OFFICE, 22, TOOK'S COURT, CHANCERY LANE, E.C.

BY JOHN C. FRANCIS.

-

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 3, 1886.

cary formerly living in Fleet-Street, who made it his

chief Business to make curious Observations, and to
CONTENTS,N° .

collect such Antiquities as were daily found in and about

London. His Character is very well known, and there-
NOTES:-History of the Thames, 1-Decameron: in Eng; fore I will not attempt it. Yet this I must note that he

Jish, 3-York Minster, 4-Sheaf of Misprints—“Ifs and
Ands"-Keats, 6-Social Clubs-“ Filius Populi"-Seventh

was at great Expence in prosecuting bis Discoveries, and

Daughter–The Josepbins-A Drowned Corpse-Suggested that he is remembered with respect by most of our

Press Error-"Sitting on both sides," 6.

Antiquaries that are now living. Tis this very Gentle

man that discovered the Body of an Elephant, as be was

QUERIES :-Tunisia-Bell of the Hop-Platform-Belgium, digging for Gravel in a Field near to the sign of Sir

7-Highland Kult-Bon. Mrs. Norton, Lothair?-MS. of John Old-Castle in the Fields, not far from Battlebridge,

Game of Chess'– Proverbial Phrase-Scotch Names of and near to the River of Wells, which tho' pow dryed up

Fishes-Irish Parliament- Pigott-Hacket's 'Life of Wil-

lams '-"Bang Borrow"- Multiply's Merry Method,' 8–

was a considerablo River in the time of the Romans.

Rapids of Niagara'-J. Thurloe-W. Harries-Cogers' Hau How this Elephant came there ? is the Question. I

-Scotch Traders in Sweden-Latin Poem- Carisbrook Castle know some will bave it to have layn there ever since the

-"The Eight Braves"-Classical Jingle, 9.

Universal Deluge. For my own part I take it to bave

been brought over with many others by the Romans in

REPLIES :--Coronation Stone, 9 - Burgomasco Venetian

the Reign of Claudius the Emperour, and conjecture (for
Glass-Peerage of Scales, 11-Hore Nausea'-Clerk of the
Kitched-W. H. Swepstone-Double Taition Fee-Abp.

a liberty of guessing may be indulged to me as well as to
Augustine, 12—Josselyp-Feet of Fines-Pope's Iliad," 13 others that maintain different Hypotheses) that it was

-K18-Shields of Twelve Tribes— Paradise Lost' in Prose killed in some Fight by a Britain. For not far from the

-Bosky-Nuremberg Nimbus-Author of Pamphlet-Hol- Place where it was found, a British Weapon made of a

bela-Become: Axes, 14 - R. Wharton – Inscriptions on Flint Lance like unto the Head of a Spear, fastned into

Wells -- Coligny-Tyrociny-When was Barns born ? 15-

a Sbaft of a good Length, which was a Weapon very

“Morrow-masse preest" - W. Longsword Billament
Father and Son Bishops-"Pull Devil"-Talbot, Earl of

common amongst the Ancient Britains, was also dug up,
Shrewsbury, 16-Seal of Grand Inquisitor-Scochyns-Act they baving not at that time the use of Iron or Brass, as
of Union - Cronebane Balfpeddy, 17—Jury List-Arms of the Romans had. This conjecture, perhaps, may seem

Hallfax-Bartolozzi: Vestris, 18.

odd to some; but I am satisfied my self, having often

viewed this Flint Weapon, which was once in the Pos-

NOTES ON BOOKS :-Uzanne's 'La Française du sièclo'-
Bulbert's Supplementary Annals of Almondbury

seseion of that Generous Patron of Learning, the Reve-
Grove's · Dictionary of Music.'

rend and very Wortby Dr. Charlett, Master of University

College, and is now preserved amongst the curious Col.

Notices to Correspondents, &c.

lections of Mr. John Kemp, from whence I have thought

fit to send you the exact Form and Bigness of it (a coarse

woodcut of the fint occupies the next page). This dis-

covery was made in the presence of the foresaid Mr.

Notes.

Conyers, and I remember that formerly many such bones

were shown for Giants-Bones, particularly one in the

CONTRIBUTIONS TO A HISTORY OF THE Church of Aldermanbury which was hung in a Chain on

THAMES.

a Pillar of the Church; and such anotber was kept in

St. Laurence's Church, much of the same Bigne88. All

BOOK I. PRIMEVAL AND PROMISCUOUS. which bones were publickly to be seen before the dread.
O could I flow like thee, and make thy stream

ful Fire of London, as it appears to me from the Chro.
My great example as it is my theme-

nicles of Stow, Grafton, Munday, &c."*
Though deep: yet clear, though gentle, yet not dull,
Strong without rage, without o'erflowing full.

Who or what the "black Mary” referred to in

Sir J. Denham.

the Sloane catalogue may have been I know not;

CHAPTER I.

but although she has long since been topographia

Among the “chief things of the ancient moun.

ally dead and buried, her silent ghost still per-
tains and the precious things of the lasting bills”

petually revisits its former haunts. In Cary's map

preserved in the British Museum is a certain of London in 1792 “ Black Mary's Hole”

appears

rudely chipped flint, which once formed part of as part of an unnamed continuation of Coppice
Sir Hans Sloane's collections, bequeathed by him Row, immediately before it passes Bagnigge Wells,
to the nation at his death in 1762. In the Sloane a spot identifiable in the London of to-day as that
Catalogue it is thus described :-

part of Cross Street fronting the Clerkenwell

House of Correction. “ Black Maria" for at least
"No. 246. A British weapon, found with elephant's
tooth, opposite to black Mary's near Grayes inn lane- some five-and-twenty years has been a favourite
Conyers. It is a large black flint, shaped into the figure London synonym for a prison van, and it seems
of a spear's point, K."

difficult to avoid the conclusion that the first
The references to “ Conyers” and “K." are, for-vehicle to which the name was applied was the one
tanately, fully explained in a letter on London which conveyed its duly qualified passengers to
antiquities written by Mr. John Bagford to this establishment at Clerkenwell, situated exactly
Thomas Hearne, the antiquary, and printed among

opposite black Mary's.". I note here, moreover,

the introductory matter to Hearno's edition of two other etymologies. The House of Correction

Leland's Collectanea.' The whole passage runs is known to its frequenters as The Steel," a fact

thus:-

" And here I cannot forget to mention the honest * Leland's Collectanea,' Hearne, second ed., vol. i.

Industry of my old Friond Mr. John Conyers, an Apothe- p. Ixiii.

66