was broken into two pieces; these fragments were removed some years back by the surveyor of the roads, and placed as curb stones against the posts at the corner of Queen's-head Lane."*

Tradition also states that the stone was placed on the above spot at Highgate Hill by the desire of Whittington, after he had risen to wealth and eminence in the city, for the convenience of mounting or dismounting his horse at the foot of the hill, in his rides which he was accustomed to take in the neighbourhood.

The following is the inscription on the present stone, which, for want of proper protection, is so defaced as to be scarcely discernible:—

"Whittington Stone.

Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London,

Sir Richard Whittington built the original Newgate, part of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, the east end of Guildhall, and, it is supposed, he was the original founder of the Whittington Alms Houses.

66

Stowe's Survey of London, 1603, page 498, states, The hospital, or almes house, called God's House, for thirteen poor men, with a colledge

* Beauties of England and Wales.

called Whittington Colledge, founded by Richard Whittington, mercer, and suppressed; but the poore remaine, and are paid their allowance by the mercers."

The following anecdote of Sir Richard Whittington, from Nelson's History of Islington, will not be uninteresting.

Some idea of the wealth of Sir R. Whittington, and the little value he set on money, may be inferred from the following circumstance:-At an entertainment given to King Henry V. at Guildhall, after his conquest of France, the king was much pleased with a fire which Sir Richard had caused to be made of choice woods, mixed with cinnamon, cloves, and other spices and aromatics. The knight said he would endeavour to make it still more agreeable to his majesty, and immediately tore and burnt in that fire the king's bond of 10,000 marks, due to the Mercers' Company, and divers others to the amount of £60,000 sterling, an immense sum in those days.*

* Sir Richard Whittington was interred in the church of St. Michael, and had a splendid monument erected to his memory by his executors. Thomas Mountain held the rectory, with the mastership, when the college was dissolved (the scite is now Paternoster Church), and possessed by an ungovernable spirit of avarice and folly, imagined that immense treasures were deposited with the body, which he determined to convert to his own use. With this sacrilegious intent, he opened the tomb, where he

LAZAR HOUSE AT HOLLOWAY.

In John Stowe's Survey of London, 1603, p. 500, it states-Finally, that one William Pole, yeoman of the crown to King Edward IVth., being stricken with a leprosie, was also desirous to build an hospital with a chapel to the honour of God and St. Anthony, for the relief and harbour of such leprous persons as were destitute in the kingdom, to the end they should not be offensive to others in their passing to and fro; for the which cause Eda. IV. did by his charter, dated the 12th of his reign, give unto the said William Pole a certain parcel of his land, lying in his highway of Highgate and Holloway, within the County of Middlesex, containing 60 feete in length, and 34 in breadth."

The same work describes the situation to be near Whittington Stone.

KEN WOOD.

Caen Wood, or Ken Wood, is now the seat of the Right Hon. the Earl of Mansfield.

found nothing but the body wrapped in lead. Vexed at his disappointment, he stripped the lead from the bones; and the worthy mayor was thus raised and buried a second time by those who valued his memory.

The earliest notice of it appears in Neale's History of the Puritans, from which the following is an extract:—“ Venner, the fanatic, who created a disturbance at the head of the fifth monarchy men, in January, 1661, sought a retreat with his followers for a short time in Ken Wood,"

And it is also thus referred to in The Beauties of England and Wales:-"A house on Ken Wood estate is said, by Mackay, in his Tour through England, to have been then lately the residence of the Duke of Argyle. This nobleman devised the property to Lord Bute, of whom it was purchased in 1755, by the first Earl of Mansfield, Chief Justice of the King's Bench (then Attorney General)." The mansion is a noble structure of the Ionic order, exhibiting two handsome fronts, the principal of which, towards the north, has two projecting wings, and an enriched entablature; a terrace wall ranges along the whole of the south front, and the central division has a rustic basement, sustaining pilasters crowned with a pediment; a long and low wing with entablature, supported by three-quarter columns, stretches itself on each side, one of which forms the library, and the other the conservatory. The various apartments are of eminently fine proportions, and their decorations of the most elegant and unassuming character; the sides of the music room and