that could not be bitter with so sweet an earnestness, that he would give up his tax, provided she rode through the city of Coventry, naked. She took him at his word. One may imagine the astonishment of a fierce, unlettered chieftain, not untinged with chivalry, at hearing a woman, and that too of the greatest delicacy and rank, maintaining seriously her intention of acting in a manner contrary to all that was supposed fitting for her sex, and at the same time forcing upon him a sense of the very beauty of her conduct by its principled excess. It is probable, that as he could not prevail upon her to give up her design, he had sworn some religious oath when he made his promise; but be this as it may, he took every possible precaution to secure her modesty from hurt. The people of Coventry were ordered to keep within doors, to close up all their windows and outlets, and not to give a glance into the streets upon pain of death. The day came; and Coventry, it may be imagined, was silent as death. The lady went out at the palace door, was set on horseback, and at the same time divested of her wrapping garment, as if she had been going into a bath; then taking the fillet from her head, she let down her long and lovely tresses, which poured around her body like a veil; and so, with only her white legs remaining conspicuous, took her gentle way through the streets.*

What scene can be more touching to the imagination—beauty, modesty, feminine softness, a daring sympathy; an extravagance, producing by the nobleness of its object and the strange gentleness of its means, the grave and profound effect of the most reverend custom. We may suppose the scene taking place in the warm noon; the doors all shut, the windows closed; the Earl and his court serious and wondering; the other inhabitants, many of them gushing with grateful tears, and all reverently listening to hear the footsteps of the horse; and lastly, the lady herself, with a downcast but not a shamefaced

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Nuda," says Matthew of Westminster, "equum ascendens, crines capitis et tricas dissolvens, corpus suum totum, præter crura candidissima, inde velavit." See Selden's Notes to the Polyolbion of Drayton: Song 13. It is Selden from whom we learn, that Leofric was Earl of Leicester, and the other particulars of him mentioned above. The Earl was buried at Coventry; his Countess most probably in the same tomb.

eye, looking towards the earth through her flowing locks, and riding through the dumb and deserted streets, like an angelic spirit.

It was an honorable superstition in that part of the country, that a man who ventured to look at the fair saviour of his native town, was said to have been struck blind. But the vulgar use to which this superstition has been turned by some writers of late times, is not so honorable. The whole story is as unvulgar and as sweetly serious as can be conceived.

Drayton has not made so much of this subject as might have been expected; yet what he says is said well and earnestly:

-Coventry at length

From her small mean regard, recovered state and strength;
By Leofric her lord, yet in base bondage held,

The people from her marts by tollage were expelled:
Whose duchess which desired this tribute to release,

Their freedom often begged. The duke, to make her cease,
Told her, that if she would his loss so far enforce,

His will was, she should ride stark naked upon a horse
By daylight through the street: which certainly he thought
In her heroic breast so deeply would have wrought,
That in her former suit she would have left to deal.

But that most princely dame, as one devoured with zeal,
Went on, and by that mean the city clearly freed.

CHAPTER VI.

Pleasant Memories connected with various parts of the Metropolis.

ONE of the best secrets of enjoyment is the art of cultivating pleasant associations. It is an art that of necessity increases with the stock of our knowledge; and though in acquiring our knowledge we must encounter disagreeable associations also, yet if we secure a reasonable quantity of health by the way, these will be far less in number than the agreeable ones: for unless the circumstances which gave rise to the associations press upon us, it is only for want of health that the power of throwing off these burdensome images becomes suspended.

And the beauty of this art is, that it does not insist upon pleasant materials to work on. Nor indeed does health. Health will give us a vague sense of delight in the midst of objects that would teaze and oppress us during sickness. But healthy association peoples this vague sense with agreeable images. It will comfort us, even when a painful sympathy with the distresses of others becomes a part of the very health of our minds. For instance, we can never go through St. Giles's, but the sense of the extravagant inequalities in human condition presses more forcibly upon us; and yet some pleasant images are at hand, even there, to refresh it. They do not displace the others so as to injure the sense of public duty which they excite; they only serve to keep our spirits fresh for their task, and hinder them from running into desperation or hope. lessness. In St. Giles's church lie Chapman, the earliest and best translator of Homer; and Andrew Marvell, the wit and patriot, whose poverty Charles the Second could not bribe. We are sure to think of these two men, and of all the good and pleasure they have done to the world, as of the less happy objects about us. The steeple of the church itself, too, is a handsome one; and there is a flock of pigeons in that neighbor

hood, which we have stood with great pleasure to see careering about it of a fine afternoon, when a western wind had swept back the smoke towards the city, and showed the white of the stone steeple piercing up into a blue sky. So much for St. Giles's, whose very name is a nuisance with some. It is dangerous to speak disrespectfully of old districts. Who would suppose that the Borough was the most classical ground in the metropolis! And yet it is undoubtedly so. The Globe theatre was there, of which Shakspeare himself was the proprietor, and for which he wrote some of his plays. Globe-lane, in which it stood, is still extant, we believe, under that name. It is proba

ble that he lived near it: it is certain that he must have been much there. It is also certain that on the Borough side of the river, then and still called the Bank-side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some say with other participations more remarkable, lived Beaumont and Fletcher. In the Borough, also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger in one grave; in the same church, under a monument and effigy, lies Chaucer's contemporary, Gower; and from an inn in the Borough, the existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed out by a picture and inscription, Chaucer sets out his pilgrims and himself on their famous road to Canterbury.

To return over the water, who would expect anything poetical from East Smithfield? Yet there was born the most poetical even of the poets, Spenser. Pope was born within the sound of Bow-bell, in a street no less anti-poetical than Lombard-street. Gray was born in Cornhill; and Milton in Bread-street, Cheapside. The presence of the same great poet and patriot has given happy memories to many parts of the metropolis. He lived in St. Bride's Church-yard, Fleet-street; in Aldersgatestreet, in Jewin-street, in Barbican, in Bartholomew-close; in Holborn, looking back to Lincoln's-inn-Fields; in Holborn, near Red Lion square; in Scotland-yard; in a house looking to St. James's Park, now belonging to an eminent writer on legislation,* and lately occupied by a celebrated critic and metaphysician;† and he died in the Artillery-walk, Bunhill. fields; and was buried in St. Giles's, Cripplegate.

Ben Jonson, who was born in "Hartshorne-lane, near Cha. ring-cross," was at one time "master" of a theatre in Barbican. He appears also to have visited a tavern called the Sun and Moon, in Aldersgate-street; and is known to have frequented, with Beaumont and others, the famous one called the Mermaid, which was in Cornhill. Beaumont, writing to him from the country, in an epistle full of jovial wit, says,—

So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,

As if that every one from whom they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest,

And had resolved to live a fool the rest

Of his dull life. Then, when there hath been thrown

Wit, able enough to justify the town

For three days past,-wit, that might warrant be

For the whole city to talk foolishly

Till that were cancelled, and when that was gone,

We left an air behind us, which alone

Was able to make the two next companies

Right witty;-though but downright fools, mere wise.

The other celebrated resort of the great wits of that time, was the Devil tavern, in Fleet-street, close to Temple-bar. Ben Jonson lived also in Bartholomew-close, where Milton afterwards lived. It is in the passage from the cloisters of Christ's Hospital into St. Bartholomew's. Aubrey gives it as a common opinion, that at the time when Jonson's father-in-law made him help him in his business of bricklayer, he worked with his own hands upon the Lincoln's-inn garden wall, which looks towards Chancery-lane, and which seems old enough to have some of his illustrious brick and mortar remaining.