staircases and saloons, where, as Pope says, "sprawl the saints of Verrio and Laguerre." His residence was on the first floor of the dwelling of a waggish bookseller and author-of-all-work, named Crispin Tucker, the owner of half-a-shop, on the east side, under the southern gate of the Bridge. The artist's studio was chiefly in the bow-window in a back room, which projected over the Thames, and trembled at every half-ebb tide. Here, also, Hogarth resided in his early life, when he engraved for old John Bowles, at the Black Horse, in Cornhill. His studio resembled, we are told in Wine and Walnuts, " one of the alchemist's laboratories from the pencil of the elder Teniers. It was a complete, smoke-stained confusionary, with a German stove, crucibles, pipkins, and nests of drawers with rings of twine to pull them out; here a box of asphaltum, there glass-stoppered bottles, varnishes, dabbers, gravers, etching-tools, walls of wax, obsolete copperplates, many engraved on both sides, and poetry scribbled over the walls; a pallet hung up as an heir-loom, the colours dry upon it, hard as stone; all the multifarious arcanalia of engraving, and, lastly, a Printing Press!" And in Wine and Walnuts is an amusing account of Dean Swift's and Pope's visits and conversations with the noted Crispin Tucker.

Not only the ordinary buildings in the Bridge Street, which were formerly occupied as shops and warehouses, but even the Chapel of St. Thomas, which, in later years, was called Chapel House, and the Nonesuch House, were used for similar purposes before they were taken down. Dr. Ducarel relates that the house over the chapel belonged to Mr. Baldwin, haberdasher, who was born there; and when, at seventy-one, he was ordered to

go to Chislehurst for a change of air, he could not sleep in the country, for want of the "noise," the roaring and rushing of the tide beneath the Bridge, "he had always been used to hear." We gather from the Morning Advertiser for April 26, 1798, that Alderman Gill and Wright had been in partnership upwards of fifty years; and that their shop stood on the centre of London Bridge, and their warehouse for paper was directly under it, which was a chapel for divine service, in one of the old arches; long within legal memory, the service was performed here every Sabbath and Saint'sday. Although the floor was always at high-water mark, from 10 to 12 feet under the surface; yet such was the excellency of the materials, and the masonry, that not the least damp, or leak, ever happened, and the paper was kept as safe and dry as it would have been in a garret.

Again, in Seymour's Survey of London and Westminster, 1734, it is stated that, at that time, one side of the Nonesuch House was inhabited by Mr. Bray, a stationer, and the other by Mr. Wed, a dry-salter.

SMITHFIELD AND ITS TOURNAMENTS.

MANY remarkable Tournaments are recorded as having taken place at Smithfield, especially during the reign of Edward III. Here that warlike monarch frequently entertained with feats of arms his illustrious captives, the kings of France and Scotland; and here, in 1374, towards the close of his long reign-when the charms of Alice Pierce had infatuated the doting monarch-he sought to gratify his beautiful mistress by rendering

her the "observed of all observers," at one of the most magnificent tournaments of which we have any record. Gazing with rapture on her transcendant beauty, he conferred on her the title of "Lady of the Sun;" and taking her by the hand, in all the blaze of jewels and loveliness, led her from the royal apartments in the Tower to a triumphal chariot, in which he took place by her side. The procession which followed consisted of the rank and beauty of the land, each lady being mounted on a beautiful palfrey, and having her bridle held by a knight on horseback.

A still more magnificent tournament-for invitations had been sent to the flower of chivalry at all the courts of Europe-was held at Smithfield in the succeeding reign of Richard II. The opening festivities are graphically painted by Froissart, who was not improbably a witness of the gorgeous scene he describes. "At three o'clock on the Sunday after Michaelmas-day, the ceremony began. Sixty horses in rich trappings, each mounted by an esquire of honour, were seen advancing in a stately pace from the Tower of London; sixty ladies of rank, dressed in the richest elegance of the day, followed on their palfreys, one after another, each leading by a silver chain a knight completely armed for tilting. Minstrels and trumpets accompanied them to Smithfield amidst the shouting population; there the queen and her fair train received them. The ladies dismounted, and withdrew to their allotted seats; while the knights mounted their steeds, laced their helmets, and prepared for the encounter. They tilted each other till dark. They all then adjourned to a sumptuous banquet, and dancing consumed the night, till fatigue compelled every one to seek repose. The next day the warlike sport

commenced; many were unhorsed; many lost their helmets; but they all persevered with eager courage and emulation, till night again summoned them to their supper, dancing, and concluding rest. The festivities were again repeated on the third day." The court subsequently removed to Windsor, where King Richard renewed his splendid hostilities, and at their conclusion dismissed his foreign guests with many valuable presents. This picturesque scene is from the pen of Captain Jesse.

PLANTAGENET PIGS.

WE gather from The Guildhall White Book, lately translated and published by the suggestion of the Master of the Rolls, the following curious regulations as to the City Pigs in the fifteenth century :

Pork seems to have been (1412) more extensively consumed than any other kind of butchers'-meat, judging from the frequent mention of swine, and the laws about them, living and dead. "Lean swine are named as frequenters of Smithfield Market, apparently as a means of improving their condition. In Edward Longshanks's days, persons living in the City were allowed to keep swine "within their houses," with as free a range as that porcine pet of the Irish schoolmaster. But these Plantagenet pigs were not to occupy sties that encroached on the streets. At a later day, the permission to keep them even within one's house would seem to have been limited, as we have seen, to master-bakers; and it seems to have been at all times a standing rule, that swine were not to be

allowed to roam about the streets, fosses, lanes, or suburbs of the City. If an erring specimen was found, grunting along his solitary way, defiant of statutes and ordinances in such cases made and provided, then might such vagrant porker, whether straying in the mere naughtiness of his heart, or compelled by hunger, be lawfully slain by whatsoever citizen lighted on him in his vagabondage,―said citizen being also at liberty to retain what had been pig but was now pork, the carcase whole and entire; unless, indeed, the pig's sometime owner bought it of him at a stipulated sum. Not even this license for any citizen to kill any stray pig was considered effectual enough to answer the legislative purpose. The vagrant propensity that emptied so many a sty of its denizen became a nuisance; for we read that early in the reign of Edward I. four men were "chosen and sworn to take and kill all swine found wandering within the walls of the City, to whomsoever they might belong." We find, however, that the Renter of St. Anthony's Hospital (the patron Saint of

swine) was "a privileged person " in this respect,

though his honesty was impeachable, since he had to make oath that he would not 66 avow any swine found at large in the City," nor "hang any bells around their necks, but only around those pigs which have been given them in pure alms."

"WHITTINGTON AND HIS CAT."

THE nursery tale of the poor boy, who rose to be a wealthy merchant and Lord Mayor of London, chiefly through a large sum of money obtained for him