Henry the Fourth, and secondly, Sir John Grey (eldest son of Lord Grey de Ruthyn), who was a Knight of the Garter, and fought on the field of Agincourt. The old church of St. Katherine, together with no fewer than twelve hundred and fifty houses, was taken down in 1826, in order to make room for the present St. Katherine's docks. The hospital and master's residence have been rebuilt in the Regent's Park, to the chapel of which has been transferred the stately monument of the Duke of Exeter, together with an elaborately carved old pulpit.

From East Smithfield we pass into the ancient village of Ratcliffe Highway, described by Camden in his day as being "a little town wherein lived many sailors," and deriving its name from a red cliff which was formerly visible here. "Frym hence," says Pennant, "the gallant Sir Hugh Willoughby took his departure, in 1553, on his fatal voyage for discovering the northeast passage to China. He sailed with great pomp by Greenwich, where the court then lay. Mutual honours were paid on both sides. The council and courtiers. appeared at the windows, and the people covered the shores. The young king, Edward the Sixth, alone lost the noble and novel sight, for he then lay on his death-bed, so that the principal object of the parade was disappointed." Pennant omits to mention that the gallant adventurer was frozen to death in the northern seas.

In Ratcliffe Highway occurred, in 1811, those fearful massacres of the Marr and Williamson families, which, at the time, spread a consternation throughout the metropolis, never surpassed perhaps by any similar atrocities. Terror was written on every face. Every householder provided himself with a blunderbuss; and one shopkeeper alone is said to have sold no fewer than three hundred watchmen's rattles in ten hours. The first of these tragedies took place on the 7th of December, 1811, at No. 29 Ratcliffe Highway, a house occupied by an opulent laceman of the name of Marr. His family consisted of Marr himself, his wife, their infant child, a shop-boy, and a female servant. About twelve o'clock at night, the latter was sent out to purchase some supper, and on her return, in a quarter of an hour, repeatedly rang the bell, but to no purpose, for admittance. Subsequently the house was broken open, when, to the horror of those who entered it, they discovered that the whole of the inmates, including even the infant in its cradle, had been barbarously murdered. The second tragedy took place twelve days afterward, on the 19th of December, about the same hour of the night, at the King's Arms public-house in Old Gravel Lane, Ratcliffe Highway. The victims on this occasion were the landlord Williamson, his wife, and a female servant. The perpetrator, or perpetrators, of these horrors, were never discovered. Suspicion attached itself to one Williams,

and the world anxiously anticipated the result of his trial. He found means, however, to hang himself in prison, and his secret, if he had any to divulge, died with him.

Ratcliffe Highway, now St. George Street, which Stow describes as, in his memory, a large highway "with fair elms on both the sides," leads us into what was once the hamlet of Shadwell, extending to the banks of the Thames. It is said to have derived its name from a fine spring (probably called shady well), near the south wall of the churchyard. In the time of Charles the Second this now populous district was still open country, and was consequently fixed upon as one of the principal burial-places for the victims of the great plague in 1665. The frightful plague-pit was situated where the modern church of St. Paul's, Shadwell, now stands.

Wapping, also formerly a hamlet, stretches along the river's side from Lower Shadwell to St. Katherine's. As late as the year 1629, we find King Charles the First, who had been hunting at Wanstead, in Essex, killing a stag in Nightingale Lane, Wapping. The name and site are still preserved in Nightingale Lane, being the street which divides the London docks from St. Katherine's docks. The spot where the church of St. John, Wapping, now stands, was another of the principal burialplaces in the great plague. Here was the famous Execution Dock, where pirates, and others, con

demned for offences on the high seas, were formerly executed. They were hanged on a temporary gibbet at low water mark, the body being allowed to remain there till it had been three times overflowed by the tide. Maitland mentions a remarkable anecdote of one of these piratical criminals having been rescued from death at the eleventh hour. This was one James Buchanan, who was condemned to death in December, 1738, for the murder of the fourth mate of the Royal Guardian Indiaman, in the Canton River. He was brought from Newgate to Execution Dock, in pursuance of his sentence, and had actually been suspended five minutes, when he was cut down by a gang of sailors, who conveyed him to their vessel, and carried him in triumph down the river. He afterward, it is said, succeeded in escaping in safety to France.

It was in a mean public-house in Wapping, called the Red Cow, in Anchor and Hope Alley, that the inhuman Judge Jeffreys was discovered looking out of a window in a sailor's dress. It was not without difficulty that the crowd which soon assembled was prevented from tearing him to pieces. He was conducted to the Tower, where, shortly afterward, he died, partly from the effect produced on his constitution by strong liquors, and partly from the injuries which he had received from the infuriated mob.

To the northeast of Wapping is the crowded

district of Stepney, which derives its name from the Saxon manor of Stebenhythe, or Stebunhethe. Stepney was a village, and had its church, as far back as the days of the Saxons, and in the time of Elizabeth was the most eastern part of London. In the reign of William the Conqueror, and even previous to that period, Stepney church was known as Ecclesia omnium Sanctorum, or All Saints, but was subsequently dedicated to St. Dunstan, whose name it at present bears. The church itself possesses but little interest. Here, however, were buried Sir Thomas Spert, founder of the Trinity House and comptroller of the navy in the reign of Henry the Eighth; the learned Richard Pace, the friend of Erasmus, who died Vicar of Stepney in 1532; the father of John Strype, the historian; and the father of John Entick, the lexicographer, who kept a school in the neighbourhood. Here also is to be traced the curious epitaph to which the Spectator has given celebrity:

"Here Thomas Sapper lyes interred. Ah, why?
Born in New England, did in London dye;
Was the third son of eight, begot upon
His mother Martha by his father John.
Much favour'd by his Prince he 'gan to be,
But nipt by Death at th' age of Twenty-three.
Fatal to him was that we small-pox name,
By which his mother and two brethren came

'He died on the 8th September, 1541, and the monument to his memory was erected by the master and elder brethren of the Trinity House in 1622, eighty-one years after his death.