As We Are and As We May Be Part 3

Two thousand years ago, or thereabouts, the City of London was first begun. At that time the Thames valley, where now stands Greater London, was a vast mora.s.s, sometimes flooded at high tide, everywhere low and swampy, studded with islands or bits of ground rising a few feet above the level--such was Thorney Island, on which Westminster Abbey was built; such was the original site of Chelsea and Battersea.

On the south side the swamp and low ground continued until the ground began to rise for the first low Surrey Hills at what is now called Clapham Rise. On the north side the swamp was bordered by a well-defined cliff from ten to thirty or forty feet high, which followed a curve, approaching the river edge from the east till it reached where is now Tower Hill, where it nearly touched the water, and the spot now called Dowgate--a continuation of Walbrook Street--where the river actually washed its base, and where it presented two little hillocks side by side, with the brook--Walbrook--running into the river between. This was a natural site for a town--two hills, a tidal river in front, a freshwater stream between. Here was a spot adapted both for fortification and for communication with the outer world. Here, then, the town began to be built. How the trade began I cannot tell you, but it did begin, and grew very rapidly, Now, as it grew it became necessary for the people to stretch out and expand; there was no longer any room on the two hillocks; they, therefore, built a strong wall to keep out the river and put up houses, quays, and store-houses above and along this wall--portions of which have been found quite recently. The river once kept out--although the cliff receded again--the marsh became dry land, but, in fact, the cliff receded a very little way, and the slopes of the streets north of Thames Street show exactly how far it went back.

Many hundreds of years later precisely the same course was adopted for the rescue of Wapping from the marsh in which it stood. They built a strong river wall, and Wapping grew up on and behind that wall, just exactly as London itself had done long before.

The citizens of London had, from a very early time, their two ports of Billingsgate and Queenhithe, both of them still ports. They had also their communication with the south by means of a ferry, which ran from the place now called the Old Swan Stairs to a port or dock on the Surrey side, still existing, afterwards called St. Mary of the Ferry, or St. Mary Overies. The City became rapidly populous and full of trade and wealth. Vast numbers of s.h.i.+ps came yearly, bringing merchandise, and taking away what the country had to export. Tacitus, writing in the year 61, says that the City then was full of merchants and their wares. It is also certain that the Londoners, who have always been a pugnacious and a valiant folk, already showed that side of their character, for we learn that, shortly before the landing of Julius Caesar, they had a great battle in the Middles.e.x Forest with the people of Verulam, now St Albans. The Verulamites had reason to repent of their rashness in coming out to meet the Londoners, for they were routed with great slaughter, and never ventured on another trial of strength. As for the site of the battle, it has been pretty clearly demonstrated by Professor Hales that it took place close to Parliament Hill, at Hampstead, and the barrow on the newly acquired part of the Heath probably marks the burial-place of the forgotten heroes who perished on that field. And as for the Londoners who fought and won, let us remember that they came from this part of the modern City--from Thames Street.

The town was walled between the years 350 and 369. The building of the Roman wall has determined down to these days the circuit of the City.

Now, here a very curious and suggestive point has been raised. In or near all other Roman towns are remains of amphitheatres, theatres and temples. There is an amphitheatre near Rutupiae, the present Richborough; everybody knows the amphitheatres of Nimes, Arles and Verona; but in or near London there have never been found any traces of amphitheatres or temples whatever. Was the City then, so early, Christian? Observe, again, that the earliest churches were dedicated, not to British saints, or to the saints and martyrs of the second or third centuries--the centuries of persecution--but to the Apostles themselves--to St. Peter, St. Paul, St. James, St. Stephen, St. Mary, St. Philip. These facts, it is thought, seem to indicate that very early in the history of the City its people were Christians. When the Roman wall was built, Thames Street already possessed most of the streets which you now see branching northward up the hill, and south to the river stairs, the s.p.a.ce beyond was occupied by villas and gardens, and the life of the merchants and Roman officers who lived in them was as luxurious as wealth and civilization could make it.

You now understand why I have called Thames Street the heart of the City. It was the first part built and settled, the first cradle of the great trade of England. More than this, it continued to be the thief centre of trade; its wharves received the imports and exports; its warehouses behind stored them; its streets which ran up the sloping ground grew with the growth of the trade; new streets continually sprang up until villas and gardens were gradually built over and the whole area was covered; but all sprang in the first place from Thames Street; everything grew out of the trade carried on along the river.

We are going to walk through all the five riverside wards belonging to this street. There are one or two things to note in advance, if only to show how this quarter remained the most populous and the most busy part of London. The City of London has eighty companies. Forty of these have--or had--Halls of their own. Out of the forty Halls no fewer than twenty-two belong to these five wards, while one company, the Fishmongers', had at one time six Halls, or places of meeting, in and about Thames Street. Again, the City of London formerly had about 150 churches. Along the river, that is, in and about Thames Street alone, there were at least twenty-four, or one-sixth of the whole number. Lastly, to show the estimation in which this part was held, out of the great houses formerly belonging to the King and n.o.bles, those of Castle Baynard, Cold Harbour, the Erber, Tower Royal, and the King's Wardrobe belong to Thames Street, while the names of Beaumont, Scrope, Derby, Worcester, Burleigh, Suffolk, and Arundell connect houses in the five wards of Thames Street with n.o.ble families, in the days when knights and n.o.bles rode along the street, side by side with the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of the City.

In Thames Street are the ancient markets of Billingsgate and Queenhithe. The former has been a market and a port for more than a thousand years. Customs and tolls were paid here in the time of King Ethelred the Second, that is, in the year 979. The exclusive sale of fish here is comparatively modern, that is, it is not three hundred years old. As for Queenhithe it is still more ancient than Billingsgate. Its earliest name was Edred Hithe, that is, Edred's wharf. It was given by King Stephen to the Convent of the Holy Trinity. It returned, however, to the Crown, and was given by King Henry III. to the Queen Eleanor, whence it was called the Queen's Bank or Queenhithe. On the west side of Queenhithe lived Sir Richard Gresham, father of Sir Thomas Gresham, in a great house that had belonged to the Earls and Dukes of Norfolk.

The splendid building of the Custom House on the south side is the fifth Custom House that has been put up on the same spot. The first was built by one John Churchman, Sheriff in the year 1385; the next in the reign of Queen Elizabeth--it was furnished with high-pitched gables and a water gate, this was burned down in the Great Fire. Wren built the third, which was burned down in 1718; one Ripley built the fourth, which was also burned down in 1814. The present building was designed by David Laing and cost nearly half a million.

Until quite recently a little narrow and dirty pa.s.sage to the river, known as Coldharbour Lane, commemorated the site of a great Palace, known as the Cold Harbour, which stood here overlooking the river with many gables. It was already standing in the reign of Edward II. It belonged successively to Sir John Poultney; to John Holland, Duke of Exeter--that Duke who was buried in St. Katherine's Hospital; to Henry V., who lived here for a brief period when Prince of Wales; to Richard III.; to the College of Heralds; and to Henry VIII. Finally, it was burned in the Great Fire, but during the last hundred years of its life the old Palace fell into decay and was let out in tenements to poor people. The City Brewery now stands on the site of Cold Harbour.

Close beside this great house--the site itself now entirely covered by the railway--was the Steelyard. This was the centre of the German trade; here the merchants of the Hanseatic League were permitted to dwell and to store the goods which they imported. The history of the German merchants in London is a very important chapter in that of London. They came here in the year 1250, they formed a fraternity of their own, living together, by Royal permission, in a kind of college, with a great and stately hall, wharves, quays, and square courts. The building is represented, before it was burned down in the Great Fire, as picturesque, with many gables crowded together like the whole of London. Their trade was extremely valuable to them; they imported Rhenish wines, grain of all kinds, cordage and cables, pitch, tar, flax, deal timber, linen fabrics, wax, steel, and many other things.

They obtained concession after concession until practically they enjoyed a monopoly. For this they had to pay certain tolls or duties.

They were made, for instance, to maintain one of the City gates. They were compelled to live together in their own quarters. Their monopoly lasted for 300 years, during which the London merchants, especially the a.s.sociation called Merchant Adventurers, who belonged princ.i.p.ally to the Mercers' Company, continued to besiege the Sovereign with pet.i.tions and complaints. It was not until the reign of Queen Elizabeth that they were finally turned out and expelled the Kingdom.

Their house and grounds were converted into a store-house for the Royal Navy. At the same time the old Navy Office, which had formerly stood in Mark Lane, was transferred to the suppressed college and chapel belonging to All Hallows, Barking, in Seething Lane, where you may still see, if you go to look for them, the old stone pillars of the gates and the old courtyard which was originally the court of the college, then the court of the Navy Office, and now the court of the warehouse belonging to the London Docks. As for the unfortunate Steelyard, that, as I said, is now completely covered by the Cannon Street Railway. As you walk under the railway arch you may now look southward and say, 'Here for 300 years lived the Hanseatic merchants--here the fraternity had their warehouses, their exchange, their great Hall. Here the German porters loaded and cleared the s.h.i.+ps, the German clerks took notes and kept accounts, and the German merchants bought and sold.' They ventured not far from their own place; the Londoners have never loved foreigners or the sound of an unknown language; they lived here making money as fast as they could and then going home to Lubeck, Bremen, or Hamburg, others coming to take their place.

On Dowgate Hill was another famous old house called the Erber--which is, I suppose, the same word as Harbour. It belonged at successive periods to Lord Scroope, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Salisbury, and to George, Duke of Clarence. This house, too, perished in the Fire. In this street Sir Francis Drake lived, and here are now three Companies' Halls. Close by, on Laurence Poultney Hill, lived Dr.

William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood.

In Suffolk Lane the Earls of Suffolk had a great house, and here, before they moved to Charter House, stood the Merchant Taylors'

School. Three Companies had their Halls on the riverside--the Watermen's at the bottom of Cold Harbour Lane; the Dyers' at the bottom of Angel Alley; and the Vintners' which still stands close to Southwark Bridge.

Nearly at the end of the street was Baynard's Castle. You may still see the name on the gate of a wharf, and it also gives its name to the ward. This was the western fortress of the City, just as the Tower was the eastern; but with this difference, that Castle Baynard belonged to the City during the troubled time when the Crown and the City were constantly in conflict. The Tower, on the other hand, always belonged to the Crown. Baynard's Castle belonged, in fact, to the FitzWalters, hereditary barons of the City. One of their functions was at the outbreak of a war to appear at the west door of St. Paul's, armed and mounted, with twenty attendants, there to receive from the Lord Mayor the banner of the City, a horse worth 20, and 20 in money. Finally, the castle became, I do not know how, Crown property. It was burned to the ground, but rebuilt by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. Within this castle the Duke of Buckingham offered the Crown to Richard III., and here the Privy Council proclaimed Queen Mary. The castle afterwards fell into the hands of the Earls of Shrewsbury. It was destroyed in the Great Fire. It consisted of two courts: the south front of the buildings faced the river, the north front, with the princ.i.p.al entrance, was in Thames Street.

In more ancient times there stood a tower west of Baynard's Castle called Montfichet, but of this building very few memorials remain.

Again, there is said to have been a palace on Addle Hill, built by Athelstan. The Wardrobe was another great house acquired by King Edward III., close to the church still called St. Andrew's by the Wardrobe. The memory of this house is still kept up by that very interesting little square, which looks exactly like a place in a southern French town, called Wardrobe Place. One of the court offices was that of Master of the Wardrobe. In old days he resided in this house and actually did take care of the King's clothes. The Queen's wardrobe, on the other hand, was kept in the other royal house, called Tower Royal, the house still surviving in the street so-called. This was formerly King Stephen's palace. In the year 1331 it was granted by the King to his Queen Philippa for her wardrobe. It was then called 'La Real,' without the addition of the word 'tower,' and the meaning and origin of the name are unknown. The palace stood in the parish of St. Thomas Apostle, the church of which was not rebuilt after the Fire; but the name of the church survives in a small fragment of the street so-called.

There were, therefore, in this small bit of London, at least four royal palaces, besides the great houses of the n.o.bles that I have enumerated. Half the City companies had their Halls here; and even to this day there are standing here and there one or two of the solid houses built by the merchants in the narrow streets north of Thames Street for their private residences. As late as the beginning of the present century the house now called the 'Shades,' close to the Swan Stairs, London Bridge, was built for his own town house by Lord Mayor Garratt, who laid the foundation stone of London Bridge. Of the old merchants' houses, rich with carved woodwork, built with black timber round courts and gardens, not one now remains in the City. But there are one or two remaining in the old inns of Southwark and the Old Bell Inn, Holborn, Yet the last great house built in the City, the Mansion House, was itself originally built round a court.

You may, if you try, reconstruct Thames Street as it was before the Fire. Its breadth was exactly the same as at present. Eight stately churches stood, each with its own burial-ground, along the street. The palace of Baynard reared its gables on the right as you entered the street from the west. Lower down, on the same side, stood the great House of Cold Harbour, also gabled. The low-gabled warehouses stood round Queenhithe and Billingsgate; the Custom House was thronged with those who came to pay their tolls and clear their dues; the broad court of the Steelyard--covered with boxes, bales, and casks, some exposed, some under sheds--stretched southward, behind its three great gates. On the river-side stood its stately Hall. The Halls of the Companies, great and n.o.ble houses, proclaimed the wealth and power of the merchants. On the north side stood the merchants' houses built round their gardens. In those days they had no country houses, and they wanted none. They could carry their falcons out into the fields which began on the other side of the City wall, or across the river in the low-lying lands of Bermondsey and Redriffe. The street was already crammed and thronged with porters, carts, and wheelbarrows; it was full of noise; there were sailors and merchants from foreign parts.

Already the Levantine was here, lithe and supple, black of eye, ready of tongue, quick with his dagger; and the Italian, pa.s.sionate and eager; and the Spaniard, the Fleming, the Frenchman, and the Dutchman.

All nations were here, as now, but they were then kept on board their s.h.i.+ps or in their own quarters by night. The great merchants walked up and down, conversing, heedless of the noise, to which their ears were so accustomed as to be deaf to them. The merchants had reason to be grave. Always there were wars and rumours of wars; always some pirate from French sh.o.r.es was attacking their s.h.i.+ps; their latest venture was too often overdue--the s.h.i.+p had to run the gauntlet of the Algerian galleys, and no one could tell what might have happened; there was plague at Antwerp--it might be lurking in the bales lying on the quay before them; there was civil war brewing; fortune is fickle--he who was rich yesterday may be a beggar to-morrow. Merchants, in those days, did well to be grave.

I have considered, so far, some of the great houses standing in or along this historic street. Let us now note a few of the churches.

All Hallows, Barking, the first walking from the east, commemorates in its name the fact that it formerly belonged to the great convent of Barking in Ess.e.x, the gateway of which still stands at the entrance to the churchyard. This church escaped the Fire. Here was buried the poet Surrey, Bishop Fisher, and Archbishop Laud.

In the church of St. Magnus, London Bridge, the remains of Miles Coverdale, the translator of the Bible, rest: they were removed here from the Church of St. Bartholomew when it was pulled down to make more room for the Bank of England. This church has perhaps the finest tower, lantern, and steeple of all the City churches, in front is a small court planted with trees, whose foliage is strangely refres.h.i.+ng in early summer down in this dark place almost below the approach to the bridge. The church itself is fine but not very interesting. I have sometimes counted as many as ten present at the Sunday morning service.

St. Michael's, Tower Royal, is Whittington's church. In this parish he lived, though a house was long shown as his in Hart Street; here he died; in this church he was buried--behind this church stood his College of the Holy Spirit with its bedesmen and its ecclesiastical staff. If we pa.s.s the church and look in at the gateway on the north, we shall notice unmistakable signs of an ancient collegiate foundation in the disposition of the modern houses. Here is now the Mercers'

School. In the church there is no adequate monument to the memory of London's greatest merchant--the man who did so much for the City which made him so rich, who royally entertained the King and Queen in his own house, and at the close of the banquet burned before their eyes the royal bond for 60,000, worth in modern money at least 600,000. I never think of Whittington without remembering a certain verse in the Book of Proverbs, 'Blessed is he who is diligent in his business, for he shall stand before Kings.'

St. Nicolas Cole Abbey is, within, a kind of gilded drawing-room.

There is gilt everywhere, gilt and wood-carving; and on Sunday morning, thanks to the strange taste of the Vicar, who likes to dress himself up in scarlet and green, and to have a boy making a smell with a swinging pot, there are sometimes more than the customary ten for a congregation.

Of St. Mary Somerset only the tower remains. Why they pulled down this church, why they pulled down St. Michael's Queenhithe, or St. Nicolas Olave, or St. Mary Magdalen, all in this part of London, pa.s.seth man's understanding. If you want to find out what these churches were like, you may consult the book by Britton and Le Keux on London Churches.

They are represented in a collection of steel engravings drawn after the fas.h.i.+on of eighty years ago, so as to bring out the strong points with great softening of unpleasant details.

Many of the churches were not rebuilt after the Fire. This shows that by the year 1666 this part of London was already beginning to be occupied more by warehouses than by private dwellings. Among them were St. Andrew Hubberd, St. Benet Sherehog, St. Leonard, Eastcheap, All Hallows the Less, Holy Trinity, St. Martin Vintry, St. Laurence Poultney, St. Botolph Billingsgate, St. Thomas Apostle, St. Mary Mounthaut, St. Peter's, St. Gregory's by St Paul, and St. Anne's Blackfriars--thirteen in all.

At St. Benet's Church--where Fielding was married--you may now hear the service in the Welsh language, just as in Wellclose Square you may hear it in Swedish. In Endell Street, Holborn, you may hear it in French, and in Palestine Place, Hackney, you may hear it in Hebrew.

Certain s.p.a.ces on old maps of London are coloured green to show where stood certain churchyards. In Thames Street the churchyard of All Hallows the Less still stands; in Queen Street that of St. Thomas Apostle, in Laurence Poultney Hill that of St. Laurence Poultney, a very large and well-kept churchyard; St. Dunstan's, All Hallows, Barking, St. Stephen's, Wallbrook all keep their churchyards still.

That of St. Anne's, Blackfriars, stands retired behind the houses. But those of St. Nicolas Cole Abbey, St. Mary Somerset, St. Botolph's, and St. Mary Magdalen, formerly large and crowded churchyards, still kept sacred in the year 1720, and, indeed, until further interments were forbidden in the year 1845, are now quite built over and forgotten.

What has become of the churchyards of St. Michael Royal, St. Michael Queenhithe, St. Benet, St. George, St. Leonard Eastcheap, and St.

James's Garlickhithe? Alas! no one knows. The tombstones are taken away, the ground has been dug up, the coffin-wood burned, the bones dispersed, and of all the thousands, the tens of thousands, of citizens buried there--old and young, rich and poor, Lord Mayors, aldermen, merchants, clerks, craftsmen, and servants--the dust of all is scattered abroad, the names of all are as much forgotten as if they never lived. But they have lived, and if you seek their monument--look around. It is in the greatness, the wealth, the dignity of the modern City, that these ancient citizens live again. Life is a long united chain with links that cannot be separated; the story of humanity is unbroken; it will go on continuous and continued until the Creator's great purpose is fulfilled, and the drama of Man complete.

In one or two of these churches all the churchyard left is a square yard or two at the back of the church. In one of these tiny enclosures--I forget which now--I found that of all the headstones and tombs which had once adorned this now sadly diminished and attenuated acre, there was left but one. It was a tombstone in memory of an infant, aged eight months. Out of all the people buried here, who had lived long and been held in honour, and thought that their memory would last for many generations--perhaps as long as that of Whittington or Gresham--only the name of this one baby left!

It was in the vaults of St. James's Garlickhithe, that they found, before the place was bricked up and left to be disturbed no more, many bodies in a state of perfect preservation--mummies. One of these has been taken out and set up in a cupboard in the outer chapel. He is decently guarded by a door kept locked, and is neatly framed in gla.s.s.

You can see him by special application to the pew-opener, who holds a candle and points out his beauties. Perhaps in all the City churches there is no other object quite so curious as this old nameless mummy.

He was once, it may be, Lord Mayor--a good many Lord Mayors have been buried in this church--or, perhaps, he was a Sheriff, and wore a splendid chain; or he may have been the poorest and most miserable wretch of his time. It matters not; he has escaped the dust--he is a mummy. Somehow he contrives to look superior, as if he was conscious of the fact and proud of it; he cannot smile, or nod, or wink, but he can look superior.

One more church and one more scene, and I have done.

There is a church on the south side of Thames Street, close to the site of the Steelyard--_i.e._, almost under the railway arches which lead to Cannon Street. It is not very much to look at. With one exception, indeed, it is the ugliest church in the whole of London City. It is a big oblong box, with round windows stuck in here and there. Wren designed it, I believe, one evening after dinner, when he had taken a gla.s.s or two more than his customary allowance of port or mountain. It is the church of All Hallows the Great combined with All Hallows the Less. Before the Fire it was a very beautiful church, with a cloister running round its churchyard on the south, and to the east looking out upon the lane that led to Cold Harbour House. This is the church to which the Hanseatic merchants for three hundred years came for wors.h.i.+p. Very near the church, on the river bank, stood the Waterman's Hall. To this church, therefore, came the 'prentices of the watermen every Sunday. The Great Fire carried it away, with Steelyard, cloister, church, Waterman's Hall, Cold Harbour House, and everything.

Then Wren, as I said, took a pencil and ruler one evening, and showed how a square box could be constructed on the site. Now, let no man judge by externals. If you can get into the church, you will be rewarded by the sight of an eighteenth-century church left exactly as it was in those days of grave and sober merchants, and of City ceremonies and church services attended in state. On the north side, against the middle of the wall, is planted what we now most irreverently call a Three Decker. But we must not laugh, because of all Three Deckers this is the most splendid. There is nothing in the City more beautiful than the wood-carving which makes pulpit, sounding-board, reading-desk, and clerk's desk in this church precious and wonderful. The old pews, which, I rejoice to say, have never been removed, are many of them richly and beautifully carved. The Pew of State, reserved for the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs, is a miracle of art. Across the very middle of the church is a screen in carved wood, the most wonderful screen you ever saw, presented as a sign of grat.i.tude to their old church by the Hanseatic merchants. The east end is decorated by a wooden table, richly carved, and the reredos is designed by the great Christopher himself, no doubt for partial expiation of his sin in making the church externally so hideous. It consists of a marble panel, on which are engraved the Ten Commandments. On the left hand stands Aaron in full pontificals, as set forth in the Book of Leviticus or that of Numbers. On the right hand, in more humble guise, stands Moses, facing the people, in his hand a rod of gold. With this he points to the Commandments, which contain among them the whole Rule of Life. The pews are not arranged to face the east, but are gathered round the pulpit in the north, the most desirable being those nearest the pulpit. In the outside pews, close to the east end, sat the watermen's 'prentices. These young villains, who were afterwards doubtless for the most part hanged, spent their time during the service in carving their initials, with rude pictures of s.h.i.+ps, houses, and boats, with dates on the sloping desks before them. There they still remain--because the pews are unchanged--with the dates 1720, 1730, 1740, and so on. From father to son they kept up this sacrilegious practice, hidden in the depths of the high pews. There is, behind the church, a vestry with wainscoting and more carved wood, and with portraits of bygone rectors, plans of the parish, and notes on the old parish charities, which exist no longer. Through the vestry window one looks out upon a little garden.

It is the churchyard. One sees how the old cloister ran. Formerly it was full of tombs, and he who paced the cloister could meditate on death. Now it is an open and cheerful place, all the old tombs cleared away--which is loss, not gain--and in the month of May it is bright with flowers. At first sight it seems as if it was so completely hidden away that it could gladden no man's eyes. That is not so. In the City Brewery there are certain windows which overlook this garden.

These are the windows of the rooms where dwells a chief officer--Master Brewer, Master Taster, Master Chemist, I know not--of the City Brewery, last of the many breweries which once stood along the river bank. He, almost the only resident of the parish, can look out, solitary and quiet, of the cool of an evening in early summer, and rejoice in the beauty of this little garden blossoming, all for his eyes alone, in a desert.

As one looks about this church the present fades away and the past comes back. I see, once more, the Rector, what time George II. was King, in full wig and black gown poring over his learned discourse.

Below him sleeps his clerk. In the Lord Mayor's pew, robed in garments and chain of state, sleep my Lord Mayor and the wors.h.i.+pful the Sheriffs; their footmen, all in blue and green and gold, are in the aisle; the rich merchant of the parish clad in black velvet, with silk stockings, silver buckles to their shoes, ruffles of the richest and rarest lace at their throats, and neckties of the same hanging down before their long silk waistcoats, sleep in their pews--it is a sleepy time for the Church Service--beside their wives and children. The wives are grand in hoop, and powder, and painted face. We know what is meant by rank in the days of King George II. In this our parish church we who are or have been wardens of our Company, aldermen who have pa.s.sed the chair, or aldermen who have yet to pa.s.s it, know what is due to our position, and we bear ourselves accordingly. Our inferiors--the clerks and the shopkeepers, the servants and the 'prentices--we treat, it is true, with kindliness, but with condescension and with authority. On those rare occasions when a Peer comes to our civic banquets we show him that we know what is due to his rank. As for our life, it is centred in this parish; here are our houses, here we live, here we carry on our business, and here we die.

Our poor are our servants when they are young and strong, and they are our bedesmen when they grow old. Do not, I entreat you, believe in the fiction that the Church neglected the poor during the last century.

The poor in the City parishes were not neglected; the boys were thoroughly taught and conscientiously flogged, thieves were sent away to be hanged, bad characters were turned out, the old were maintained, the sick were looked after, the parish organization was complete, and the parish charities were many and generous. Outside the City precincts, if you please, where there were few churches and great parishes, always increasing in population, the poor were neglected; but in the City, never. But listen, the Rector has done. He finishes his sermon with an admirable and appropriate quotation in Greek, which I hope the congregation understands; he p.r.o.nounces the prayer of dismissal; the organ rolls, the clerk wakes up, the Lord Mayor and the Sheriffs walk forth and get into their coaches, the footmen climb up behind, the merchants and their families go out next, while all the people stand in respect to their masters and betters, and those set in authority over them. Then come out the people themselves, and last of all the 'prentice boys come clattering down the aisle.

Let us awake. It is Sunday morning again, but the merchants are gone.

The eighteenth century is gone, the church is empty, the parish is deserted; the streets are silent.

Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep; The river glideth at his own sweet will!

Dear G.o.d! the very houses seem asleep, And all that mighty heart to lying still.

A RIVERSIDE PARISH