became so ruinous, that an act passed for erecting the present structure, which was finished in 1744; and, contrary to custom, standing north and south.

It is built with brick, and is a plain massy structure, and consists of a body of regular shape, a losty steeple, formed of a tower, with rather a heavy spire. Its greatest ornament is a bold rustic with which it is strengthened at the corners; within the tower are eight bells. The interior of the church is well ornamented, and has a good organ. The altar is very handsome, and ornamented to imitate porphyry; above, are pictures of the Holy Family, and the Annunciation.

The monuments of greatest note, are as follow. In the vestibule, thus inscribed :

Here lyeth Thomas Lord Darcy of the North*, and sometime of the Order of the Garter; Sir Nicholas Carew, Knight of the Garter; Lady Elizabeth Carew, Daughter to Francis Brian; and Sir Arthur Darcy, younger Son to the said Lord Darcy; and Lady Mary his dear Wife, Daughter of Sir Nicholas Carew, who had ten Sons and five daughters, &c.

Against a pillar on the south side of the nave of the church, a monument, with the following inscription:

Before this Pillar lyeth the Body of Robert Dow, Citizen and Merchant Taylor of London, with Lettice his Wife, and Thomas his Son; which Robert deceased the 2d day of May 1612. His Age was 89 years; who among other his Charities done in this City, and elsewhere sundry ways, as to several Hospitals abroad, and at home, Prisons, and to 19 poor Housholders of the Merchant Taylors Company in perpetuum, gave to this Parish of St. Botolph's (whereof he was a Member) the Nomination of two Alms-women

Thomas, Lord Darcy of the North, knight of the Garter, with several of his family, were beheaded for high treason on Tower Hill, on the 20th of June, 30 Henry VIII.

Sir Nicholas Carew, knight of the Garter, and master of the horse to the same king, was beheaded on Tower Hill, January 9, in that year, with Henry Courtenay, marquis of Exeter; the alledged crime was, the traitorous endeavour to promote Reginald Pole to the crown.

freely

freely relieved, and Twenty pounds yearly to be distributed to threescore poor aged and impotent Men and Women, by Nobles apiece upon every St. Thomas's Eve for ever.

Ad Gloriam Dei

Per Nepotem ac Hæredem Zachary Dow posthumum.

It was repaired by the Merchant Taylors in the year 1675. This monument is adorned with the effigies of the deceased carved in marble, both his hands resting on a death's head, above which is the arms of the company of Merchant Taylors.*

Mr. Stow says, there was a tomb in the south part of the church-yard, with this inscription:

Here under this Stone lyeth the Body of George Clarke, Citizen and Vintner of London, who, by his last Will and Testament, gave for divers good and charitable Uses these Legacies hereafter following:

1. For the Publick School in the University of Oxenford,}

the Summ of

200

To the Use of the Poor of the 4 Precincts of the Ward of Portsoaken, being the Parish of St. Botolphs without Ald-293 gate, 2931. 6s. 8d.

To the Parish of White Chapel, for the Relief of the Poor there

}

230

[of}

106

10

To the Parish of St. Leonards in Shoreditch, to the Use of the Poor there, 106l. 15s. and 4d.

To the Company of Vintners

To the Poor of Christ's Hospital

5

He deceased the 19th day of April, Anno Dom. 1606. Ætat

suæ 63..

We have before mentioned, under the monastery of St. Clare, Minories, concerning Dr. Clark, bishop of Bath and Wells, said to have been buried here.

Monuments of modern date are to the memory of the Reverend Michael Hallings, late secretary to the Society for the promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1786. Maria Hallifax, wife of Dr. Benjamin Hallifax, Gresham professor of Divinity; 1802.

We shall have occasion to mention this gentleman's other charities, under the article Newgate.

The living is a curacy; the impropriator being held in fee from the crown. Among the curates, the most eminent were Dr. White Kennet, afterwards bishop of Peterborough.

Eastward, the street now forming the High Street, was formerly a road with a few houses and inns, for the entertainment of travellers, and the city liberties ended at a place then called Hog Lane.

In this lane and the fields adjoining, hogs were allowed to be nourished by the bakers of London, whence the name. Here, in Stow's time, were "fair hedge rows of elm trees on each side, with bridges and easy stiles, to pass over into the pleasant fields, very commodious for citizens therein to walk, shoot, and otherwise to recreate and refresh their dulled spirits in the sweet and wholesome air; which is now, says he, within few years, made a continual building throughout of garden-houses and small cottages, and the fields on either side are turned into garden-plats, timber-yards, bowling allies, and such like, from. Houndsditch in the west, so far as Whitechapel, and farther in the east." This plot is now covered by the pleasant streets and alleys of Petticoat Lane, and its cleanly neighbourhood.

Curious, however, and singular as it may appear, this spot was formerly the habitation of great men; and we have the authority of the ingenious Mr. Moser, for saying that in Petticoat Lane was the town residence of the stately count Gondamar, ambassador from Spain, and the cause of Sir Walter Raleigh's death in the reign of James I.

"Nurtured in a nation which had," says Mr. M. " all that chivalrous dignity, those heightened notions of honour, that Moorish gallantry left to Spain when it receded, combined with that splendid enthusiasm which the torrent of Mexican riches then just poured upon it, produced, Count Gondamar is said to have been dazzled and impressed with the magnificence of his own country, and to have brought with him to this all those ideas of state and grandeur which his close connexion with the contemplators of visionary worlds and the possessors of realms of gold might be supposed to inspire.

"Having stated this to be the character of the representative of the Spanish monarch, I could hardly have supposed that the metropolis had in it a palace fit for his reception; yet we have it from unquestionable authority, that he did find a mansion. The reader will hardly conjecture where? and be surprised when he is informed, in Petticoat Lane.

"It is certain, that in a branch from the long avenue (Petticoat Lane), which leads from the high street Whitechapel to Smock Alley, called Gravel Lane, and which was formerly bounded with hedge-rows and elm-trees, and had, on both sides of the way, "very pleasant fields to walk in, insomuch that gentlemen used to have houses there," stood, till within these last twenty years, a very large quadrangular mansion, which had had court-yards, gates, and all other appendages of state, and in which once resided that august personage Count Gondamar, whose name it retained till its final dilapidation. Tradition says, it had formerly been occupied by the Earl of Essex. In the Interregnum, it was possessed by Cromwell's soldiers, probably to communicate with the garrison in Houndsditch, and ultimately with the Tower, and to assist in having an eye to the eastern side of the city.

"Latterly it was let out in tenements; its gardens covered with mean cottages and sheds; and its once, I presume, magnificent apartments inhabited by a colony of the children of Ifrael, much more remarkable for the cunning than the candour of their dealings.

"Some years since, the East India company purchased this spot, which had long been a public nuisance, and erected upon it those magnificent warehouses, which extend from the new street, Bishopsgate, to Cutler's Street, Houndsditch, &c.

"Petticoat Lane itself is still inhabited by Jews, who having always an eye to traffic, have established in it a Ragfair, which seems intended to rival Rosemary Lane. Indeed, I fear, its situation affords facilities for the disposal of stolen and ill acquired goods. Therefore, as I understand that the East India company have for some time had an extension of their warehouses in contemplation, and had once almost

agreed

agreed for that part of this wretched place which is in the parish of Christ Church, Middlesex, it is devoutly to be wished, if there are any persons so inimical to their own interests, the interests of the parish, of morality, of society in general, as to withhold their sanction, after the truly liberal offers that have been made, that legislative authority would interfere to correct an error which cannot arise from any thing short of insanity; and, at the same time that they enabled the said company to complete their noble and necessary plan, they would remove and extirpate one of the greatest nuisances, whether considered in point of morals or health, that at present exists in the metropolis.

66 STRYPE, THE HISTORIAN'S, HOUSE.-Before I take a final leave of Petticoat Lane, which were it not to shew the reader that such things were and are, I ought to apologize for leading him into, I must observe, that on the opposite side of the way, and within sight of count Gondamar's, stood another large house, formerly occupied by Hans Jacobson, jeweller to king James the First; it was in a paved alley, called, from the ancestors of the historian, Strype's Court, now, in the phraseology of the place, termed " Tripe's Yard;" part of it still remains. It had formerly gardens behind it, and was said to have been, with respect to its situation, exceedingly pleasant.

"In this house, JOHN STRYPE, that exemplary divine, industrious biographer, and ingenious historian, was born. He has, in several parts of his works, left notices of this, the place of his nativity, which we find in his most early years, which must have been soon after the middle of the seventeenth century, was very different from what it has lately been, and is at present. He died in the year 1737, at a very advanced age, having held the vicarage of Low Layton near sixty-eight years. This Strype's, or Tripe's Yard, takes its name from the house in which his father and himself resided; but is now, like Petticoat Lane, the resort of the lowest order of Jews."*

* Vestiges, &c. Europ. Mag. March 1804.

Part