large vessel with side- handles being particu-
larly fine. Other articles dug up include
blacksmith's tools, a padlock, coulters, a
bronze figure, etc.
^ ^ ^
A New Zealand paper, the Wairarapa Star,
reports a curious find at Mauriceville. The
workmen employed in a limestone quarry
came upon a complete fossilized moa in the
solid limestone rock, about lo feet from the
surface of the earth. The bird was there in
its entirety, but unfortunately its value was
not recognised, and it was broken up and
portions removed. The head, neck, legs,
claws and body were perfect. As soon as
Mr. F. Kummer heard of the find, he
hastened to the quarry, and secured some
fine specimens for the Masterton Museum,
including the crop, which contains numerous
pebbles.
^ cj, ^
The accompanying view of one of the
skeletons recently unearthed in the pre-
historic cemetery discovered at Harlyn Bay,
near Padstow, in Cornwall, is from a photo-
graph kindly sent to us by Mr. C. N. Bennett,
of Penzance. Mr. Bennett, who took the
photograph himself, says that "the skeleton
was moved a few hours after being discovered.
and I can say with certainty that this is the
only photograph of it in existence. The
view also shows another interment which
has been cut through in the course of ex-
cavation. I have seen all the photographs
of these neolithic skeletons which were taken
at Padstow, and are now in the possession of
the Rev. W. lago, and none are in such a
perfect state of preservation as this one."
The find at Harlyn Bay has yielded perhaps
the greatest number of stone cists, skeletons,
and their accompaniments spindle-whorls,
rings, bracelets, beads, and brooches yet
discovered in any one spot in Britain.
^ ^ '^
The illustrated papers have lately been pay-
ing considerable attention to archaeological
matters. Black and White Budget of Decem-
ber 29 had an illustration of a curious dis-
covery made by workmen employed in ex-
cavating on the north side of the Cleveland
Hills, Yorkshire, of the lower part of an
effigy of a knight in armour. The illustra-
E 2
36
MOTES OF THE MONTH.
tion showed a figure in mail, spurred, with
the heels resting upon a lion engaged in
close encounter with a dragon. The portion
of the figure found is in splendid condition,
every link in the armour being intact. There
is little doubt that it is an effigy of one of
the Bruces perhaps, it is suggested, Peter
de Brus, who was a Crusader but how it
came to be in the spot where it was found
is a question which opens a field for conjec-
ture. It may have been intended for Guis-
borough Abbey, which is not far off. The
Sphere has had not only pictures of the
Roman forum in its recent flooded condition,
but also (in its issue of December 29) a
number of illustrations of the various
antiquities brought to light in the course
of the excavations near the Palatine Hill,
including the Fountain and Sanctuary of
Juturna, and the statue of Apollo, of archaic
Greek design and of Greek make, which was
found m the Sanctuary. The Illustrated
London Nrajs of a week earlier had a fine
page drawing of one of the beautiful, splen-
didly preserved wall-paintings recently dis-
covered in the course of the excavations at
Bosco Reale. How the drawing was made
is a mystery. " I cannot," says the artist,
M. Amato, " reveal the means by which I
succeeded in procuring pictures of the mural
paintings, and I regret not having been able
to photograph one with very interesting
figures. I saw one representing a gladiator
listening to a woman playing the tibia, while
a little Cupid is standing behind her with
his head stretched forward in a listening
attitude." The frescoes discovered represent
houses with several storeys, and views in
perspective, which show, although the per-
spective is by no means perfect, that the
painters were artists of considerable ability.
^ c|> ^
While on the subject of periodicals and
archaeology, we may note that the December
and January numbers of the Sunday at Home
a magazine not usually suspected of anti-
quarian proclivities contained an interesting
paper, well and lavishly illustrated, on " The
Scarabs " of ancient Egypt, by Mr. John
Ward, F.S.A.
4p "Up ^
The delegates of the Clarendon Press will
publish in the autumn of the present year a
facsimile, by the Collotype process, of the
First Folio of Shakespeare. An absolutely
correct reproduction has long been demanded
by Shakespeare students. The Chatsworth
copy has, by the generous permission of the
Duke of Devonshire, been deposited on
loan in the Bodleian Library for the purpose.
Mr. Sidney Lee will contribute a brief intro-
duction, and will give as full a list as practic-
able of all known copies of the First Folio,
with bibliographical details. Owners of
copies of the First Folio who are not already
in communication with Mr. Lee are requested
to communicate with him, care of the
Clarendon Press, Oxford.
^ ^ ^
All visitors to the British Museum should go
to the First Egyptian Room, where, cleverly
reproduced in carton, may be seen in his
neolithic grave the mummy which was un-
earthed in a prehistoric cemetery discovered
some miles below Assouan, in Upper Egypt,
and which was secured for this country by
the energy of Dr. Wallis Budge. Some
rather wild suggestions have been made
as to the probable age of this mummy one
newspaper writer proposed a date between
30,000 and 50,000 B.C. but, from the finish
of the weapons and the forms of the pottery
found in the tomb, it is not unreasonable to
say that the body probably dates from about
6,000 B.C.
^ ^ ^
" Herr Ludwig Rosenthal," says the Times,
" a well-known German antiquary and book-
seller, writes from 16, Hildejard Strasse,
Munich, to inform us that he has recently
come into possession of a hitherto unknown
first edition of the fifth book of Rabelais's
Gargantua and Pantagmel, a duodecimo
volume dated 1549, and printed probably
at Lyons. ' What heightens the interest of
the book,' Herr Rosenthal says, ' is that
not only its edition, but even its text, is
quite unknown, as I ascertain not only by
my studies of Rabelais's complete works, but
also by the assertion of Mr. Delisle and his
assistant librarians. It is known that eleven
years after Rabelais's death that is in 1564
was published a fifth book of Gargantua
and Pantagruel, but its authenticity was
always doubted. This doubt is now set at
rest by my hunted-up original, whose text
NOTES OF THE MONTH.
37
differs completely from the false edition of
1564.' This very interesting discovery of
Herr Rosenthal's appears likely to clear up
the mystery which has always surrounded
the fifth book, as it has been known hitherto.
It was doubted for several reasons, among
the strongest being the fact that parts of it
were evidently replicas or rough drafts of
passages in the earlier books, and that it
contained allusions manifestly later than the
latest date which could be assigned for
Rabelais's death. It has, however, been
pretty generally accepted as being, at all
LE CINaVIESME. ^a'^
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tagruel.
^*>Aii<,uclz Tgnt comprins,
ilci grans Abus,& d'efordonccj
vicde,Plu(icursEf-
tatz,dceni6
dc. \
^Corrpofcz par M. Pra-icoyjli^^^
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^ nc<S Abftra<niurdecjuicc Effcojl^
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events, mostly the work of Rabelais. ' The
strongest argument,' Professor Saintsbury
says in his Q.xi\c\Q\r\i\\e Encyc/opcedia Britan-
nica, 'and one which has never been
attacked by authorities really competent to
judge, is that the gri'ffe de faigle is on the
book.' If Herr Rosenthal's is the genuine
version, then the other was probably put
together after Rabelais's death, with addi-
tions, possibly by the ecolier de Valence, to
whom Du Verdier, the bibliographer of the
seventeenth century, attributed its author-
ship." For the use of the above block, which
shows the title-page of this most interesting
trouvaille, we are indebted to the courtesy of
the proprietors of Literature.
^ ^ ^
We have received a copy of the Catalogue
of Engraved Portraits, Miniatures, etc.,
which were exhibited at a conversazione
of the Thoroton Society, in the Exchange
Hall, Nottingham, in December last. The
Catalogue, which was compiled by Messrs.
J. T. Godfrey and C. Bernard Stevenson, is
a thick pamphlet of some ninety pages, and
is of much more than local interest. The
biographical and other notes are particularly
well done, and the whole publication reflects
the greatest credit upon the compilers and
upon the society which organized so interest-
ing and so valuable an exhibition.
^ ^ ^
The members of the National Photographic
Record Association have presented a further
collection of 366 photographs (making nearly
1,600 in all) to the British Museum, which
record a great many subjects of much anti-
quarian and historical interest. Sir J. Ben-
jamin Stone, M.P., sent in 100 prints taken
in Warwickshire, including a series of Strat-
ford-on-Avon, and an interesting record of
collecting the " wroth money " at sunrise at
Ryton-on-Dunsmore. Mr. Sulman gave a
set of the old historical houses of Hornscy
and Highgate, many already removed. Many
especially interesting records of Irish life and
antiquities were sent by Mrs. Muriel and
Mr. A. Hogg, the latter sending a particularly
fine series of the tumulus of New Grange,
the interior views being splendid specimens
of flash-light work. Other members con-
tributed views of old London houses and
ancient Sussex churches, crosses at Llantwit
Major, old Bristol houses several of which
have already been pulled down Norman
capitals and misereres in Northampton
churches, and a very complete set of the
Easter Sepulchre at Heckington Church.
il( 'ill? i|(
The superb collection of medals which has
been deposited in the United Service Museum
in Whitehall by Major-General the Hon.
H. F. Eaton includes a specimen of the
very rare and historic Dunbar Medal, which
was struck by order of Parliament to com-
38
NOTES OF THE MONTH.
memorate Cromwell's victory near that place
in 1650. The chief interest attaching to this
numismatic relic is the fact, as pointed out
some time ago by Mr. Speaker Gully, that
the reverse contains one of the two authentic
representations of the old House of Com-
mons whilst in session in the middle of the
seventeenth century. I he chair is occupied
by Mr. Speaker I.enthall, and Cromwell
himself can be seen addressing the House
from the Treasury Bench. The obverse
contains a portrait of the Protector, but it
is the other side which is represented in
Bernini's beautiful bust of Cromwell, which
was placed in the House of Commons a few
sessions ago. A specimen of this medal is
to be seen in the coin room of the British
Museum.
4f ^ ^If
We are glad to see that measures have been
taken to insure the careful search for and
preservation of archaeological relics during
the various excavations now in progress, and
to be undertaken on a large scale during the
next few years, on various London sites.
The London County Council offers a reward
to the workman who hands over to the fore-
man or clerk of the works any find, provided
it be "of geological or archreological
value." A bit of old St. Dunstan's, Fleet
Street, has lately come to light. Mr. Arthur
Hawley writes to the Builder : " Whilst
digging a trench for the reception of electric
cables in Fleet Street, the workmen have
recently come across some masonry some
3 feet below the roadway, in front of the
Church of St. Dunstan's in the West. This
masonry is composed of granite and flint,
cemented together with coarse, yellowish
plaster, and, being as firm as solid rock, has
had to be broken away piece by piece. It is
more than probable that it forms part of
what formerly were the foundations of the
old Church of St. Dunstan's in the West,
which is said to have stood some 30 feet to
the south of the site of the present church.
The date of the building of the old church
is not known, but that it was in existence
prior to the year 1327 is certain from the
fact that Richard de Barking, Abbot of the
Convent of Westminster in that year, granted
the Rectory of St. Dunstan's in the West to
King Henry IIL Maitland's History of
London (1760), vol. ii., contains a plate of
the old church, which shows it to have been
a low-roofed building with a small tower at
the north-west corner. At the south-west
corner was the famous clock with the two
giants standing ready to strike the hours,
the work of one named Thomas Harrys,
which was set up in 167 1. This clock was
one of the great London sights during the
last century. Hutton, writing in 1708, says
'that the figures were more admired on
Sundays by the populace than the most
eloquent preacher in the pulpit within,' "
^ ^ ^^
A dinner in commemoration of Dr. Furnivall's
seventy -fifth birthday is to be held on
February 4. Professor Ker will be in the
chair, and will formally present to the veteran
scholar and indefatigable student of our
language and literature the English Mis-
cellany, published in his honour. It is hoped
that Dr. Furnivall's portrait, by Mr. Will
Rothenstein, may also be ready for presenta-
tion on the same interesting occasion.
Cbe IPassing of Din London.
By J. H. Slater.
H^HEN the great fire laid nearly all
London in ashes, it left here and
there oases of nodding houses
standing like gaunt giants looking
backwards. These tottered and eventually
fell, of their own accord for the most part,
though some were demolished with pick and
crowbar ; a few were built in and so altered
and plastered that they became lost in the
great new city that speedily rose on the
ashes of the old. Opportunity was taken of
a great disaster, as the world then thought it,
to build on principles more in accordance
with the requirements of the age, and this
was done so thoroughly that in the last days
of King Charles there were, as there are now,
worshippers of past times who sought, with
but little encouragement, for something old
THE PASSING OF OLD LONDON
39
and familiar amidst so much that was brand
new. Time is the parent of many ironies,
among which the most noticeable is that
embodied in the power which it possesses of
touching so dramatically the newest things
with the impress of years, that novelty be-
comes, as did Mephisto in the sight of
Faust, "suddenly old." The Laudator
temporis acti grafts this thought to his soul,
and is in a measure comforted, yet not
wholly, for he knows that time and the
present are at war over all external things,
and that the present must win at last. In
his eyes this day the new London of the
seventeenth century or, rather, what there
is left of it is ancient enough ; but then
he is haunted with the suspicion, well
grounded, that no part of it is safe, that
any moment may witness the eruption of
dust and ashes that proclaims another land-
mark on its way to join the rest. Turn
where he may, there are not only great
gaps and staring improvements realized,
which, now that the ice is broken, so to
speak, could be borne with ; but worse far,
doomed looks, the harbingers of much to
come.
These hauntings are so purely sentimental,
ephemeral even, that they cannot stay the
displacement of a brick or stone for a single
hour, yet certain temperaments are ruled by
them as though they were realities endued
with the power of checking the flowing tide
of change the tide that never ebbs.
It may be pleasant to reflect that when the
great fire had done its best or worst, a few
plague dens escaped the almost universal
ruin. The western end of Fleet Street stood
intact, as did Butcher Row and Shire Lane
(where spirit-obsessed Ashmole lived), the
labyrinth of courts and alleys by Clement's
Inn, the Inn itself, and Clare Market, the
two narrow thoroughfares called Holywell
and VVych Streets, and malodorous Drury
Lane, The Temple was saved, too, perhaps
by the students, who, though deploring the
waste, manfully broached great butts of ale
and drenched the eastern blocks that had
many a time outflanked VVhitefriars and its
turbulent crew of bully-rooks, driven out,
though only for a time, by belching smoke
and flame. All this may be very pleasant to
remember, but it is only a dream after all.
There is nothing left of all Whitefriars except
Hanging Sword Alley, the scene of Hogarth's
" Blood Bowl House "; the Law Courts have
swept whole acres into oblivion ; Fleet Street
is practically rebuilt ; and Clare Market, from
an antiquarian point of view, is beneath con-
tempt. Justice Shallow would hasten away
from Clement's Inn, and Drury Lane has
recently been swept and garnished so
thoroughly that Tom and Jerry would give
it a wide berth, even at two in the morning.
Only Holywell Street and Wych Street now
remain to show what London once was like.
These constitute, actually and in fact, the
only collections of street houses, as distinct
from isolated structures, in all London that
have defied both time and fire through the
centuries. The Laudator groans, for he
knows well that they are tottering to their
fall, and will speedily, within a few months
at the most, be swept aside for the benefit of
practical mortals who covet a broad highway
from Holborn to the Strand.
In far-off" times the road from London
proper divided at the church of "St. Clement
of the Danes," one branch leading westward
to the village of Charing, and the other,
unJer the name of the "Via de Aldwych,"
to fields now occupied by Drury Lane, and
eventually to Holborn, where rich merchants
had their suburban seats. This "Via de
Aldwych," or Wych Street, as we now call
it, was, as early as the reign of Henry V,, a
centre of activity without the city gates. A
" great inn " stood there at that time, known
as the Angel, where in after days Bishop
Hooper lodged before setting out on his
journey to Gloucester and death. Years
after Guy Fawkes and his confederates
Catesby, Winter, and the rest met there to
plot and plan the restoration of society ; and,
later still, the ill fated Monmouth staked his
all upon the tlirone and lost. The Angel
and the coffee-house in its quadrangular
courtyard, the scene of these and other
historical events, were only pulled down in
1853. New Inn, the quaint collection of
houses still existing on the north side of
Wych Street, but, like it, doomed to destruc-
tion shortly, was once the abode of Sir
Thomas More, who in the decline of life,
when shorn of everything except his head,
and that unsafe, sighed as he recalled the
40
THE PASSING OF OLD LONDON
New Inn fare and the happy days when
dangerous success was far beyond his grasp.
Even in these early days of the twentieth
century the watchman calls out the hours of
the night, and the porter shouts " Mangez !
mangez I" when the feast is ready. Lyon's
Inn, which could be entered either from
Wych Street or Holywell Street, was de-
molished in 1863 to make way for an
ambitious hotel which failed, and in its turn
made room for the Globe Theatre.
Historically speaking, Wych Street is far
more celebrated than Holywell Street, for, as
stated, it was a main thoroughfare, at one time
of at least equal importance with the Strand.
Holywell Street is, however, much better
known ; in fact, everybody knows " Book-
seller's Row," though it has only been called
by that name during the last forty years. In
the time of Strype "divers salesmen and
piece-brokers" kept shop there, then came
a succession of silk mercers, who in their
turn gave place to dealers in old clothes, so
quick to do trade that a man might be
stripped almost at one end of the street and
be able to buy his own back, neatly brushed
and ironed, at the other. Finally came the
booksellers, ignorant to a degree at one time,
now astute enough, whose stock has attracted
literary giants, chief among whom tower Dr.
Johnson, Goldsmith, and Macaulay. The
well of holy St Clement, after which the
thoroughfare takes its name, was once in
great repute as a sure healer of all skin
diseases. It is there yet somewhere, no
doubt, probably underneath the quaint,
topsy-turvy Rising Sun, of which more later.
At any rate, there is a well in the basement,
though, if it be the true well, its virtue has
departed. At the extreme west end of Holy-
well Street, under the shadow of St. Mary's
Church, the maypole used to be set up ; on
the restoration of Charles II. the people
danced round it in their joy, and a few years
afterwards Robert Percival, a noted duellist
and bully, was found dead at its foot, worsted
in the gray of the morning by some better
duellist unknown, but who, it was shrewdly
suspected, was none other than that gay
Lothario, Beau Fielding. The beau denied
the impeachment to his dying day, though
had he done so with his last breath it would
have made matters no more sura The
original maypole, by the way, is said to have
been set up by a blacksmith named Clarges.
He lived in Holywell Street, where his
daughter, "Dirty Nan," was thoroughly at
home. She paddled in the gutters, rolled in
the mud, and finally married the Duke of
Albemarle. And here, too, lived Ray, a
staymaker, under the sign of the " seven
stars," whose daughter became an actress of
great repute. Miss Ray, after playing in
" Love in a Village " at Covent Garden
Theatre, was murdered in the open street
and saw the well of St. Clement no more.
Wenceslaus Hollar was another noted in-
habitant. This clever draughtsman worked
for the booksellers at the rate of fourpence
an hour by the glass, and was so scrupulously
honest and methodical in all he did that he
was wont to prevent the sand from running
even when talking to his employer on his
own business matters. This was in 1670
and succeeding years, during which he lived
or, rather, starved in a garret just outside
the back-door of St. Clement's. Here he
died, poor but honest to the last ; one of the
best of etchers.
As a rule stories of old localities, such as
this, are the longer lived as they are the
more ghastly, criminal, or mysterious. Vice,
if it be pronounced enough, makes a greater
impression than virtue. The memory of evil
deeds dies hard. It is related that one stormy
evening seventy years ago a man carrying a
black bag set out from Portugal Street to walk
to Somerset House. He entered Wych Street
by mistake or design, and disappeared from
that time forth as though into a grave. There
was money in the bag, and so Bow Street sent
its runners to picket and search all the houses
round about. This journey in the dark, of
perhaps five hundred yards, was too tortuous
for any man, old or young, who carried gold
in a bag, and what became of this one and
his treasure is a question that no one could
now solve. He is a ghost; that at least is
a certainty, and the local gossips say that a
shadow walks along Wych Street with hurried
steps, bag still in hand, on squally nights
when the wind rushes up the river as through
a funnel and sweeps the streets far and wide.
This is the ghost of Wych Street, which,
though it has been spoken to, has never yet
replied nor turned its head. It is believed
THE PASSING OF OLD LONDON
41
in by many, and why not ? It is recorded
that Dr. Johnson pinned his faith to the
ghost of Cock Lane, which no one ever saw,
and that even the practical iron-hearted Bis-
mark saluted theWhite Lady of the Hapsburgs
once at least. There are, or should be, many
ghosts in the Via de Aldwych, leaving out of
account such antique wraiths as that of Harold
Harefoot, whose body was dragged from the
Thames and buried in the Church of St.
Clement of the Danes. Perhaps Jack Shep-
pard haunts its pavement still, and looks in
occasionally through the open door of one
of the houses in the squalid little court on
the north side where Wood, the carpenter,
worked well enough. It was in that house
that the future desperado idled away his
time and studied the road to Tyburn, not
superficially like many thieves, but inch by
inch, growing rapidly old in iniquity before
he was eighteen, as the Newgate Calendar
testifies. Jack Sheppard is, whatever may
be said to the contrary, the most notorious
figure of which Wych Street can boast.
Ainsworth, who was nothing if not realistic,
traversed this one-time nursery of thieves
in company with George Cruikshank, and
tracked the robber through the mazes in
which he delighted to wander, from the old