rioters attempted the Bank on Wednesday night, but in no great number, and, like other thieves with no great resolution. Jack Wilkes headed the party that drove them away. It is agreed that if they had seized the Bank on Tuesday, at the height of the panic, when no resistance had been prepared, they might have carried irrecoverably away whatever they had found. Jack, who was always zealous for order and decency, declares that if he be trusted with power, he will not leave a rioter alive. There is however, now no longer any need of heroism or blood shed, no blue riband (blue ribbons were worn by Lord George Gordon and his followers) is any longer worn."

Such is Johnson's account of these memorable riots which began like so many other City distubances on the south side of the river.

Dr. Johnson's connection with Southwark ceased with. the death of Mr. Thrale. He died December 13th, 1874.

Before we leave the Brewery, let me here anticipate a little, and recall a circumstance that took place there in 1850. The "Times" says, on Wednesday, 4th September, "shortly before 12 o'clock three foreigners, one of whom wore long moustachios, presented themselves at the Brewery, in order to visit the establishment.

"It became known over all the Brewery that one of these was Marshal Haynau, the late commander of the Austrian forces in the Hungarian wars, and before the General had crossed the yard, nearly all the labourers and draymen were out with brooms and dirt shouting "down with the Austrian butcher," etc. The General took to flight, ran down Bankside, pursued by a mob consisting of coal heavers, brewers' men and others armed with all sorts of weapons. He rushed in a frantic manner along Bankside, till he came to the "George" public house, when forcing

open the doors, he rushed up stairs, and made his way into one of the bed-rooms, to the utter astonishment of the landlady.

"The mob rushed after him, but bewildered by the number of doors, they, happily for him, did not succeed in reaching him before the arrival of a body of police. He was placed in safety in a police galley and rowed to Somerset House amid the shouts and execrations of the mob."

It is a curious incident and like most other things has a double aspect. It was, undoubtedly, a brutal and unprovoked attack on an elderly gentleman, a foreigner and a visitor. Yet on the other hand, there is an element of rough gallantry in it. Marshal Haynau had been accused of great brutality in the Hungarian war, even it was said of causing women to be flogged; and the men did not care to see hospitality and courtesy extended by their firm to a man who had shown such savage brutality. Let us hope that none of the self-constituted judges and executioners had ever appeared in the police-court for beating their own wives!

But we will not finally leave the once literary neighbourhood of Bankside, with this scene of riot, for we have not even yet exhausted its list of celebrities.

In a house still standing near the Blackfriars Station, Sir Christopher Wren resided, while the new St. Paul's was rising under his direction on the opposite side of the river, and took boat daily for the scene of his labours.

Not far off, a few years later, Goldsmith, that charming unthrifty Irishman, at once Poet, Play writer, Novelist, Historian, Zoologist, Humourist, and Physician, practised medicine, but his patients were, unfortunately, more numerous than his fees, and he deserted our classic neighbourhood for the richer and more fashionable one of the Temple.

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And here seems the best place to introduce a short notice of one of the most noble-hearted men, and one of the most munificent foundations that even London has to boast of. Thomas Guy, the founder of Guy's Hospital, was a benefactor not only to the Borough, not only to the sick for whose benefit the endowment was made, but to the whole world, by the splendid School of Medicine he here inaugurated. Guy's Hospital was the first of all the Hospitals of London, designed and built for that special purpose. Guy at whose sole cost and charge it was founded, was born in the year 1645, in the Parish of St. John's, Horsleydown, in Southwark. In the year 1660, he was bound apprentice to a bookseller; in 1668 he started in business at the little corner house of Lombard Street and Cornhill. He was extensively engaged in printing Bibles, having obtained from the University of Oxford an assignment of their privilege. In 1695 he entered the House of Commons as Member for Tamworth, and sat in every Parliament from that date till the first of Queen Anne.

He stinted himself that he might have the more to give, not ostentatiously, but privately and without parade. To many of his poor relations he made yearly allowances; debtors, he released from prison; deserving young men he assisted with loans, unburdened with interest, to enable them to set up in business. When he met with any sick and in want, he was not content with giving them an order to St. Thomas's Hospital, of which he was a Governor, but had them clothed and supplied with necessaries at his own expense; in fact, in his own person he seems to have practised all the seven works of mercy. He was a great benefactor to St. Thomas's Hospital, building and endowing three wards at his own expense for sixty-four patients,

In 1720 his wealth being much increased by the

advantageous sale of some large investments in South Sea Stocks, he made a noble use of this money, which came to him before the bursting of the unhappy bubble. That same year he leased a piece of land from St. Thomas's Hospital for 999 years, and the ground was at once cleared; he lived to see the building completed, but died the same year at the age of eighty years. In little more than a week after his death, the Hospital was opened, and sixty patients admitted. After bequeathing numerous legacies and annuities, he left the residue of his property to the Hospital which bears his name. He is one whose good deeds went before him instead of lamely halting after him, and they still continue to bear fruit to our own time.

CHAPTER XVII.

OLD LONDON BRIDGE.

AND

ND now that my story is nearing its close, we come back again to the point from which we started— old London Bridge.

We have watched the tide of life ebbing and flowing over it century after century, now the steady stream of commerce, now the gay pageant, and now the rush of battle. But old age and infirmity have broken it down,

and like all other human things it must vanish, and "leave not a wrack behind."

But a new London Bridge could never be to London and Southwark what the old one was. Westminster and Blackfriars Bridges were now built, and both trade and pleasure would choose the nearer and more direct routes. But before it disappears with all its associations and its picturesque and terrible memories, let us look back a moment on the history of this spot, perhaps with the exception of Jerusalem and Rome, the most famous in the records of the world, which for well nigh one thousand years served as the chief means of communication between the two divisions of our great city, and note a few matters of interest which have been overlooked, or lightly touched in the general story.

In Chapter II. some account has been given of the early history of London Bridge. We do not know who originally built it, though tradition points to the Canons of St. Mary Overies; and it is supposed that the tolls taken on the Bridge replaced the income derived from the ferry. Then came its destruction by St. Olave, and (though we have no actual record of this) its rebuilding by Canute. We next had to notice its overthrow in 1091 by wind and tide; and again, after being restored by William Pont de l'Arche, its destruction by fire in 1136. Again it was rebuilt first of wood and then of stone, Peter of Colechurch being Architect; and so at last we find ourselves fairly landed on what is always called 'Old London Bridge." Between the years 1170-1182 when the wooden bridge was still in existence, and the stone bridge rising by its side, there lived and wrote one of those dear old gossiping Chroniclers, Fitz Stephen who gives us the first account extant of London. He

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