Street. The Church of St. Mildred, Bread Street, is on the east side, a little lower down. [See Mermaid Tavern.]

✓ Bread Street Compter.

Now on the west side of Bread Street, amongst divers fair and large houses for merchants, and fair inns for passengers, had ye one prison-house pertaining to the Sheriffs of London, called the Compter in Bread Street; but in the year 1555 the prisoners were removed from thence to one other new Compter in Wood Street, provided by the City's purchase, and built for that purpose.—Stow, p. 131.

Item.—the xxvij day of September [1555] was the Counter in Bred strete removyd into Wood strete.-Greyfriars Chronicle, p. 96.

By statute of the 1st Henry V. [1413, but entered in the Liber Albus at a later date] it was ordained that "the Compters from henceforth shall not be to ferm let [let to farm] by any Sheriff, or by any other person in their name, unto the porters of such Compters, or unto any other officer of the Sheriffs; but that the Sheriffs shall be bound to bear the charge of the rent, candles, and other such costs as the porters of the Compters have borne in time past, by reason of their ferm.

Item.-that prisoners who are staying in the Compters shall pay nothing for their customary fees unto the porters, or unto the Sheriffs, for one night by reason of their so staying in the said Compter, save only for a bed, one penny the first night.-And if such person shall wish in preference to stay in the Compter rather than go to Neugate or to Ludgate, whether for debt, trespass, or any other cause, felony and treason excepted, in such case it shall be fully lawful for the said Sheriffs to leave such prisoners in the Compter for their comfort, they paying to the use of the said Sheriffs four pence, six pence, eight pence, or twelve pence per week, each person, towards the rent of the said house, without more; and this by assessment of the clerks of the Compter, who shall take into consideration their arrest and also their estate." The prisoner might "have his own bed there, if," as is very considerately added, "he have one," otherwise the porter may find him a bed, " taking each night one penny for the same, as the manner is in all lodging-houses." And "neither porter, nor any other officer of the Compter shall sell unto the prisoners bread, ale, charcoal, firewood, or any other provisions whatsoever, under pain of imprisonment and of paying a fine, at the discretion of the Mayor and Aldermen, except [and the exception is worth noting] by measure and at a reasonable price.”—Liber Albus, P. 447.

The Borough Compter was farmed until it was burned in the fire of 1676.

Bread Street Hill, the southern extension of Bread Street, from Queen Victoria Street to Upper Thames Street. The burial-ground on the west side is that of St. Nicholas Olave, a church in the ward of Queenhithe, destroyed in the Great Fire and not rebuilt. Dr. Dee's Letter to King James, 1603, was "printed by E. Short, dwelling on Brede Streete Hill, neere to the end of old Fish Streete, at the signe of the Starre."

Breakneck Steps (or Stairs), a former narrow court with a steep ascent from Fleet Street to the Old Bailey, opposite the Session House. Lord Macaulay, in his Memoir of Goldsmith, says that soon after settling in London "Goldsmith took a garret in a miserable court, to which he had to climb from the brink of Fleet Ditch by a dizzy ladder of flagstones. The court and the ascent have long disappeared; but old Londoners well remember both." When Macaulay wrote "the court and the ascent" were both in existence, though some

what ameliorated in character, but in recent changes both have disappeared. In Goldsmith's time, when the court was only lighted with oil, if lighted at all, it must on dark nights have well merited its name. There was another court named Breakneck Steps, on St. Andrew's Hill, but it presented a much less dangerous appearance.

Brecknock Road, HOLLOWAY, formerly Maiden Lane, named after the second title of the Marquis Camden. The Brecknock Arms formerly had tea gardens attached to it. On July 1, 1843, a fatal duel was fought in a field at the back of the Brecknock between Colonel Fawcett and Lieutenant Munro, when the former was so severely wounded that he died two days afterwards.

Bretask (The), by the Tower; (Fr. bretèche, a bartizan-fortified place), seems to have been a magazine for warlike stores, built by Edward III. in the immediate neighbourhood of the Tower of London, in anticipation of the Continental wars.

13 Edward III. (1339).—Be it remembered that in the house called La Bretaske, near the Tower of London, there are 7 springalds [instruments for casting stones, arrows, etc.] and 380 quarels [arrows with square heads], for the same, feathered with latone [laten, a hard brass], and with heads; and 500 quarels, feathered, of wood, with heads, and 29 cords, called strenges. Also 8 bowes of ash for the same springalds. Also, at Alegate, namely, beyond the gate thereof, one springald with two strenges, and one faussecord for the same. Also 40 quarels, feathered with latone and headed with iron. Also, in the chamber of the Guildhall, there are six instruments of latone, usually called gonnes, and five roleres to the same. Also pellets of lead for the same instruments, which weigh four hundred-weight and a half. Also 32 pounds of powder for the said instruments.1-Riley's Memorials, p. 204.

In the same year is another entry for expenses incurred in "driving piles in the water of Thames and making a certain house called the Bretask near the Tower of London." In the Liber Albus (B. iv.) is an entry of a "Composition between the Citizens of London and Richard de Basyngstoke, as to a certain Lane, called Bretask,” no doubt so called from its leading to the "house called La Bretaske, near the Tower of London."

Brewer Street, GOLDEN SQUARE, leads from Great Windmill Street to Warwick Street. Built circ. 1679. Esquire Sherwood, from whom "Sherwood Street" adjoining derives its name, was living here in 1680; and in 1683 Mons. Foubert, from whom Foubert Place derives its name. In 1765 David Hume desires a letter to be sent to him at "Miss Elliot's, Brewer Street, Golden Square." He was also there in 1767. The Chevalier D'Eon dates his advertisement entreating the People of England "not to renew any policies on his sex," "Brewer Street, Golden Square, November 11, 1775." The validity of one of these policies was tried before Lord Mansfield,

1 The last part of this entry is of so much importance that it is worth while to give the original Latin words: "Item: in Camera Gildaulæ sunt sex Instrumenta de latone, vocitata

gonnes, et quinque roleres ad eadem. Item, peletæ de plumbo pro eisdem Instrumentis, quæ pouderant iiii libræ et dimidium. Item, xxxii libræ de pulvere pro dictis Instrumentis."

July 1, 1777. Nancy Parsons and the Duke of Grafton had “a quiet house" in this street.1 George Dawe, R.A., the portrait painter, was born here, February 8, 1781. Before Nelson embarked for the last time he went to Peddieson's, the undertaker, in Brewer Street, where he kept his Aboukir coffin, and gave instructions respecting it.2

Brewer Street, PIMLICO, derives its name from the Stag Brewery, formerly belonging to Messrs. Elliot and Co. Sir Henry Elliot, K.C.B., Lord Dalhousie's Foreign Secretary, and Editor of the Muhammedan Historians of India, was of this family, and was born at Pimlico Lodge in 1808. Within the enclosure was the London residence of Richard Heber, his books being visible from the outside, piled in heaps from floors to ceilings.

Brewers' Hall, 18 ADDLE STREET, WOOD STREET, CHEAPSIDE, the Hall of the Brewers, the fourteenth on the list of the City Companies. The Guild was of very early foundation, and its records. are among the most ancient and most interesting, for the illustrations they afford of the habits and customs of the citizens of London, of any of the City Companies. Originally kept in Norman French, it was, by a formal resolution passed in the reign of Henry V., decided that henceforth should "be noted down in our mother tongue the needful things which concern us." The Company was incorporated 16th of Henry VI. (1438), and confirmed 19th of Edward IV., by the name of St. Mary and St. Thomas the Martyr, and again by Elizabeth (1562 and 1579) and by Charles I. (1639); and James II. gave a new charter in 1685. The hall was destroyed in the Great Fire and rebuilt shortly after. It is spacious, and stands in a large courtyard, to which there is a handsome entrance in Addle Street.. The hall was repaired in 1828, under W. F. Pocock, architect. The court-room was wainscoted in 1670. The houses in front were rebuilt about 1875.

Brick Court, DEAN'S YARD, WESTMINSTER. John Gadbury, "student in Physic and Astrology," pupil and successor of William Lilly, and a well-known almanac-maker, lived here for some years. He quarrelled with his master and called him an impostor. He died in 1704, and was buried in St. Margaret's, Westminster.

Brick Court, MIDDLE TEMPLE, leading from Middle Temple Lane to New Court and Essex Street: so called from its being one of the earliest erected brick buildings in the Temple; erected in the eleventh year of Elizabeth's reign, at the expense of Thomas Daniel, Treasurer. Spenser, the poet, speaks of those "bricky towers where "whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide." Eminent Inhabitants. ---Oliver Goldsmith, in "No. 2, up two pair of stairs," for so Mr. Filby, his tailer, describes him. His rooms were on the right hand

1 Grenville Corr., vol. iv. p. 276.

2 Despatches, vol. vii. p. 35, note. 3 Herbert's Inns of Court and Chancery, 1804, p. 244.

on ascending the staircase, and here he died, April 4, 1774. Speaking of rooks, he says:

---

I have often amused myself with observing their plan of policy from my window in the Temple, that looks upon a grove, where they have made a colony in the midst of the City. At the commencement of Spring the rookery, which, during the continuance of Winter, seemed to have been deserted, or only guarded by five or six, like old soldiers in a garrison, now begins to be once more frequented; and in a short time all the bustle and hurry of business is fairly commenced.-Goldsmith's Animated Nature, vol. v. p. 231.

I was in his chambers in Brick Court the other day. The bedroom is a closet without any light in it. It quite pains one to think of the kind old fellow dying off there. There is some good carved work in the rooms; and one can fancy him with General Oglethorpe and Topham Beauclerc, and the fellow coming with the screw of tea and sugar. What a fine picture Leslie would make of it!-Thackeray to Forster, Life of Goldsmith, vol. ii. p. 423, note.

Thackeray himself had chambers at No. 2 in 1855.

I have been many a time in the chambers in the Temple which were his, and passed up the staircase, which Johnson, and Burke, and Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind Goldsmith-the stair on which the poor women sat weeping bitterly when they heard that the greatest and most generous of all men was dead within the black oak door.-Thackeray's English Humourists: Sterne and Goldsmith.

Sir William Blackstone below Goldsmith, on the first floor. He had sung "The Lawyer's Farewell to his Muse," and was busy with his legal studies before Goldsmith took the floor above him. H. Mackworth Praed died in this house in 1839. There was a dial in this Court with the motto, "Time and Tide tarry for no Man." The motto was once, as Ned Ward assures us, "Begone about your Business," the burden of an indecent ballad printed by Ward in his London Spy. Edward Capell (1713-1781), the editor of Shakespeare, died in this Court. The whole north side (No. 4) has been entirely rebuilt, but the sun-dial has been replaced.

Brick Lane, now CENTRAL STREET, ST. LUKE'S, runs from the north side of Old Street, opposite Golden Lane, to the City Road. Here was the site of one of the Long Parliament's fortifications, "a redoubt with two flanks."

Brick Lane, SPITALFIELDS, runs from Osborne Street, Whitechapel, to the Bethnal Green Road. It is nearly three-quarters of a mile long; Hatton (1708) calls it "the longest lane in London." It consists mostly of small shops, but about half-way up, between Brown's Lane and Spicer Street and stretching far back on both sides of the way, is the great brewery of Messrs. Truman, Hanbury, and Buxton.

Brick Street, MAY FAIR, was built before that part of Piccadilly which runs parallel with it was planned.

Bricklayers' Arms, OLD KENT ROAD, a famous tavern and coach-office at the corner of Bermondsey New Road and the Old Kent Road, probably of considerable antiquity as a wayside inn. Its imortance has, however, much diminished since the introduction of

railways; but it has given its name to the great terminal goods station of the South Eastern Railway on the same side of the Old Kent Road. The inn has been recently rebuilt, and in the necessary excavations some interesting objects in pottery, glass, etc., were discovered.

Bricklayers' Hall, LEADENHALL STREET. The bricklayers were an ancient fraternity, but were not incorporated till the 10th of Elizabeth (1568), when they were united with the tilers under the name of the Worshipful Company of Tilers and Bricklayers. The Hall, in a court, No. 52, on the south side of Leadenhall Street, was known as Bricklayers' Hall; it was long ago disused by the Company, and was for many years employed as a Jewish synagogue. It was then leased to the City of London College, and called SUSSEX HALL. Sussex House, consisting of offices, is now numbered 52.

Bride's (St.), or, ST. BRIDGET's, a church on the south side of FLEET STREET, in the ward of Farringdon Without.

Then is the parish church of St. Bridges or Bride, of old time a small thing, which now remaineth to be the choir, but since increased with a large body and side-aisles towards the west, at the charges of William Venor, esquire, Warden of the Fleet, about the year 1480.-Stow, p. 147.

This church was destroyed in the Great Fire, and the present building, one of Sir C. Wren's architectural glories, was erected in its stead, and was ready for service in 1680; further embellished in 1699; and the tower and spire added in 1701-1703, when the whole church was completed at the cost of £11,430. The spire, as left by Wren, was 234 feet in height, but on June 18, 1764, it was struck with lightning, and otherwise so seriously injured that it was judged advisable to reduce it 8 feet. The interior is much admiredless airy perhaps than St. James's, Piccadilly, but extremely elegant. The church was repaired in 1875. Its length is 111 feet, breadth 57 feet, height 41 feet. The great east window of painted glass (a copy from Rubens's Descent from the Cross) was the work of Mr. Muss. The right of presentation belongs to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. So completely was the noble building shut in by houses that from the street the body of it was altogether invisible, and the spire could only be seen by going to Blackfriars Bridge. On November 14, 1824, a fire occurred in Fleet Street and opened a vista, which the public spirit of the citizens, especially of Sheriff Blades of Highgate Hill, who provided a large proportion of the amount required, decided should not be closed again, and under the direction of Mr. J. B. Papworth, architect, the present St. Bride's Avenue was formed. The improvement was very great, but it did not give pleasure to all. Flaxman, our great sculptor, speaking at this time to H. Crabb Robinson, said, "It is an ugly thing and better hid." His objection extended to every steeple attached to a Grecian building-except that of Bow Church. Alex. Legh was presented to the rectory in 1471 by the abbot and convent of Westminster.1

1 Cooper's Ath. Cant., vol. i. p. 520.