Christopher Wren had consummated a much more efficient monument to his well-earned fame than that fabric affords." Compared with any other church of nearly the same magnitude, Italy cannot exhibit its equal; elsewhere its rival is not to be found. Of those worthy of notice, the Zitelle, at Venice, by Palladio, is the nearest approximation in regard to size; but it ranks far below our church in point of composition, and still lower in point of effect.

Stow especially says that in Henry IV.'s time there were no taverns in Eastcheap. He tells the following story of how Prince Hal's two roystering brothers were here beaten by the watch. This slight hint perhaps led Shakespeare to select this street for the scene of the prince's revels.

"This Eastcheap," says Stow, "is now a fleshmarket of butchers, there dwelling on both sides of the street; it had some time also cooks mixed. among the butchers, and such other as sold victuals ready dressed of all sorts. For of old time, such as were disposed to be merry, met not to dine and sup in taverns (for they dressed not meats to be sold), but to the cooks, where they called for meat what them liked.

"The interior of St. Stephen's," says Mr. Timbs, "is one of Wren's finest works, with its exquisitely proportioned Corinthian columns, and great central dome of timber and lead, resting upon a circle of light arches springing from column to column. Its enriched Composite cornice, the shields of the "In the year 1410, the 11th of Henry IV., spandrels, and the palm-branches and rosettes of upon the even of St. John Baptist, the king's the dome-coffers are very beautiful; and as you sons, Thomas and John, being in Eastcheap at enter from the dark vestibule, a halo of dazzling supper (or rather at breakfast, for it was after the light flashes upon the eye through the central watch was broken up, betwixt two and three of the aperture of the cupola. The elliptical openings clock after midnight), a great debate happened. for light in the side walls are, however, very objec- between their men and other of the court, which tionable. The fittings are of oak; and the altar- lasted one hour, even till the maior and sheriffs, screen, organ-case, and gallery have some good with other citizens, appeased the same; for the which carvings, among which are prominent the arms of afterwards the said maior, aldermen, and sheriffs. the Grocers' Company, the patrons of the living, were sent for to answer before the king, his sons and and who gave the handsome wainscoting. The divers lords being highly moved against the City. enriched pulpit, its festoons of fruit and flowers, At which time William Gascoigne, chief justice, and canopied sounding-board, with angels bearing required the maior and aldermen, for the citizens, wreaths, are much admired. The church was to put them in the king's grace. Whereunto they cleaned and repaired in 1850, when West's paint- answered they had not offended, but (according to ing of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, presented the law) had done their best in stinting debate and in 1779 by the then rector, Dr. Wilson, was re- maintaining of the peace; upon which answer the moved from over the altar and placed on the king remitted all his ire and dismissed them.” north wall of the church; and the window which the picture had blocked up was then reopened." The Church was again repaired and restored in 1888, its pews being lowered. Sir John Vanbrugh, the wit and architect, is buried here. The exterior of the church is plain; the tower and spire, 128 feet high, is at the termination of Charlotte Row. Dr. Croly, the poet, was for many years rector of St. Stephen's, Walbrook.

On the west side of Walbrook stands the City Liberal Club, a large and commodious edifice, the first stone of which was laid by Earl Granville in 1878.

Eastcheap is mentioned as a street of cooks' shops by Lydgate, a monk, who flourished in the reigns of Henry V. and VI., in his "London Lackpenny: "

"Then I hyed me into Estchepe.

One cryes rybbs of befe, and many a pye ;
Pewter pots they clattered on a heape,
There was harpe, pype, and mynstrelsye."

The "Boar's Head," Eastcheap, stood on the north side of Eastcheap, between Small Alley and St. Michael's Lane, the back windows looking out on the churchyard of St. Michael, Crooked Lane, which was removed with the inn, rebuilt after the Great Fire, in 1831, for the improvement of new London Bridge.

In the reign of Richard II. William Warder gave the tenement called the "Boar's Head," in Eastcheap, to a college of priests, founded by Sir William Walworth, for the adjoining church of St. Michael, Crooked Lane. In Maitland's time the inn was labelled, "This is the chief tavern in London."

Upon a house (says Mr. Godwin) on the south side of Eastcheap, previous to recent alterations, there was a representation of a boar's head, to indicate the site of the tavern; but there is reason to believe that this was incorrectly placed, insomuch as by the books of St. Clement's parish it appears to have been situated on the north side.

Eastcheap.]

THE "BOAR'S HEAD," EASTCHEAP.

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the Mint, in Southwark, and had to boil fourteen days. From there it was to be brought to the Swan Tavern,' in Fish Street Hill, accompanied by a band of music, playing 'What lumps of pudding my mother gave me! One of the instruments was a drum in proportion to the pudding, being 18 feet 2 inches in length, and 4 feet in diameter, which was drawn by 'a device fixed on six asses.' Finally, the monstrous pudding was to be divided in St. George's Fields; but apparently its smell was too much for the gluttony of the Londoners. The escort was routed, the pudding taken and devoured, and the whole ceremony brought to an end before Mr. Austin had a chance to regale his customers." Puddings seem to have been the forte of this Austin. Twelve or thirteen years before this last pudding he had baked one, for a wager, ten feet deep in the Thames, near Rotherhithe, by enclosing it in a great tin pan, and that in a sack of lime. It was taken up after about two hours and a half, and eaten with great relish, its only fault being that it was somewhat overdone. The bet was for more than £100.

It seems by a deed of trust which still remains, on Monday, May 12, at the Red Lion Inn,' by that the tavern belonged to this parish, and in the books about the year 1710 appears this entry: "Ordered that the churchwardens doe pay to the Rev. Mr. Pulleyn £20 for four years, due to him at Lady Day next, for one moyetee of the groundrent of a house formerly called the 'Boar's Head,' Eastcheap, near the 'George' alehouse." Again, too, we find : " August 13, 1714. An agreement was entered into with William Usborne, to grant him a lease for forty-six years, from the expiration of the then lease, of a brick messuage or tenement on the north side of Great Eastcheap, commonly known by the name of the Lamb and Perriwig,' in the occupation of Joseph Lock, barber, and which was formerly known as the sign of the 'Boar's Head.'" On the removal of a mound of rubbish at Whitechapel, brought there after a great fire, a carved boxwood bas-relief boar's head was found, set in a circular frame formed by two boars' tusks, mounted and united with silver. An inscription to the following effect was pricked at the back:"William Brooke, Landlord of the Bore's Hedde, Estchepe, 1566." This object, formerly in the overdone. This object, formerly in the possession of Mr. Stanford, the celebrated publisher, was sold at Christie and Manson's, on January 27, 1855, and was bought by Mr. Halliwell. The ancient sign, carved in stone, with the initials I. T., and the date 1668, is now preserved in the City of London Library, Guildhall.

In 1834 Mr. Kempe exhibited to the Society of Antiquaries a carved oak figure of Sir John Falstaff, in the costume of the sixteenth century. This figure had supported an ornamental bracket over one side of the door of the last "Boar's Head," a figure of Prince Henry sustaining the other. This figure of Falstaff was the property of a brazer whose ancestors had lived in the same shop in Great Eastcheap ever since the Fire. He remembered the last great Shakesperian dinner at the "Boar's Head," about 1784, when Wilberforce and Pitt were both present; and though there were many wits at table, Pitt, he said, was pronounced the most pleasant and amusing of the guests. There is another " Boar's Head" in Southwark, and one in Old Fish Street.

"In the month of May, 1718," says Mr. Hotten, in his "History of Sign-boards," "one James Austin, inventor of the Persian ink-powder,' desiring to give his customers a substantial proof of his gratitude, invited them to the 'Boar's Head' to partake of an immense plum pudding-this pudding weighed 1,000 pounds—a baked pudding of one foot square, and the best piece of an ox roasted. The principal dish was put in the copper

In the burial-ground of St. Michael's Church, hard by, rested all that was mortal of one of the waiters of this tavern. His tomb, in Purbeck stone, had the following epitaph :

"Here lieth the bodye of Robert Preston, late drawer at the 'Boar's Head Tavern,' Great Eastcheap, who departed this life March 16, Anno Domini 1730, aged twenty-seven years. "Bacchus, to give the toping world surprise, Produc'd one sober son, and here he lies. Tho' nurs'd among full hogsheads, he defy'd The charm of wine, and every vice beside. O reader, if to justice thou'rt inclined, Keep honest Preston daily in thy mind. He drew good wine, took care to fill his pots, Had sundry virtues that outweighed his fauts (sic). You that on Bacchus have the like dependence, Pray copy Bob in measure and attendance." Goldsmith, who visited the "Boar's Head," has left a delightful essay upon his day-dreams there, totally forgetting that the original inn had perished in the Great Fire. "The character of Falstaff," says the poet, "even with all his faults, gives me more consolation than the most studied efforts of wisdom. I here behold an agreeable old fellow forgetting age, and showing me the way to be young at sixty-five. Surely I am well able to be as merry, though not so comical as he. Is it not in my power to have, though not so much wit, at least as much vivacity? Age, care, wisdom, reflection, be gone! I give you to the winds. Let's have t'other bottle. Here's to the memory of Shakespeare, Falstaff, and all the merry men of Eastcheap!"

"I was presented," he says, "with a japanned iron tobacco-box, of gigantic size, out of which, I was told, the vestry smoked at their stated meetings. from time immemorial, and which was never suffered to be profaned by vulgar hands, or used on common occasions. I received it with becoming reverence; but what was my delight on beholding on its cover the identical painting of which I was in quest ! There was displayed the outside of the Boar's Head Tavern ;' and before the door was to be seen the whole convivial group at table, in full revel, pictured with that wonderful fidelity and force with which the portraits of renowned generals. and commodores are illustrated on tobacco-boxes, for the benefit of posterity. Lest, however, there should be any mistake, the cunning limner had. warily inscribed the names of Prince Hal and Falstaff on the bottom of their chairs.

"Such were the reflections which naturally arose he was shown a tobacco-box and a sacramental while I sat at the 'Boar's Head Tavern,' still kept cup from St. Michael's Church, which the poetical at Eastcheap. Here, by a pleasant fire, in the enthusiast mistook for a tavern goblet. very room where old Sir John Falstaff cracked his jokes, in the very chair which was sometimes honoured by Prince Henry, and sometimes polluted by his immortal merry companions, I sat and ruminated on the follies of youth, wished to be young again, but was resolved to make the best of life whilst it lasted, and now and then compared past and present times together. I considered myself as the only living representative of the old knight, and transported my imagination back to the times when the Prince and he gave life to the revel. The room also conspired to throw my reflections back into antiquity. The oak floor, the Gothic windows, and the ponderous chimney-piece had long withstood the tooth of time. The watchman had gone twelve. My companions had all stolen off, and none now remained with me but the landlord. From him I could have wished to know the history of a tavern that had such a long succession of customers. I could not help thinking that an account of this kind would be a pleasing contrast of the manners of different ages. But my landlord could give me no information. He continued to doze and sot, and tell a tedious story, as most other landlords usually do, and, though he said nothing, yet was never silent. One good joke followed another good joke; and the best joke of all was generally begun towards the end of a bottle. I found at last, however, his wine and his conversation operate by degrees. He insensibly began to alter his appearance. His cravat seemed quilted into a ruff, and his breeches swelled out into a farthingale. I now fancied him changing sexes; and as my eyes began to close in slumber, I imagined my fat landlord actually converted into as fat a landlady. However, sleep made but few changes in my situation. The tavern, the apartment, and the table continued as before. Nothing suffered mutation but my host, who was fairly altered into a gentlewoman, whom I knew to be Dame Quickly, mistress of this tavern in the days of Sir John; and the liquor we were drinking seemed converted into sack and sugar.

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"My dear Mrs. Quickly,' cried I (for I knew her perfectly well at first sight), 'I am heartily glad to see you. How have you left Falstaff, Pistol, and the rest of our friends below stairs? -brave and hearty, I hope ?'"

Years after that amiable American writer, Washington Irving, followed in Goldsmith's steps, and came to Eastcheap, in 1818, to search for Falstaff relics; and at the "Masons' Arms," 12, Miles Lane,

"On the inside of the cover was an inscription, nearly obliterated, recording that the box was the gift of Sir Richard Gore, for the use of the vestry meetings at the Boar's Head Tavern, and that it was 'repaired and beautified by his successor, Mr. John Packard, 1767.' Such is a faithful description of this august and venerable relic; and I question whether the learned Scriblerius contemplated his Roman shield, or the Knights of the Round Table the long-sought Saint-greal, with more exultation.

"The great importance attached to this memento of ancient revelry (the cup) by modern churchwardens at first puzzled me; but there is nothing sharpens the apprehension so much as antiquarian research; for I immediately perceived that this could be no other than the identical 'parcel-gilt goblet' on which Falstaff made his loving but faithless vow to Dame Quickly; and which would, of course, be treasured up with care among the regalia of her domains, as a testimony of that solemn contract.

"Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt goblet, sitting in my Dolphin chamber, at the round table, by a sea-coal fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun-week, when the prince broke

thy head for likening his father to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me, and make me my lady, thy wife. Canst thou deny it?' (Henry IV., part ii.)

FALSTAFF AND PRINCE HAL.