Sauvage-representing a large bell with a wild man standing beside it was a conspicuous object on Ludgate Hill. The old hostelry-apparently one of the oldest in Londonhaving been burnt down in the great fire, was rebuilt, and till its final demolition retained its ancient name. It was on a bench opposite to this tavern that Sir Thomas Wyatt, on finding the city gates shut against him, is said to have sat and meditated in great despondency on his altered fortunes. By Stow it is conjectured that the name of the Belle Sauvage was derived from one Isabella Savage, a former possessor of the house; whereas the definition suggested by Addison in the "Spectator" would seem to be the more correct one. "As for the Bell Savage," he writes, "I was formerly much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the reading of an old romance translated out of the French, which gives an account of a very beautiful woman who was found in a wilderness, and is called in the French 'La belle Sauvage,' and is everywhere translated by our countrymen the Bell Savage."

In the days of his obscurity, the celebrated artist Grinling Gibbons resided in Belle Savage Court, Ludgate Hill. Among other works which he executed at this period, is said to have been a vase of flowers of such delicate workmanship that they shook with the motion of the vehicles which passed through the street.

Before the establishment of regular theatres in England, the courtyards of the larger inns-surrounded, as they generally were, on three sides by galleries-formed not incommodious arenas in which the strolling companies erected their temporary stage. "The form of these temporary playhouses," writes Malone, "seems to be preserved in our modern theatre. The galleries in both are ranged over each other on three sides of the building. The small rooms under the

lowest of these galleries answer to our present boxes, and it is observable, that these even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period expressly for dramatic exhibitionsstill retained their old name, and were frequently called rooms by our ancient writers. The yard bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use." It was in the yard of the Belle Sauvage, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, that Richard Tarleton, the Grimaldi of that famous age, delighted our forefathers by his unrivalled antics and extempore wit.

Ludgate reminds us of a creditable anecdote related of Nell Gwynn, of whose kindness of heart we have nearly as many proofs as we have of her frailty. She was one day ascending Ludgate Hill in her coach, when her attention was attracted to some bailiffs, who were in the act of hurrying off an unfortunate clergyman to prison. Having ordered her coachman to stop, and made some inquiries into the case, she sent for the persons whom the poor debtor named as attestators to his character, and finding him a proper object of charity, not only discharged his debt, but afterwards successfully exerted herself in obtaining preferment for the worthy clergyman.

According to some writers, Lud Gate owed its name to King Lud, who is said to have originally erected the gate, while others, apparently with much more reason, consider its ancient appellation to have been Fludgate, or rather Flodgate, a name derived from the river Fleet, or Flod, which flowed in its immediate vicinity. It may be mentioned that the old gate was sold by order of the Commissioners of City Lands on the 30th of July, 1760, and in the following November it was razed to the ground.

On the north side of Ludgate Street, opposite to the entrance into Blackfriars, stands the church of St. Martin

Ludgate, possessing little interest beyond its antiquity. According to Robert of Gloucester, it was originally built at so remote a period as the seventh century, by the British Prince, Cadwallo; speaking of whom, in connection with Ludgate, he writes,

"A chirch of Sent Martyn liuyng he let rere,

In whych yat men shold goddys seruyse do,
And sing for his soule and al Christene also."

All, however, that we know for a certainty, is the fact that a church was standing here in 1322, when Robert de Sancto Albano was rector. At this period the presentation to St. Martin's was vested in the Abbot and Convent of Westminster, who continued to enjoy it till the dissolution of the monasteries, when, Westminster having been erected into a Bishopric, Henry the Eighth conferred the presentation upon the new prelate. That See having been dissolved in the following reign, Queen Mary in 1553 conferred it on the Bishop of London and his successors, with whom the patronage still continues. The old church having been burnt down in the great fire of London, the present uninteresting edifice was built after designs of Sir Christopher Wren. From the circumstance of several sepulchral stones having been discovered in the immediate neighbourhood, as well as from its vicinity to Watling Street, the great highway of the Romans, the church is believed to stand nearly on the site of a Roman cemetery. One of the rectors of this church in the seventeenth century was Samuel Purchas, the author of the "Pilgrimages."

ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL.

WREN'S DISCOVERIES WHEN DIGGING THE FOUNDATION OF ST. PAUL'S.SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN BUILT ON THE SITE OF A ROMAN TEMPLE.HISTORY OF THE OLD STRUCTURES.-CHURCH OF ST. FAITH.-BISHOP OF LONDON'S PALACE.- - LOLLARDS' TOWER.-WICKLIFFE IN ST. PAUL'S."PAUL'S WALKERS OR "PAUL'S MEN."-TOMBS IN OLD ST. PAUL'S.PAUL'S CROSS.-REMARKABLE EVENTS THERE.-PRESENT ST. PAUL'S. -SIR CHRISTOPHER WREN.

H

OW interesting is the account bequeathed to us by Sir Christopher Wren, of the laying the foundations of his great work, St. Paul's Cathedral! At the greatest depth to which he excavated, he found a substratum of hard clay, the natural soil of the locality, above which, nearly at the level of low-water mark, he discovered water and sand, mixed with sea-shells; thus not only rendering it evident that the sea had once flowed over the high ground on which St. Paul's now stands, but also giving probability to the supposition of the great architect, that the whole country, between Camberwell Hill and the hills of Essex, was once a branch of the sea, forming at low water a sandy bay. Above the sand, on the north side, Wren found a variety of Roman urns, lamps, and lachrymatories, showing that this had once been a cemetery of that great people. Above these again, affording unquestionable evidence of its having also been a burial-place of the ancient British, he discovered numerous pins of wood and ivory which had formerly fastened the garments of the dead; and lastly, still nearer to

the surface of the earth, he found the stone coffins and graves lined with chalk-stones, the peculiar characteristics of a Saxon cemetery.

Whether there be any truth in the surmise that a temple of Diana anciently stood on the site of the present St. Paul's Cathedral, will in all human probability never be satisfactorily settled. As far as the opinion of Sir Christopher Wren is concerned, he decidedly explodes the notion of a pagan temple having ever stood on the spot. He could discover, he says, neither the slightest remains of Roman ornamental architecture, nor the horns of any animal which it was the custom to sacrifice to the Goddess of Chastity. That, after a lapse of upwards of twelve centuries, and after the ground. had been so repeatedly disturbed by the erection and destruction of successive edifices, no trace was to be found of the graceful cornices and capitals of the Romans is, perhaps, not much to be wondered at. But when we find Sir Christopher himself speaking of the discovery of some ancient foundations-consisting of "Kentish rubble-stone, artfully worked and consolidated with exceeding hard mortar, in the Roman manner"-moreover, when we find a Roman burial-place existing in the immediate neighbourhood; when we remember how common it was for the early Christians to convert pagan temples into places of Christian worship; and lastly, when we find it an established fact that the horns of animals used in the sacrifices to Diana have been actually discovered near the spot, though none happened to be found by Wren-we feel ourselves almost justified in clinging to an ancient tradition which serves to throw so much additional interest over St. Paul's. "Some," writes Bishop Gibson, in his edition of Camden's "Britannia," "have fancied that the temple of Diana formerly stood here, and there are circumstances that strengthen the conjecture; as the old