the rest of the Metropolis something like what Grosvenor Square, Park Lane, and parts of Piccadilly are at this day.

The lower part of the Exchange, including the great court, must have presented an animated and remarkable scene. Jostling each other among the crowd were men from almost every known nation of the world, habited in their respective national costumes, speaking in every variety of tone and language, exhibiting the most marked differences of manner and countenance. Interspersed with the more numerous English merchants, dressed in their large puffed breeches, long vests, short cloaks and ruffs, appeared here the half-naturalized Fleming, with his fur-trimmed coat and hat, and tight-fitting pantaloons; there the lordly Venetian, in his long robes and elegant cap, a fitting representative of the great and haughty republic. Mingling with the more sedate men of business too would occasionally be seen some courtier from the Palace in all his bravery, conning a new jest at the expense of the "Cits;" some lover of notoriety seeking to make the best of his small reputation-a "Tattelius," for instance,

Or some idle needy-looking scapegrace, who, perhaps in a penitent or philosophizing mood, is wandering about to see if he cannot catch, as it were, the contagious air of the place,-grow prudent, industrious, rich! Many a shaft is directed by our old satirists at these poor castaways of Fortune, whose usual haunts were St. Paul's and the Exchange. Hayman, in his Quodlibets' (1628), thus addresses Sir Pierce Penniless :

"Though little coin thy purseless pockets line,

Yet with great company thou 'rt taken up ;
For often with Duke Humphrey thou dost dine,
And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup."

We need scarcely inform our readers that the Barmecide himself, in the 'Arabian Nights,' never enjoyed a lighter or more digestible diet than Duke Humphrey presented to the noonday walkers in St. Paul's, or Sir Thomas Gresham to the promenaders of the evening 'Change.

Another of these authors who have written on the Exchange in a style that gives intrinsic value to their compositions, apart from the subject, is Daniel Lupton, who published in 1632 a small work called 'London and Country Carbonadoed and Quartered into several Characters.' The passage referring to the merchants of the Exchange is so excellent, that we give it almost entire :"The merchants are generally men of good habit; their words are generally better than their consciences; their discourse ordinarily begins in water, but ends in wine. The frequenting the walks twice a-day, and a careless laughter, argues they are sound: if they visit not once a-day, 'tis suspected they are cracking or broken. Their countenance is ordinarily shaped by their success at sea, either merry, sad, or desperate; they are like ships at sea, top and topgallant this day, to-morrow sinking. The sea is a tennis-court, their states are balls, the wind is the racket, and doth strike many for lost under line, and many

in the hazard. Conscience is sold here for nought, because it is as old sermons, a dead commodity. They will dissemble with and cozen one another, though all the kings that ever were since the Conquest overlooked them. Here are usually more coaches attendant than at church-doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring themselves. Rough seas, rocks and pirates, treacherous factors, and leaking ships, affright them. They are strange politicians; for they bring Turkey and Spain into London, and carry London thither."

Numerous brief records of the Exchange exist in the Inquest Book of Cornhill,' referring chiefly to presentments of annoyances to which the merchants, visitors, and neighbours were subject; which, though not very remarkable or interesting in themselves, help to fill up the details of the picture. From its pages we learn that at one time the "honest citizens" who walked in the Exchange on Sundays and holidays "could neither quietly walk nor one hear another speak" for the great number of boys and children, and young rogues, who made such " shouting and hollowing;" that, at another, "certain women, maidens and others," who sold apples and oranges at the entrance in Cornhill, amused themselves "in cursing and swearing, to the great annoyance and grief of the passersby;" that again, at a third, the same entrance was beset by "rat-catchers, sellers of dogs, birds, plants, trees, and other things, to the great annoyance and trouble of merchants, gents, ladies, and others," resorting thither; and lastly, to make the confusion worse confounded, and drive the quiet citizens mad, that the bearwards would bring their bears, dogs, and bulls before the Exchange, even at Exchange time, and make their proclamation as to the where and the when of the evening sport.

The last, and not least eloquent, of the literary memorials of the first Royal Exchange, that we shall transcribe, forms also the most fitting conclusion to its history. It is a leaf from the Book of the Great Fire:-" Now the flames break in upon Cornhill, that large and spacious street, and quickly cross the way by the train of wood that lay in the streets untaken away, which had been pulled down from the houses to prevent its spreading, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the lowest vaults and cellars; and march along on both sides of the way, with such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no stately buildings so great as to resist their fury: the Royal Exchange itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence.

When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run round the galleries, filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compasseth the walks, giving forth flaming volleys, and filling the court with sheets of fire. By and by the Kings fell all down on their faces, and the greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing." The very interesting fact recorded in the words we have marked with italics is noticed by all the historians of the Fire; and the author of the Discourses' before mentioned devotes a whole chapter to its illustration. The incident, indeed, was really remarkable, and calculated to stimulate thought into poetry-to connect agreeable memories with the wildest scene of

desolation. Some would remember the exactly parallel circumstance at St. Paul's at the same time, where the architrave alone remained entire, with its builder's name visible by the light of the flames that were destroying his work; others would behold, in the prostration of the effigies of the long line of sovereigns, whilst that of the Merchant-the Philanthropist-the Statesman-remained standing, a symbol of the permanence and natural elevation of the inherent and better qualities of human nature, as contrasted with the temporary rank often bestowed where they are utterly wanting; whilst, lastly, all would feel how impressively that solitary statue seemed to say-"My work is gone, but I am still here" and feel the spirit of Gresham animate them to new exertions to replace the lost edifice.

HOUSE.

(Concluded from No. XLIII.)

THE Great Fire, in which, as we have seen, Sir Thomas Gresham's Exchange was burned down, took place in the beginning of September, 1666; and almost before the flames were extinguished Wren's plan for the rebuilding of London was before the King. In that plan, the Exchange, rebuilt on its own site, was to "stand free in the middle of a piazza, and be as it were the nave or centre of the town, from whence the sixty-feet streets, as so many rays, should proceed to all principal parts of the city." Of all the grand features of the architect's magnificent scheme this was one of the grandest. London was now fast becoming the commercial centre of the world; and it was a fine thought that of placing the home of the merchants who made it so in a corresponding position in their own metropolis. Napoleon's famous directions on the outlets of Paris-"To Rome" -"To Madrid"-had not half the real significancy of Wren's sending his streets off from the Royal Exchange, in every direction of the compass, as so many visible channels of the mighty streams of commerce ever flowing between that Exchange and the remotest countries of the world. The building, it appears, was to be "after the form of the Roman Forum, with double porticoes." But the principal scheme being abandoned, these views for the Exchange also shared its fate. A month after the Fire, the three city surveyors were requested to prepare an estimate for rebuilding the Exchange; and in the early part of the following year the ground was cleared, and an order obtained from Charles II. for the Portland stone required. Sir John Denham, the poet of Cooper's Hill,' was on this occasion the successful prosecutor of their suit with the monarch. Denham was his Majesty's Surveyor of the Works, and in that office so exerted himself to serve the Committee appointed by the Corporation of the City and

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the Mercers' Company to superintend the rebuilding, that on one occasion, when they expected a visit from him, they made "provision of six or eight dishes of meat at the Sun Tavern to entertain him withal," and agreed "to present him with thirty pieces of gold as a token of their gratitude." Much delay, however, ensued, principally, it appears, from the difficulty of deciding which of the surveyors should be the architect, the chief one having "overmuch business." At last, after a show of some modest reluctance on the part of one of the others, Mr. Jernan, that gentleman was named, in April, 1667; and, in answer to an application for instructions, was told "that the new Exchange should be built on the old foundations;" that "the pillars, arches, and roof should be left for him to model according to the rules of art, for the best advantage of the whole structure." From this time the work was carried on with great rapidity. The gossiping Pepys, ever on the watch for materials for his 'Diary,' writes, on the 23rd of October in the same year-" Sir W. Pen and I back into London, and there saw the King, with his kettle-drums and trumpets, going to the Exchange; which, the gates being shut, I could not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain Cockes, and thence again toward Westminster; but in my way stopped at the Exchange and got in, the King being newly gone, and there find the bottom of the first pillar laid (that on the west side of the north entrance). And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry and a canopy of state, and some good victuals and wine for the King, who it seems did it." The "good victuals" comprised, we are elsewhere informed, a chine of beef, grand dishes of fowl, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies, caviare, &c., and several sorts of wine. Charles gave twenty pounds to the workmen. Similar ceremonies commemorated the laying of the first stone of the eastern column a few days later, by the Duke of York, and of the first stone of one of the pillars of the south entrance, in November, by Prince Rupert. These ceremonies appear to have been thought such very agreeable things that there could not be too many of them. The edifice was completed in 1669, at an expense of nearly 59,000l., besides an expenditure for additional site of about 7000/., or twice the cost of the entire original site; such had been the advance in the value of property here in the course of a century. The Exchange was re-opened to the merchants on the 28th of September, 1669.

The new building in its essential features greatly resembled the old, but was larger and more magnificent. A general view of it is shown in a subsequent page. It had, like the old, its ranges of statues, sculptured on this occasion principally by Cibber, with their painting and gilding; its shops above and below, now increased in number to two hundred; its bell-tower; and its uncovered quadrangle in the centre for the merchants, where was placed a statue of Charles II., "by," says Maitland, "the ingenious hand of Mr. Gibbons," with an inscription to the British Cæsar, the father of his country,' &c. The grand entrance from Cornhill was also decorated on each side by statues of the same King and of his father. We may observe, by the way, that the statue of Charles I., which stood in the old Exchange, was, immediately after his execution, removed from thence, in pursuance of a Parliamentary vote proposed by the famous Harry Marten, and the following inscription set up in its place: "Exit Tyrannus, Regum ultimus, Anno Libertatis Angliæ restitutæ primo," with the date. The ascent

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