Old and New London Part 30

Printers were obliged to serve their time to a member of the Company; and almost every publication, from a Bible to a ballad, was required to be "entered at Stationers' Hall." The service is now unnecessary, but Parliament still requires, under the recent Copyright Act, that the proprietor of every published work should register his claim in the books of the Stationers' Company, and pay a fee of five s.h.i.+llings. The number of the freemen of the Company is between 1,000 and 1,100, and of the livery, or leading persons, about 450. The capital of the Company amounts to upwards of 40,000, divided into shares, varying in value from 40 to 400 each. The great treasure of the Stationers' Company is its series of registers of works entered for publication. This valuable collection of entries commences in 1557, and, though often consulted and quoted, was never properly understood till Mr. J. Payne Collier published two carefully-edited volumes of extracts from its earlier pages.

The celebrated Bible of the year 1632, with the important word "not"

omitted in the seventh commandment--"Thou shalt _not_ commit adultery"--was printed by the Stationers' Company. Archbishop Laud made a Star-Chamber matter of the omission, and a heavy fine was laid upon the Company for their neglect. And in another later edition, in Psalm xiv. the text ran, "The fool hath said in his heart, There is a G.o.d."

For the omission of the important word "no" the printer was fined 3,000. Several other errors have occurred, but the wonder is that they have not been more frequent.

The only publications which the Company continues to issue are a Latin gradus and almanacks, of which it had at one time the entire monopoly.

Almanack-day at Stationers' Hall (every 22nd of November, at three o'clock) is a sight worth seeing, from the bustle of the porters anxious to get off with early supplies. The Stationers' Company's almanacks are now by no means the best of the day. Mr. Charles Knight, who worked so strenuously and so successfully for the spread of popular education, first struck a blow at the absurd monopoly of almanack printing. So much behind the age is this privileged Company, that it actually still continues to publish Moore's quack almanack, with the nonsensical old astrological tables, describing the moon's influence on various parts of the human body. One year it is said they had the courage to leave out this farrago, with the hieroglyphics originally stolen by Lilly from monkish ma.n.u.scripts, and from Lilly stolen by Moore. The result was that most of the copies were returned on their hands. They have not since dared to oppose the stolid force of vulgar ignorance. They still publish Wing's sheet almanack, though Wing was an impostor and fortune-teller, who died eight years after the Restoration. All this is very unworthy of a privileged company, with an invested capital of 40,000, and does not much help forward the enlightenment of the poorer cla.s.ses. This Company is ent.i.tled, for the supposed security of the copyright, to two copies of every work, however costly, published in the United Kingdom, a mischievous tax, which restrains the publication of many valuable but expensive works.

The first Stationers' Hall was in Milk Street. In 1553 they removed to St. Peter's College, near St. Paul's Deanery, where the chantry priests of St. Paul's had previously resided. The present hall closely resembles the hall at Bridewell, having a row of oval windows above the lower range, which were fitted up by Mr. Mylne in 1800, when the chamber was cased with Portland stone and the lower windows lengthened.

The great window at the upper end of the hall was erected in 1801, at the expense of Mr. Alderman Cadell. It includes some older gla.s.s blazoned with the arms and crest of the company, the two emblematic figures of Religion and Learning being designed by Smirke. Like most ancient halls, it has a raised dais, or haut place, which is occupied by the Court table at the two great dinners in August and November. On the wall, above the wainscoting that has glowed red with the reflection of many a b.u.mper of generous wine, are hung in decorous state the pavises or s.h.i.+elds of arms of members of the court, which in civic processions are usually borne by a body of pensioners, the number of whom, when the Lord Mayor is a member of the Company, corresponds with the years of that august dignitary's age. In the old water-show these escutcheons decorated the sides of the Company's barge when they accompanied the Lord Mayor to Westminster, and called at the landing of Lambeth Palace to pay their respects to the representative of their former ecclesiastical censors. On this occasion the Archbishop usually sent out the thirsty Stationers a hamper of wine, while the rowers of the barge had bread and cheese and ale to their hearts' content. It is still the custom (says Mr. Nichols) to forward the Archbishop annually a set of the Company's almanacks, and some also to the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls. Formerly the twelve judges and various other persons received the same compliment. Alas for the mutation of other things than almanacs, however; for in 1850 the Company's barge, being sold, was taken to Oxford, where it may still be seen on the Isis, the property of one of the College boat clubs. At the upper end of the hall is a court cupboard or buffet for the display of the Company's plate, and at the lower end, on either side of the doorway, is a similar recess. The entrance-screen of the hall, guarded by allegorical figures, and crowned by the royal arms (with the inescutcheon of Na.s.sau--William III.), is richly adorned with carvings.

Stationers' Hall was in 1677 used for Divine service by the parish of St. Martin's, Ludgate, and towards the end of the seventeenth century an annual musical festival was inst.i.tuted on the 22nd of November, in commemoration of Saint Cecilia, and as an excuse for some good music. A splendid entertainment was provided in the hall, preceded by a grand concert of vocal and instrumental music, which was attended by people of the first rank. The special attraction was always an ode to Saint Cecilia, set by Purcell, Blow, or some other eminent composer of the day. Dryden's and Pope's odes are almost too well known to need mention; but Addison, Yalden, Shadwell, and even D'Urfey, tried their hands on praises of the same musical saint.

After several odes by the mediocre satirist, Oldham, and that poor verse-maker, Nahum Tate, who scribbled upon King David's tomb, came Dryden. The music to the first ode, says Scott, was first written by Percival Clarke, who killed himself in a fit of lovers' melancholy in 1707. It was then reset by Draghi, the Italian composer, and in 1711 was again set by Clayton for one of Sir Richard Steele's public concerts.

The first ode (1687) contains those fine lines:--

"From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony, Through all the compa.s.s of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man."

Of the composition of this ode, for which Dryden received 40, and which was afterwards eclipsed by the glories of its successor, the following interesting anecdote is told:--

"Mr. St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke, happening to pay a morning visit to Dryden, whom he always respected, found him in an unusual agitation of spirits, even to a trembling. On inquiring the cause, 'I have been up all night,' replied the old bard. 'My musical friends made me promise to write them an ode for their feast of St. Cecilia. I have been so struck with the subject which occurred to me, that I could not leave it till I had completed it. Here it is, finished at one sitting.'

And immediately he showed him the ode."

Dryden's second ode, "Alexander's Feast; or, the Power of Music," was written for the St. Cecilian Feast at Stationers' Hall in 1697. This ode ends with those fine and often-quoted lines on the fair saint:--

"Let old Timotheus yield the prize, Or both divide the crown; He raised a mortal to the skies, She drew an angel down."

Handel, in 1736, set this ode, and reproduced it at Covent Garden, with deserved success. Not often do such a poet and such a musician meet at the same anvil. The great German also set the former ode, which is known as "The Ode on St. Cecilia's Day." Dryden himself told Tonson that he thought with the town that this ode was the best of all his poetry; and he said to a young flatterer at Will's, with honest pride--"You are right, young gentleman; a n.o.bler never was produced, nor ever will."

Many magnificent funerals have been marshalled in the Stationers' Hall; it has also been used for several great political banquets. In September, 1831, the Reform members of the House of Commons gave a dinner to the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Lord Althorp) and to Lord John Russell--Mr. Abercromby (afterwards Speaker) presiding. In May, 1842, the Duke of Wellington presided over a dinner for the Infant Orphan Asylum, and in June, 1847, a dinner for the King's College Hospital was given under Sir Robert Peel's presidency. In the great kitchen below the hall, Mr. Nichols, who is an honorary member of the Company, says there have been sometimes seen at the same time as many as eighteen haunches of venison, besides a dozen necks and other joints; for these companies are as hospitable as they are rich.

The funeral feast of Thomas Sutton, of the Charterhouse, was given May 28th, 1612, in Stationers' Hall, the procession having started from Doctor Law's, in Paternoster Row. For the repast were provided "32 neats' tongues, 40 stone of beef, 24 marrow-bones, 1 lamb, 46 capons, 32 geese, 4 pheasants, 12 pheasants' pullets, 12 G.o.dwits, 24 rabbits, 6 hearnshaws, 43 turkey-chickens, 48 roast chickens, 18 house pigeons, 72 field pigeons, 36 quails, 48 ducklings, 160 eggs, 3 salmon, 4 congers, 10 turbots, 2 dories, 24 lobsters, 4 mullets, a firkin and keg of sturgeon, 3 barrels of pickled oysters, 6 gammon of bacon, 4 Westphalia gammons, 16 fried tongues, 16 chicken pies, 16 pasties, 16 made dishes of rice, 16 neats'-tongue pies, 16 custards, 16 dishes of bait, 16 mince pies, 16 orange pies, 16 gooseberry tarts, 8 redcare pies, 6 dishes of whitebait, and 6 grand salads."

To the west of the hall is the handsome court-room, where the meetings of the Company are held. The wainscoting, &c., were renewed in the year 1757, and an octagonal card-room was added by Mr. Mylne in 1828. On the opposite side of the hall is the stock-room, adorned by beautiful carvings of the school of Grinling Gibbons. Here the commercial committees of the Company usually meet.

The nine painted storeys which stood in the old hall, above the wainscot in the council parlour, probably crackled to dust in the Great Fire, which also rolled up and took away the portraits of John Cawood, printer to Philip and Mary, and his master, John Raynes. This same John Cawood seems to have been specially munificent in his donations to the Company, for he gave two new stained-gla.s.s windows to the hall; also a hea.r.s.e-cover, of cloth and gold, powdered with blue velvet and bordered with black velvet, embroidered and stained with blue, yellow, red, and green, besides considerable plate.

The Company's curious collection of plate is carefully described by Mr.

Nichols. In 1581 it seems every master on quitting the chair was required to give a piece of plate, weighing fourteen ounces at least; and every upper or under warden a piece of plate of at least three ounces. In this acc.u.mulative manner the Wors.h.i.+pful Company soon became possessed of a glittering store of "salts," gilt bowls, college pots, snuffers, cups, and flagons. Their greatest trophy seems to have been a large silver-gilt bowl, given in 1626 by a Mr. Hulet (Owlett), weighing sixty ounces, and shaped like an owl, in allusion to the donor's name.

In the early Civil War, when the Company had to pledge their plate to meet the heavy loans exacted by Charles the Martyr from a good many of his unfortunate subjects, the cherished Owlett was specially excepted.

Among other memorials in the possession of the Company was a silver college cup bought in memory of Mr. John Sweeting, who, dying in 1659 (the year before the Restoration), founded by will the pleasant annual venison dinner of the Company in August.

It is supposed that all the great cupboards of plate were lost in the fire of 1666, for there is no piece now existing (says Mr. Nichols) of an earlier date than 1676. It has been the custom also from time to time to melt down obsolete plate into newer forms and more useful vessels.

Thus salvers and salt-cellars were in 1720-21 turned into monteaths, or bowls, filled with water, to keep the wine-gla.s.ses cool; and in 1844 a handsome rosewater dish was made out of a silver bowl, and an old tea-urn and coffee-urn. This custom is rather too much like Saturn devouring his own children, and has led to the destruction of many curious old relics. The ma.s.sive old plate now remaining is chiefly of the reign of Charles II. High among these presents tower the quaint silver candlesticks bequeathed by Mr. Richard Royston, twice Master of the Stationers' Company, who died in 1686, and had been bookseller to three kings--James I., Charles I., and Charles II. The ponderous snuffers and snuffer-box are gone. There were also three other pairs of candlesticks, given by Mr. Nathanael Cole, who had been clerk of the Company, at his death in 1760. A small two-handled cup was bequeathed in 1771 by that worthy old printer, William Bowyer, as a memorial of the Company's munificence to his father after his loss by fire in 1712-13.

The Stationers are very charitable. Their funds spring chiefly from 1,150 bequeathed to them by Mr. John Norton, the printer to the learned Queen Elizabeth in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, alderman of London in the reign of James I., and thrice Master of this Company. The money laid out by Norton's wish in the purchase of estates in fee-simple in Wood Street has grown and grown. One hundred and fifty pounds out of this bequest the old printer left to the minister and churchwardens of St. Faith, in order to have distributed weekly to twelve poor persons--six appointed by the parish, and six by the Stationers' Company--twopence each and a penny loaf, the vantage loaf (the thirteenth allowed by the baker) to be the clerk's; ten s.h.i.+llings to be paid for an annual sermon on Ash Wednesday at St. Faith's; the residue to be laid out in cakes, wine, and ale for the Company of Stationers, either before or after the sermon.

The liverymen still (according to Mr. Nichols) enjoy this annual dole of well-spiced and substantial buns. The sum of 1,000 was left for the generous purpose of advancing small loans to struggling young men in business. In 1861, however, the Company, under the direction of the Court of Chancery, devoted the sum to the founding of a commercial school in Bolt Court for the sons of liverymen and freemen of the Company, and 8,500 were spent in purchasing Mr. Bensley's premises and Dr. Johnson's old house. The doctor's usual sitting-room is now occupied by the head master. The school itself is built on the site formerly occupied by Johnson's garden. The boys pay a quarterage not exceeding 2. The school has four exhibitions.

The pictures at Stationers' Hall are worthy of mention. In the stock-room are portraits, after Kneller, of Prior and Steele, which formerly belonged to Harley, Earl of Oxford, Swift's great patron. The best picture in the room is a portrait by an unknown painter of Tycho Wing, the astronomer, holding a celestial globe. Tycho was the son of Vincent Wing, the first author of the almanacks still published under his name, and who died in 1668. There are also portraits of that worthy old printer, Samuel Richardson and his wife; Archbishop Tillotson, by Kneller; Bishop Hoadley, prelate of the Order of the Garter; Robert Nelson, the author of the "Fasts and Festivals," who died in 1714-15, by Kneller; and one of William Bowyer, the Whitefriars printer, with a posthumous bust beneath it of his son, the printer of the votes of the House of Commons. There was formerly a bra.s.s plate beneath this bust expressing the son's grat.i.tude to the Company for their munificence to his father after the fire which destroyed his printing-office.

In the court-room hangs a portrait of John Boydell, who was Lord Mayor of London in the year 1791. This picture, by Graham, was formerly surrounded by allegorical figures of Justice, Prudence, Industry, and Commerce; but they have been cut out to reduce the canvas to Kit-cat size. There is a portrait, by Owen, of Lord Mayor Domville, Master of the Stationers' Company, in the actual robe he wore when he rode before the Prince Regent and the Allies in 1814 to the Guildhall banquet and the Peace thanksgiving. In the card-room is an early picture, by West, of King Alfred dividing his loaf with the pilgrim--a representation, by the way, of a purely imaginary occurrence--in fact, the old legend is that it was really St. Cuthbert who executed this generous part.i.tion.

There are also portraits of the two Strahans, Masters in 1774 and 1816; one of Alderman Cadell, Master in 1798, by Sir William Beechey; and one of John Nicholls, Master of the Company in 1804, after a portrait by Jackson. In the hall, over the gallery, is a picture, by Graham, of Mary Queen of Scots escaping from the Castle of Lochleven. It was engraved by Dawe, afterwards a Royal Academician, when he was only fourteen years of age.

The arms of the Company appear from a Herald visitation of 1634 to have been azure on a chevron, an eagle volant, with a diadem between two red roses, with leaves vert, between three books clasped gold; in chief, issuing out of a cloud, the sunbeams gold, a holy spirit, the wings displayed silver, with a diadem gold. In later times the books have been blazoned as Bibles. In a "tricking" in the volume before mentioned, in the College of Arms, St. John the Evangelist stands behind the s.h.i.+eld in the att.i.tude of benediction, and bearing in his left hand a cross with a serpent rising from it (much more suitable for the scriveners or law writers, by the bye). On one side of the s.h.i.+eld stands the Evangelist's emblematic eagle, holding an inkhorn in his beak. The Company never received any grant of arms or supporters, but about the year 1790 two angels seem to have been used as supporters. About 1788 the motto "Verb.u.m Domini manet in eternum" (The word of the Lord endureth for ever) began to be adopted, and in the same year the crest of an eagle was used. On the silver badge of the Company's porter the supporters are naked winged boys, and the eagle on the chevron is turned into a dove holding an olive-branch. Some of the buildings of the present hall are still let to Paternoster Row booksellers as warehouses.

The list of masters of this Company includes Sir John Key, Bart. ("Don Key"), Lord Mayor in 1831-1832. In 1712 Thomas Parkhurst, who had been Master of the Wors.h.i.+pful Company in 1683, left 37 to purchase Bibles and Psalters, to be annually given to the poor; hence the old custom of giving Bibles to apprentices bound at Stationers' Hall.

This is the first of the many City companies of which we shall have by turns to make mention in the course of this work. Though no longer useful as a guild to protect a trade which now needs no fostering, we have seen that it still retains some of its mediaeval virtues. It is hospitable and charitable as ever, if not so given to grand funeral services and ecclesiastical ceremonials. Its privileges have grown out of date and obsolete, but they harm no one but authors, and to the wrongs of authors both Governments and Parliaments have been from time immemorial systematically indifferent.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD ST. PAUL'S, FROM A VIEW BY HOLLAR.]

CHAPTER XX.

ST. PAUL'S.

London's chief Sanctuary of Religion--The Site of St. Paul's--The Earliest authenticated Church there--The Shrine of Erkenwald--St.

Paul's Burnt and Rebuilt--It becomes the Scene of a Strange Incident--Important Political Meeting within its Walls--The Great Charter published there--St. Paul's and Papal Power in England--Turmoils around the Grand Cathedral--Relics and Chantry Chapels in St. Paul's--Royal Visits to St. Paul's--Richard, Duke of York, and Henry VI.--A Fruitless Reconciliation--Jane Sh.o.r.e's Penance--A Tragedy of the Lollards' Tower--A Royal Marriage--Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey at St. Paul's--"Peter of Westminster"--A Bonfire of Bibles--The Cathedral Clergy Fined--A Miraculous Rood--St. Paul's under Edward VI. and Bishop Ridley--A Protestant Tumult at Paul's Cross--Strange Ceremonials--Queen Elizabeth's Munificence--The Burning of the Spire--Desecration of the Nave--Elizabeth and Dean Nowell--Thanksgiving for the Armada--The "Children of Paul's"--Government Lotteries--Executions in the Churchyard--Inigo Jones's Restorations and the Puritan Parliament--The Great Fire of 1666--Burning of Old St. Paul's, and Destruction of its Monuments--Evelyn's Description of the Fire--Sir Christopher Wren called in.

Stooping under the flat iron bar that lies like a bone in the mouth of Ludgate Hill, we pa.s.s up the gentle ascent between shops hung with gold chains, br.i.m.m.i.n.g with wealth, or crowded with all the luxuries that civilisation has turned into necessities; and once past the impertinent black spire of St. Martin's, we come full-b.u.t.t upon the great grey dome.

The finest building in London, with the worst approach; the shrine of heroes; the model of grace; the _chef-d'oeuvre_ of a great genius, rises before us, and between its sable Corinthian pillars we have now to thread our way in search of the old legends of St. Paul's.

The old a.s.sociations rise around us as we pa.s.s across the paved area that surrounds Queen Anne's mean and sooty statue. From the times of the Saxons to the present day, London's chief sanctuary of religion has stood here above the river, a landmark to the s.h.i.+ps of all nations that have floated on the welcoming waters of the Thames. That great dome, circled with its coronet of gold, is the first object the pilgrim traveller sees, whether he approach by river or by land; the sparkle of that golden cross is seen from many a distant hill and plain. St. Paul's is the central object--the very palladium--of modern London.

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD ST. PAUL'S.--THE INTERIOR, LOOKING EAST.]

Camden, the Elizabethan historian, revived an old tradition that a Roman temple to Diana once stood where St. Paul's was afterwards built; and he a.s.serts that in the reign of Edward III. an incredible quant.i.ty of ox-skulls, stag-horns, and boars' tusks, together with some sacrificial vessels, were exhumed on this site. Selden, a better Orientalist than Celtic scholar (Charles I.), derived the name of London from two Welsh words, "Llan-den"--church of Diana. Dugdale, to confirm these traditions, drags a legend out of an obscure monkish chronicle, to the effect that during the Diocletian persecution, in which St. Alban, a centurion, was martyred, the Romans demolished a church standing on the site of St. Paul's, and raised a temple to Diana on its ruins, while in Th.o.r.n.y Island, Westminster, St. Peter, in the like manner, gave way to Apollo. These myths are, however, more than doubtful.

Sir Christopher Wren's excavations for the foundation of modern St.

Paul's entirely refuted these confused stories, to which the learned and the credulous had paid too much deference. He dug down to the river-level, and found neither ox-bone nor stag-horn. What he did find, however, was curious. It was this:--1. Below the mediaeval graves Saxon stone coffins and Saxon tombs, lined with slabs of chalk. 2. Lower still, British graves, and in the earth around the ivory and boxwood skewers that had fastened the Saxons' woollen shrouds. 3. At the same level with the Saxon graves, and also deeper, Roman funeral urns. These were discovered as deep as eighteen feet. Roman lamps, tear vessels, and fragments of sacrificial vessels of Samian ware were met with chiefly towards the Cheapside corner of the churchyard.

There had evidently been a Roman cemetery outside this Praetorian camp, and beyond the ancient walls of London, the wise nation, by the laws of the Twelve Tables, forbidding the interment of the dead within the walls of a city. There may have been a British or a Saxon temple here; for the Church tried hard to conquer and consecrate places where idolatry had once triumphed. But the Temple of Diana was moons.h.i.+ne from the beginning, and moons.h.i.+ne it will ever remain. The antiquaries were, however, angry with Wren for the logical refutation of their belief. Dr.

Woodward (the "Martinus Scriblerus" of Pope and his set) was especially vehement at the slaying of his hobby, and produced a small bra.s.s votive image of Diana, that had been found between the Deanery and Blackfriars.

Wren, who could be contemptuous, disdained a reply, and so the matter remained till 1830, when the discovery of a rude stone altar, with an image of Diana, under the foundation of the new Goldsmith's Hall, Foster Lane, Cheapside, revived the old dispute, yet did not help a whit to prove the existence of the supposed temple to the G.o.ddess of moons.h.i.+ne.

The earliest authenticated church of St. Paul's was built and endowed by Ethelbert, King of East Kent, with the sanction of Sebert, King of the East Angles; and the first bishop who preached within its walls was Mellitus, the companion of St. Augustine, the first Christian missionary who visited the heathen Saxons. The visit of St. Paul to England in the time of Boadicea's war, and that of Joseph of Arimathea, are mere monkish legends. The Londoners again became pagan, and for thirty-eight years there was no bishop at St. Paul's, till a brother of St. Chad of Lichfield came and set his foot on the images of Thor and Wodin. With the fourth successor of Mellitus, Saint Erkenwald, wealth and splendour returned to St. Paul's. This zealous man worked miracles both before and after his death. He used to be driven about in a cart, and one legend says that he often preached to the woodmen in the wild forests that lay to the north of London. On a certain day one of the cart-wheels came off in a slough. The worthy confessor was in a dilemma. The congregation under the oaks might have waited for ever, but the one wheel left was equal to the occasion, for it suddenly grew invested with special powers of balancing, and went on as steadily as a velocipede with the smiling saint. This was pretty well, but still nothing to what happened after the good man's death.

St. Erkenwald departed at last in the odour of sanct.i.ty at his sister's convent at Barking. Eager to get hold of so valuable a body, the Chertsey monks instantly made a dash for it, pursued by the equally eager clergy of St. Paul's, who were fully alive to the value of their dead bishop, whose shrine would become a money-box for pilgrim's offerings. The London priests, by a forced march, got first to Barking and bore off the body; but the monks of Chertsey and the nuns of Barking followed, wringing their hands and loudly protesting against the theft.

The river Lea, sympathising with their prayers, rose in a flood. There was no boat, no bridge, and a fight for the body seemed imminent. A pious man present, however, exhorted the monks to peace, and begged them to leave the matter to heavenly decision. The clergy of St. Paul's then broke forth into a litany. The Lea at once subsided, the cavalcade crossed at Stratford, the sun cast down its benediction, and the clergy pa.s.sed on to St. Paul's with their holy spoil. From that time the shrine of Erkenwald became a source of wealth and power to the cathedral.

The Saxon kings, according to Dean Milman, were munificent to St.

Paul's. The clergy claimed Tillingham, in Ess.e.x, as a grant from King Ethelbert, and that place still contributes to the maintenance of the cathedral. The charters of Athelstane are questionable, but the places mentioned in them certainly belonged to St. Paul's till the Ecclesiastical Commissioners broke in upon that wealth; and the charter of Canute, still preserved, and no doubt authentic, ratifies the donations of his Saxon predecessors.

William the Conqueror's Norman Bishop of London was a good, peace-loving man, who interceded with the stern monarch, and recovered the forfeited privileges of the refractory London citizens. For centuries--indeed, even up to the end of Queen Mary's reign--the mayor, aldermen, and crafts used to make an annual procession to St. Paul's, to visit the tomb of good Bishop William in the nave. In 1622 the Lord Mayor, Edward Barkham, caused these quaint lines to be carved on the bishop's tomb:--