noble, and the beautiful, from all countries and all climes, the adventurer in search of gold; the Jesuit employed on his dark mission of mystery and intrigue; the ambassador followed by his gorgeous suites; philosophers, statesmen, and poets, passed in their journey to the great commercial capital of the world. Every princely procession from the continent of Europe, every fair bride who has come over to be wedded to our earlier sovereigns, every illustrious prisoner, from the days of Cressy and Agincourt to those of Blenheim and Ramillies, has passed in succession over old London Bridge. Westminster Abbey, the Tower, and the Temple Church, still remain to us as venerable relics of the past; but old London Bridge, with its host of historical associations, has passed away for ever! Stow, on the authority of Bartholomew Linsted, alias Fowle, the last prior of the church of St. Mary Overy's, Southwark, relates a curious legend in regard to the circumstances which first led to the erection of a bridge over the Thames, at London. "A ferry," he says, "being kept in place where now the bridge is builded, at length the ferryman and his wife deceasing, left the same ferry to their only daughter, a maiden named Mary, which, with the goods left by her parents, and also with the profits arising out of the said ferry, builded an house of sisters in place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Overy's church, above the quire, where she was buried, unto which house she gave the oversight and profits of the ferry. But afterward the said house of sisters being converted into a college of priests, the priests builded the bridge of (timber), as all the other the great bridges of this land were, and from time to time kept the same in good reparations; till at length, considering the great charges of repairing the same, there was, by aid of the citizens of London and others, a bridge built with arches of stone." That at a very remote period there existed a constructed passage over the Thames, nearly on the site of the present London Bridge, there is every reason to believe. The first notice, however, of a "bridge" is to be found in 994, in the reign of Ethelred the Second. It was supported by piles, or posts, sunk in the bed of the river; was fortified with turrets and bulwarks, and was broad enough to admit of one carriage passing another. It was in this reign that Olaf, or Olave, King of Norway, sailed in his expedition up the Thames as far as London, for the purpose of assisting King Ethelred to drive away the Danish adventurers who then held possession, not only of the metropolis, but of a great portion of the kingdom. It was in the successful attempt to reduce the defences of the bridge that the great fight took place between the contending parties. Victory decided in favour of the English. In the |