In those days the streets and lanes of London were narrow and difficult, and the unfortunate queen that was to be might have touched the over-hanging eaves and gables of the houses in her progress through the city without leaving her saddle. The conduit in Shoe lane was grandly gilded over to do her honor, and ran wine for the whole day. At the base of the conduit a starvling poet sat reciting verses in her honor as she and her newly made ruffian of a husband passed, and no doubt this mediæval Mormon was highly pleased with the conceit. There were towers and turrets erected to do her honor in Shoe lane, and in one of these towers, according to the chronicler, "was such several solemn instruments that seemed to be an heavenly noise, and was much regarded and praised; and, besides this, the conduit ran wine, claret and white, all the afternoon; so she, with all her company, rode forth to Temple Bar, which was newly painted and repaired, where stood also divers singing men and children, till she came to Westminster Hall, which was richly hanged with cloths of Arras."

While Prince Hal was splitting the sculls of fractious Frenchmen at Agincourt and fording the passage of the Somme, Sir Robert Ferras de Chastley held eight cottages in Shoe lane from his king. Here and there was a garden peeping forth in its floral verdure; and here was also the town residence of the Bishops of Bangor, powerful and pious prelates in their day, God wot and odds bodkins; and as early as 1378 they held the tenure by virtue of the patent of the forty-eighth of Edward the Third, which says in most barbarous Latin: "Unum messuag; unam placeam terræ, unam gardinum cum aliis ædificis in Shoe Lane, London."

Times have changed since then in Shoe lane. A bishop of Bangor now, with his train of lances, his men-at-arms, mitre, cross-bearer, and torches, would be a sight indeed in Shoe lane. How that bright-eyed bar-maid at the door of the Blue Pig would stare at his lordship! How the greasy boy in the ham and beef shop would shout at the cope and silks and velvet housings-taking them, perhaps, in an innocent way, for a part of the Lord Mayor's show! And as for the conduit run

ning Claret and Malmsley, the beer-swilling cockneys would not thank headless Anne Boleyn for such washy foreign stuff. Their fancy could only be fed by gin. A man-at-arms would be compelled nowadays to wash his throat with Bass's bitter beer or brown stout, instead of sack, hippocras, or mead. At last we are in the neighborhood of "Cogers Hall"-the hall of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Cogers. There is a gin-shop at the front, with its low doorway and flaring signs. The windows are well lit, and by the side of the bar is a long, narrow passage conducting the visitor for twenty or thirty feet to a back room, about forty feet long and twentyfive feet wide.

Off the passage are a number of small waiting-rooms, noisy and smoky, with the voices and vile pipes of the occupants. Four rows of tables run along the room, in which are present fifty or sixty persons all of the male sex. They are all decently dressed, for, although the admission is free, yet is the visitor to the Cogers Hall expected to drink or eat something, and the place, with its tariff of prices, though moderate enough to an American, would not suit a costermonger or laborer.

The roof is arched and paneled, done in a feeble imitation of the style of Sir Christopher Wren, who is popularly supposed to have built everything in London after the great fire of 1666. A handsome chandelier depends from an opening in the roof, and is ornamented with a number of glass globes, which serve to light the apartment and dissipate the thick clouds of smoke that constantly arise in the room.

There is a large, gaudy sign in the hall, on which are printed these cabalistic words: "Hot joints are served in this room from one until five." At the farther end of the room, opposite the entrance, is a paneling hollowed back in the wall, the entire room being paneled; and this paneling is shaped like a door, and is gilded. A step from the floor, in the paneling, is placed a chair of honor, which is occupied by the Most Worthy Grand, as he is styled; or, in fact, the chairman of the meeting. Those who are familiar with him go so far in their irreverence as to call this awful personage "Me

Grand," and whispers have been heard that his name in reality is Tompkins or Noakes.

Directly opposite this dignitary, at the other end of the room, is a place in the paneling and a chair like to that which I have already described, and this is occupied by a tall, lean man, with side whiskers of a grayish pattern, who has the title of Vice Grand.

But the Vice, or Worthy Wice, is of greatly inferior dignity to the Most Worthy Grand. He is, so to speak, an empty ornament of the feast, and his duties are simple, and confined to calling out in unison with the assemblage, "Hear, hear," or "Good." "You are RIGHT," when the Worthy Grand, in his oracular sentences, is most happy. At other times, in a loud voice he will call the attention of the waiters, who heartily detest him for his interference, to the fact that some customer has drained his beer, or gin and hot water, and needs, therefore, to be served afresh.

Still this man is human, and will listen, when off his seat of duty, to any scandal against the Most Worthy Grand with secret pleasure. In fact, the Worthy Wice, inspired by a generous fourpence worth of gin and hot water, told me aside, in conversation, that the Worthy Grand was unfit for his high position. "He his han HASS, sir. He his too Hold. And he 'as no woice watsomever, sir. Bah! THAT, sir, for Tompkins" -and the Worthy Wice snapped his fingers in an insane manner at the air in which his potent imagination had conjured up the semblance of the Worthy Grand. Sitting down at a table I followed the custom of the place and called for something. On each table were placed a couple of long-shanked clay pipes, and a thin-necked, big-paunched, red-clay jar, which a man sitting near explained to my satisfaction.

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"You see," said, he in a rather mysterious voice, 'aven't much ice to speak of in England; leastways, it is too dear, and this 'ere red clay 'as a peculiar wirtue-it keeps the water as cold as if it was in the waults of Bow Church.”

This man was decently dressed, and was, I believe, a drover by profession. He was very fleshy and very red in the face.

Tissues of fat lay around his eyebrows in layers, and his double chin was dewlapped like one of his own beeves. He had a heavy red hand, and was, as I found out, a true Briton in every sense. I asked him why the place was called Cogers Hall. To this conundrum he confessed himself unable to answer, but after scratching his head the " Beefy One," as I shall call him, made a sign for a waiter to come to the table. "I say," said the Beefy One, "why do you call this place Cogers 'All?" The waiter could not satisfy him, but said that he would call the Master. Well, the Master came, a thin-faced, side-whiskered Englishman, with watery blue eyes and trembling lip. The counterfeit presentment of the Master hung over the Worthy Grand's chair of state, done in oil, and it seemed as if the artist had endeavored, in accordance with the spirit of the Cogers Hall, to give the face an oratorical, Gladstonian expression, and the cloak was folded around the shoulders of the Master as the toga is folded around the shoulders of Tully, in classic pictures. Besides the picture of the Master, several other pictures of Past Worthy Grands were hung as tokens of their former forensic abilities. The Master, in answer to the question why the place was called Cogers Hall, said:

แ "Well, you see, we calls it Cogers Hall from the Latin kogee-To-to cogitate, to think. Oh, yes, sir, we have been a long time established, sir; since 1756, sir; a matter of a hundred years or so, sir. You are han Hamerican, sir. Oh, yes, sir, we've 'ad George Francis Train 'ere, sir, for many a night, sir; and 'e spoke in that chair, sir; and when he was arrested, sir, in Ireland, the Home Secretary as wos, sir, wrote to me to question me if he had spoken treason, sir, or spoke agin the Queen, sir. Cos ye see, sir, the principle of an Englishman, sir, is to allow every man liberty to say wot he likes, sir, so long as he does not speak agin the Queen or speaks treason. That's an Englishman's principle, sir."

And George Francis Train had spoken in this very room! I could fancy the feelings of poor Artemus Ward when he stood at the the tomb of Shakespeare at Stratford. These wooden chairs and benches were hallowed in my eyes henceforward.

Men had sat upon those chairs who had listened to the fervid eloquence of a Train, and perhaps some of these very men had survived. Civis Americanus sum.

As the night came on apace, the smoky, oldfashioned, paneled room began to fill up, and before long nothing could be seen but rows of men lining the small tables, puffing vigorously from the long clay pipes, and at intervals taking deep draughts from the large, brightly burnished metal pots, holding a pint each, or perhaps sipping fourpenny glasses of hot gin and water. Along with the little jar of hot water which the waiter brought on demand, were little saucers of sugarthese little saucers never containing, by any chance, more than three lumps of sugar, and each of these lumps being equalized in size with a mathematical nicety. Some of the visitors, more hungry than others, satisfied their longings with "Welsh Rabbits," at sixpence apiece; or, when the rabbits had, in addition, two eggs cooked with them, the Welsh rabbit was called a "Golden Buck," and the waiter, in his greasy tail coat, raised his demand to eightpence.

In a few minutes the Worthy Vice, a gray-bearded man with a meck face and in shabby-genteel clothes, took his seat, and all the chairs in the apartment were turned around by those who occupied them in order that they might hear and see better. The Worthy Vice, who is sometimes entered on the bills of the performance as a "Patriot" when he has to take part in a discussion, read the minutes of the last meeting of the Ancient and Honorable Society of Cogers, which were listened to quietly, and then the attention of the audience was turned to the Most Worthy Grand, who occupied the chair at the other end of the apartment. This most noble Briton, in a quavering voice, having adjusted his vest—which had a tendency to leave exposed the lower part of the shirt-bosom at his stomach where his trousers bisected-opened the proceedings with much solemnity, imitating by hems and haws, as well as he could, the manners of the dullest and most commonplace orators of the House of Commons. His business as a specialty was to review the events of the week.