mined to receive him with great state and splendour. Accordingly, on his approach to London, they met him at Tottenham, habited in velvet and ornamented with chains of gold. Lord Montacute, at the head of the queen's pensioners, received him at Islington, and, on reaching Smithfield, he was met by the lord mayor and aldermen, habited in their scarlet robes, who accompanied him on horseback to his residence, then "Master Dimmock's," in Fenchurch Street.

The church of St. Margaret Pattens, Fenchurch Street, derives its name partly from having been dedicated to St. Margaret, a virgin saint of Antioch, and partly, according to Stow, "because of old time pattens were usually made and sold" in the neighbourhood. The old church having been destroyed by the great fire, the present edifice was rebuilt by Wren in 1687. The principal object of attraction in St. Margaret's is the altar-piece, which displays a fine painting, representing the angels ministering to our Saviour in the garden. The artist is said to be Carlo Maratti, pupil of Andrea Sacchi. About the altar, too, are some carvings of flowers, of excellent workmanship. The indefatigable antiquary, Thomas Birch, lies buried in the chancel of this church. "My desire is," he says in his will, "that my body may be interred in the chancel of the church of St. Margaret Pattens, of which I have been now rector near nineteen years." He died in 1765.

In Fenchurch Street stood Northumberland House, the residence, in the fifteenth century, of the Percies, Earls of Northumberland. In the reign of Henry the Seventh its fine gardens were converted into bowling-alleys, "common to all comers for their money, there to bowl and hazard," and the other parts of the estate into dicing-houses. Northumberland Alley, on the south side of Fenchurch Street, points out nearly the site of Northumberland House.

Pepys writes, on the 10th of June, 1665: "To my great trouble, hear that the plague is come into the city (though it hath these three or four weeks since its beginning been wholly out of the city); but where should it begin but in my good friend and neighbour's, Doctor Burnett, in Fenchurch Street; which, in both points, troubles me mightily." And again he writes, on the 11th: "I saw poor Doctor Burnett's door shut; but he hath, I hear, gained great good-will among his neighbours, for he discovered it himself first, and caused himself to be shut up of his own accord, which was very handsome."

Running from Fenchurch Street into Leadenhall Street is Billiter Street, corrupted from Belzetter Street, the name probably of the builder, or of some former owner of the property.

On the south side of Fenchurch Street is Mincing Lane, so called, apparently, from the ground on which it stands having been the property of

the Minchuns, or nuns of St. Helen's, in Bishopsgate Street. Running parallel with it is Mark Lane, anciently styled Mart Lane, from a mart or fair having been held on the spot. On the west side of this street, near Fenchurch Street, is the ancient church of Allhallows, or All-Saints Staining. It had the good fortune to escape the ravages of the great fire of 1666, but, shortly afterward, a large portion of it having fallen into decay, it was restored at a considerable expense in 1675.

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According to Stow, the church of Allhallows Staining derives its adjunctive name from the Saxon word stane, or stone, which was given to distinguish it from the other churches in London dedicated to All-Saints, which were of wood. posing this derivation to be the correct one, the original edifice must have been of great antiquity. The earliest notice, however, which we discover of there having been a place of worship on the spot, is in 1329, when one Edward Camel was the curate. Previously to the committal to the Tower of the Scottish patriot, Sir William Wallace, he was confined in a house in the parish of Allhallows Staining.

A tradition exists, that when the Princess Elizabeth was released from the Tower by her sister, Queen Mary, she obtained permission, when on her way to Woodstock, to attend divine service in the church of Allhallows Staining. Having concluded her devotions, she adjourned, it is said,

to the King's Head Tavern, in Fenchurch Street, where she partook of a substantial meal, consisting of pork and pease. This royal visit, we are told, was afterward commemorated by certain influential persons in the parish, whose descendants, till within the last forty years, continued to celebrate the anniversary of the accession of the virgin-queen by a dinner at the "King's Head.” In the coffee-room are still preserved a metal dish and cover which are said to have been used by Elizabeth on the occasion of her visit, as also an inscription detailing the circumstances, and an engraved portrait of her by Holbein. According to another account, the princess, on quitting the church, presented the clerk with a handsome gratuity, the consequence of which was that he annually regaled his friends with a dinner; a festival which was afterward held once a year by successive inhabitants of the parish.

It may be mentioned that in this small parish no fewer than one hundred and sixty-five individuals perished by the great plague in 1665; a frightful mortality when we consider that even at the present time the population of the parish scarcely exceeds six hundred persons. Among other curious entries in the ancient parish books, is the payment of a sum of money for ringing a joy-peal to celebrate the safe return of James the Second to London, after he had been foiled in his attempt to fly the kingdom on the approach of the Prince

of Orange. As a striking evidence of the fickleness of popular favour, may be mentioned a second entry, dated only two days afterward, for the payment of a similar sum to the ringers for celebrating the safe arrival of the invader in London. The signatures of two remarkable men appear on the parish books of Allhallows Staining. The one is that of Sir Cloudesley Shovel, in connection with his marriage; the other, that of Ireton, who, as a justice of the peace, appears to have married certain persons under the new marriage act of the Puritans, which transformed the ceremony from a religious into a civil contract.

Close by, in Hart Street, at the west end of Crutched Friars, is the small but interesting church of St. Olave, dedicated to St. Olave, or Olaf, a Norwegian saint of the eleventh century. Of the date of its foundation we have unfortunately no record. Certain only it is that St. Olave's existed as a parish at the commencement of the fourteenth, and that there was a parish church here at the beginning of the fifteenth, century. It was repaired at a considerable cost in 1633, and again in 1823.

In addition to its graceful architecture, and the remains of antique decoration on the roof of its aisles, St. Olave's contains some interesting monuments and brasses. Among others may be mentioned a brass plate, at the east end of the north aisle, to the memory of Thomas Morley, clerk of