have long entertained their private convivial friends after they have delighted the town. Here, too, certain poets, painters, sculptors, musicians, and other ingenious wights, who prefer late hours, a smoky room, and hilarity, to the sober comforts of domestic home, waste the night in glorious independence, fearless of the curtain lecture that appals the uxorious wight, who sometimes trespasses against the orders of the house. The Coal-hole merely derives its name from its gloomy situation, and its original contiguity to a coal-yard. BLOSSOMS INN. The Blossoms Inn, Lawrence Lane, derives its name from the rich borders of flowers which adorned the original sign of St. Lawrence. These were the effects of his martyrdom-" for," says the legend, "flowers sprung up on the spot of his cruel martyrdom." CATHERINE WHEEL. Alban Butler says, St. Catherine was beheaded under the Emperor Mexentius, or Maximinus the Second. He adds, "she is said first to have been put upon an engine made of four wheels, joined together and stuck with sharp pointed spikes, that when the wheels were moved her body might be torn to pieces. At the first stirring of this terrible engine, the cords with which the martyr was tied were broke asunder by the invisible power of an angel, and, the engine falling to pieces by the wheels separating one from another, she was delivered from that death." Hence the name of St. Catherine's Wheel. It has also given name to a peculiar form of window in Gothic architecture, in which the spokes of a wheel are represented. It thus differs from the Marigold window, the compartments of which are shaped like the petals of that flower. THE THREE LEGS. This public-house sign, and which is more general in the country than in London, is the arms of the Isle of Man. Its ancient bearing was a ship; but the arms are now, and have been for centuries, gules "three armed legs" proper, or rather argent, conjoined in fess at the upper part of the thigh, fleshed in triangle, garnished and spurred topaz. So long as the King of Man wrote Rex Manniae et Insularum, they bore the ship; but when the Scots had possession, with the Western Islands, the legs were substituted. It is said of the "three legs," that with the toe of the one they spurn at Ireland, with the spur of the other they kick at Scotland, and with the third they bow to England. TUMBLE DOWN DICK! This sign, once so well known in that part of the borough of Southwark, near to London Bridge, was set up on the restoration of Charles II., and was intended as a burlesque on Richard Cromwell, who had too much simplicity and honesty to manage the reins of government, which devolved on him on the death of his father. LARK-HALL TAVERN. This place is of great antiquity; it stood in the midst of meadows and corn-fields, and was much resorted to by birdcatchers, who frequented this place with their nets; and in time it became noted, and much resorted to by the Londoners on Sundays, who came here to purchase larks, and other singingbirds, from the bird-catchers, from whence it was called Lark-hall. At this period also, the bath-room, which now stands at the brow of the hill, a quarter of a mile west of Lark-hall, towards Clapham, was much frequented; and the spring which now supplies the present bath was also reckoned very salubrious, and boasted many fashionable visiters during the summer months; but there being no high-road, both that and the Lark were inacessible in the winter months. Over the entrance to Lark-hall tavern, is the following whimsical notice, which must be read backwards to be understood," Tsurt Tonnac I; nos duh sie Man Ym,ts uje Ru Saem dna, doogro uQil hTiW." GOLDEN FLEECE. This sign, supposed to be the most ancient of any, and which we meet with in almost every provincial town, has a classical derivation; applying to the Golden Fleece which was brought from Colchis by Jason, about 1263 years before Christ. PUBLIC BUILDINGS, INNS OF COURT, WARDS, CHURCHES, STREETS AND LOCALITIES OF LONDON AND WESTMINSTER. LONDON. The first mention we find of the City of London in history, says Maitland, is by the illustrious and celebrated Roman historian, Tacitus, by the appellation of Londinium, when he acquaints us that Suetonius Paulinus, the Roman general, being employed in the conquest of the Isle of Mona, or Anglesey, in North Wales, he received advice of the revolt of the Britons; wherefore, with the utmost expedition, he began his march to the assistance of the veterans and colonies; and, marching through the midst of the enemy, arrived at London, which then was celebrated for its great number of merchants, and plenty of merchandise. As to the etymology of the word London, antiquaries are not agreed; Geffrey of Monmouth derives it from Caer-Lud, or Lud's-town: Erasmus, from Lindum, a city of Rhodes: Vitus, from Lugdu, a Celtic prince, Lugdon: Selden, from Llan-Dyn, the Temple of Diana; this conjecture is founded upon the great number of boars' tusks (found in the neighbourhood of St. Paul's cathedral), horns of oxen, and stags, whose bodies were proper sacrifices to that deity. Somner derives it from Llawn, Plenus, and Dyn, Homo, a populous place, which he imagines London always to have been, which I take to be (continues Maitland) an appellation very unsuitable with the low condition this city has been many times reduced to; especially when the whole of its inhabitants were destroyed by Boadicea. Camden derives it from Lhong and Dinas; Lhong, signifying a ship, and Dinas, a town, that is, ship-town, or a city of ships. The first author who speaks of London (Londinium) as a city, is Cornelius Tacitus, who also calls it Augusta. Ammianus Marcellinus mentions an ancient place once called Londinium, but then Augusta; and again refers to it under the name of Augusta Trinobantum. There is a very curious transcript in the Tower of an ancient document relative to the antiquity of London, presented to Henry VI. in the seventh year of his reign (1427), when taken out of the city archives. A brief translation of this old manuscript is as follows:-Among the noble and famed cities of the world, that of London, the only seat of the realm of England, is the chief; the fame of which is known far and near. It is remarkable for wholesome air; but, above all, for the Christian religion. Its liberties and ancient foundation being, according to records, older than Rome; built by Brute after the manner of Troy, long before the time of Romulus and Remus; and to this day the manners, customs, liberties, and rights of Troy are universally enjoyed!" PAVING OF LONDON. London was unpaved till 1417; when Henry IV., convinced that Holborn was deep and dangerous, ordered two ships to be laden with stones, at his own expense, each 20 tons in burden, to repair it. LONDON BRIDGE. Stow, in his Survey of London, says, a ferry being kept in the place where now the bridge is built, at length the ferryman and his wife deceasing, left the said ferry to their daughter Mary, which, with the goods left her by her parents, as also with profits arising from said ferry, built a House of Sisters, in the place where now standeth the east part of St. Mary Over'ier's Church,* above the quire where she (Mary) was buried; into which house she gave * A corruption of St. Mary, over the river. the profits and oversight of the ferry. But afterwards, the said The lamps are made from cannon taken THE THAMES. "Majestic river! fraught with riches From ev'ry shore. The Indus and the Ganges, Hail thee as their chief; Yield thee the produce of their clime, And give thy nation homage." This river, so famed in the commercial world, derives its name from a compound of Thame and Isis, and which in process of time came under the familiar denomination of Thames. The junction was formed a little above Oxford, but the Isis now is lost in the compound term, as the river is denominated the Thames even to its very source. The banks of the Thames have long been famed for the beauty of verdure, and taste with which * Chaplain of the church of St. Mary Colechurch, in the Poultry. they are adorned. They are studded with neat cottages, or elegant villas crown the gentle heights; the lawns come sweeping down like carpets of green velvet to the edge of its soft-flowing waters, and the grace of the scenery improves until we are borne into the full bosom of its beauty-the village of Richmond, or, as it was anciently called, Sheen.* Below London Bridge we have Greenwich, and other beautiful scenery of the county of Kent. The opposite bank on the Essex side is flat, and is famed for nothing but Tilbury Fort, where Elizabeth, when the Spanish Armada threatened this country, reviewed her troops who were collected to repel the invaders. THE NEW RIVER. During the reigns of queen Elizabeth and James I., acts of parliament were obtained for the better supplying of the metropolis with water: but the enterprise seemed too great for any individual, or even for the city collectively, to venture upon, until Mr. Hugh Middleton, a native of Denbigh, and goldsmith of London, offered to begin the work. The Court of Common Council accepted his offer; and having vested him with ample powers, this gentleman, with a spirit equal to the importance of the undertaking, at his own risk and charge began the work. He had not proceeded far, when innumerable and unforeseen difficulties presented themselves. The art of civil engineering was then little understood in this country, and he experienced many obstructions from the occupiers and proprietors of the lands through which he was under the necessity of conducting this stream. The distance of the springs of Amwell and Chadwell, whence the water was to be brought, is twenty miles from London; but it was found necessary, in order to avoid the eminences and valleys in the way, to make it run a course of more than thirtyeight miles. "The depth of the trench," says Stow, "in some places, descended full thirty feet, if not more; whereas, in other places, it required as sprightful arte againe to mount it over a valley, in a trough betweene a couple of hills, and the trough all the while borne up by wooden arches, some of them fixed in the ground very deepe, and rising in height above twenty-three foot." The industrious projector soon found himself so harassed and impeded by interested persons in Middlesex and Hertfordshire, that he was obliged to solicit a prolongation of the time to accomplish his undertaking. This the city granted, but they refused to interest themselves in this great and useful work, although Mr. Middleton was quite impoverished by it. then applied, with more success, to the king himself; who, upon a moiety of the concern being made over to him, agreed to pay *See Richmond. He |