Girdlers' Hall, 39 BASINGHALL STREET, CITY, the hall of "The Master and Wardens or Keepers of the Art or Mystery of the Girdlers of London," a Company incorporated by Henry VI. in 1449, and confirmed by Queen Elizabeth in 1568, when the pinners and wire-drawers were incorporated with them. "They seem to have been," says Strype, "a fraternity of St. Laurence, because of the three gridirons, their arms;" but Mr. Thoms is of opinion, and those north country readers who know what a girdle-iron is will probably agree with him in thinking, that the gridirons or girdle-irons are borne with reference to the name of the Company.1 The hall, on the east side of Basinghall Street, was built, 1681-1682, in place of the hall destroyed in the Great Fire, and was restored and remodelled in 1878-1879. The entrance is by a handsome gateway, which forms the centre of a large block of warehouses and offices (of red brick and stone in the fashionable Queen Anne style), erected at the same time by the Company.

Glass House Alley, WHITEFRIARS and BLACKFRIARS.

One James Verselyn, a stranger, a Venetian, about the year 1580, or perhaps somewhat before, was the first that set up a Glass-house in London for making Venice Glasses; for which the Queen granted him a privilege under her Great Seal. But the Glass Sellers in London were much aggrieved at this, and showed the Lords of the Privy Council that it was the overthrow of fifty households using only the trade of selling of glasses. There was a Prohibition in the Patent, that none should sell such glasses but the said Verselyn only.-Strype, B. v. p. 240.

The first making of Venice Glasses in England began at the Crotched Friars in London, about the beginning of the raigne of Queene Elizabeth, by one Jacob Venalinie, an Italian.-Stow, by Howes, ed. 1631, p. 1040.

Like the glass-house furnace in Blackfriars, the bone-fires that are kept there never go out, inasmuch that all the inhabitants are almost broyled like carbonadoes with the sweating sickness.-Dekker, 1607; A Knight's Conjuring (Percy Soc.), p. 21. Is it because the Brethren's fires

Maintain a glass-house at Blackfryars?

Bishop Corbet (d. 1635), On Fairford Windows, Works, p. 237. February 23, 1668-1669.—To the Duke of York's playhouse, and there finding the play begun, we homeward to the Glass-house, and there showed my Cosins the making of glass, and had several things made with great content; and, among others, I had one or two singing-glasses made, which make an echo to the voice, the first that ever I saw; but so thin, that the very breath broke one or two of them.-Pepys.

The Whitefriars Glass-works (Messrs. Powell and Sons) are still on the old site (now Temple Street) and maintain their eminence.

Glass House Street, PICCADILLY. Built circ. 1679. Here in 1723 lived Charles Boyle, Earl of Orrery (d. 1731), the editor of the spurious Letters of Phalaris, now only remembered by the attack of Bentley and the defence of Atterbury. When Atterbury was sent to the Tower on a charge of high treason, Boyle's house in this street was searched for concealed papers.

Glass Sellers' Company. This guild was incorporated in 1664, by the style of the Master, Wardens, Assistants and Commonalty of

1 Stow, p. 107.

the Glass Sellers of London. They obtained a grant of livery in 1712, and the number of the livery was increased in 1825. They have no hall.

Glaziers' Company. The glaziers and glass-painters of London were united as a fraternity and incorporated by Charter of Charles I., 1637, by the title of the Master, Wardens and Commonalty of the Art or Mystery of Glaziers and Painters of Glass in the City of London. It is the fifty-third in rank of the City Companies. The hall was burned in the Great Fire and not rebuilt.

Globe Alley, now GLOBE COURT, MAID LANE, SOUTHWARK, So called from the Globe Theatre. In 1600 this place was known as Brand's Rents.

Globe Alley, on the W. side of Deadman's Place, Southwark, a passage to Maid Lane.-Hatton, p. 33.

Globe Alley, long and narrow, and but meanly built; hath a passage into Maiden Lane.-Strype, B. iv. p. 28.

"For discontinuing the passage through Globe Alley.”—Preamble, 26 Geo. III., c. 170.

Globe Theatre (The), on the BANKSIDE, SOUTHWARK, the summer theatre of Shakespeare and "his fellows," was built, not in 1594, as stated by Malone, but in 1599, as proved by Mr. Halliwell Phillipps.1 Richard Burbage and Peter Street brought the materials for building from the theatre at Shoreditch, and in the contract between Henslow and Alleyn and Peter Street for the erection of the Fortune Theatre, dated January 8, 1599-1600, mention is made of "the late erected plaie-howse on the Bank in the saide parishe of Sainte Sacviours called the Globe."2 [See Theatre.] On June 29, 1613, it. was destroyed by fire, some lighted paper, thrown from a piece of ordnance, having fallen during a performance on the thatch of the building.

Let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what happened this week at the Banke-side. The King's players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry the Eighth, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage, the knights of the order with their Georges and garters, the guards with their embroidered coats and the like. Now King Henry meeting a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey's house, and certain chambers being shot off at his entry, some of the paper or other stuff wherewith one of them was stopped did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoak, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly and ran round like a train, consuming in less than an hour the whole house to the very ground; nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks and one man had his breeches set on fire.Sir Henry Wotton to Sir Edmund Bacon, July 2, 1613.

The burning of the Globe playhouse on the Bankside, on St. Peter's day. . . which fell out by a peal of chambers that, I know not upon what occasion, were to be used in the play: the tompin or stopple of one of them lighting in the thatch that covered the house, burned it down to the ground in less than two hours, with a 1 Ibid. vol. i. p. 305.

1 Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare, 7th ed. 1887, vol. i. pp. 180, 181.

dwelling-house adjoining; and it was a great marvaile and fair grace of God that the people had so little harm, having but two narrow doors to get out.-Chamberlaine to Sir Ralph Winwood, July 8, 1613.

The Globe, the glory of the Bank !

Which though it were the fort of the whole parish
Flanked with a ditch, and forced out of a marish,

I saw with two poor chambers taken in,

And razed; ere thought could urge, this might have been !

See the world's ruins! nothing but the piles

Left, and wit since to cover it with tiles.

Ben Jonson, An Execration upon Vulcan, Underwood's ed., 1631, p. 212. The Globe was, without delay, rebuilt in a superior style, and this time with a roof of tile," King James and many noblemen and others " contributing liberally, to the cost. "The new Globe play-house," says Chamberlaine, writing to Alice Carleton (June 30, 1614), "is said to be the fairest in England.".

As gold is better that's in fire tried

So is the Bankside Globe that late was burn'd,
For, where before it had a thatched hide,

Now to a stately Theator 'tis turn'd,

Which is an emblem that great things are won

By those that dare through greatest dangers run.

Taylor (Water Poet), Epigrams, 1630, p. 31.

Ben Jonson, in the conclusion of Every Man out of his Humour (as originally printed), refers to it as "this fair-filled Globe." In a list of tenements situate in the Liberty of the Clink, drawn up on February 27, 1634, in obedience to an order from the Earl of Arundel and Inigo Jones, of the 5th of the same month, is the entry:

The Globe Playhouse, nere Maid Lane, built by the Company of Players, wth timber, about 20 yeeres past, uppon an old foundacon, worth 20i pr ann., being the inheritance of Sr. Matthew Brand, Kn't. MS. Papers at St. Saviour's, Southwark.

Malone says that the Globe stood "in" Maid Lane.1 "On the contrary," says Chalmers, "I maintain that the Globe was situated on the Bank, within eighty paces of the river, which has since receded from its former limits; that the Globe stood on the site of John Whatley's Windmill, as I was assured by an intelligent manager of Barclay's brewhouse, which covers in its ample range part of Globe Alley."2 There can be scarcely any doubt that the site is identical with that of the Globe Alley Meeting-house where Baxter preached in 1676-1677, and with the Windmill mentioned above. It was swallowed up by Barclay and Perkins's Brewery. It occurs in the Churchwardens' Accounts of St. Saviour's, with Lord Arundel's original letter of February 5. The theatre was distinguished by a figure of Hercules supporting the Globe, under which was written, Totus Mundus agit Histrionem. During the hours of performance a flag, with the cross of St. George upon it, was unfurled from the roof.3 This celebrated theatre was "pulled doune to the ground by Sir Matthew Brand, on Monday, April 15, 1644, to make 1 Malone's Inquiry, p. 84. 2 Chalmers's Apology, p. 114. 3 Apology, p. 275.

tenements in the room of it." 1 The nearest landing-places to the playhouse were at Horse Shoe Alley and Bank End Stairs, the distances being respectively 450 and 900 feet. The most accurate representations of the Globe are, of the first, which was circular, by Hondius in Speed, 1611; of the second, which was probably octangular, by Visscher in 1616. Both these representations are reproduced in Mr. Halliwell Phillipps's Outlines of the Life of Shakespeare.2

Globe Theatre, STRAND, Newcastle Street and Wych Street. The existing Globe Theatre occupies part of the site for an intended Strand Hotel. The ground for it was excavated to a considerable depth, and the first tier of boxes is about on a level with the pavement of Newcastle Street. The interior is elegant, and holds about 1500. The proscenium is treated as the frame of a picture. It was built in 1868 for Sefton Parry. The performances are opera bouffe and burlesque.

Gloucester House, PARK LANE. This house at the corner of Piccadilly was purchased by H.R.H. the Duke of Gloucester on his marriage with his cousin the Princess Mary. It was formerly occupied by the Earl of Elgin, who exhibited here the Elgin marbles, which were removed to Burlington House at a cost of £1500. It is now the residence of H.R.H. the Duke of Cambridge.

While brawny brutes in stupid wonder stare,
And marvel at his lordships' stone shop" there.

Byron's Curse of Minerva.

A general mart

For all the mutilated blocks of art.

English Bards and Scotch Reviewers.

Gloucester House, UPPER GROSVENOR STREET. [See Grosvenor House.]

Gloucester Lodge, OLD BROMPTON. George Canning, the orator, wit, and statesman, resided here during the last eighteen years of his life. On September 21, 1809, when he was shot through the thigh in a duel with Lord Castlereagh on Putney Heath, the newspapers announced that "he was put into a coach and conveyed to his newly purchased seat at Brompton." The site was originally occupied by a tavern and its grounds, under the name of Florida Gardens. When these were given up the lease was taken by Maria, Duchess of Gloucester, and widow of Earl of Waldegrave, who built the house in which Canning afterwards lived. It was called at first Villa Maria, and next Orford Lodge, in honour of her own family the Walpoles. She died here in 1807, and her daughter, the Princess Sophia, shortly afterwards sold the house to Mr. Canning, who changed its name to Gloucester Lodge. It consisted of only two storeys, but the grounds extended over 6

1 Howes's MS. in Collier's Life of Shakespeare, p. ccxlii.

2 See The Bankside, Southwark, and the

Globe Playhouse, by W. [Rendle (Harrison's England, Appendix I., New Shakspere Society, 1878).

acres.1 Canning died in August 1827 while on a visit to Chiswick. His son, the Viceroy of India, was born here in 1812. The house was pulled down about 1850, and the ground let on building leases. Its names are perpetuated in Orford Street and Gloucester Road.

July 21, 1817.—Mr. Canning's dinner. Gardens and house in very beautiful style: doubly secluded and yet very near town.―Journal of Crabbe, the poet.

Gloucester Place, PORTMAN SQUARE. At No. 13 Lord Sidmouth was living in 1807; and Sir Simon Clarke at No. 11. Lady Louisa Stuart, daughter of the minister, Lord Bute, and grand-daughter of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, lived for many years in this street, first at No. 67, and afterwards at No. 108, where she died in 1851. At No. 34 lived Thomas Monkhouse, M.P., the friend of Wordsworth; and here, on April 4, 1823, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Moore, Charles Lamb, Mary Lamb and Rogers sat down to dinner at the same table. Moore has recorded it in his journal, and Lamb in a letter to Bernard Barton: "I wished for you yesterday. I dined in Parnassus : half the poetry of England constellated in Gloucester Place. It was a delightful evening."

Gloucester Street, QUEEN SQUARE, BLOOMSBURY. Robert Nelson, the pious author of Fasts and Festivals, lived here for several years. He died January 16, 1715, at Kensington Gravel Pits, but his body was brought to his own house, and the Burial Register of St. Giles records him as "Robert Nelson, Esquire, of Gloucester Street, Vir insignis." Tradition asserts that the present 44 Queen Square is the house thus designated. Nelson himself, writing to John Johnson, author of the Clergyman's Vade Mecum, dates from "Gloucester Street, near the Chapel, February 18, 1710." "The chapel" is now the church of St. George the Martyr. [See St. George the Martyr, Bloomsbury.] Edward Irving's first London lodging was at No. 19 in this street.

I have got three very good, rather elegant, apartments, a sitting-room, a bed-room, a dressing-room.-Mrs. Oliphant's Life of Edward Irving, vol. i. p. 153.

Glovers' Company. The fraternity of glove-makers of the City of London were incorporated by letters patent of Charles I. in 1638, under the appellation of the Master, Wardens and Fellowship of the Company of Glovers. Their livery numbered 130. By the bye-laws of 1680 women may be members of the Company, but only six were admitted between 1780 and 1802. The Company's hall was in Glovers' Hall Court, on the south side of Beech Street, Barbican, but is not now used, the Company transacting their business at the office of their clerk.

Godliman or Godalmin Street, DOCTORS' COMMONS, between Carter Lane and Knightrider Street. The name occurs in the Parish Clerks' Alphabetical Table of all the Streets, etc., within the Bills of Mortality, 12mo, 1732, and in Maitland's London, 1739. In Strype's

1 There is a view of the garden front on the frontispiece of the second volume of Jerdan's Autobiography, 1852.