The accounts

Henry III. The last teller was the Marquis Camden. were kept in tallies, or notched sticks. The annual nomination of sheriffs was in modern times the only occasion on which the Chancellor took his seat in the Court of Exchequer. The Court of Exchequer was practically abolished by the Supreme Court of Judicature Acts (1873, 1877). By an order in Council which came into force on February 29, 1881, the then Common Law Divisions were consolidated into one, to be called the Queen's Bench Division, and the Offices of Chief-Justice of the Common Pleas and Lord-Chief-Baron were abolished.

Exchequer (The), a coffee-house so called, situated at the northwest angle of Westminster Hall. In the Gardner Collection there is an old water-colour drawing carefully executed, in which it is called "Oliver's Coffee-house."

Excise Office (The), OLD BROAD STREET, built from the designs of William Robinson, architect, in 1769, on the site of Gresham College, was a very noble though unornamented stone structure of four storeys. It was sold by auction in 1853 for £136,044, and taken down shortly after. The site was shortly afterwards covered with vast ranges of offices, called Gresham House, reaching back nearly to Bishopsgate Street, from the designs of Sir William Tite and E. N. Clifton, architects.

The duty of excise was first introduced into this country by an ordinance of Parliament of July 22, 1643, when an impost was laid upon beer, ale, wine, and other provisions, for carrying on a war against the King. The first Excise Office was in Smithfield.

June 24, 1647.-Order for pulling down the new Excise House in Smithfield, to which work many people gladly resorted, and carry'd away the materials. -Whitelocke

In 1680 the office was in "Old Cockaine House," and before its removal to Old Broad Street, in Sir John Frederick's house, now Frederick Place, Old Jewry. Since 1848 it has been in Somerset House, in what is called the Inland Revenue Office.

Execution Dock, WAPPING IN THE EAST, on the left bank of the Thames, just below Wapping New Stairs, described by Stow as "the usual place of execution for hanging of pirates and sea-rovers at the lowwater mark, and there to remain till three tides had overflowed them."1

Also this yere [18 Hen. VI.] were two bargemen hanged in Tempse, beyownde seynt Katerine's, for scleying of iij Flemynges and a child, beyng in a schip in Tempse of there contre; and there they hengen til the water had wasted them be ebbyng and flowyd, so the water bett upon them.-Chron. of London, edited by Sir Harris Nicolas, p. 125.

Bubble. But what will you do at sea?

Staines. Why as other gallants do that are spent, turn pirate.

Bubble. O, Master, have the grace of Wapping before your eyes, remember a high tide; give not your friends cause to wet their handkerchiefs. My Master, I'll tell you a better course than so: you and I will go and rob my uncle; if we 'scape we'll

domineer together; if we be taken we'll be hanged together at Tyburn: that's the warmer gallows of the two.—Greene's Tu Quoque.

There are inferior gallowses which bear

(According to the season) twice a year :

And there's a kind of waterish Tree at Wapping,
Whereas sea-thieves, or Pirates are catch'd napping.1

Taylor (the Water Poet), Description of Tyburn, Works, vol. iii. p. 134.

In Fortune by Land and Sea, a tragi-comedy by Thomas Heywood and William Rowley (4to, 1655), a scene near Execution Dock" describes the fate of two pirates, called Purser and Clinton :—

Purser. How many captains, that have aw'd the seas,

Shall fall on this unfortunate piece of land

Some that commanded islands; some to whom
The Indian mines paid tribute, the Turk vail'd !

But now our sun is setting; night comes on;
The wat❜ry wilderness in which we reign'd,
Proves in our ruins peaceful. Merchants trade
Fearless abroad as in the river's mouth,
And free as in a harbour. Then, fair Thames,
Queen of fresh water, famous through the world,
And not the least through us, whose double tides
Must overflow our bodies; and being dead

May thy clear waves our scandals wash away,

But keep our valours living.

On March 23, 1701, was hung in chains Captain William Kidd, the celebrated pirate, commemorated in a once popular ballad ::

My name is Captain Kidd,

When I sail'd when I sail'd, etc.2

He had been sent to the Indian Seas to extirpate pirates, but instead of executing his commission he joined the pirates. To "take a turn with Captain Kidd" occurs in D'Urfey's prologue to The Bath or the Western Lass, 4to, 1701.

March 14, 1735.-Williams the pirate was hang'd at Execution Dock; and afterwards in chains at Bugsby's Hole, near Black wall.-Gentleman's Magazine for 1735.

The most complete account we have of an execution at Execution Dock is the following:—

February 4, 1796.-This morning, a little after ten o'clock, Colley, Cole, and Blanche, the three sailors convicted of the murder of Captain Little, were brought out of Newgate, and conveyed in solemn procession to Execution Dock, there to receive the punishment awarded by law. On the cart on which they rode was an elevated stage; on this were seated Colley, the principal instigator in the murder, in the middle, and his two wretched instruments, the Spaniard Blanche, and the Mulatto Cole, on each side of him; and behind, on another seat, two executioners. Colley seemed in a state resembling that of a man stupidly intoxicated, and scarcely awake, and the two others discovered little sensibility on the occasion, nor to the last moment of their existence did they, as we hear, make any confession. They were

1 In his Three Weeks Observations and Travels, Taylor, speaking of the Hamburgh executioner, says that in comparison "our Wap

ping wind-pipe stretcher is but a ragamuffin, not worth the hanging."

2 Scott's Misc. Prose Works, vol. xx. p. 241.

turned off about a quarter before twelve, in the midst of an immense crowd of spectators, notwithstanding the heaviness of the rain at the time. On the way to the place of execution they were preceded by the Marshal of the Admiralty in his carriage, the Deputy Marshal bearing the silver oar, and the two City Marshals on horseback, a number of Marshals men, Sheriffs officers, etc. The whole cavalcade was conducted with great solemnity: in the afternoon the three bodies were brought back to Surgeons Hall, there to be dissected pursuant to the sentence of the Court of Admiralty. Had it been a case of piracy, they would have been hanged in chains. -Gentleman's Magazine for 1796.

Hannah Lightfoot, the supposed Quaker mistress, or "left-handed wife" of George III., was the daughter of a respectable tradesman (a shoemaker) by Execution Dock.1

Exeter 'Change, in the STRAND, stood where Burleigh Street now stands, and extended into the main road, so that the foot thoroughfare of one side of the Strand ran directly through it; this was only open however in the daytime, the gates being closed at night. From an incidental notice in Barry's Lecture of December 1792 we learn that the Strand at this point was nine paces between the edges of the footways. In the stone architrave above the window at the east end of the building was the inscription Exeter 'Change, 1676.2 Delaune, in 1681 (p. 160), speaks of it as lately built.

This Exchange contains two walks below stairs, and as many above, with shops on each side for sempsters, milliners, hosiers, etc., the builders judging it would come in great request; but it received a check in its infancy, I suppose by those of the New Exchange, so that instead of growing in better esteem, it became worse and worse; insomuch that the shops in the first walk next the street can hardly meet with tenants, those backwards lying useless, and those above converted to other uses. -R. B., in Strype, B. iv. p. 119.

Later there were book-stalls among the standings of miscellaneous dealers. Robert Bloomfield in a letter to "Catherine Bloomfield, Metford, Norfolk," dated January 31, 1802, says, "Last night in passing through Exeter 'Change, I stopt at a book-stall and observed the Farmer's Boy laying there for sale, and the new book too, marked with very large writing, Bloomfield's Rural Tales: a young man took it up, and I observed he read the whole of the preface through, and perhaps little thought that the author stood at his elbow."

The rooms above were hired for offices by the managers of the Land Bank, and subsequently let for general purposes. The body of the poet Gay lay in state in the upper room of Exeter 'Change; and when Dodsley drew up his London, in 1761, "the large room above was used for auctions." In January 1772 the remains of Lord Baltimore, who had died abroad, lay in state in the great room of Exeter 'Change, and on the 22nd were removed for interment in the family vault at Epsom. His lordship was very unpopular, and directly the body was removed, the mob broke in and plundered the room. In the Gardner Collection is an old card inscribed "Polito's menagerie, Exeter Change,"

87.

1 Notes and Queries, 1st. S., vol. viii. p.

2 J. H. Burn in Gentleman's Magazine, November 1853, p. 487.

and in the early part of the present century the proprietor was a well-known man named Clark. The last tenant of the upper rooms was Mr. Cross, whose menagerie occupied "the entire range of the floor above Exeter 'Change ;" and here, in March 1826, Chunee, the famous elephant, was shot. An interesting account of the death of this elephant is given in Hone's Every-Day Book (vol. ii. p. 322). Thomas Hood, in his young days a frequent visitor to the menagerie, wrote a poetic "Address to Mr. Cross on the Death of the Elephant," and in it he records this animal's playfulness and sagacity, and adds, "And well he loved me till his life was done." Lord Byron, too, records a visit to Exeter 'Change "to see the tigers sup." "Such a conversazione! There was a hippopotamus like Lord Liverpool in the face; and the ursine sloth had the very voice and manner of my valet " (Fletcher).1 [See Surgeons, College of.] Exeter 'Change was taken down in the Strand improvements of 1829.2

Exeter Hall, in the STRAND, opened March 29, 1831, a large proprietary building on the north side of the Strand, designed by Mr. J. P. Gandy-Deering, at a cost of £30,000. The great hall (131 feet by 76 feet, and 54 feet high) will seat 3000 persons. It was let for the annual "May Meetings" of the several religious societies; and for the oratorios of the Sacred Harmonic Society, in which the unrivalled music of Handel was performed, with a fine band and a chorus of 700 voices accompanying it under the direction of Sir Michael Costa. With the season of 1879-1880 these performances terminated in Exeter Hall. In 1880 the lease of Exeter Hall was purchased for the Young Men's Christian Association for £25,000; five friends having contributed £5000 each for the purpose. The building was remodelled and in part rebuilt under the direction of Mr. A. R. Pite, architect, at a cost of £25,000, and opened by a public meeting on May 29, 1881, the "Jubilee Day" of the original opening. As rebuilt, Exeter Hall comprises the Great Hall, made lighter and brighter than the old hall, and with the galleries much larger; the Lower Hall (58 feet by 31 feet), is capable of seating over 800 persons. The ground floor, devoted to the business of the association, library, reading-room, and restaurant, and in the basement, lecture hall, several class-rooms, and large gymnasium.

Exeter House, Strand.

On the south side of the Strand on the

site of Essex Street stood for many years the town house of the Bishop of Exeter. It was built by Walter Stapylton, Bishop of Exeter, who was Lord Treasurer of England in the reign of Edward II.

Bishop Lacy added a great hall to the house in the reign of Henry VI.

[See Essex House.]

1 Byron's Works, ed. 1832, vol. ii. p. 256.

2 There is an admirable representation of old

Exeter 'Change drawn and engraved by George
Cooke.

Exeter House, in the STRAND, stood on the north side of the Strand, on the site of Burleigh Street and Exeter Street, and was so called after Thomas Cecil, Earl of Exeter, son of the great Lord Burleigh (d. 1622). In Burleigh's time the house was known as Cecil House and Burleigh House, and afterwards oscillated between Cecil House and Exeter House. [See Cecil House.] Lady Hatton was its occupant in 1617, in December of which year Sir Horace Vere writes to Carleton, "Lady Hatton feasted the King and Queen at Exeter House. Sir Edward Coke (the great lawyer, her husband) could not be admitted a guest, though the King desired it." In 1623, when the Infanta was expected to arrive in London as the bride of Prince Charles, with a brilliant train, King James borrowed Exeter House for the reception of a part of the suite. On this occasion the Earl (Cecil's grandson) wrote that he consented, though reluctantly, to give it up for two or three months, but that "he could not find it in his heart to bid those in it begone, especially Lord Denney," so he left it to the Lord Treasurer to "do as he pleased therein."1

June 17, 1623.-The Spanish Ambassador Extraordinary was brought from Gravesend to Greenwich, to an audience, in eight barges, and thence conveyed with many coaches to Exeter House, which is richly furnished for him.-Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 611.

Here you must observe that Queen Mary [Henrietta Maria] going to her own Chapel every Sunday, the English ladies must have some rendezvous where to meet to show their beauties, and braveries; and the fittest place was thought to be Exeter House, where the Duchess of Richmond then lay. And observing state, both in going to the closet, and coming thence after sermon, she had a cup of wine, and some small banquet to entertain the ladies, which gave them much content, and there was a great resort.-Bishop Godwin's Court of King James, vol. i. p. 392.

September 24, 1651.-The funeral of General Popham was accompanied from Exeter House, by the Speaker and Members of Parliament, the Lord General and Council of State, with great solemnity, to Westminster.- Whitelocke.

Evelyn went to London with his wife, he tells us, in 1657, to celebrate Christmas Day in Exeter Chapel, in the Strand, the chapel attached to Exeter House. When the sermon was ended, and the sacrament about to be administered, the chapel was surrounded with soldiers, and all the communicants and assembly surprised and kept prisoners; "but yet," he says, "suffering us to finish the office of communion, as perhaps not having instructions what to do in case they found us in that action." Evelyn was confined in a room in Exeter House, and in the afternoon Colonel Whaley, Goff, and others came from Whitehall and severally examined them. "When I came before them," says Evelyn, "they took my name and abode, examined me, why, contrary to an ordinance made, that none should any longer observe the superstitious time of the Nativity, I durst offend. Finding no colour to detain me," he adds, "they dismissed me with much pity of my ignorance." In Exeter House lived Anthony Ashley Cooper, the first Earl of Shaftesbury; and here, February 26, 1670-1671, his grandson, the author of The Characteristics, was born.

1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 561.