A Bit Of Old London.

A BIT OF OLD LONDON .

BY AV . E . MILLION . We walked in the evening in Greenwich Park . He asked me , I suppose by way of trying my disposition , "Is not this very fine ? " Haviug no exquisite relish of the beauties of nature , and being more delighted with the busy hum of men , I answered , " Yes , sir ; but not equal to Fleet Street . " JOHNSON : " You are right , sir , "—BOSWELL [ Saturday , July 30 th , 1763 ] .

THE ballad of "Eobin Conscience" ( 1683 ) , which deserves to bebettei known , gives a lively picture of one aspect of Fleet Street at that period . After the Great Fire , even , it consisted mainly of timber houses hanging , in all imaginable positions , over the narrow ancl badly paved roadway . The shops were little better than rude sheds , with pent-houses for the protection of their wares , which the dealers announced ore rotundo to the passers by , with

an endless shouting of "What d ' ye lack , gentles—what d ' ye lack ? " The appearance of the street may be gathered from a print of old St . Dunstan ' s church , which , originally published in the Mirror ( vol . xiv ., p . 145 ) , has since been reproduced on a larger scale . Of that church no record can with exactness be given ; it escaped destruction , however , in the Fire , Avhich stopped at the " Temple Exchange " coffee-house . The church stood far into Fleet Streetand

, the shops which are shown in the engraving were , if not the earliest , at any rate , among the earliest fixed places for the sale of books in London . Originally . in the pointed style of architecture , the structure became greatly disfigured by later repairs and additions after the Italian manner . Above the cutler ' s shop at its eastern end stood a statue , Avhich is still preserved in situ , of Queen Elizabethremoved thither in 1766 from the western side of Lud Gatewhich

, , , had been taken clown six years previously . The most peculiar feature of the exterior was the projecting dial , with its two life-size figures of savages . These , carved in wood , were set up in an alcove above the dial ; each had a club in his right hand , and moving his head the while , would strike the quarters on two suspended bells . For this piece of ingenuity , one Thomas Harrys was paid with £ 35 ancl the old clock in the year 1671 . The dialfiguresetc . are now at St .

, , , Dunstan ' s , Regent's Park , the residence of Mr . H . fi . Gibbs , formerly of the Marquis of Hertford . In December , 1829 , the materials of the former church were sold at auction , and on the 31 st July , 1833 , the present building was consecrated . It was designed by John Shaw , ancl stands , for the most part , upon the burial ground of its predecessor .

The district is singularly rich in memories—not always the happiest—and traditions of the past . To the house of one Russell , a tailor , in St . Bride ' s Churchyard , Milton brought his young royalist wife , Mary Powell . "She found it very solitary , " Aubrey tells us ; " no company came to her , and oftentimes she heard his nephews beaten ancl cry . " In the church lies buried Richard Lovelace , who , at- his presentation to King Charles I . at Oxford , Anthony Wood says , Avas " the most beautiful and amiable youth that eyes ever beheld , " the betrothed of Lucy Sacheverell , the " divine Althea" of his exquisite stanzas beginning When Love with unconfined

wingsand who died , destitute , m Gunpowder Alley , Shoe Lane ; and the author o E " Clarissa , " whose sublime triumph over her sullied purity is the most beautiful creation of uninspired fiction . In Salisbury Court , at a house which may still be seen , Richardson had his printing office ; and here Oliver Goldsmith , one time his reader ( 1757 ) , corrected the sheets of " Pamela " for the press . Whitefriars included the Sanctuary of Alsatia , Avhich yet lives in the pages of the " Fortunes of Nigel . " The annals of the Temple alone would fill a volume . I , for my part , never pass clown Middle Temple Lane without recalling that concourse of Avomen , unhappy outcasts ,