while its martyrs burned on the blazing faggots, and whose modern building is still dedicated to charity, and nobler charity than when the monks dispensed their dole of almsgiving from the gates of the ancient Bartholomew. The Priory of St. Bartholomew, in Smithfield, was an edifice of space and magnificence which the present appearance of the hospital little inclines us to credit. There was a church | which extended its spacious transepts on either side, surrounded by delightful gardens, enclosing stately halls and far-extending cloisters. Yet even Smithfield, prior to the erection of St. Bartholomew's, was but a marsh damp and fenny, containing only a solitary spot of dry ground, on which was erected-a gallows! Rahere, the founder, had his work to clear such ground for his holy building, which he had vowed to erect to the Lord in the extremity of an illness which brought him nigh to death. Rahere in his youth had been an underling of the court of Henry I., and, having led a dissolute life, was brought to repentance and virtue. According to Rahere, St. Bartholomew himself visited him in a dream, and himself pointed out Smithfield as the chosen locality for Rahere's religious house, which the Saint desired to have dedicated to himself, promising to supervise the work and provide all necessaries. Spite of many difficulties, the church was founded in March, 1113, and Rahere was nominated Prior of the same. Associated with him was a holy man of the name of Alfien, founder of St. Giles's, Cripplegate, and such miracles were performed by these saintly men that St. Bartholomew's speedily became a place of renown. After a prelatial service of twenty-two years and six months, St. Bartholomew's founder died, leaving his flock of thirteen canons little land and few rents. Nevertheless they appear to have managed pretty well. In 1410 the Priory was rebuilt, possessing within itself every possible comfort and convenience for the solace of its inmates. The establishment of the monastery and the fair granted by Henry II. caused a considerable population to spring up around the vicinity. The fair was to continue three days. The elders of this generation can remember still Bartholomew's Fair, which had grown into such a gathering of disorderly characters that it was wisely put down a score of years ago. The fortunes of the Priory were various enough after the death of its founder, but the brethren contrived to amass landed property, Canonbury Tower being amongst its possessions. The present church, which was the choir of the more ancient structure, stands some distance backwards from Smithfield. The exterior, as we pass through a gateway remarkable for its mouldings, consists of a brick tower, erected in 1628, and by its side the end of the church, from which the nave has been cut away, a wall and large window having been erected to terminate the structure at this point. The apartments of an adjoining public-house have rooms with arched ceilings, and a cornice with a shield extending through two or three of them, thus proving that they are portions of the old monastery. Some of the arches of the eastern cloister led some years back into a smith's shop. In 1842 the great refectory was a tobacco manufactory: it originally formed one noble apartment of about forty feet high, thirty broad, and a hundred and twenty long. Extending right and left under this refectory is the crypt. Scarcely a more favourable specimen of those mysterious pieces of architecture called crypts could be found than that of the once famous Priory of St. Bartholomew. A door at its extremity is said to lead to a subterranean communication with Canonbury at Islington. There is also, on a line with the church, the Prior's house, where may still be traced the monks' dormitory and the infirmary. In the north-eastern part of the church is the monument of Prior Rahere, consisting of a highly-wrought stone-work screen, enclosing a tomb with the founder's effigy at full length. About the middle of the fourteenth century a pestilence broke out in the heart of China, which, sweeping across the deserts of Cobi and the plains of Tartary, found its way through the Levant, Egypt, Greece, Italy, Germany, and France, to England, sweeping away in its progress whole populations. It reached London in November, 1348. The ordinary churchyards being soon filled, it became necessary to find places for a more wholesale kind of burial; and Ralph Stratford having purchased the site of the present Charter House, consecrated, enclosed, and built a church on it, which place Stowe says in his time was known as Pardon Churchyard, and which was used wherein to bury suicides and malefactors executed for felonies; but this space having been found insufficient to bury the plague-stricken, Sir Walter Manny, a foreigner, who came over to England in the train of Philippa of Hainault, on that Princess's marriage with Edward III. The young warrior remained some time in England, and after many adventures and warlike achievements, told by Froissart, he in 1371 founded a house of twenty-four Carthusian monks, a branch of the Benedictines, of an order originally established at Chartreux, in Grenoble, whence all orders of these houses were called Chartreux Houses, corrupted in our language into Charter Houses. Sir Walter's charter is still preserved in the evidence room of that esta blishment, which a lately deceased great writer of our own time delighted to term Grey Friars. The monks of the Charter House were the first to oppose Henry VIII. when they were commanded to take the oaths of supremacy. The Prior John Houghton being sent to the Tower, at first submitted; but afterwards perished, with others, for his faith, one of the quarters of Houghton's body being set over his own monastery, the history of which his death concludes. In 1542 the site was granted by Henry to John Brydges, yeoman, and Thomas Hall, and three years afterwards to Sir Edward North, an eminent lawyer and statesman, Hall and Brydges receiving an annuity of ten pounds per annum for surrendering the estate. The old monastery was now altered so as to fit it for a noble residence. Here it was that Elizabeth was brought within two days after her accession, staying some time; and, again, after she had dismissed its owner from the Privy Council, she spent four days at the Charter House. In 1565 the second Lord North sold it to the Duke of Norfolk for two thousand five hundred pounds, who resided there and rebuilt a considerable portion of it. Norfolk at this time was meditating a marriage with Mary Queen of Scots, and her restoration to her kingdom, a scheme which brought him to the Tower in 1569; but a year after, the plague being rife, he was permitted to retire to the Charter House, where he renewed his treason ous correspondence with Mary. His conviction was brought about by the discovery of the key to the cipher of his letters under the roofing tiles of the Charter House. Not till three warrants had been issued and recalled could Elizabeth make up her mind to execute a noble who, besides being her kinsman, had been her friend for so many years. The Charter House fell to Lord Thomas Howard, who for his father's sufferings was much caressed by James I., who, directly on his entry to London visited Lord Howard at the Charter House, keeping his Court there four days, and creating his host Earl of Suffolk, Lord Chamberlain of his Household, Lord Treasurer of England, and Knight of the Garter. lions of the Charter-house. The hall is of the reign of Henry the Eighth. The chapel is a very heterogeneous affair. In a dark corner is Sutton's monument, with his effigy painted in imitation of life, and near it is a tablet to the memory of Dr. John Papusch, who was, in his time, organist here. The organ-gallery is covered with helmets, armour, flags, drums, guns, masks, cherubim, coats-of-arms, heads, harps, guitars, and composite capitals without shafts. This brilliant idea emanated from some genius in the reign of our renowned British Solomon. The governors' room has portraits of Charles II., Archbishop Sheldon, the Earl of Craven, the Queen of Bohemia's lover, and, omitting many others, the portrait of Sutton himself." The old court-room, however, is the most interesting of all the Charter-house sights. It was restored in 1842. Its walls are hung with faded tapestry, and here every 12th of December the anniversary of the foundation is held. Two years ago it was the last festive occasion in this world at which William Makepeace Thackeray was present. And it is in reference to our great modern Fielding, that for this and the rising generation the Charter-house will hold its deepest interest. Here he lived a boy, who no doubt gleaned with avidity all the old legends of the place. Here he loved as a man to revisit the scene of his boyish days, and to "tip" the youngsters with sovereigns as in his own time he had been "tipped" by visitors. Images of In 1611 Sir Thomas Sutton, a rich London Clive Newcome, of the immortal old Colonel, merchant, who had formerly been in the employ the brave, good man who ended his life a of the Duke of Norfolk, purchased the Charter- brother of grey friars, will intrude among the house of Lord Suffolk for thirteen thousand realities of the Charter-house, and to this last pounds. The infirmities of age at this time enduring creation our sympathy and our tears were fast seizing on this munificent benefactor, will be given, proof of the exquisite genius of and he accordingly hastened to secure the gift of that man who, amongst all the historical assohis hospital, called by Fuller "The master-ciations of the hospital, has bequeathed the piece of English Protestant charity." He died in 1611, aged seventy-nine years. In 1616 his remains were removed to the Charter-house, where they finally repose beneath a magnificent Among those curious, narrow lanes which tomb, the work of Stone and Jansen. Scarcely extend from the Strand down to the Thames is had he been laid in his first grave, before Simon one called Strand-lane. It is a place probably Baxter, his nephew and heir-at-law, who had that few persons, except the inhabitants of the been chief mourner at the funeral, laid claim to locality, are at all familiar with; but some few all the property settled on the hospital; attempt-years ago an announcement might be read in ing even to gain possession of the Charter- front of No. 5, in that lane-"The Old Roman house. He was unsuccessful in that endeavour, Spring Bath, enquire at No. 5;" and desiring to as he was in his subsequent law-suit, for the be shown this piece of antiquity, we were converdict was given in favour of the hospital; but ducted into a lofty, vaulted passage, on the left rumour hints that the result was covertly con- of which a door led into a vaulted chamber nected with a gift from the governors to King about twenty feet in length and height, and in James of ten thousand pounds. Of these breadth about nine feet. In the massive wall governors there are sixteen in number, includ- between the chamber and the passage, was a ing the master. The pensioners are eighty in recess containing the bath itself; about thirteen number; the scholars forty-four: the latter are feet long, six broad, and four feet six inches sent to the University or apprenticed. One deep. The spring we were told is connected instance of the latter is curious. Henry with the neighbouring well, which gives name Siddons was apprenticed by the Charter-house to Holywell-street. The water, clear, sparkling, to his uncle, Mr. J. P. Kemble, "to learn the histrionic art and mystery." The hall, the chapel, the school-room, the evidence-room, and the old court room, are the memories of himself and his fictions as the most interesting connected with the ancient place. and as delightful to the taste as refreshing to the eye, displayed the sides and bottom of the bath. From the character of the bricks, stucco, and rnbble which constructed the terror of his keepers-for had the creature broken loose what power could have controlled his destructiveness?-was shot with great difficulty, and his skeleton was exhibited in the scene of his exhibitional triumphs. The 'Change itself was of some antiquity, and was said to have been built by Dr. Barbon in the reign of William and Mary; it was removed in 1830 for the present handsome hall, which was On the site of the present Beaufort-buildings was Worcester House, the residence of Chancellor Clarendon when he married his daughter Anne Hyde to the Duke of York. To this place the nobility and gentry flocked to pay their respects to the new Duchess, destined to be the mother of queens but not a queen herself. A more interesting resident of Beaufort-buildings was Fielding, of whom the Gentleman's Magazine, for 1786, tells us that some parochial taxes for his house, having remained unpaid, the collector told the great writer he could give no longer time. On this Fielding went to Jacob Jonson, the bookseller, and obtained from him ten or twelve guineas in advance for a work he had in hand; but as he returned, the tender-hearted genius meeting an old college chum, who like himself laboured under impecuniosity, gave him all the money he had just received. When Fielding returned home he was told the collector had called twice for the money. "Friendship," quoth Fielding, "has called for the money and had it; let the collector call again." A second application to his bookseller relieved the great novelist from the consequences of his thoughtless generosity. the walls and basin itself, there is little doubt Are there any of our readers (passing from the antique to modern places of interest) who will own to remembering old Exeter' Change? Forty years ago this curious excrescence of a building obstructed the Strand, having its menagerie, which at last had the singular spectacle of a mad elephant to exhibit. Poor Chuny, become That part of the Strand known now as the Adelphi, was formerly occupied by the building and gardens of Durham House, built in the reign of Edward I.; and in the reign of Edward VI. the Royal Mint was established here, under the direction of the Lord Admiral Seymour. After his execution Durham House passed into the possession of the Duke of Northumberland; and it was here that the marriages of Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley, of Lady Catherine Dudley with the son of the Earl of Huntingdon, and Jane Grey's sister to the son of the Earl of Pembroke, took place in May, 1553. In June following Jane was conducted from Durham House to the Tower. Its next eminent inhabitant was Sir Walter Raleigh; but of this, though granted by Elizabeth, Raleigh was dispossessed by the Bishop of Durham. In the reign of James I., Durham House was pulled down, and the New Exchange built on its site. Occupied by milliners and sempstresses, the place quickly acquired a notorious reputation as a place of rendezvous and resort for dangerous characters. Here was to be seen the famous "white milliner," the Duchess of Tyrconnel, who plied a millinery trade in the place. In 1696 Cecil-street and the adjoining streets were erected. At the corner of the present Villiersstreet the great Lord Bacon first saw the light. This locality rapidly brings us to Northum berland House, the last remaining representative of the old palatial character of the Strand. It stands on the site of a hospital, or chapel of St. Mary, founded in the reign of Henry III. by William, Earl of Pembroke. This religious house, suppressed by Henry V., was restored by the fourth Edward, and finally dissolved at the Reformation. At the beginning of the seventeenth century the site passed into the possession of Henry Howard, Earl of Northampton, son of the poet Surrey. He erected on it a splendid mansion, and died here in 1614. Descending to the Earl of Suffolk, the name was changed from Northampton to Suffolk House; and on the marriage of the daughter of the second Earl of Suffolk with Algernon Percy, tenth Earl of Northumberland, in 1642, it was called Northumberland House. Jansen is said to have been the architect, but the front was designed by Christmas, the rebuilder of Aldersgate. This princely mansion at this day is rich in works of art. In the dining-room is Titians' picture of "The Cornaro Family," one of his masterpieces, besides other gems of the great masters. In the gallery are copies of some of the great pictures of Raphael "Annibal Carracci" and "Guido Reni." It was within the walls of Northumberland House that in 1660 the nobility and gentry met to concert measures for the restoration of Charles; and here it was that Oliver Goldsmith, waiting on the Earl of Northumberland by his lordship's own request, mistook the Earl's gentleman for that nobleman himself, and delivered to the menial's tickled ears a carefully-prepared and laudatory address. Imagine our beloved Noll's intense mortification when he discovered his error! It was so great that in fact he rushed from the house, giving up his hopes of reward and patronage. Here still the lion stands erect, the badge of the great house of Percy. Will the day ever come, when, like the rest of the famous memories of the Strand, it shall become a thing of the past, for passers-by to wonder at? Even as these words are written, already is the lion of Northumberland House threatened with extinction; but the present head of the noble line is stated to be determined to show fight to the great authorities who have so ruthlessly knocked about the London of our youthful associations. Those who only "stand and wail" will regard with curious eyes the issue of this struggle of ancient nobility with official power, and most of us will regret the removal of the noble beast who has long regarded with triumphant, yet it may be with semi-contemptuous, gaze those efforts of art abounding beneath, or on a level with his lofty eminence, viz., Nelson's Pillar, the fountains, and the National Gallery. CONCERNING I wonder who "got up" the first bazaar? "The world knows nothing of its greatest men" we are told, but if the inventor of bazaars can lay claim to greatness on account of having invented bazaars, I think it is just as well for him, or her, that the world knows nothing of them. The temptation of those who have suffered either as buyers or as sellers to curse their memories would be terrible in the extreme; in fact, awful as might be the consequences of indulging in a fierce string of invective, I do not think that the temptation so to indulge could be resisted; and then consider, not only the quality, but the quantity of vituperation, for who has not at least once during their life-time suffered from bazaars? There is a society, let us say, for preventing the Fee-lo-gee Islanders from piercing their noses and wearing rings therein: all the ways of collecting money from said society have been "played out" as the Yankees say, and if something is not done the society will be "played out" too, and noses will be pierced and rings worn without let or hindrance in Fee-lo-gee! BAZAAR S. The "Meetings in Aid" talk to empty benches, and the plates at the door have only a few coppers upon them, the collecting cards show a nil return, the clergymen will not lend their pulpits, and at last some one as desperately energetic upon the subject of the Fee-lo-gee Islanders' noses as Mr. Jellyby was upon the subject of Borrioboola-gha, proposes the getting up of a bazaar! How easy it is to write those words, with what volubility they slide from our tongues; but oh the difficulty, practically and actually, to "get up" a bazaar! Have any of you experienced it? Have you been surfeited with dolls, smothered with mats, plagued with pen-wipers, hung over with anti-macassars, and found your life a burden to you with pincushions? Have you ever known the torment of not only having to collect these things among your friends, but of having to make them up yourself? Every table in your drawing-room is strewn over with bits of cloth, shreds of silk, ends of ribbon, strings of beads, pieces of braid, and squares of cardboard! These are a small portion of the raw material waiting to be made use of; but | besides these there are on other tables, and on chairs, on the top of the piano, on the chimneypiece, everywhere and anywhere, undressed dolls of all sizes and shapes-from the large wax with the flaxen curls and the terribly vacant blue eyes, to the doll of wood with the stiff joints, and the hair and the boots put on with a paint-brush! Then in the drawers, or upon the shelves of your wardrobe, there will surely be stored articles contributed by friends, and of course ready for the bazaar. A twin-sister of the blueeyed flaxen-haired doll, which you have to dress, is here, brilliant in white muslin over pink calico, with a gipsy hat and a scarlet opera cloak-congruity is seldom remembered in doll's attire. Then there is the nun-doll, and the Normandy peasant doll, and the Newhaven fishwife, and the buy-a-broom girl, and Redriding-hood, and a bride and a bridesmaid, and an old grand-dame. The gentlemen dolls are comparatively scarce, but we have the negrominstrel, black of course, and with hair like a piece of black Astracan fur; and we have a sailor, a collegian, a soldier and a policeman, and that is, I think, the sum-total of our Mr. Dolls," to quote Eugene Wrayburn, in "Our Mutual Friend." And then the pen-wipers! There is the cocked-hat shape and the flat-bottom boat, and the set of mellon-shaped leaves worked with beads, and the other set of leaves, with a thing stretched upon them intended to represent a dog-it is like no dog that I ever saw-and dozens of others all equally ingenious and useless. The pincushion family is even more numerous: they begin with the ambitious "Box"-that which once held fragrant "Havannahs" is now trimmed with lace and ribbon-and the round affair, with the little glass in the centre for flowers, and go down to the smallest thing which can be made and stuffed. We have the Wellington boot and the Blucher boot, and the high-heeled slipper! we have the church-steeple, the belfrybell, and the kitchen-bellows! we have balls, hoops, and croquet mallets-these last are quite a new invention; we have pincushions for the workbox, for the pocket, and the belt; we have pincushions into which it is impossible to put pins, and pincushions from which it is impossible to take pins out! We have hard pincushions and soft pincushions, and pincushions which are neither hard nor soft-in short, pincushions enough to set you mad, and to make you wish that there were no such things as pins in the world! And then the mats. Of all the rubbish which a bazaar collects together defend me from the mats! Mats of worsted-work and mats of beads, mats of crochet and of knitting, mats of shaded wool crimped to represent moss, and mats of shaded paper crimped to represent leaves! Mats of every size, shape, and colour; mats for the tea-kettle and the tea-urn, the lamps, and the jugs! Mats made of steel rings and yes I have seen them-mats made of shirt buttons! When I add to these the handsome pieces of worsted and patchwork (which rarely sell), cushions, slippers, tea-pot "cosys," fender-stools, foot-stools, chairs, borders for table-covers, borders for chimneypieces, bannerscreens and hand-screens, sachets, what-nots, carriage-bags, travelling-bags, bags for nothing at all-when I enumerate the "anti-macassars" why not call them "anti-trotter-oil pomades?" -in knitting, netting, tatting, and crochet, in braiding and appliquer, in everything that is possible and impossible-when I try to give even a faint idea of the assortment of children's clothes, and of the hundred and one knickknacks for which I could not find either a name or a use, you will have some idea, if you have no personal experience, of the "matter" which accumulates when a "bazaar" is about to be got up! But far be it for me to say that a bazaar is all work and no play; on the contrary, it is generally considered "delightful" and " great fun," except perhaps by "papa," who never can find a chair to sit upon while the bazaar mania lasts; and also by "mamma," who, after the first few days, begins to think that the "girls" are wasting their time, and that the bazaar gives Mr. Verdant Green, the curate, too many opportunities for "dropping in." But "girls," as a rule, like fancy work, they have a positive genius for slippers, and are in their element among mats; besides, won't it be nice to appear in pretty new muslins and becoming hats on the day of the bazaar; and "won't it be fun to act shop-maids!" Such a good excuse for a little "innocent flirtation." Oh, yes; the young ladies are all sympathy for the benighted Fee-lo-gees, who pierce their noses! But the really hard work begins when it is announced that enough of dolls have been dressed, pincushions stuffed, and rubbish generally collected; then the day for the sale has to be fixed, placards have to be drawn out, printed, pasted, and posted! the room has to be swept and garnished, the tables have to be set and ornamented, and the wares have to be spread out! How joyfully the young ladies assemble the day before the bazaar to do the work of decoration, and how fagged they are before evening, how weary of the sight of pink and blue glazed calico of laurel branches and paper flowers, of hammers and of nails! But there are not-more is the pity-any fairy wands now-a-days, and if we don't like looking at bare walls while we are dining or dancing in public, or while we are selling dolls for charity, we must just buy the hammers and the nails, the glazed calico and the paper flowers, and set to work to make the bare walls look smart. Indeed, a great deal of what I may collectively call "hammering and nailing" goes on in the world before we can dine or dance, or get married, or even see our friends in a quiet way; |