hundreds of thousands in the exercise of the art of banking. So it happened, indeed, and in course of time John Barclay, who would have been certainly a bad courtier, became the intelligent founder of one of the most flourishing private banking firms of the period.

The story of George the Third's accidental visit to David Barclay's house in Cheapside is contradicted by several writers, among others by Mr. Morris Charles Jones, in an interesting little pamphlet, printed for private circulation, called "Reminiscences connected with an Old Oak Panelling." It is stated here that the King came by special invitation, the house having been prepared for him by the city entertainment committee. David Barclay's descendants subsequently became great brewers as well as bankers. David's eldest son by a second marriage-with Priscilla Freame, daughter of John Freame, banker, "near George's Yard, Lombard Street" -purchased, in concert with three partners, the large brewery established by Mr. Henry Thrale, the friend of Dr. Johnson, changing the title into the world-famous Barclay, Perkins, and Co. Subsequently, the banking and brewing firms entered into repeated connexion. On John Freame's death, without successors, the banking

business came into the hands of James Barclay, and on the latter dying without male descendants, the establishment devolved upon his two brothers, David Barclay of Youngbury, and John Barclay of Cambridge Heath. The two Barclays associated with them their cousin, Sylvanus Bevan, who subsequently left to join the brewing firm; and also John Henton Tritton, who married Mary, the daughter of John Barclay. The lastnamed David Barclay had no son to succeed him; but John Barclay was succeeded by his son, Robert Barclay, of Clapham, who in turn. was followed by his son, John Barclay of Leyton. The last-named was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, the present John Gurney Barclay, of Leyton, who has a son, Robert (not of age), now in the banking house. Although Sylvanus Bevan left the banking firm, his son, David Bevan, succeeded him therein. He, in his turn, was followed by his son, Robert Cooper Lee Bevan, the present senior member of the house; who has also a son, Francis Augustus Bevan, in the firm. John Henton Tritton was succeeded in his share by one of his name and blood. The two great banking and brewing establishments are thus composed almost entirely of descendants of David Barclay of Cheapside, who (according

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to the statement of his still surviving greatgrandson), in the year 1690, after the death of his father, Robert Barclay of Ury-the author of the celebrated "Apology for the Quakers,"came to London with his pittance of £500, a Scotch younger son's fortune. He put himself an apprentice to James Taylor, of the company of drapers-the sign of whose house in Cheapside was the Bear,-whom he succeeded, having married his daughter. So much for David Barclay, of Cheapside, who entertained royal George the Third, and all his worthy descendants. Their genealogy is really full of interest, and exemplifies the truth of Carlyle's saying: "In these days, ten ordinary histories of kings and courtiers were well exchanged against the tenth part of one good history of booksellers."

The mode of conducting the business of banking, in the latter part of the eighteenth century, was very different from what it is now-a-days. The banker early attended on 'Change, which was usually over about half-past two o'clock; he then went home to dinner, and not unfrequently to the theatre, and afterwards returned to Lombard Street to attend to his business and

finish his correspondence. Late in the day, when all the letters were finished, the parcel was

despatched to the Post-office, to go by the night mail, leaving London at twelve o'clock. These midnight mails were curiosities which would astonish a modern Londoner, accustomed to railways, steamers, and express trains of forty miles an hour. The whole correspondence of the British metropolis, involving transactions of perhaps millions in value, was entrusted to a number of ragged little postboys, who carried the letters in pouches slung across the horses' back. A curious account of this old Post-office system, in existence till the latter part of the eighteenth century, is given by the celebrated John Palmer, the Rowland Hill of his days, in the exposition of his scheme of postal reform, submitted to Mr. Pitt in 1783. "The post at present," says Palmer's memoir, "instead of being the swiftest, is almost the slowest conveyance in this country; and though, from the great improvements in our roads, other carriers have proportionately mended their speed, the post is as slow as ever. It is likewise very unsafe, as the frequent robberies of it testify; and, to avoid a loss of this nature, people generally cut bank-bills, or bills at sight, in two, and send the parts by different posts. The Post-master-General lately advertised directions

to the public how to divide a bill in such a manner as to prevent its being of any use to the robber. Rewards have also been frequently offered by him for the best-constructed mailcart, or some plan to prevent the frequent robbery of the mail, but without effect. Indeed, it is at present generally entrusted to some idle boy, without character, mounted on a worn-out hack, and who, so far from being able to defend himself, or escape from a robber, is much more likely to be in league with him." The existence of such a state of things, only eighty years ago, is a fact which seems almost incredible.