for the use of cloth-workers, since letten to the crossbow-makers, wherein they used to shoot for games at the popingay: now the same being enclosed with a brick wall, serveth to be an Artillery Yard or Garden, whereunto the gunners of the Tower do weekly repair, namely every Thursday; and there, levelling certain brass pieces of great artillery against a butt of earth made for that purpose, they discharge them for their exercise. Present use is made thereof, by divers worthy citizens, gentlemen and captains, using martial discipline, and where they meet (well near weekly) to their great commendation in so worthy an exercise.-Strype's Stow, B. ii. p. 96.

When the Civil War broke out, the citizens of London took up arms against the King; and on all occasions, more especially at the battle of Newbury, the London regiments, Train Bands and Artillery, behaved with admirable conduct and courage.

The London trained-bands and auxiliary regiments (of whose inexperience of danger or any kind of service beyond the easy practice of their postures in the Artillery Garden men had till then too cheap in estimation) behaved themselves to wonder, and were in truth the preservation of that army that day. For they stood as a bulwark and rampire to defend the rest; and when their wings of horse were scattered and dispersed, kept their ground so steadily, that though Prince Rupert himself led up the choice horse to charge them, and endured their storm of small shot, he could make no impression upon their stand of pikes, but was forced to wheel about; of so sovereign benefit and use is that readiness, order, and dexterity, in the use of their arms, which hath been so much neglected.-Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, vol. iv. p. 236.

London hath twelve thousand Trained-Band Citizens, perpetually in readiness, excellently armed; which when Count Gondomar saw in a muster one day, in St. James's Fields, and the king asking him what he thought of his citizens of London; he answered, that he never saw a company of stouter men and better arms in all his lifetime; but he had a sting in the tail of his discourse; for he told the king, that although his Majesty was well pleased with that sight at present, he feared that those men handling their arms so well might do him one day a mischief; which proved true, for, in the unlucky wars with the Long Parliament, the London firelocks did him most mischief.-Howell's Londinopolis, fol. 1657, p. 398.

Cromwell knew their value, and gave the command of them to Major-General Skippon, under whom and for some years subsequently the strength of the corps was 18,000 Foot and 600 Horse, thus divided: 6 regiments of Trained Bands; 6 Regiments of Auxiliaries; I regiment of Horse. This strong force was disbanded at the Restoration; but the Company still continued to perform their evolutions, though on a less extensive scale, the King and the Duke of York becoming members and dining in public with the new Company. Since the Restoration they have led a peaceable life, and, except in 1780, when their promptness preserved the Bank of England, have only been called out on state occasions, such as the public thanksgiving for the victories of the Duke of Marlborough, when (August 23, 1705) Queen Anne went to St. Paul's, and the Westminster Militia lined the streets from St. James's to Temple Bar, and the City Trained Bands from Temple Bar to St. Paul's. The Trained Bands have long merged in the Royal London Militia, but the Artillery Company remained a distinct body, though the Artillery Ground serves as headquarters and exercising ground of both. During the first half of the present century the strength of the Company fell gradually off. In 1708 they were

about 700; in 1720 about 600; and in 1844 about 250. Prince Albert became their Colonel, and an attempt was made to restrengthen the force. The volunteer movement came in aid of the effort. The Company has been to a great extent reorganised, and is now in a flourishing condition. The present colonel is H.R.H. The Prince of Wales. The Royal London Militia has also been reorganised and is prosperous.

Having outgrown the capacity of the original Artillery Gardens, the members moved in 1641 from Bishopsgate to Finsbury, where they now are. The inhabitants of the neighbourhood strongly objected to this removal. In their petition, May 19, 1641, they state that— The military gentlemen of London are making suit to have their fields for their military garden, and intend to build a high brick wall about it, to the great inconvenience of those who dwell in the neighbourhood of the Archer, who go out this way to recreate themselves; to the danger of riders whose horses will be frightened by the guns; of travellers who will have no opportunity of escaping thieves, or sextons conveying the plague-stricken to the pest house, besides the disturbance of the sick and damage to house property. They accordingly pray that the military may be restrained from building the wall and the rights of petitioners be preserved. -Fourth Report of Historical MSS. Comm., pp. 64, 71.

The ground is described as "the third great field from Moorgate, next the six windmills. [See Windmill Street.] It is a large piece of ground, containing about ten acres, enclosed with a high brick wall. . . . And, moreover, for their better ease and conveniency, they erected a strong and well-furnished Armoury in the said ground, in which were arms of several sorts, and of such extraordinary beauty, fashion, and goodness for service, as were hardly to be matched elsewhere." 1

Within Strype's memory (1670-1720) they were occasionally in the habit of resorting to their old locality.

Well, I say, thrive, thrive, brave Artillery Yard,

that hast not spar'd

Powder or paper to bring up the youth

Of London in the military truth,

as all may swear that look

But on thy practice and the posture-book.

Ben Jonson, Underwoods lxii.

A new armoury, barracks, and drill-room, castellated in style and of much architectural pretension, was erected on the City Road side of the ground in 1857-1862, from the designs of Mr. Jennings, the old armoury being at the same time remodelled. The buildings are probably the largest and showiest possessed by any volunteer corps. The buildings facing the City Road are the headquarters of the Royal London Militia.

Besides their walled exercise ground in Bunhill Fields, the Artillery Company had prescriptive right of marching way through Finsbury Fields to Islington Common [see Finsbury Fields], and of keeping open certain fields for the exercise of the "Archers' Division" of the

1 Strype's Stow, B. iii. p. 70; B. v. p. 457.

Company.

As late as 1786 and 1792 the Company enforced its right by marching to Finsbury Fields and thence to Islington Common to view their marks and rovers, their pioneers by their orders removing all obstructions and breaking down and levelling fences, etc., where there had been encroachments.1

The musters and marchings of the City Trained Bands are admirably ridiculed by Fletcher, in The Knight of the Burning Pestle; and the manner in which the Company were in the habit of issuing out their orders, by Steele, in No. 41 of The Tatler. From Ben Jonson (Every Man in his Humour, 1st. ed. Act. iii. Sc. 2) to Foote (Mayor of Garrat) and Sheridan (The Critic) our dramatists found a ready resource for their art in the deeds and prowess of Train-band officers and men: but the volunteer feeling has turned their shafts from citizen soldiers. John Gilpin, as all will remember, was a Train-band Captain.

A Train-band Captain eke was he

Of famous London town.

Lunardi, September 15, 1784, made his first balloon voyage from these grounds. There is a view of the ascent in the European Magazine for 1784.

Artillery Hall, HORSELYDOWN. In 1636 Captain Grove and others took a piece of ground called Martial Yard, and sought a licence for the purpose of building an armoury. In 1665 a lease

of the ground was given for the purpose of forming a burial ground, but the ground where the artillery house stood was reserved for musters and military exercise. In 1680 and subsequent years the Artillery Hall was used as a polling place at the elections for Southwark. In 1725 the hall was converted into a workhouse for the parish.2

Artillery Place, CITY ROAD, on the east side of the Artillery Ground. Here died, June 9, 1825, Dr. Abraham Rees, to whom we owe the Cyclopædia which bears his name. He was buried in Bunhill Fields Burial Ground.

Artillery Place (Artillery Row), Westminster.

Upon the spot now occupied by Artillery Place the men of Westminster used to practise at "the butts," which were provided by the parish in obedience to an ordinance of Queen Elizabeth. In the beginning of the last century it is described as a large enclosure "made use of by those who delight in military exercises."Walcott's Memorials of Westminster, 1851, p. 324.

Colonel Berkstead to view the artillery ground in Tothill Fields, and see what part of the prisoners of Worcester may be kept there, and what change will be necessary for fitting it.-September 9, 1657, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1651, p. 417.

Artillery Walk, now BUNHILL Row, leading to BUNHILL FIELDS. In this walk, the west side of the present Bunhill Row, "opposite the 1 Highmore, History of the Artillery Company, pp. 398, 410.

2 Corner's Horselydown, pp. 22, 23.

Artillery Wall," Milton finished his Paradise Lost, and here, November 8, 1674, he died.

He stay'd not long (in Jewin Street) after his new marriage, ere he removed (1663) to a house in the Artillery Walk, leading to Bunhill Fields. And this was his last stage in this world, but it was of many years' continuance, more perhaps than he had had in any other place besides.-Philips's Life of Milton, ed. 1694.

Milton's was a small house, with a garden back and front; long since swept away. Milton's widow occupied the house six or seven years longer, when she removed to Nantwich, where she died about September 1727, having survived the poet more than half a century. Arts (Royal Academy of). [See Royal Academy.]

Arts (Society of), JOHN STREET, ADELPHI, owes its origin to the persevering exertions of Mr. William Shipley, a drawing master of Northampton, and brother of Jonathan Shipley, Bishop of St. Asaph, and to the public spirit of its first President, Jacob, Lord Viscount Folkestone. It was established at a meeting held at Rawthmell's coffeehouse, in Henrietta Street, Covent Garden, March 22, 1754, and its full designation given "The Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce."

In a word, the Society is so numerous, the contributions so considerable, the plan so judiciously laid, and executed with such discretion and spirit as to promise much more effectual and extensive advantage to the public than ever accrued from all the boasted academies of Christendom.-Smollett's History of England.

It was proposed, among other things, that rewards should be given for the discovery of cobalt and the cultivation of madder in Great Britain; and that the Society "should bestow premiums on a certain number of boys or girls under the age of sixteen, who shall produce the best pieces of drawing, and show themselves most capable when properly examined." One of the first prizes of this Society (£15) was adjudged to Richard Cosway, then a boy under twelve years of age, and afterwards eminent in painting. Premiums were subsequently given to John Bacon, Joseph Nollekens, William Woollett, George Romney, John Flaxman, J. M. W. Turner, Edwin Landseer, Mulready, Millais, and many other artists who afterwards became famous. The first meetings were held over a circulating library in Crane Court, Fleet Street, from whence the Society removed to Craig's Court, Charing Cross, and from Craig's Court to the Strand, opposite the New Exchange (now Coutts's Bank). In 1759 apartments in a house opposite Beaufort Buildings were taken for the use of the Society. The Society last removed in 1774, to its present house, built for the Society by the brothers Adam, and of which the first stone was laid March 28, 1772. The Society was incorporated by Royal Charter in 1847. Six pictures in the Great Room, by James Barry, R.A., painted between the years 1777 and 1783. The subjects are (beginning on your left as you enter) :—

1. Orpheus. Represents a savage people living in a wild and desert country, while Orpheus is explaining to them the advantages of culture. 2. A Grecian

Harvest Home, or Thanksgiving to Ceres and Bacchus, shows the agricultural stage of civilisation (the best of the series). 3. Crowning the Victors at Olympia. 4. Commerce: or, the Triumph of the Thames. In this picture Dr. Burney, the musical composer, is seen floating down the Thames among Tritons and Sea-nymphs, in his tie-wig and queue. 5. The Distribution of Premiums in the Society of Arts. This picture contains a portrait of Dr. Johnson, for which the Doctor sat. 6. Elysium: or, the state of Final Retribution.

The Society in 1774 proposed to certain members of the newly instituted Royal Academy to paint the interior of the Great Room, the painters to be reimbursed by the public exhibition of their works when finished. The academicians, apparently led by Reynolds, declined the proposal, and Barry, as a member, signed the refusal with the rest; but afterwards (in 1777) he applied for permission to execute the whole work without asking remuneration for his own labour, and at a time when he had but sixteen shillings in his pocket. The Society, however, gave him in the course of the work several donations, and a gold medal. The Society afterwards indulged him with two exhibitions of his paintings, in 1783 and 1784, which brought him £50312s., the Society paying the cost of the exhibitions, which amounted to £174. He died poor and half mad in 1806, at the age of sixty-five, and was buried in St. Paul's. His body lay in state in the Great Room of the Society on the night of March 7, previous to the burial in St. Paul's. The members of the Society raised £1000 and purchased an annuity of £120 for Barry, but unfortunately only a month before his death. In the Council Room are full-length portraits of Jacob, Lord Folkestone, the first President, by Gainsborough, and of Lord Romney, second President, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and a characteristic portrait of Barry. The portraits of the two presidents were originally placed at each end of the meeting room, between Barry's pictures, but their places subsequently were filled by a portrait of the late Prince Consort (who held the office of President from 1843 until his death in 1861), painted by Horsley, over the dais, and by a picture of the Queen and the Royal Children by Cope, at the opposite end of the room. Visitors are admitted to see these pictures between the hours of ten and four.

The great room of the Society was for several years the place where many persons chose to try or to display their oratorical abilities. Dr. Goldsmith, I remember, made an attempt at a speech, but was obliged to sit down in confusion. I once heard Dr. Johnson speak there, upon a subject relative to Mechanics, with a propriety, perspicuity, and energy which excited general admiration. -Kippis, Bio. Brit., vol. iv. p. 266.

The Society took a leading part in organising the Great Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862; and has been active in promoting commercial and technical education by means of examinations. Out of the technological examinations has grown the wide-spreading action of the City and Guilds of London Technical Institute. A large number of the chief questions of the day, such as the amendment of the Patent Laws; the cheapening of letter, book, and parcel postage; the improvement of