:

Farther to the E. in Cheapside, on the N. side of the street, between Ironmonger Lane and Old Jewry, rises Mercers' Hall, the guild-house of the silk mercers, rebuilt in 1884. The interior (otherwise uninteresting) contains portraits of Dean Colet, founder of St. Paul's School, and Sir Thomas Gresham, founder of the Exchange, as well as a few relics of Sir Richard Whittington. The chapel, which is adorned with modern frescoes of Becket's Martyrdom and the Ascension, occupies the site of the house in which Thomas Becket was born in 1119, and where a hospital and chapel were erected to his memory about the year 1190. Henry VIII. afterwards granted the hospital to the Mercers, who had been incorporated in 1393. Saddlers' Hall, 143 Cheapside, possesses a fine large hall and a good gateway.

Old Jewry, to the E. of Mercers' Hall, derives its name from the synagogue which stood here prior to the persecution of the Jews in 1291. On its site, close to the Bank, now stands the Grocers' Hall, the guild-house of the Grocers, or, as they were once called, the 'Pepperers', with a fine stained-glass window. This company is one of the oldest in London. Old Jewry is continued towards the N. by Coleman Street, in which, on the right, is situated the Armourers' Hall (Pl. R, 39; III), founded about 1450, and spared by the fire of 1666. It contains an interesting and valuable collection of armour and old plate.

The continuation of Cheapside towards the E. is called the POULTRY, once the street of the poulterers, at the farther end of which, on the right, rises the Mansion House (Pl. R, 39; 111), the official residence of the Lord Mayor during his year of office, erected by Dance in 1739-52. Lord Burlington sent in a design by the famous Italian architect Palladio, which was rejected on the naïve question of one of the aldermen 'Who was Palladio was he a freeman of the city?' The building is preceded by a Corinthian hexastyle portico. The tympanum contains an allegorical group in relief by Sir Robert Taylor.

In the interior, to the left of the entrance, is the Lord Mayor's policecourt, open to the public daily from 12 to 2. The long suite of state and reception rooms are only shown by the special permission of the Lord Mayor. The principal room is the Egyptian Hall, in which the Lord Mayor gives his banquets and balls, said to be a reproduction of the hall described under that name by Vitruvius. It contains several pieces of modern English sculpture: *Caractacus and the nymph Egeria, by Foley; Genius and the Morning Star, by Baily; Comus, by Lough; Griselda, by Marshall.

The interior of St. Stephen's Church, Walbrook, behind the Mansion House, with its graceful dome supported by Corinthian columns, is considered one of Wren's masterpieces. Altarpiece by West, Stoning of St. Stephen.

Queen Victoria Street, 1/3 M. in length, one of the great modern improvements of London, constructed at vast expense, leads directly from the Mansion House to Blackfriars Bridge (see p. 112).

5. The Bank of England. The Exchange. Stock Exchange. Merchant Taylors' Hall. Crosby Hall. St. Helen's Church. Cornhill. Leadenhall Market. St. Andrew's Undershaft. Corn Exchange. Toynbee Hall. People's Palace.

Opposite the Mansion House, and bounded on the S. by Threadneedle Street, on the W. by Prince's Street, on the N. by Lothbury, and on the E. by Bartholomew Lane, stands the Bank of England (Pl. R,39,43; III), an irregular and isolated building of one story, the W. part of which was designed by Sir John Soane in 1788. The external walls are entirely devoid of windows, the Bank being, for the sake of security, lighted from interior courts. The only attractive portion of the architecture is at the N. W. angle, which was copied from the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli. The edifice covers an area of about four acres.

The Bank was founded in 1691 by William Paterson, a Scotsman. It is a joint stock bank, and was the first of the kind established in the kingdom. Having exclusive privileges in the metropolis, secured by Royal Charter, it continued to be the only joint stock bank in London till 1834, when the London and Westminster Bank, soon to be followed by many others, was established. The Bank of England is still the only bank in London which has the power of issuing paper money. Its original capital was 1,200,000l., which has since been multiplied more than twelvefold. It now employs 900 persons at salaries varying from 501. to 1,200l. (in all 210,000l.). The vaults usually contain 15-20 million pounds sterling in gold and silver, while there are 20-25 millions of pounds sterling of the Bank's notes in circulation. The Bank receives 200,000l. a year for managing the national debt (now amounting to about 700,000,000l.), besides which it carries on business like other banks in discounting bills, receiving deposits, and lending money. It is bound to buy all gold bullion brought to it, at the rate of 31. 178. 9d. per oz. The average amount of money negociated in the Bank per day is over 2,000,0001.

The business offices of the Bank are open to the public daily from 9 to 3; the Printing, Weighing, and Bullion Offices are shown only by the special order of the Governor or Deputy-Governor, to whom an introduction must be obtained.

The account-books of the Bank are ruled and cut in the Ruling Room, and bound in the Binding Room. The Bank also contains a general Printing Room, and a special Bank-note Printing Room, where 15,000 new banknotes are produced daily. Many notes of 1000l. are printed, and cases have been known of the issue of notes for as large sums as 50,0001. or 100,000l. The Bank pays above 70,0001. annually to the Stamp Oftice for stamps on notes; and it is estimated that its losses, from forgeries, etc., have amounted at times to more than 40 0001. annually. The note printing-press is exceedingly interesting. In the Old Note Office the halves of old bank-notes are kept for a period of ten years. All notes paid into the Bank are at once cancelled, so that in some cases the active life of a bank-note may not be longer than a single day. The cancelled notes, however, are kept for ten years, in case they may be required as testimony in a court of law. Every month the notes received in the corresponding month ten years ago are burned; and the furnace provided for this purpose, 5 ft. in height and 10ft. in diameter, is said to be completely filled on each occasion. The stock of paid notes for five years amounts to about 80 millions; if the notes were joined end to end they would form a ribbon 13,000 M. long, while their superficial extent would almost equal that of Hyde Park. The Bank-Note Autograph Books contain the signatures of various royal and distinguished personages. A bank-note for 1,000,0001. is also exhibited to the curious visitor. The Weighing Office contains a machine for weighing sovereigns (33 per minute), which throws those of full weight into one compartment and the light ones into another. The Bullion Office is the treasury for the precious metals. The Bank is protected at night by a small garrison of soldiers.

In Post Office Court, Lombard Street, is the Bankers' Clearing House, a useful institution through which bankers obtain the amount of cheques and bills in their hands without the trouble of collecting them at the various banks on which they are drawn. The bills and cheques received by the various bankers during the day are here compared, and the difference settled by a cheque on the Bank of England. The amount changing hands here is enormous, reaching in the year ending Dec. 31st., 1887, the sum of 6,077,097,0001.

In Capel Court, opposite the Bank, is the Stock Exchange, the headquarters of the Stock-brokers and Stock-jobbers (about 900 in number), each of whom pays an annual subscription of 10l. Strangers are not admitted. The Stock Exchange has recently been much enlarged by an extension on the E. side, between Throgmorton Street and Old Broad Street.

In Throgmorton Street, to the N. of the Stock Exchange, is the Drapers' Hall, containing a portrait of Nelson by Sir William Beechey, and a picture of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her son James I, attributed to Zucchero. Adjoining is the Drapers' Garden, containing one or two old mulberry-trees.

The Dutch Church in Austin Friars, behind the Drapers' Hall, dates from the 14th cent. and is one of the few ecclesiastical edifices which escaped the fire of 1666. It contains numerous more or less interesting graves of the 14-16th centuries.

The Royal Exchange (Pl. R, 43; 111), built in 1842-44 by Tite, a successor to the first Exchange erected in 1564-70 by Sir Thomas Gresham, is preceded by a Corinthian portico, and approached by a broad flight of steps. The group in the tympanum is by Westmacott: in the centre is Commerce, holding the charter of the Exchange in her hand; on the right the Lord Mayor, municipal officials, an Indian, an Arab, a Greek, and a Turk; on the left English merchants, a Chinese, a Persian, a Negro, etc. On the architrave below is the inscription: 'The Earth is the Lord's and the fulness thereof'.

The interior of the Exchange forms a quadrangular covered court surrounded by colonnades. In the centre is a statue of Queen Victoria, by Lough; in the N.E. and S. E. corners are statues of Queen Elizabeth, by Watson, and Charles II. The walls of the colonnades bear the armorial bearings and products of the different countries of Europe and America, in encaustic painting. The tesselated pavement of Turkey stone is the original one of Gresham's Exchange, opened by Queen Elizabeth on June 23rd, 1571. The chief business hour is from 3.30 to 4.30p.m., and the most important days are Tuesdays and Fridays. On the E. side rises a campanile, 180 ft. in height. On the front (E.) of the tower is a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham, and at the top is a large gilded vane in the shape of a grasshopper (Gresham's crest). The shops on the outside of the Exchange greatly disfigure the building. Nearly opposite the Exchange is No. 15 Cornhill, occupied by Messrs. Birch, confectioners, and said to be the oldest shop in London.

At the E. end of the Exchange a staircase ascends to Lloyd's Subscription Rooms, the central point of every kind of business connected with navigation, maritime trade, marine insurance, and shipping intelligence. The vestibule is adorned with statues of Prince Albert by Lough, and Huskisson by Gibson. On the wall is a tablet to the 'Times' newspaper, erected in recognition of the public service it rendered by the exposure of a fraudulent financial conspiracy of gigantic character. The first room is used by Underwriters, the second by Merchants, and the third by Ship-Captains.

The space in front of the Bank and the Exchange is the chief point of convergence of the London omnibus traffic, which during business hours is enormous.

In front of the Exchange is an Equestrian Statue of Wellington, by Chantrey, erected in 1844, beside which is a handsome fountain with a female figure. On the S.E. side of the Exchange is a statue of Sir Rowland Hill, the inventor of the cheap postal system. Behind the Exchange, in Threadneedle Street, is a statue, in a sitting posture, of Peabody (d. 1869), the American philanthropist, by Story, erected in 1871 by public subscription.

George Peabody, an American merchant, who carried on an extensive business and spent much of his time in London, gave at different times upwards of half a million of money for the erection of suitable dwellings for the working classes of the metropolis. The property is managed by a body of trustees. The number of persons accommodated in the Peabody Buildings is about 20,000, each family paying an average weekly rent of about 4s., which includes the use of baths and wash-houses. The capital of the fund now amounts to about 1,000,0001. Mr. Peabody declined a baronetcy offered by the Queen, but accepted a miniature portrait of Her Majesty. He spent and bequeathed still larger sums for educational and benevolent purposes in America, the grand total of his gifts amounting to nearly 2,000,0001. sterling.

Farther along Threadneedle Street, beyond Finch Lane, on the E. side of the street, is the Merchant Taylors' Hall, the largest of the London Companies' halls, erected, after the Great Fire of 1666, by Jarman (admission on application to a member). The company was incorporated in 1466. The handsome hall contains some good portraits: Henry VIII., by Paris Bordone; Duke of York, by Lawrence; Duke of Wellington, by Wilkie; Charles I.; Charles II.; James II.; William III.; Queen Anne; George III. and his consort; Lord Chancellor Eldon, by Briggs; Pitt, by Hoppner.

There is also a valuable collection of old plate. The small, but interesting Crypt was spared by the Fire.

Near this point, in Bishopsgate Street, stands * Crosby Hall, built in 1466 by Alderman Sir John Crosby, and once occupied by the notorious Duke of Gloucester, afterwards Richard III. The building subsequently belonged to Sir Thomas More, and it is mentioned by Shakspeare in his 'Richard III.' For a long time it was used for the reception of ambassadors, and was considered the finest house in London. During the Protectorate it was a prison; and it afterwards became in turn a meeting-house, a warehouse, and a concert and lecture room. It has been lately restored, and is now used as a restaurant (p. 15). Crosby Hall deserves a visit as being one of the few existing relics of the domestic architecture of mediæval London, and the only one in the Gothic style. The present street front and many parts of the interior do not belong to the ancient structure. The Banqueting Hall has a fine oaken roof.

St. Helen's Church, near Crosby Hall, called by Dean Stanley the 'Westminster Abbey of the City', once belonged to an ancient nunnery and dates originally from 1145-50. Among other old monuments, it contains those of Sir John Crosby and Sir Thomas Gresham (see p. 100). The Latin inscription on the tomb of Sir Julius Cæsar (d. 1636), Master of the Rolls in the reign of James I., is to the effect that he had given his bond to Heaven to yield up his soul willingly when God should demand it. His monument, in the Chapel of the Holy Ghost, is by Nicholas Stone. Over the picturesque 'Nuns' Gate' is a recent inscription to Alberico Gentile, the Italian jurist, and professor of civil law at Oxford, who was buried near it. A stained-glass window was erected in 1884 to the memory of Shakspeare, who was a parishioner in 1598 and is rated in the parish books for 51. 13s. 4d. See 'Annals of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate', by Rev. J. E. Cox, D.D. (1876). St. Helen's Place is the modern Hall of the Leathersellers, a company incorporated at the end of the 14th century. The building is erected over the old crypt of St. Helen's Nunnery.

In

On the W. side of Bishopsgate Street Without (No. 168) is the picturesque old house (now a tavern) of Sir Paul Pindar (d. 1650), one of the merchant-princes of his time.

The National Provincial Bank of England, 112 Bishopsgate Street, is worth visiting for the beautiful interior of its large hall, a remarkable specimen of the Byzantine-Romanesque style, with polished granite columns and polychrome decoration.

Shoreditch, the continuation of Bishopsgate Street, leads to the chief goods depôt (once the Shoreditch or Bishopsgate terminus) of the Great Eastern Railway, and beyond it to Kingsland and to Dalston, where the German Hospital is situated.

In Cornhill, the street which leads to the E. straight past the S. side of the Exchange, rises on the right (S.) St. Michael's