monuments as St. Helen's the Great. In the transept at the east end is a beautiful table-tomb of black and white marble, to the memory of Sir Julius Cæsar, master of the rolls and Privy Councillor in the reign of James the First, who was interred near the communion-table, on the 18th of April, 1636. This tomb, which was erected by Sir Julius in his lifetime, was the work of the famous sculptor, Nicholas Stone. The most remarkable feature of it is the inscription, which is engraved on a piece of white marble in the form of a parchment deed, with a seal appended to it. It purports to be a bond, or engagement, on the part of the deceased, duly signed and sealed, to deliver up his life to God whenever it may be demanded of him.

Another interesting monument, which formerly stood close by, but which is now removed to the south of the nave near the entrance, is that of Sir John Spencer, the "Rich Spencer" whom we have mentioned as the princely occupant of Crosby Place. The tomb, which is composed of marble, represents Sir John Spencer and his wife, Alicia Bloomfield, lying side by side, and a woman in the attitude of prayer kneeling at their feet. The inscription, in Latin, enumerates the high civic honours held by Sir John; nor does it omit to mention that his only daughter, Elizabeth, became the wife of William, Lord Compton.

Among other remarkable monuments may be mentioned that of Martin Bond, the father of Sir

William Bond, whom we have mentioned as having been one of the proprietors of Crosby House. He was one of Elizabeth's captains at Tilbury at the time when the Spanish Armada was daily expected, and from this circumstance is represented as sitting in his tent, two soldiers standing sentries outside, and an attendant being in the act of bringing up his horse. The inscription is as follows:

"Memoriæ Sacrum.

"Near this place resteth the body of the worthy citizen and soldier, Martin Bond, Esq., son of William Bond, Sheriff and Alderman of London. He was Captain in the year 1588, at the camp at Tilbury, and after remained Captain of the Trained Bands of this City until his death. He was a Merchant-Adventurer, and free of the Company of Haberdashers: he lived to the age of eighty-five years, and died in May, 1643. His piety, prudence, courage, and charity have left behind him a never-dying monument?"

But unquestionably the most interesting monument in St. Helen's Church, not only from its connection with Crosby Place, but from its antiquity and costly workmanship, is that of Sir John Crosby, the founder of the old mansion, and the munificent renovator of the church in the days of Edward the Fourth. His monument, on the south side of the altar, consists of an altar-tomb, on which lie side by side the figures of Sir John Crosby, and of Agnes his wife, the former being in full armour.

On the north side of the altar, beneath a canopy enriched with columns and arches, reclines the figure of the graceful and learned Sir William Pickering, represented also in full armour. Not only is he described as having been one of the finest gentlemen of the age in which he lived, as having been accomplished in polite literature, and in all the arts of war and peace; but so great was the influence which he is said to have established over the mind of Queen Elizabeth as to embolden him to aspire to her hand. A long Latin inscription, which is now effaced, stated that Sir William Pickering died on the 4th of January, 1574, at the age of fifty-eight.

Close by is a large but simple altar-tomb, covered with a black marble slab, the monument of Sir Thomas Gresham, whose charities, magnificence, and virtues we have already recorded in our notice of his princely mansion in Bishopsgate Street. The inscription is as simple as the tomb itself:

"Sir Thomas Gresham, Knight, buryd Decemb the 15th, 1579."

Another prominent feature in the church is a large, unseemly mass of masonry, disfigured rather than ornamented by urns, beneath which lie the remains of one Francis Bancroft, who, as the inscription says, purchased the ground in 1723, and erected the tomb in his lifetime, in 1726. According to tradition, he amassed a large fortune

by discreditable means, but becoming penitent at the close of life, he made atonement for his misdeeds by founding some almshouses at Mile End, and by dispensing his wealth in other acts of charity. His last will was distinguished by a singular provision. Having directed that his body should be embalmed and placed in a coffin without fastenings, he applied a fund for the annual preaching of a sermon in commemoration of his death, on which occasion it was enjoined that his body should be publicly exhibited to the almsmen, who were compelled to attend on the occasion. "He is embalmed," writes Noorthouck, "in a chest made with a lid, having a pair of hinges, without any fastening." The interior of the tomb is still occasionally visited, but the custom of annually exposing the shrivelled remains has been for many years discontinued.

Before closing our notices of St. Helen's Church, let us point out, for the sake of the quaintness of the inscription, a small old marble monument on the north side of the altar, to the memory of Sir Andrew Judd, Kt., elected Lord Mayor of London in 1549:

"To Russia and Mussova,

To Spayne, Gynny, without fable,
Traveld he by land and sea;

Bothe Mayre of London and Staple.

The commenwelthe he norished

So worthelie in all his daies,

That ech state fullwell him loved,

To his perpetuall prayse.

Three wyves he had; one was Mary;

Fower sunes, one mayde had he by her;
Annys had none by him truly;

By dame Mary had one dawghter.
Thus, in the month of September,
A thowsande fyve hunderd fiftey
And eight, died this worthie staplar,
Worshipynge his posterytye."

In St. Helen's Church lies buried the celebrated mathematician and natural philosopher, Robert Hooke, but without any monument to his memory.

Returning from St. Helen's Place into Bishopsgate Street, on the right-hand side is Houndsditch, formerly a filthy ditch, into which dead dogs and cats were usually thrown, but which has long since been converted into a street of considerable importance. Into this ditch, after having been dragged by his heels from Baynard's Castle, were thrown the remains of the traitor, Edric, Duke of Mercia, the murderer of his master, Edmund Ironsides.

Within a short distance of Houndsditch stood Hand Alley, built on the site of another of the principal receptacles for the dead during the raging of the great plague in 1665. "The upper end of Hand Alley, in Bishopsgate Street," writes Defoe, "was then a green field, and was taken in particularly for Bishopsgate parish, though many of the carts out of the city brought their dead