but latterly by women of the town, and their attendant followers. Queen Mary II. is said to have once honoured it with her presence.1 Folly Theatre, KING WILLIAM STREET, STRAND, a small house chiefly devoted to farce and burlesque, previously known as Charing Cross Theatre, and now as Toole's. [See Charing Cross Theatre.] Fore Street, CRIPPLEGATE, runs parallel with London Wall, from Finsbury Pavement to Redcross Street; the Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, is at the south-western angle. Without Cripplegate, Fore Street runneth thwart before the gate, from against the north side of St. Giles Church, along to Moor Lane end, and to a Postern lane end, that runneth betwixt the town ditch on the south, and certain gardens on the north, almost to Moorgate; at the east of which lane is a pot-maker's house, which house, with all other, the gardens, houses and alleys, on that side the Moorfields till ye come to a bridge and cow-house near unto Fensburie Court, is all of Cripplegate Ward.-Stow, p. 109. James Foe, the father of Daniel Defoe, was a butcher in Fore Street, and a freeman of the Butchers' Company, in which company his famous son took up his freedom by patrimony. Several very old houses west of Milton Street (the once notorious Grub Street) were pulled down in 1871; in 1879 a much larger clearance of old houses was made on the opposite side of the way, extending from Wood Street to Aldermanbury Postern, with some blocks farther east. Some old houses remain on the north side of the street. Foreign Office. [See Government Offices.] Fortune Theatre (The), built by Peter Street (carpenter) for Philip Henslowe and Edward Alleyn,2 which stood on the east side of Golding [now Golden] Lane,3 between it and what is now called Upper Whitecross Street, in the parish of St. Giles, Cripplegate, was opened in July 1601.4 An indenture of May 20, 1622, describes incidentally the spot on which the first theatre was erected as a "part or parcel of ground upon part whereof lately stood a Playhouse or building called the Fortune, with a Taphouse belonging to the same . . . conteyning a breadth from E. to W. 130 foote, and in length 131 foote and S inches, or thereabout, abutting on the E., W., N., and S., as is specified in a plotforme;" to this was added a piece of ground "scituate on the N. side of the way leading to the said Playhouse, all scituate, lying, and being between Whitecross Street and Golding Lane."5. In Alleyn's Diary is the following entry : burnt.6 December 9, 1621. Md. this night att 12 of the Clock the Fortune was 1 Hatton, p. 785. 2 Street's agreement for its erection, dated January 8, 1599-1600, is printed in Malone's Shakespeare, by Boswell, vol. iii. p. 338. 3 Map of London, by Augustine Ryther, 1604; in which its situation is distinctly marked. 5 Collier, Memoirs of Edward Alleyn, p. 167. 6 Ibid., p. 165. On December 15, 1621, Chamberlain, writing to Sir Dudley Carleton, mentions "the destruction by fire of the fairest playhouse in the town, the Fortune in Golding Lane." The original building was a square construction of lath, plaster, and timber. The new theatre (for it was rebuilt immediately) was circular, and built of brick and tile. The sign of the house was a picture or figure of Fortune. I'll rather stand here, Like a statue in the fore part of your house Heywood, English Traveller, 1633. In 1649 the inside of the theatre was destroyed by a company of soldiers, set on by the sectaries of those perilous times; 2 and in 1661 the ground was advertised "to be let to be built upon." It was from this theatre that Alleyn derived the larger portion of the funds for the foundation of God's Gift College, at Dulwich. A passage, connecting Upper Whitecross Street with Golding Lane, is still called Playhouse Yard. [See The Nursery.] Foskew Lane. In 1559 Henry Smith, student of the Middle Temple, committed suicide, and Fox says, " And thus being dead and not thought worthy to be interred in the churchyard, he was buried in a lane called Foskew Lane." 3 Foster Lane, CHEAPSIDE, by the General Post Office to Noble Street. "So called," says Stow, "of St. Fauster's, a fair church lately new built."4 The church just out of Cheapside, noteworthy for its fine spire, is called St. Vedast's, and the lane was originally St. Vedast Lane; it so occurs in a document of 1281, and in the lease granted of a house there to Sir John de Leek, "Clerk to Prince Edward,” afterwards Edward II.5 "St. Fauster's" is actually a corruption of St. Vedast, though countenanced by Newcourt in his Repertorium (vol. i. p. 563). [See St. Vedast's Church.] "6 Recorder Fletewood's gossiping letters to Lord Burleigh, 1577, etc., are dated from "Bacon House in Foster Lane." In the afternoon of Sunday, December 19, 1602, John Manningham, of the Middle Temple (who in the morning had heard a sermon "at Paules from one with a long brown beard, a hanging look, a gloting eye, and a tossing learing jesture"), went to hear "at a church in Foster Lane end [St. Vedast's] one Clappam, a black fellowe, with a sower looke but a good spirit, bold, and sometymes bluntly witty; his text, Solomon's Song. Thy lips are like a thred of skarlett. . . . There are enough of Rahab's profession in every place. . . I would not give a penny for an 100 of them," said he. Before the Great Fire Foster Lane was principally inhabited by goldsmiths and working jewellers. 1 Cal. State Pap., 1619-1623, p. 321. 2 Collier's Shakespeare, vol. i. p. 242. 3 Martyrology, ed. 1597, p. 1908. 4 Stow, p. 117. 5 Riley, p. 11. 6 Wright, vol. ii. p. 64, etc. March 12, 1663. Paid to a jeweller in Foster Lane for the gold and making the medall granted to me by the King, to wear as Norroy, King of Armes, £5: 12s. Paid for the gold chain, £8: 10s., in toto, £14: 2s.-Dugdale's Diary. This is the medal shown in the engraved portrait of Dugdale. The Dagger tavern in Foster Lane was noted for its pies, and it appears probable that the "dagger pies so often referred to by our older dramatists were the pies made at the Dagger in Foster Lane rather than at the Dagger in Holborn, as Gifford assumes. A token in the Beaufoy Collection has on it a dagger with a magpie on the point, "a pictorial pun," as Mr. Burn observes, "of a dagger pie, so frequently alluded to by early satirists and writers." 1 Nearly the whole of the west side of Foster Lane was cleared away for the erection of the General Post Office; and several houses on the east side for Goldsmiths' Hall, which has its principal front in Foster Lane. [See Goldsmiths' Hall.] Foubert's Passage, from REGENT STREET (opposite Conduit Street) to King Street, derives its name from Monsieur or Major Foubert, who established a riding academy on this spot, in the latter part of the reign of Charles II. The academy was a long, low, brick building, like a shed or rope walk, and is well represented in a coloured drawing by Tomkins, made in 1801, and preserved in the Crowle Pennant in the British Museum. When Swallow Street was pulled down, the greater part of this passage, including the Riding School, which had been converted into livery stables, shared the same fate; and but one of the original houses is now standing.-Brayley's Londiniana, vol. ii. p. 170. It seems to have been regarded as an object of national importance that M. Foubert should be established in England in order to "lessen the vast expense the nation is at yearly in sending children into France to be taught military exercises." The King (July 21, 1679) gave £100 towards the establishment of the Academy; Evelyn, as we shall see, took great interest in it; and it was seriously proposed to make the Royal Society "trustees and supervisors" of the infant academy. September 17, 1681.-I went with Mons' Faubert about taking ye Countesse of Bristol's house for an academie, he being lately come from Paris for his religion, and resolving to settle here.-Evelyn. August 9, 1682.-The Council of the Royal Society had it recommended to them to be trustees and visitors, or supervisors, of the Academy which Monsieur Faubert did hope to procure to be built by subscription of worthy gentlemen and noblemen, for the education of youth, and to lessen the vast expence the Nation is at yearly by sending children into France to be taught military exercises. We thought good to give him all the encouragement our recommendation could procure.-Evelyn. December 18, 1684.-I went with Lord Cornwallis to see the young gallants do their exercise, Mr. Faubert having newly rail'd in a manage and fitted it for the Academy. There were the Dukes of Norfolk and Northumberland, Lord Newburgh, and a nephew of [Duras] Earl of Feversham. The exercises were: (1) Running at the ring; (2) flinging a javelin at a Moor's head; (3) discharging a pistol at a mark ; lastly, taking up a gauntlet with the point of a sword; all these performed in full speede. The Duke of Northumberland hardly missed of succeeding in every one, a 1 Burn's Descriptive Catalogue, p. 114. ... Lords dozen times as I think. The Duke of Norfolk did exceeding bravely. Newburgh and Duras seem'd nothing so dexterous. There were in the field the Prince of Denmark, and this Lord Landsdown, son of the Earl of Bath, who had been made a Count of the Empire last summer for his services before Vienna.— Evelyn. At Foubert's, if disputes arise And Fobert has the forming of the fair. Prior's Alma. Young's Fifth Satire. Young Count Koningsmarck, the son of Count Koningsmarck, so deeply implicated in the murder of Mr. Thynne, in the Haymarket, near Pall Mall, on Sunday, February 12, 1681-1682, is described by Reresby, in his Memoirs, as "a young gentleman, then in Mr. Foubert's academy in London, and supposed to be privy to the murder." Foubert, his governor, offered, in Count Koningsmarck's name, a bribe to Reresby, the magistrate on this occasion. Reresby declined, but the father was acquitted by a jury packed for the purpose of acquittal. In 1731 the newspapers announced that the Duke of Cumberland (the future hero of Culloden), after visiting Sir Robert Walpole in Arlington Street, went to Major Foubert's Riding House, and there received his first lesson in riding.1 Rogers, the poet, said that the place was always called Major Foubert's Passage in his youth, "and so," he added, "I should like to see it called still." It is now called Foubert's Place. Founders' Court, LOTHBURY. [See Lothbury.] Founders' Hall, No. 13 ST. SWITHIN'S LANE. The original hall of the Founders' Company in Founders' Court, Lothbury, was built in 1531.2 It was burnt in the Great Fire, but shortly after rebuilt. It is described as "a small but convenient building," and served for many years the purposes of the Company, when it was let and used as a Dissenting chapel. In 1845 it was rebuilt; afterwards leased to the Electric Telegraph Company, and is now in the occupation of the General Post Office. The Company met in a house adjoining the old hall until 1854, when that was also let to the Electric Telegraph Company. 66 The present hall was rebuilt in 1877, and is situated on the second floor. The Company was enrolled in the 39th of Edward III. (1365), and incorporated in the 12th of James I. (1614), by the title of the Master, Wardens, and Commonalty of the Mistery of Founders of the City of London." The guild. consists of a Master, Upper and Under Warden, fourteen Assistants, and a small livery, who pay each a fine of £15:7:6 on admission. By statutes and ordinances the Company 1 Doran's Jacobite London, vol. ii. p. 46. 2 Previously the Company held their meetings at Armorers' Hall, Brewers' Hall, Leathersellers Hall, and various other places. were empowered to search for and examine all brass weights within the City of London and three miles thereof, and to seize all such as were not in agreement with the Company's standard and stamped with their common mark, as also all false brass and copper wares. Foundling Hospital, GUILDFORD STREET, opposite the north end of Lamb's Conduit Street, was founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram, as "an hospital for exposed and deserted children." The Hospital was built by Theodore Jacobsen (d. 1772), architect of the Royal Hospital at Gosport, on ground bought of the Earl of Salisbury for £7000. The plan approved by the General Court was ordered to be executed under the direction of J. Horne as their surveyor. The chapel was erected in 1747. The ground, 56 acres in extent, was much more than was required for the Hospital, and the unused portion being let on building leases has been a valuable source of income to the institution. March 29, 1741.-The orphans received into the Hospital were baptized theresome nobility of the first rank standing godfathers and godmothers. The first male was named Thomas Coram, and the first female Eunice Coram, after the first promoter of that charity and his wife. The most robust boys being designed for the sea service were named Drake, Norris, Blake, etc., after our most famous admirals. -Gentleman's Magazine. Captain Thomas Coram was born [at Lynn] in the year 1688 [1668?], bred to the sea, and passed the first part of his life as master of a vessel trading to the colonies. While he resided in the vicinity of Rotherhithe, as his avocations obliged him to go early into the city and return late, he frequently saw deserted infants exposed to the inclemencies of the seasons, and through the indigence or cruelty of their parents left to casual relief or untimely death. This naturally excited his compassion, and led him to project the establishment of an Hospital for the reception of exposed and deserted children: in which humane design he laboured more than seventeen years, and at last by his unwearied application obtained the royal charter, bearing date October 17, 1739, for its incorporation. This singularly humane, persevering, and memorable man died at his lodgings, near Leicester Square, March 29, 1751, and was interred, pursuant to his own desire, in the vaults under the Chapel of the Foundling Hospital.—J. Ireland. November 4, 1752.-Dined at the annual feast at the Foundling Hospital : present Judge Taylor White, treasurer; Hayman, Wills, Hogarth, Hudson, Scot, Brown, Dalton, painters: Roubiliac, Statuary; Pine, engraver: Houbraken; Wm. Jacobsen, the architect of the house, etc., a cozen of my late friend Chancellor Stukeley.— Stukeley's Diary. The Hospital was changed in 1760 from a Foundling Hospital to what it now is, an hospital for poor illegitimate children whose mothers are known. Children are only received upon the personal application of the mother, who must be neither a married woman nor widow the aim of the institution being not merely to maintain and educate the child but also "to assist the mother to return to a virtuous life." A committee of governors meet weekly "to receive and deliberate upon petitions praying for admission of children." The committee requires to be satisfied "after due inquiry" of the previous good character and present necessity of the mother of every child proposed for admission. The qualification of a governor is a donation of £50. The income of |