personal and domestic life of our forefathers
there are daily fresh materials provided. Mr.
Hudson Turner's Domestic Architecture, Mr.
Shaw's Illustrated Dress and Decoration, the
Household Accounts published by the
Roxburgh and Camden Societies, are full of details
for ample and correct mediæval pictures.
During the last three years the present Keeper of
the National Records, the Master of the Rolls,
has been unearthing and publishing, through
the commendable munificence of the powers at
Whitehall and Downing-street, a collection of
manuscripts, chronicles, or historical memorials,
of all periods connected with the public
biography anterior to the reign of Henry the
Eighth.

Respecting the men and women, the business
and play, the houses, dress, and food of
England five hundred years ago, our information
could scarcely be fuller than it is. The amount
of alteration and the extent of advance that we
have made in political and social life during the
period can only satisfactorily be shown in
detailed sketches.

The reader is requested to put himself
unreservedly in our hands for an imaginary tour
through the England of five centuries ago; and
he must, taking the Barmecide's feast as a
precedent, accept the ideal as actually tangible.
We will begin with a walk round the walls of
London.

One morning of the year 1360, some eighteen
years before the close of the reign of Edward the
Third, we are met at the landing-place of
Queenhithe, on the Middlesex side of the river
Thames. It is well you have not much
luggage, as the wharfage dues are heavy. The
civic regulations, however, allow of your bringing
ashore, without payment, that small malle
or bundle of clothes. Let us give it to yonder
varlet of the hostel to which we have
commended you, situate not far hence in
Thames-street, or Stockfishmonger-row, by the
riverside, where the hostelers chiefly dwell. Here
we have secured you a privy-chamber a luxury
not indeed universally accorded to guests, but
not so rare amongst us as many of your
travelled countrymen would have you think. Your
host will inform you of the rules which he is
enforced by the authorities to see observed by his
guests. The law forbids the carrying of arms,
save to the servants of royal and noble families,
leave, therefore, your weapons, if you have any,
with the malle. As you do not need refreshment,
let us sally forth to obtain the bird's-eye
view of the City which you desire.

The walls are little more than two miles
in circuit, and as the town ditch which
surrounds them has not long since been cleansed,
the walk is a pleasant one. Turn back first,
however, to look at the river and its bridge.
This noble Thames, which is the glory and
support of our City, is deservedly the object of
its tenderest care. The mayor and corporation
are its conservators, and bound to exercise
the strictest observance of the laws passed
respecting it. If they fail, their negligence will be
stoutly petitioned against by the citizens, to the
king and his council. Fine and imprisonment
of inferiors and superiors concerned, have been
in most cases the immediate reply. The bridge,
which has recently received repair, is not
unworthy of the stream. Its architect, Peter de
Colechirche, lies buried in the chapel on the
eastern side, where there is daily performed
divine service. That drawbridge is movable for
the passage of vessels to this haven of
Queenhithe, crowded with foreign ships. We will stop
to inspect it on another occasion, when we show
you the chief abodes of our commerce. We
may say, in passing, that the place takes its
name from one of the Norman queens, to whom
the landing-place and customs were granted by
her husband.

Crossing Thames-street, we see to our left the
turning to Old Fish-street, where a fish market
is held. Yonder house is the Bishop of
Hereford's inn or mansion. It was formerly the
residence of the Lords Montalt of Mold, in
North Wales, and the church hard by, which
was their chapel, retains their name in its title
of St. Mary Monmouth. Turning to the right,
we come to the street called La Reole, from
yonder mansion of that name. It is often
known as the Queen's Wardrobe, having been
given by our present sovereign to his late
queen, who so used it; but of late, since her
lamented death, he has bestowed it on his
college of St. Stephen's, Westminster. On the
left, at the corner of Knightrider-street, is
the residence of one of our wealthiest Flemish
merchants and money-lenders, John of Ipres.
Here, was lately an attack made by the citizens
upon the Duke of Lancaster and Sir Henry
Percy, who chanced to be unpopular. They
were at dinner with the said John, when one
of the duke's knights brought news that the
citizens, after a vain search at the Savoy Palace,
were coming hither with murderous intent.
Thereupon the duke and Sir Henry forthwith
fled from the house, and escaped by boat into
Surrey—on the other side of the river—taking
refuge at the royal manor of Kennington.

Further on, in the same direction, you see a
large mansion, with arched gates of Caen stone,
the residence of the Gisors, a rich citizen
family. It is known as Gisor's Hall. Our
course is across the old Roman road of Atheling
or Watling-street, and so into Sopers-lane,
where dwell most of our pepperers, who have
been recently incorporated under the title of
Grocers. The street into which it leads us,
is that of Westchepe, or Chepeside, one of our
largest thoroughfares and market-places. To
day we will pass by these goldsmiths' shops
and market-stalls, which would too long detain
us. Chepe has other than commercial fame
alone: it was a goodly sight, as we all remember,
in the fifth year of the new king's reign,
when he held a jousting here for three days;
all the paving was strewn with sand, that the
horses should not slip; and a wooden gallery
was built across the street, whence Queen