Fleet Street.]

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THE original "Green Dragon" (No. 56, south) was destroyed by the Great Fire, and the new building set six feet backward. During the Popish Plot several anti-papal clubs met here; and from its windows Roger North stood to see the shouting, torch-waving procession pass along, to burn the Pope's effigy at Temple Bar. In the "Discussion Forum" many barristers of note, many judges, and Lord Chancellors of the future have tried their eloquence when young men.

No. 64 (south) was long a well-known coaching house, the "Bolt-in-Tun." In a grant to the White Friars, in the fifteenth century, it is spoken of as "Hospitium vocatum Le Boltenton." The old inn was demolished a few years ago, but its name is preserved in Bolt-in-Tun Yard, and the railway booking-office which partly occupies its site.

At No. 67 (corner of Whitefriars Street) once lived that famous watchmaker of Queen Anne's reign, Thomas Tompion, who is said, in 1700, to have begun a clock for St. Paul's Cathedral which was to go for a hundred years without winding up. He died in 1713. His apprentice, George Graham, invented, as Mr. Noble tells us, the horizontal escapement, in 1724. He was succeeded by Mudge and Dutton, who in 1768, made Dr. Johnson his first watch. The old shop was (1850) one of the last in Fleet Street to be modernised.

Between Bolt and Johnson's Courts (152-166, north)-near to "Anderton's Hotel"-there lived, in the reign of George II., at the sign of the "Astronomer's Musical Clock," Christopher Pinchbeck, an ingenious musical-clockmaker, who invented the "cheap and useful imitation of gold" which still bears his name. Pinchbeck often exhibited his musical automata in a booth at Bartholomew Fair and in conjunction with Fawkes the Conjuror, at Southwark Fair. He made, according to Mr. Edward J. Wood, the author of "Curiosities of Clocks and Watches,"

an exquisite musical clock, worth about £500, for Louis XIV., and a fine organ for the Great Mogul, valued at £300. He died in 1783. He removed to Fleet Street from Clerkenwell in 1721. His clocks played tunes and imitated the notes of birds. In 1765 he set up, at the Queen's House, a clock with four faces, showing the age of the moon, the day of the week and month, the time of sun rising, &c.

No. 161 (north) was the shop of Thomas Hardy, that agitating bootmaker, secretary to the London Corresponding Society, who was implicated in the John Horne Tooke trials of 1794; and next door, years after (No. 162), Richard Carlisle, a "freethinker," opened a lecturing, conversation, and discussion establishment, preached the "only true gospel," suspended effigies of bishops outside his shop, and was eventually quieted by a sentence of nine years' imprisonment. nine years' imprisonment. No 76 (south) was at one time the entrance to the printing-office of Samuel Richardson, the author of "Clarissa," who afterwards lived in Salisbury Square, and there held levees of his admirers, to whom he read his works with an innocent vanity which occasionally met with disagreeable rebuffs.

"Anderton's Hotel" (No. 164, north side) occupies the site of a house given, as Mr. Noble says, in 1405, to the Goldsmiths' Company, under the singular title of "The Horn in the Hoop," probably at that time a tavern. In the register of St. Dunstan's is an entry (1597), "Ralph slaine at the Horne, buryed," but no further record exists of this hot-headed roysterer. In the reign of King James I. the "Horn" is described as "between the Red Lion,' over against Serjeants' Inn, and Three-legged Alley."

The Record (No. 169, north) was started in 1828 as an organ of the extreme Evangelical party. The first promoters were the late Mr. James Evans, a brother of Sir Andrew Agnew, and Mr. Andrew

to the fabric a body and side-aisles in 1480. At the Reformation there were orchards between the parsonage gaidens and the Thames. In 1637, a document in the Record Office, quoted by Mr. Noble, inentions that Mr. Palmer, vicar of St. Bride's, at the service at seven a.m., sometimes omitted the prayer for the bishop, and, being generally lax as to forms, often read the service without surplice, gown, or even his cloak. This worthy man, whose living was sequestered in 1642, is recorded, in order to save money for the poor, to have lived in a bed-chamber in St. Bride's steeple. He founded an almshouse in Westminster, upon which Fuller remarks, in his quaint way, "It giveth the best light when one carrieth his lantern before him." The brother of Pepys was buried here in 1664 under his mother's pew. The old church was swallowed up by the Great Fire, and the present building erected in 1680, at a cost of £11,430 5s. 11d. The tower and spire were considered master-pieces of Wren. The spire, originally 234 feet high, was struck by lightning in 1754, and is now only 226 feet high. It was again struck in 1803 and in 1887. The illuminated dial (the second erected in London) was set up in 1827. The Spital sermons, now preached in Christ Church, Newgate Street, were preached in St. Bride's from the Restoration till 1797. They were originally all preached in the yard of the hospital of St. Mary Spital, Bishopsgate. Mr. Noble has ransacked the records relating to St. Bride's with the patience of old Stow. St. Bride's, he says, was renowned for its tithe-rate contests; but after many lawsuits and great expense, a final settlement of the question was come to in the years 1705-6. An Act was passed in 1706, by which Thomas Townley, who had rented the tithes for twenty-one years, was to be paid £1,200 within two years, by quarterly payments and £400 a year afterwards. In 1869 the impropriate rectory of St. Bridget and the tithes thereof, except the advowson, the parsonage house, and Easter-dues offerings, were sold by auction for £2,700. It may be here worthy to note, says Mr. Noble, that in 1705 the number of rateable houses in the parish of St. Bride was 1,016, and the rental £18,374; in 1868 the rental was £205,407 gross, £168,996 rateable.

Mr. Noble also records pleasantly sundry musical feats accomplished on the bells of St. Bride's. In 1710 ten bells were cast for this church by Abraham Rudhall, of Gloucester, and on the 11th of January, 1717, it is recorded that the first complete peal of 5,040 grandsire caters ever rung was effected by the "London scholars." In 1718 two treble bells were added; and on the 9th of January,

1724, the first peal ever completed in this kingdom upon twelve bells was rung by the college youths; and in 1726 the first peal of Bob Maximus, one of the ringers being Mr. Francis (afterwards Admiral) Geary. It was reported by the ancient ringers, says our trustworthy authority, that every one who rang in the last-mentioned peal left the church in his own carriage. Such was the dignity of the "campanularian" art in those days. When St. Bride's bells were first put up, Fleet Street used to be thronged with carriages full of gentry, who had come far and near to hear the pleasant music float aloft. During the terrible Gordon Riots, in 1780, Brasbridge, the silversmith, who wrote an autobiography, says he went up to the top of St. Bride's steeple to see the awful spectacle of the conflagration of the Fleet Prison, but the flakes of fire, even at that great height, fell so thickly as to render the situation untenable.

Many great people lie in and around St. Bride's; and Mr. Noble gives several curious extracts from the registers. Among the names we find Wynkyn de Worde, the second printer in London; Baker, the chronicler; Lovelace, the Cavalier poet, who died of want in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe Lane; Ogilby, the translator of Homer; the Countess of Orrery (1710); Elizabeth Thomas, a lady immortalised by Pope; and John Hardham, the Fleet Street tobacconist. The entrance to the vault of Mr. Holden (a friend of Pepys), on the north side of the church, is a relic of the older building. Inside St. Bride's are monuments to Richardson, the novelist; Nichols, the historian of Leicestershire; and Alderman Waithman. Among the clergy of St. Bride's Mr. Noble notes John Cardmaker, who was burnt at Smithfield for heresy, in 1555; Fuller, the Church historian and author of the "Worthies," who was lecturer here; Dr. Isaac Madox, originally an apprentice to a pastrycook, and who died Bishop of Winchester in 1759; and Dr. John Thomas, vicar, who died in 1793. There were two John Thomases among the City clergy of that time. They were both chaplains to the king, both good preachers, both squinted, and both died bishops!

The present approach to St. Bride's, designed by J. P. Papworth, in 1824, cost £10,000, and was urged forward by Mr. Blades, a Tory tradesman of Ludgate Hill, and a great opponent of Alderman Waithman. A fire that had destroyed some ricketty old houses gave the requisite opportunity for letting air and light round poor, smothered-up St. Bride's.

The office of Punch (No. 85, south side) is said to occupy the site of the small school, in the house of a tailor, in which Milton once earned a precarious

Fleet Street.]

living. Here, ever since 1841, the pleasant jester of . Fleet Street has scared folly by the jingle of his bells and the blows of his staff. The best and most authentic account of the origin of Punch is to be found in the following communication to Notes and Queries, September 30, 1870. Mr. W. H. Wills, who was one of the earliest contributors to Punch, says: "The idea of converting Punch from a strolling to a literary laughing philosopher belongs to Mr. Henry Mayhew, former editor (with his schoolfellow Mr. Gilbert à Beckett) of Figaro in London. The first three numbers, issued in July and August, 1841, were composed almost entirely by that gentleman, Mr. Mark Lemon, Mr. Henry Plunkett (Fusbos'), Mr. Stirling Coyne, and the writer of these lines. Messrs. Mayhew and Lemon put the numbers together, but did not formally dub themselves editors until the appearance of their 'Shilling's Worth of Nonsense.' The cartoons, then 'Punch's Pencillings,' and the smaller cuts, were drawn by Mr. A. S. Henning, Mr. Newman, and Mr. Alfred Forester ('Crowquill'); later, by Mr. Hablot Browne and Mr. Kenny Meadows. The designs were engraved by Mr. Ebenezer Landells, who occupied also the important position of capitalist.' Mr. Gilbert à Beckett's first contribution to Punch, 'The Abovebridge Navy,' appeared in No. 4, with Mr. John Leech's earliest cartoon, Foreign Affairs.' It was not till Mr. Leech's strong objection to treat political subjects was overcome, that, long after, he began to illustrate Punch's pages regularly. This he did, with the brilliant results that made his name famous, down to his untimely death. The letterpress description of Foreign Affairs' was written by Mr. Percival Leigh, who-also after an interval-steadily contributed. Mr. Douglas Jerrold began to wield Punch's baton in No. 9. His 'Peel Regularly Called in' was the first of those withering political satires, signed with a 'J' in the corner of each page opposite to the cartoon, that conferred on Punch a wholesome influence in politics. Mr. Albert Smith made his debut in this wise-At the birth of Punch had just died a periodical called (I think) the Cosmorama. When moribund, Mr. Henry Mayhew was called in to resuscitate it. This periodical bequeathed a comic census-paper filled up, in the character of a showman, so cleverly that the author was eagerly sought at the starting of Punch. He proved to be a medical student hailing from Chertsey, and signing the initials A. S.-'only,' remarked Jerrold, twothirds of the truth, perhaps.' This pleasant supposition was, however, reversed at the very first introduction. On that occasion Mr. Albert Smith left the 'copy' of the opening of 'The

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Physiology of the London Medical Student. The writers already named, with a few volunteers selected from the editor's box, filled the first volume, and belonged to the ante-' B. & E.' era of Punch's history. The proprietary had hitherto consisted of Messrs. Henry Mayhew, Lemon, Coyne, and Landells. The printer and publisher also held shares, and were treasurers. Although the popularity of Punch exceeded all expectation, the first volume ended in difficulties. From these storm-tossed seas Punch was rescued and brought into smooth water by Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, who acquired the copyright and organised the staff. Then it was that Mr. Mark Lemon was appointed sole editor, a new office having been created for Mr. Henry Mayhew-that of Suggestor-in-Chief ; Mr. Mayhew's contributions, and his felicity in inventing pictorial and in 'putting' verbal witticisms, having already set a deep mark upon Punch's success. The second volume started merrily. Mr. John Oxenford contributed his first jeu d'esprit in its final number on ' Herr Döbler and the Candle-Counter.' Mr. Thackeray commenced his connection in the beginning of the third volume with 'Miss Tickletoby's Lectures on English History,' illustrated by himself. A few weeks later a handsome young student returned from Germany. He was heartily welcomed by his brother, Mr. Henry Mayhew, and then by the rest of the fraternity. Mr. Horace Mayhew's diploma joke consisted, I believe, of Questions adressées au Grand Concours aux Elèves d'Anglais du Collége St. Badaud, dans le Département de la Haute Cockaigne' (vol. iii., p. 89). Mr. Richard Doyle, Mr. Tenniel, Mr. Shirley Brooks, Mr. Tom Taylor, and the younger celebrities who now keep Mr. Punch in vigorojus and jovial vitality, joined his establishment after some of the birth-mates had been drafted off to graver literary and other tasks."

Mr. Mark Lemon remained editor of Punch from 1841 till 1870, when he died. His successor was Shirley Brooks, whose reign lasted till his death in 1876. He handed on the sceptre to Mr. Tom Taylor, whose death shortly afterwards caused it to pass to Mr. F. C. Burnand, who had been a frequent very successful contributor.

A pamphlet attributed to Mr. Blanchard conveys, after all, the most minute account of the origin of Punch. A favourite story of the literary gossipers who have made Mr. Punch their subject from time to time, says the writer, is that he was born in a tavern parlour. The idea usually presented to the public is, that a little society of great men used to meet together in a private room in a tavern close to Drury Lane Theatre. The truth is this: