The breadth of this pavement, from west to east, was about twenty feet; its length was not discovered. Between it and the Post Office, but on the north side of the sewer, was a wall constructed with the smaller-sized Roman bricks,' in which were two perpendicular flues ; the one semicircular, the other rectangular and oblong:'* the height of the wall was ten feet, its length eighteen; the depth of the top of it from the surface, was also ten feet. Further on, opposite to the Post Office, was another wall, of the common kind, of Roman masonry; and near it, at the depth of nine feet, a pavement of thin flat tiles, each seventeen inches and 4-10ths in length, twelve inches and 3-10ths broad, and about three tenths of an inch in

* Would not this discovery imply, that the Romans introduced the use of Chimneys into Britain?