Accompanied by her lords and ladies "all in crimson velvet, and their horses trapped with the same," the new sovereign is escorted through the metropolis of her dominions. The city puts itself to great expense that its love and joy may be expressed in pageants, fountains of wine, music, speeches, verses, and the like. And near "the little conduit at the upper end of Cheapside," an old man, having a scythe and wings, representative of Father Time, issues from an artificial cave, leading by the hand another personage "clothed in white silk, gracefully apparelled," who represents Truth, Time's daughter, having in her hands a book, on which is written Verbum Veritatis (the Word of Truth). The lady in white makes a speech to the maiden queen, and hands her the sacred volume, which is taken by a gentleman, and placed in the royal hands. And as soon as she receives it, she kisses it, and holding it up, lays it on her breast, and thanks her faithful Londoners for this present, saying "she would often read over that book."

Then follow shadows of great poets. There is Chaucer down at the Tabard inn, eyeing from the straggling gallery round the yard, the motley group preparing for their pilgrimage to Canterburyand beginning already to imprint for all coming ages, the forms and ways and words of those average specimens of English folks in the fourteenth century, who peopled the houses, or paced up and down the thoroughfares of London and Southwark. One searches in vain for the place of his birth, though he was a citizen of the metropolis; but a glimpse is caught of him mixed up in municipal strife, as a friend of the famous John of Northampton; and also as beating a Franciscan friar in Fleet-street, for which the poet had to pay a fine of five shillings. Political entanglements brought him to the Tower a prisoner, and, some time afterwards, we find him quietly renting a house near Westminster Abbey.

Next we observe his friend, "the moral Gower," an inhabitant of Southwark-his bones now mouldering in St. Mary Overies

taking boat from some stairs on the borough side, and meeting Richard II. in his stately barge. The monarch invited the minstrel on board, and desired him to write "some new thing," whence arose the "Confessio Amantis ;" and so a production of one of England's early poets becomes associated with the silent highway, and his visions are seen floating over those wide waters.

Shakespeare spent a considerable portion of his time in London, and, in the few authentic notices we have of his life story, his name is indissolubly associated with the "Globe," Bankside, and with Blackfriars but the scanty materials for his biography, which the most diligent antiquaries have brought together, afford us scarcely any other local memories of the Stratford bard. Yet, in his works, there is evidence enough of his acquaintance with London; and the scenes sketched by his magic pencil throw his shadow over Eastcheap, old St. Paul's, Smithfield, Crosby House, the Tower, the Abbey at Westminster, and the London streets, full of the men and women, whom he depicts with life-like touches. And do not the stirring times in which he lived-when England was threatened with the Armada-when London provided her levies-when the masculine queen harangued her troops at Tilbury Fort-appear in such passages as the following?

66

King John. What earthly name to interrogatorics
Can task the free breath of a sacred king?

Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name

So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous,

To charge me to an answer, as the pope.

Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England,

Add thus much more,-that no Italian priest

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions;

But as we under heaven are supreme head,
So under Him, that great supremacy,
Where we do reign, we will alone uphold,
Without the assistance of a mortal hand:
So tell the pope; all reverence set apart,
"To him and his usurp'd authority.

K. Phil. Brother of England, you blaspheme in this.
K. John. Though you and all the kings of Christendom
Are led so grossly by this meddling priest,

Dreading the curse that money may buy out;
And, by the merit of vile gold, dross, dust,
Purchase corrupted pardon of a man,
Who, in that sale, sells pardon from himself;
Though you, and all the rest, so grossly led
This juggling witchcraft with revenue cherish;
Yet I, alone, alone do me oppose

Against the pope, and count his friends my foes.

This England never did, nor never shall,
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,

Come the three corners of the world in arms,

And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue, If England to itself do rest but true."

"This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle, This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress, built by Nature for herself,
Against infection and the hand of war;
This happy breed of men, this little world;
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands;

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England."

"All furnished, all in arms;

All plum'd, like estridges that with the wind

Bated,-like eagles having lately bath'd,
Glittering in golden coats,-like images;
As full of spirit as the month of May,

And gorgeous as the sun at midsummer:

Wanton as youthful goats; wild as young bulls."

In such majestic verses, we find gathered up the burning words of defiance against papal domination, which went from lip to lip through London, when awful days of evil seemed coming on. Here, too, we have a picture of the goodly array which went out at the city gate towards Tilbury-and here the proud patriotism which inspired both hosts and queen.

Shadows of reformers, too, in goodly numbers rise before us; Wicliff, Latimer, Ridley, and many more less known to fame. St. Paul's churchyard, for example, and Smithfield, are fraught with ennobling reminiscences. We love to think of Henry Monmouth, the alderman who befriended Tyndale, our great translator of the Scriptures; we love to think of the people who gathered round the old cross, and there caught the fire and inspiration of the reformed faith; we love to think of those who crowded to hear the Bible readings, and when the book was proscribed, secreted it in their dwellings, and read it at the risk of liberty and life; we love to think of those who stood and saw the Bible-burnings, and heard the proud anathemas against the study of Heaven's own records, and still went on reading its pages, and drinking in its consolations

"Fierce whiskered guards that volume sought in vain,
Enjoyed by stealth, and hid with anxious pain;
While all around was misery and gloom,

This showed the boundless bliss beyond the tomb.
Freed from the venal priest, the feudal rod,

It led the weary sufferer's steps to God;

And when his painful course on earth was run,
This, his chief wealth, descended to his son."

We love to think of those who had piety and courage sufficient to

brave the horrors of Lollards' Tower, and other dark dungeons, and whose faith and firmness enabled them to triumph over the last fiery trial; we love to see them, while multitudes look upon the painful scene-some mocking the sufferers, some awe-struck at their constancy, some strangely turned by a touch of sympathy at the sight of so much agony and heroism-lift up their placid countenances and hope-beaming eyes to the heaven of liberty and love, whose opening portals invite them to enter.

But we must conclude these general recollections, and proceed to notice certain illustrious names of later times, which have left their imprint very distinctly in London localities with which everybody is familiar.