the world, that it may know, that if one part of this Citie be so famous, how much more the whole: which, for state and Christian gouernment, may well challenge place before any Citie in Christendome. And therefore I present vnto you this simple modell of one of the wonders of the world.' So concludes the descriptive

eulogy of Master Norden. And now, Sir, having mentioned to you the great rarity of this print of London Bridge, and that if another impression of it were to appear, it would probably produce the respectable price of ten or fifteen guineas; I must add that there has been an excellent fac-simile of it published by Mr. William Scott, of Great May's Buildings, St. Martin's Lane, for the more moderate sum of 10s. 6d., which no genuine lover of London, or London Bridge, should hesitate to procure.

"The last view of this edifice which I shall at present notice to you, is one copied by Thomas Wood, Engraved by J. Pye, and dedicated to Brass Crosby, Esq., Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of London; and it represents the South View of the said City and part of Southwarke, as it appeared about the year 1599.' I am half inclined to believe, however, that this prospect is made up from Hollar's View, published in 1657; as it is certainly taken from the same point. The Bridge rises obliquely on the right hand : at the South end of it appears the Southwark Gate, and beyond it is placed the rich tower which I have already described to you; whilst a series of buildings, forming two distinct groups, with spaces between them, finish the picture, which has the old Church of St. Magnus for its Northern boundary. Even at this period, probably, some of the Arches of London Bridge had received those names by which they were so long afterwards known, though they were first inserted in Stow's 'Survey,' by Richard Bloom, one of the last of his Continuators before Strype; but his account of these locks I shall speak of

in the next century, and I will now only observe that such were the features of LONDON BRidge in the YEAR 1599.

"Thanks be praised!' Master Barnaby," said I, as my indefatigable historian arrived at this period; "thanks be praised!' as the Countryman says in the Play, 'I thought we would never ha' got hither, for we've had a power of crosses upo' the road.' If you do not make the better speed through the next two centuries, mine honest friend, you will scarcely allow me time to conclude your narrative by a brief account of the New Bridge, and the grand ceremonial of its foundation: here's your health, however; and if contributing to one's repose be a praiseworthy action, why, truly, I'm much your debtor, good Mr. Postern."

"Rest you merry, Sir," replied he of the sack tankard; "I see that you're one of the humourists of Old London ; and, methinks, you ought to be somewhat grateful to me for furnishing you with occasion to be witty; but, to speak more seriously, I pray you to recollect that I have conducted you through a period of more than six hundred years, and that too in a history of which the materials are to be sought for, and extracted, from a vast multitude of very opposite sources. And even when we have found them, you know, my good Mr. Barbican, that they resemble those grains of gold which the wandering Bohemians recover from the sand; of little or no value till collected into a mass, and even then surprising by their insignificance. Surely, he is to be pitied, who becomes the historian of a subject equally ancient, interesting, hopeless, and unknown."

"A very good reason," answered I, "for not becoming one at all, Master Barnaby; Odzooks! do men write your thick folios, only because they know nothing of the matter? But you have no such excuse, for you quote me a dozen authors to tell of one event; and then there's such 'fending and proving' about a handful of years, that

where subjects are lacking, 'fore George, you seem to me to create them."

66 Well, Sir, well," resumed the mild old man, (6 your wit becomes you; but as we may never meet again, I would fain pour into your bosom all the little knowledge which I possess upon this point; and so we will pass on to the Chronicles of London Bridge in the seventeenth century.

"The inhuman cruelties which Queen Mary, Bishop Bonner, and others of their faith, practised upon the Protestants, may reasonably be supposed to have so embittered their minds, as to have excited in them no slight feelings of revenge, when, in their turn, they came into power. Indeed it is difficult to imagine any other cause for the severities which they practised, or for the laws which were enacted to authorise them. The principal of these Statutes, you may remember, were five: one in the 27th of Elizabeth, 1585, chapter ii., entitled 'An Act against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, and other such-like disobedient persons; and a second passed in her 35th year, 1593, chapter ii., and called 'An Act for restraining Popish Recusants to some certain place of abode.' Under King James I., were introduced three others strengthening and confirming the former, the first of which was made in the 1st year of his reign, 1604, chapter iv., being An Act for the due execution of the Statutes against Jesuits, Seminary Priests, Recusants, &c.'; and in his third year, 1606, were passed two others, see chapters iv. and v., namely, An Act for the better discovering and repressing of Popish Recusants;' and 'An Act to prevent and avoid dangers which grow by Popish Recusants.' History, Master Barbican, blushes to record what cruelties were perpetrated under the sanction of those laws; and I should have omitted all notice of them, but that they are so interwoven with several anecdotes of London Bridge. My authority is a work, entitled The Catholic Book of Martyrs, or a true British Martyrology, commencing with

66

[A. D. the Reformation;' by the Right Rev. Richard Challoner, Bishop of Debora; of which the new edition of 1825 is a singularly curious book. He states from Stow, in vol. ii., p. 9, that in 1578, February 3rd, John Nelson, a Priest, was executed at Tyburn, for denying the Queen's supremacy, and that his head was erected on London Bridge; whilst on p. 74, is a similar relation of another Priest named James Fenn ; but I proceed to notice a much more remarkable instance. In the year 1605, Father Henry Garnet, the Principal of the English Jesuits, was taken up and imprisoned in the Tower, for being a party concerned in the famous Gunpowder Plot: after many examinations, he acknowledged that Father Greenway, a Jesuit, had communicated it to him under the seal of confession from Catesby, the chief of the conspirators. Both the Priests were struck with horror at the design, and vainly endeavoured to prevent its execution. Greenway fled beyond the seas, but Father Garnet was taken, condemned, and executed, in St. Paul's Church Yard, on the 3rd of May, the Anniversary of the Invention or Finding of the Holy Cross by the Empress Helena, the Mother of Constantine. 6 His head,' says Bishop Challoner, in his Catholic Book of Martyrs,' vol. iii., p. ii., was fixed on London Bridge, and it was much remarked, that his countenance, which was always venerable, retained, for above twenty days, the same lively colour which it had during life, which drew all London to the spectacle, and was interpreted as a testimony of his innocence; as was also an image of him wonderfully formed on an ear of straw, on which a drop of his blood had fallen.' Dr. Challoner gives his authorities for this narrative at its commencement.

6

"But to pass from these unhappy subjects to the story of London Bridge, and the River Thames, let me next observe that the year 1608 was remarkable for a great frost near this edifice, of which we have a very curious account in Edmond Howe's Continuation of the Abridgement of