the way in which the citizens in 1516 took the law into their own hands in this matter:

Before this time the towns about London, as Islyngton, Hoxston, Shordysh, and other, had so enclosed the common fields with hedges and ditches, that nother the young men of the City might shoot, nor the auncient persones might walk for ther pleasure in the fields, except either ther bowes and arrowes were broken or taken away, or the honest and substanciall persons arrested or indited, saying that "No Londoner should go out of the Cytee but in the highways." This saying sore greued the Londoners, and sodainly this year a great number of the city assembled them selfes in a morning and a turner in a fool's cotte came crying through the city, "Shovels and Spades," and so many people followed that it was wonder, and within a short space all the hedges about the towns [Islington, Hoxton, Shoredith, etc.], were cast down, and the ditches filled, and everything made plain, the workmen were so diligent.-Hall's Chronicles, 1548, reprint, p. 568.

Hearing of the tumult the King's Council assembled at the Grayfriars, and summoned the mayor and aldermen to explain the cause, when, being fully informed, "they dissimuled the matter, and commanded the mayor to see that no other thing were attempted, and to call home the citizens;" which being done, Mayor and Council departed their several ways, and Hall concludes, "so after the fields were never hedged." Stow, however, writing fifty years later, tells us (p. 159) that they were "in worse case than ever, by means of inclosure for gardens, wherin are built many fair summer-houses." Still they were in the main open fields. "Ayme for Finsburie Archers, or an Alphabeticall Table of the names of every mark within the same Fields, with their due distances, both by the Map, and Dimensuration by the Line. Published for the ease of the Skilfull and Behoofe of the younge beginners in the famous exercise of archerie. By L.L. and E.B. To be sold at the sign of the Swan in Grub Street by F. Sergeaunt, London, 1594." Pepys in 1667 was able to walk across the fields to Kingsland, and found them "very pleasant" and so they remained some way into the 18th century. Indeed, as late as 1792, the Artillery Company claimed and enforced their right of uses over Finsbury Fields as far as Baumes Pond to the north, Hoxton to the east, and Islington to the west, wherein any of their marks were placed, and to remove every obstruction to the company's rights." While the fields were yet open they were marked out for the use of archers with wooden posts (bearing a crest on the top) and butts for target or standing practice, and stone pillars or rovers, for shooting at distances, long practice, or roving. Twenty-four of these rovers were standing in 1737 ; and as recently as 1857 one might still be seen in situ, at the end of Dorchester Street, Hoxton.2

1 Archæologia, vol. vii. p. 68. A list of the butts existing in Finsbury Fields in 1601 is printed in vol. iv. of the Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries. A very early map of Finsbury Fields in the possession of the Hon. Artillery Company is engraved in Highmore's History of the Artillery Company, and a chart of Finsbury Fields in the volume of the Archæologia above cited. The still open character of

the fields is shown in Strype's Maps, 1721.

2 Tomline, Yseldon, p. 153. Mr Tomline adds that another "is fixed and preserved in the brickwork of the Canal Bridge [New North Road], above the towing-path or south-side of the Canal, bearing the inscription Scarlet," for every rover had its name, though it was not always engraven on it.

The King is into Finsbury Field
Marching in battle array

And after follows Robin Hood

And all his yeomen gay.

Ballad of Robin Hood and Queen Katherine.

Although that foxes have been seen there seelde

Yet was there lately [one] in Finsbery Feelde.-JOHN HEYWOOD.

Each with solemn oath agree

To meet in Fields of Finsburie

With loynes in canvas bow-case tied,
Where arrows stick with mickle pride;
With hats pinned up and bow in hand

All day most fiercely there they stand.

Sir Wm. Davenant, The Long Vacation in London.

May 12, 1667.-[After dining with his wife at an ordinary in Covent Garden.] Walked over the fields to Kingsland and back again; a walk, I think, I have not taken these twenty years; but puts me in mind of my boy's time, when I boarded at Kingsland, and used to shoot with my bow and arrows in these fields. A very pretty place it is.-Pepys.

In May 1642 the Houses of Parliament resolved "That on the tenth of May, they would have all the trained bands of London mustered in the fields, where that exercise usually was performed; and accordingly, on that day, their own new officer, Sergeant-Major-General Skippon, appeared in Finsbury Fields, with all the trained bands of London, consisting of above eight thousand soldiers, disposed into six regiments, and under such captains and colonels as they had cause to confide in. At this first triumphant muster, the members of both Houses appeared in gross, there being a tent purposely set up for them, and an entertainment at the charge of the . City to the value of near a thousand pounds."-Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, ed. 1826, B. v. pp. 426, 427.

Finsbury Market, a wretched place, which was rebuilt as workshops for Messrs. Waterlow and Sons in 1874.

Finsbury Park, HORNSEY, formed and named by the Metropolitan Board of Works, lies outside the limits of this work, but as from its name it may be looked for here, a brief notice is given of it. The name "is a foolish misnomer. The site has always been known as Hornsey Wood; Finsbury lies miles away, with Holloway, Highbury, Islington, and Hoxton intervening; and it tends to the confusion of local tradition, historical records, and topographical accuracy thus to obliterate, or transfer and confound local names of well-defined and long-standing usage."1 Hornsey Wood and Hornsey Wood House were cleared away in 1866 for the formation of Finsbury Park, which was opened in 1869. It cost £95,000, and contains about 120 acres.

I, the present writer, have an hereditary right to know where Finsbury is, and I know that it is not where Hornsey Wood House was, nor around the Lake where I have fished in.-Shirley Brooks.

Finsbury Square (6 acres) was laid and carried out by the younger Dance, the west side in 1777, the north in 1789, the east in 1790, and the south in 1791.

1 Thome's Handbook of Environs of London, vol. i. p. 365.

April 18, 1783.—Mrs. Burney wondered that some very beautiful new buildings should be erected in Moorfields, in so shocking a situation as between Bedlam and St. Luke's Hospital; and said she could not live there.

Johnson. Nay, Madam, you see nothing there to hurt you. You no more think of madness by having windows that look to Bedlam, than you think of death by having windows that look to a churchyard. I think a very moral use may be made

of these new buildings; I would have those who have heated imaginations live there, and take warning.—Croker's Boswell, p. 72.

Walker, in his Original (No. 19, September 23, 1835), says that Finsbury Square was the first public place lighted with gas. A row of lamps had been previously displayed, as an experiment, in the Colonnade in front of Carlton House.

Fish Street (Old), Ward of Queenhithe, is described in 1708 as a considerable and pleasant street between Bread Street east and Old 'Change west."1 The eastern portion of Old Fish Street was swept away in forming Queen Victoria Street, and the remainder absorbed in Knight-Rider Street. The Church of St. Mary Magdalen on the north, and that of St. Nicholas, Cole Abbey, on the south side of KnightRider Street, were both in Old Fish Street before the name was changed.

In this Old Fish Street is one row of small houses, placed along in the midst of Knightrider's Street, which row is also of Bread Street Ward. These houses, now possessed by fishmongers, were at the first but moveable boards or stalls, set out on market-days, to show their fish there to be sold; but procuring license to set up sheds, they grew to shops, and by little and little to tall houses of three or four stories in height, and now are called Fish Street.-Stow, p. 129.

Old Fish Street was very early one of the chief centres of the fish trade in London, Old Fish Street and Old Fish Street Hill, which runs from it to the Thames, with Queenhithe as their landing-quay, forming the western fish-market of London before Billingsgate supplanted Queenhithe and became the only fish-market. In the Statutes and Ordinance of the Fishmongers, 8 Edward I. (1280), it is provided that in respect of penalties for certain fraudulent proceedings, as the "dubbing" of baskets, etc., "this matter is to be cried at London Bridge, and in Eldefistrate [Old Fish Street], and elsewhere in the City where need shall be." There are to be two Hallmotes of fishmongers in the year for the recapitulating and amending the laws of the trade; the one against the Feast of St. Martin, and the other against Lent; "to which Hallmote shall come all the fishmongers who belong to the hallmote of the one fishmongery and the other. . . . And one Hallmote shall be holden at the Bridge and the other at Westfistrete, and all shall come to the one Hallmote and the other," and any making default "shall give 21 pence without release of aught or any pardon being granted."2 Old Fish Street was noted for its taverns. There is a tavern token of the King's Head in Old Fish Street with the head of Henry VII. upon it, and in the Beaufoy Collection, Guildhall, is a similar token of the Will Somers Tavern, in Old Fish Street, with the 1 Hatton, p. 60. 2 Liber Albus, p. 327.

figure of Will Somers, Henry VIII.'s jester, upon it. Another tavern in this street had the head of Cardinal Wolsey for its sign.

He [Wolsey] had a very stately cellar for his wines, about Fish Street, called Cardinal Wolsey's cellar.-Aubrey's Lives, vol. iii. p. 588.

The Bore's Head and the Swan, Old Fish Street, are among the taverns commemorated in Newes from Bartholomew Fayre for their

great sale and utterance of wine,

Besides beere and ale, and ippocrass fine.

Of both these taverns there are tokens in the Beaufoy Collection. Tavern tokens were issued in the reign of Charles I., and not later than the reign of Charles II. In course of time the Old Fish Street Taverns became celebrated, as Billingsgate taverns were subsequently, for their fish dinners.

Sir Lancelot. Let's meet at the King's Head in Fish Street.

Oliver. No, fie man, no, let's meet at the Rose at Temple Bar.-London Prodigal, 1605, Act ii. Sc. 4.

August 6, 1666.-Sent for a coach, and went with them [Mr. and Mrs. Pierce and Mrs. Knipp]; and in our way Knipp saying that she come out of doors without a dinner to us, I took them to Old Fish Streete, to the very house and woman where I kept my wedding-dinner, where I never was since, and there I did give them a jole of salmon, and what else was to be had.-Pepys.

Locke the philosopher, in his Directions to a Foreigner visiting London, 1699, advises him to "Eat fish in Fish Street, especially lobsters, Colchester oysters, and a fresh cod's head."1 Old Fish Street, before its destruction in the Great Fire, was very narrow, but was rebuilt on somewhat better lines.

Oh! the goodly landscape of Old Fish Street! which, if it had not the ill-luck to be crooked, was narrow enough to have been your founder's perspective; and where the garrets, perhaps not for want of architecture, but through abundance of amity, are so narrow, that opposite neighbours may shake hands without stirring from home.Sir William Davenant.

Fish Street Hill, sometimes called New Fish Street,2 runs from East Cheap to Lower Thames Street, and was the main thoroughfare to old London Bridge.

Cade. Up Fish Street! down St. Magnus' corner! kill and knock down! throw them into Thames.-Shakespeare, second part of King Henry VI.

King's Head Court, a little below the monument, marks the site of the King's Head Tavern, haunted by roysterers, and famous for its wine. The black-letter tract, called Newes from Bartholomew Fayre, mentions the "King's Head in New Fish Street where roysters do range." (See also the Household Expenses of Sir John Howard under the years 1463 and 1464.)

Here was the Inn of the Bishops of Hereford. [See St. Mary Mounthaunt.] The inn was repaired at great cost by Bishop Booth

1 Lord King's Life of John Locke, p. 134. 2 Hatton's New View, p. 59.

3 Ben Jonson's Magnetic Lady (Gifford, vol.

vi. p. 67).

(d. 1535).1 Bell Yard (so called from the Black Bell described by Stow in the following extract) stood over against the monument, and was taken down to allow of the new London Bridge improvements.

Above Crooked Lane end, upon Fish Street Hill, is one great house for the most part built of stone, which pertained some time to Edward the Black Prince, son of Edward III., who was in his lifetime lodged there. It is now altered to a common hostelry, having the Black Bell for a sign.-Stow, p. 81.

Before it was destroyed in the Great Fire, Fish Street Hill was inconveniently and even dangerously steep, but the gradient was much improved when it was reconstructed.

November 15, 1661.-To the Opera. And so by coach home, and the coach driving down the hill through Thames Street (which I think never any coach did before from that place to the Bridge-foot), but going up Fish Street Hill, his horses were so tired that they could not be got to go up the hill, though all the street boys and men did beat and whip them. At last I was fain to send my boy for a linke, and so light out of the coach till we got to another at the corner of Fenchurch Street, and so home.-Pepys.

August 22, 1668.-To the 'Change, and thence home, and took London Bridge in my way; walking down Fish Street and Gracious Street, to see how very fine a descent they have now made down the Hill, that it is become very easy and pleasant. -Pepys.

Distinguished by the Church of St. Magnus (one of Wren's architectural glories), the Monument (another of his works), and the churchyard of St. Leonard, Eastcheap, a church destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt. As befits its name, Fish Street Hill has, especially in the lower part, "a very ancient and fish-like smell." Writing from Paris, Campbell the poet describes his lodgings as "in a street which makes me long for the silence of the Strand, and the smell of Fish Street Hill." 2

Fisher's Folly, DEVONSHIRE SQUARE, BISHOPSGATE STREET.

A large and beautiful house, with gardens of pleasure, bowling alleys, and such like, built by Jasper Fisher, free of the goldsmiths, late one of the six clerks of the Chauncerie, and a Justice of the Peace. It hath since for a time been the Earl of Oxford's place. The Queen's Majesty Elizabeth hath lodged there. It now belongeth to Sir Roger Manars. This house being so large and sumptuous, built by a man of no greater calling, possessions, or wealth (for he was indebted to many), was mockingly called Fisher's Folly, and a rhythm was made of it, and other the like in this manner :

Kirkebye's castell, and Fisher's Follie,

Spinila's pleasure, and Megse's glorie.-Stow, p. 62.

In the reign of James I. it had become the property first of the Campbells and then of the Hamiltons.

January 10, 1615.-The Lord of Argyle's house, called Fisher's Folly, offered to the E. I. Company-held unfit for their service.-Cal. E. Indies, p. 368. March 1625.-Marquis Hamilton is dead of a pestilent fever. His body was carried with much company and torchlights to Fisher's Folly, his house without Bishopsgate, thence to go to Scotland.—Cal. State Pap., 1623-1625, p. 497.

1 Cooper, Ath. Cant., vol. i. p. 52.

2 Beattie, Life and Letters of Thomas Campbell, vol. ii. p. 257.