was born at Farnham, Surrey, and on May 6th, 1783, arrived at the "Belle Sauvage" Inn, Ludgate Hill, with half-a-crown in his pocket, after all the expenses were paid. In September 1819, he wrote from the United States this remarkable passage, relating to Sir Robert Peel's Bank Bill :—

"I, William Cobbett, assert that to carry this Bill into effect is impossible, and I say that if this "Bill be carried into full effect, I will give Castlereagh leave to lay me on a gridiron and broil me alive, while Sidmouth may stir the coals, and Canning stand by and laugh at my groans."

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In 1822, the Small-note Bill passed, partly repealing Peel's Bill, before the day for its going into full effect, and in December, 1825, the one-pound bank notes came out again. In April, 1827, Cobbett thus headed his "Register":—

“It is useless to waste one's time in further prophecies about the matter; there is in my yard "the Gridiron, a portrait of which is at the head of this Register. It is to go up at the front of the "house No. 183, Fleet Street, whenever one or the other of the following things shall take place: "A Repeal of Peel's Bill; a Repeal of the Small-Note Bill; a Reduction of the Interest of the "National Debt."

At No. 186, was issued by George Bell, November 3rd, 1849, No. 1 of "learned, chatty, always useful" "Notes and Queries," which we trust may live long to assist the literary and enquiring world.

At No. 187, is the Law Life Assurance Office, an interesting specimen of architecture harmonizing with the church. This society, with the Solicitors' Benevolent Institution and the now important Law Institution in Chancery Lane, took their rise from the special energy of the late Mr. James Anderton, for thirty years one of the Common Council of the Ward, and at his death, in January, 1868, known as the oldest volunteer in the kingdom.

Nos. 190 and 192 have a somewhat curious history. Upon the site of No. 192 was born, it is said, Abraham Cowley, the poet, whose father was a grocer. In 1740 it was tenanted by a grocer, where the finest Caper tea was sold for 24s.; Fine Green 18s.; Hyson, 16s.; Bohea, 7s.; all warranted genuine! In 1787 the firm was "North, Hoare, Nanson and Simpson, Grocers, at the Black Moor's Head." " Soon after, North retired, but being refused re-admittance into the old firm, opened an opposition shop at No. 190. "Such was the celebrity of this old gentleman that the trade of the old concern left it, and came to North's new shop; upon which the partners joined him, and the famous old house at the corner ceased to exist."* The grocery firm still flourishes at No. 190.

Chancery Lane, "the greatest legal thoroughfare in London," was anciently called "Newe Street" and "Chancellors' Lane." In the reign of Edward the First mud and mire completely stopped it up. In 1614 £6 12s. 6d. was claimed of Sir Julius Cæsar, for paving part of Chancery Lane over against the gate of the Rolles."†

In the erection of the garden wall of Lincoln's Inn, worked Ben Jonson, the poet, as a bricklayer, "havïng a trowel in his hand and a book in his pocket." Upon the west of the Lane, till the reign of the Stuarts, fields extended to St. Giles's and Tyburn, and on the east was the Rolls garden. Here was born the great Lord Strafford, "the victim of his own false strength, and his master's weakness; here lived the Cæsars, the Cecils, the Throckmortons, the Lincolns, Sir John Franklin,

* Underhill's "Topographical Memoranda of the Ward of Farringdon Without," privately printed. "Lansdowne MS." 163, fo. 134.

Sir Edward Reeve, Lord Keeper North, while the site of No. 115 wasthe residence. of Sir Richard Fanshawe, temp. Charles the Second. No. 120, Chancery Lane is said to be the site of Walton's old shop, from 1627-34, who also resided "three doors west from the corner "of the Lane in Fleet Street.* Vertue tells us that Cardinal Wolsey resided in the Lane, "next to the six clerks office, over against the Rolls." In Bowling Pin Alley, Bream's Buildings, 28, Chancery Lane, lived Thompson, a journeyman labourer, whose daughter, Mary Anne, the wife of Clarke, the bricklayer, was some time mistress of the Duke of York. In 1573, so a Record Office document tells us, John Fortescue was way-laid in this lane by Lord Grey and John Zouche, and very seriously maltreated. At No. 45 is the " Hole in the Wall Tavern," mentioned in early documents, and kept early this century by Jack Randal, alias Non-parel," one of the fancy, where Tom Moore visited to get materials for his "Tom Crib's Memorials to Congress," "Randal's Diary," and other popular poems. Passing by the houses recalling memories of Walton, of the "Cock Tavern," of Rackstraw's museum, and all the associations of the once rookery in the rear, we again reach Temple Bar, and pause a while to say a word or two about the once renowned but now extinct Shire Lane.

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"At all times," writes Mr. Diprose, "this place has borne the very worst of reputations, and it was, if possible, to purge it of its foul and filthy associations that rather more than forty years ago the change of designation was made from Shire Lane to Searle's Place. Somehow or other Shire Lane never laid aside its “habitual criminal" aspect. It was in fact one of the arms of that great area of crime which once existed upon the site of the present "ruins in the Strand." The new Law Courts scheme and a bold, unprofitable scheme it has been at present-have destroyed buildings which, while they ought to have been destroyed years ago, carried with them the greatest historic and criminal retrospective recollections perhaps of any other site in London. Upon the 7 acres laid in waste stood 33 streets, lanes and courts, 400 dwelling, lodging and warehouses, printing offices and stables, and a population of 4,175 individuals, who have had to seek a home elsewhere.

Shire Lane, so called, says Stowe, "because it divideth the cittie from the shire," is described in a British Museum MS. as "alias Rogue's Lane," in the time of James the First. From here, December 2nd, 1604, was buried at St. Dunstan's, Sir Arthur Atie, Knt., the great Earl of Leicester's Secretary, and unfortunate Earl of Essex's attendant; here lived Sir Charles Sedley, and here his son, the dramatist, was born; here too lived Elias Ashmole; here, in 1627, resided Lady Warburton; and here reigned supreme Christopher Kat or Cat, the pastrycook, whose savoury pies were the foundation of the celebrated Kit-Cat Club, which had for secretary our Fleet Street bookseller, Jacob Tonson. Here, in 1767, resided the celebrated John Hoole, translator of Tasso. Although the residence is not mentioned by his

* Walton, as we have shown in the Registers, was a member of the Ironmongers' Company, as was also his "master," Thomas Grinsell, and several other early parishioners of St. Dunstan's. The celebrated Dr. Donne, Dean of St. Paul's, was most intimately associated with the Company, for his father, John Donne, entered the Company by servitude to Alderman Harvey, in 1556, while Constance, daughter of Dr. Donne, first married, at Camberwell, 3rd December, 1623, no less a person than Edward Alleyn, founder of Dulwich College, and secondly, also at Camberwell, 24th June, 1630, Samuel Harvey, nephew of Sir Sebastian Harvey, and grandson of Sir James Harvey, both citizens and ironmongers and Lord Mayors of London. Being a member of the Company myself, these facts are doubly interesting to record.

biographers, yet a letter dated from here, discovered with others, sent to Dr. Percy, when collecting materials for his "Reliques," settles an amusing question.* It reads: — "Mr. Hoole presents his best compliments to Dr. Percy,-Mr. Hoole is now removed from the "city, and settled at a house he has taken in Shire Lane, Carey Street, where he will be happy to see Dr. Percy, whenever he will do him the favour to call: he will be sure to find him every "evening, for his present situation makes him a pretty close housekeeper. Mr. H. will be obliged "to Dr. Percy if he can give him a direction where he may send to Dr. Warton, if in Town. "Shire Lane, 30 Decem. To the Rev. Dr. Percy, at His Grace, the Duke of Northumberland." Hoole was then writing his dramatic piece Cyrus," which in December 1768, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre. He is recorded to have had chambers at Clement's Inn, but is it not possible that Clement's Inn may have been wrongfully described for Shire Lane ? He was introduced to Dr. Johnson in 1761, and by him to Dr. Warton in 1764. He died in 1803, aged 76.

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Another resident of Shire Lane was none other than James Perry, proprietor of the "Morning Chronicle," and the introducer of the present system of Parliamentary debates reporting. "When I first knew Mr. Perry," writes Mr. Taylor, ́he lived in a house in the narrow part of Shire Lane, Temple Bar, opposite to the lane which leads to the stairs from Boswell Court. He lodged with Mr. Lunan, a bookbinder, who had married his sister." Perry subsequently removed to Clement's Inn, and Mrs. Lunan subsequently married Dr. Porson. Perry died worth, it was reported, £130,000. The "Morning Chronicle," sold for £42,000. During Perry's editorship, "Sketches by Boz" (Charles Dickens) first appeared in its columns.

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On the west side of Temple Bar, and adjoining it on the north existed, till 1846, a famous old bulk shop, the last of its race. Upon its face was inscribed :"Short and Son, late Creed, Fishmonger, established in the reign of King Henry the VIII." It exhibited the bulk or open stall of old London. Here Crockford, "Shell Fishmonger and Gambler," lived; and here, having left business for "play," &c., made a fortune; he erected, in St. James's Street, his celebrated clubhouse, the decorations in which cost £94,000. A drawing in Crowle's pennant, 1795, shows the old house with one tall gable; and when it was pulled down in 1846, there were two other smaller gables. The building was lath and plaster, and is shown in plate thirty-one of Archer's "Vestiges of Old London." To the house erected upon its site, Messrs. Reeves and Turner, booksellers, removed from my father's old weatherboarded house, No. 114, Chancery Lane, and when the law courts scheme laid the Temple Bar "prop prop" low they again removed to the south side of the Strand, facing St. Clement's Church.

And thus have we completed our ramble through Fleet Street, knocking at many doors, going up many courts, calling upon many friends. From Temple Bar to Fleet Ditch there seems still to echo Roarer Johnson's laugh, while Fleet Street ghosts still haunt their sacred quarters in St. Dunstan's or St. Bride's. Its printing and publishing fame alone is sufficient to claim for it a pre-eminent place, and we have yet to tell its literary history of four centuries. You may walk through many London thoroughfares, and class together many of their local wonders, but there is not one of these streets, however historically connected, that can ever equal the wonders of Fleet Street.

*I am greatly indebted to S. H. Harlowe, Esq., of Regent's Park, for a copy of this letter, which, with the others published by him in "Notes and Queries," 4th series iii., 25, were discovered in the collection of R. Hills, Esq., of Colne Park, Essex.

"Records of my Life," by John Taylor, vol. i., p. 241.

CHAPTER VII.

THE FLEET STREET PRINTING PRESS.

As the son of a printer, bookseller and publisher, and born in the centre of a great literary "world," it is hardly necessary for me to say that my greatest sympathies, and my greatest interests, have ever been centred in the London Press. My birthplace is surrounded by "time honored" spots; it nearly adjoins the once printing office of Samuel Richardson, the great moral novelist, and close handy, nearly four centuries ago, Wynkyn de Worde, the second printer in the Metropolis, set up his press, and spread far and near some of the earliest gems of a then little known art. In the Fleet Street of to-day is published a series of newspapers, boasting of being "the largest daily," "the cheapest local," "the oldest liberal," and what is more, having "the largest circulation in the world." Hence it is that I believe a brief notice of the Fleet Street Press may not prove without its interest.

The thirst for knowledge became very strong with the people in the very earliest times, but learning was centered in a few, and those few were the monks. The monasteries were the schools of the people-every religious house having its "Scriptorium," where the writers were employed in transcribing for those who could afford to pay; those outside being bound to accept as gospel the truths written by the monks.

In these early times, we continually come across the word "Stationer," originally applied to writers of books for the Church, before the discovery of printing, the term descending through such citizen printers as Caxton "mercer," and Grafton "grocer," to those who purchased of these printers, books, and bound and retailed them. For two centuries after these booksellers and publishers were called stationers; but in modern times, the title is only applied to paper merchants, or dealers in writing materials. Yet the first members of the Stationers' Company were printers, and at the present time, it is perhaps the only real working trade company. Their registers of books"Entered at Stationers' Hall," extend from 1557, and are of the greatest interest, but it must be borne in mind, they do not contain all the books published at these early dates, for those printers who held Crown patents were privileged from this exaction.

The first book printed in English is dated 1471, and the first book printed in England, 1474; yet a century later, in 1583, we find the wardens of the Stationers' Company (Christopher Barker and Francis Coledocke) pointing out the dangerous consequences of allowing a printing press to be set up at Cambridge. At this date there were fifty-three presses in London. But the Star Chamber decree of July 11th, 1637, ordered "there shall be but 20 master printers," not including those who held special patents, and each printer was to enter into a bond of £300 not to print sacriligous works. The licensing and taxing of the press at one period assumed the greatest importance, and he was thought a clever man who could evade the pay

ment, and still more clever to escape conviction. Does it not speak volumes to mention that some 500 persons have suffered imprisonment for selling unstamped papers, and among these, the enterprising bookseller, Alderman and Mayor of Manchester, Mr. Abel Heywood. The first stamp duty on newspapers commenced 12th August, 1712, and was finally abolished in 1855, though for ten years later, the paper duty continued its work, and was not repealed without great exertions of the Fleet Street committee. Many anecdotes could be told of these taxation battles, but one shall suffice.

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"Various ingenious devices were employed to deceive and mislead the officers employed by the "Government Many of the unstamped papers were printed in Crane Court, Fleet Street; and "there, on their several days of publication, would watch the officers of Mr. Tilsley, the Somerset "House solicitor, ready to seize them immediately they came from the press. But the printers were quite equal to the emergency. They would make up sham parcels of waste paper, and "send them out with an ostentatious show of secrecy. The officers-simple fellows enough, though they were called 'government spies,' 'Somerset House myrmidons,' and other approbious names in the unstamped papers--duly took possession of the parcels, after a decent show of "resistance by their bearers, while the real newspapers intended for sale to the publie were sent "flying by thousands down a shoot in Fleur-de-Lys Court, and thence distributed in the course of "the next hour or two all over the town. Fleur-de-Lys Court was swallowed up in the enlarge"ment of Fetter Lane a few years afterwards, though even now a ruinous house exists to mark "the site of the famous shoot."*

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William Caxton, "citizen and mercer," of London, from his press in the Almonry at Westminster, issued "The Game and Playe of the Chesse, translated out of French, fynyshed the last daye of Marche, 1474," and this was the first book printed in England. The first book printed in English was "The Recuyall of the Historyes of Troye," and its translation was "begonne in Bruges," in 1468, "and ended and fynisshed in the holy cyte of Colen," 19th September, 1471-also by Caxton. Copies of these and other choice specimens of early printing are to be seen in the Grenville and King's Libraries, British Museum. The name of Caxton was, however, known in the City of London a century before our printer's time, for Mr. Riley has found the name in 1329, and Robert de Caxtone was one of the first Common Councilmen for Portsoken Ward in 1347.

Mr. Blades considers that by the term "Abbey," Caxton meant that he printed within the Abbey precincts, not actually in the Abbey itself. The printer, at all events, left fifteen copies of his "Golden Legend" as a legacy to his parish, and these were sold at from 5s. 4d. to 6s. 8d. An imperfect copy of this work sold in 1854 for £230.

At the close of the fifteenth century, Caxton met Wynkyn de Worde abroad, who joining him at Westminster, "succeeded to his business" about 1491. Wynkyn de Worde in some respects takes pre-eminence to Caxton, for the excellence of his works and the number he issued-over 400. It has been supposed he was his own letter founder, Herbert remarking-"some of them having been in use to this day, being cast so true, and standing so well in line, as not to be excelled by any." About 1500, he migrated eastward, and within the liberties of the City of London, "in parrochia Sancte Brigide," he printed "Multorum Vocabulorum " of Johannis de Garlandia. Unfortunately, the site of this printing office in Fleet Street is now *From an interesting paper on "The Unstamped Press," in the well conducted trade journal, the "Bookseller,' September 30th, 1867.