in the metropolis. It derives its name from the priory of St. Mary Spital, founded in 1197, for canons regular of the order of St. Augustine, by one Walter Brune, citizen of London, and Rosia, his wife. At the dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry the Eighth, the priory of St. Mary Spital shared the fate of the other religious houses. For centuries its holy tenants had administered to the wants of the sick and needy, and accordingly thousands wept over its demolition. At its dissolution, indeed, it was found to contain no fewer than one hundred and eighty beds, which had been set apart for poor travellers and persons in sickness and distress. The old priory appears to have stood on and near the site of the present White Lion Street. Close by, at the northeast corner of Spital Square, stood the famous Spital pulpit or cross, where for nearly three centuries sermons were preached three times during Easter, to the citizens of London, who assembled there in the open air. On these occasions the Lord Mayor and Aldermen never failed to attend in their robes of state: indeed, in such repute were the "Spital Sermons" held by our ancestors, that we find them frequented in great state both by Queen Elizabeth and by her successor, James the First. On the occasion of the former sovereign visiting Spital Cross in April, 1559, her guard consisted of a thousand men in complete armour, who marched to the sound of drum and trumpet; her progress being enlivened by the grotesque antics of morris-dancers, while "in a cart were two white bears." The Spital Cross was demolished during the civil troubles in the reign of Charles the First. After the Restoration, the Spital sermons were preached at St. Bride's, Fleet Street, where the custom continued to prevail till within the last sixty years, when it was transferred to Christ's Church, Newgate Street. Here 422 BETHNAL GREEN. they are still attended by the Lord Mayor, Aldermen, and other dignitaries connected with the principal metropolitan charities. The old Spital Fields are now formed into a number of streets, lanes, and alleys, which are principally inhabited by the artizans employed in those celebrated silk manufactures which have rendered the name of this district so famous. Not a few of the inhabitants are the descendants of the unfortunate Huguenots, who fled from France in 1685, to avoid the cruel persecution which followed the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. To that proscription, as impolitic as it was barbarous, we owe the foundation and establishment of silk manufacture in England. Christchurch, Spitalfields, was built by Nicholas Hawksmore, a pupil of Sir Christopher Wren. Here was the great burial-place of the Romans for persons who died within the walls of the City. We learn from Granger, that in Pelham Street, Spitalfields, Milton's granddaughter, Mrs. Foster, kept a chandler's shop. The celebrated statesman, Lord Bolingbroke, is said to have resided in a house on the north side of Spital Square. In the immediate neighbourhood, too, was born the great ecclesiastical historian, John Strype. To the north-east of Spitalfields is Bethnal Green, anciently a retired hamlet, comprising, in Queen Elizabeth's days, a few scattered cottages and farm houses, which surrounded the episcopal palace of the merciless Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, from whom Bonner's Fields derive their name. The church, dedicated to St. Matthew the Evangelist, was erected in 1740, at the north-east corner of Hare Street, Spitalfields. Three years afterwards, this district having been found to contain a population of as many as fifteen thousand inhabitants, an Act of Parliament was passed OLD ARTILLERY GROUND. 423 for forming the hamlet of Bethnal Green into a distinct parish. Pepys writes on the 26th of June, 1663 :-" By coach to Bednall-Green, to Sir W. Rider's to dinner. A fine merry walk with the ladies alone after dinner in the garden: the greatest quantity of strawberries I ever saw, and good. This very house was built by the Blind Beggar of Bednall-Green, so much talked of and sung in ballads; but they say it was only some of the outhouses of it." Before we take leave of this remote neighbourhood, we must not omit a brief mention of the Old Artillery Ground, which occupied the site of Duke Street, Steward Street, Sun Street, and other adjacent streets in the neighbourhood of Spitalfields. It was originally known by the designation of Tasell's Close, from having been anciently a spot of ground where the tassells or teazles, used in the manufac * "The Beggar's Daughter of Bednall-Green." Percy's Reliques, vol. ii., p. 162. 424 OLD ARTILLERY GROUND. ture of cloth, were cultivated. Subsequently, William, the last prior of St. Mary Spital, granted it for three times ninetynine years to the fraternity of Artillery, or gunners of the Tower. The ground was laid out expressly for the purpose of proving the artillery, for gunnery practice, and other military purposes, and thus obtained the name of the Artillery Garden. Stow informs us that in his time the gunners of the Tower used to repair hither every Thursday, to exercise their great artillery against a mound of earth, which served as a butt. In 1622, the Artillery Company removed to an area on the west side of Finsbury Square, which thus obtained the name of the new Artillery Ground. It was not, however, till some years afterwards that the old Artillery Ground, as we learn from Strype, was entirely neglected. "In the afternoon," writes Pepys, on the 20th of April, 1669, "we walked to the Old Artillery Ground, Spitalfields, where I never was before, but now by Captain Deane's invitation did go to see his new gun tried, this being the place where the officers of the Ordnance do try all their great guns." Artillery Lane and Fort Street still remain to point out the immediate site of the old Artillery Ground. LONDON WALL, AUSTIN FRIARS, &c. ORIGINAL EXTENT OF LONDON WALL.-ITS GATES. THE CITY DITCH.-BROAD AND DR. JOHNSON. BURIAL H AVING retraced our steps to Bishopsgate Street. Within, let us turn down the long and narrow street, called London Wall, which anciently ran parallel with the north wall of the City. When the Romans, in the fifth century, found themselves compelled to abandon their conquests in Britain, they left London encircled by a wall. twenty-two feet high, and measuring, in its circuit from the. Tower to Blackfriars, two miles and a furlong in length. In addition to two principal fortresses, the wall was defended by thirteen towers, erected at advantageous distances, and supposed to have been about forty feet in height. There were originally but three entrances into the City; one at Aldgate on the east; another near Aldersgate Street on the north; and at Ludgate in the west. At later periods were added Newgate, Cripplegate, Moorgate, Bishopsgate, and the Postern on Tower Hill. The wall commenced at the Tower, the principal Roman fortress in London. Thence it ran in a straight line to Aldgate, where it commenced a semicircular route by the Minories, Houndsditch, and along London Wall to Cripplegate. Here the north wall terminated nearly in an |