44 CHURCH OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW THE LESS.

cent Lord Mayor, Richard Whittington. At the suppression of the monasteries in the reign of Henry the Eighth the interests of the poor were not forgotten; the hospital having been then refounded for the relief of a hundred "sore and diseased" persons.

The staircase of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, painted by Hogarth at his own expense,* represents the good Samaritan and the pool of Bethesda, and in another part Rahere laying the foundation stone, with a sick man carried on a bier attended by monks. In the handsome court-room of the Hospital is a full-length portrait of Henry the Eighth; as well as portraits of Charles the Second by John Baptist Gaspars, and of Dr. Radcliffe, founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and a munificent benefactor of the Hospital.

The church of St. Bartholomew the Less, though it escaped the great fire, possesses but little interest. It was originally a chapel attached to the Priory, but after the dissolution of the monasteries was converted into a parish church for the convenience of those who lived within the precincts of the Hospital. At the time when Stow made his survey it contained many ancient monuments and brasses, but unhappily nearly all have been swept away. The original tower still remains, but the church itself, having fallen into decay, was rebuilt by Dance in 1789, and again by the late Thomas Hardwicke in 1823. Inigo Jones was baptized in this church, and here James Heath, the author of the "Chronicle of the late War," was interred in 1664.

Intimately associated with the Priory of St. Bartholomew, is its rural appendage of Canonbury, near Islington, a favourite retreat of the old Priors. This interesting relic of

*It appears by the parish register that Hogarth was baptized in the neighbouring church of St. Bartholomew, on the 28th of November, 1697. -Cunningham's "London." Art. St. Bartholomew the Great.

antiquity, which was presented to the Priory by Ralph de Berners in the reign of Edward the First, derives its name partly from having been the residence of the Canons or Priors, and partly from the word bury, signifying a court, or dwelling-house.

Canonbury Tower," writes Hone, "is sixty feet high and seventeen feet square. It is part of an old mansion which appears to have been erected, or much altered, about the reign of Elizabeth. The more ancient edifice was erected by the Priors or the Canons of St. Bartholomew, Smithfield, and hence was called Canonbury, to whom it appertained until it was surrendered with the Priory to Henry the Eighth; and when the religious houses were dissolved, Henry gave the mansion to Thomas Lord Cromwell. It afterwards passed through other hands, till it was possessed by Sir John Spencer, an Alderman and Lord Mayor of London, known by the name of Rich Spencer.' While he resided at Canonbury, a Dunkirk pirate came over in a shallop to Barking Creek and hid himself with some armed men in Islington Fields-near the path which Sir John usually took from his house in Crosby Place to this mansion—with the hope of making him prisoner, but as he remained in town. that night, they were glad to make off. for fear of detection, and returned to France disappointed of their prey and of the large ransom they calculated on for the release of his person. His sole daughter and heiress, Elizabeth, was carried off in a baker's basket from Canonbury House by William, the second Lord Compton, Lord President of Wales. He inherited Canonbury, with the rest of Sir John Spencer's wealth, at his death, and was afterwards created Earl of Northampton. In this family the manor still remains."-" I ranged the old rooms," adds Hone, "and took, perhaps, a last view from the roof. The eye shrank from the wide

havoc below. Where new buildings had not covered the sward, it was embowelling for bricks, and kilns emitted flickering fire and sulphurous stench." The present tower was probably built by Sir John Spencer, into whose hands the estate passed in 1570.

Canonbury Tower is rendered especially interesting from. its having been frequently the hiding-place of Goldsmith, when threatened with arrest and the gaol. Here, according to tradition, he composed his "Deserted Village" and a part of the " Vicar of Wakefield." That Goldsmith resided here during the whole of the year 1763 and a portion of 1764, there can be no question; the popular authority for presuming the "Vicar of Wakefield" to have been composed in Canonbury Tower, being Sir John Hawkins; while, on the other hand, Mr. Mitford, in his "Life of Goldsmith," intimates that Goldsmith composed this charming story during his residence in Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, between the

years 1760 and 1762. "Canonbury," writes Washington Irving, “is an ancient brick tower, hard by merry Islington,' the remains of a hunting-seat of Queen Elizabeth, where she took the pleasure of the country, when the neighbourhood was all woodland. What gave it particular interest in my eyes, was the circumstance that it had been the residence of a poet. It was here Goldsmith resided when he wrote his 'Deserted Village.' I was shown the very apartment. It was a relic of the original style of the castle, with panelled wainscot and Gothic windows. I was pleased with its air of antiquity, and its having been the residence of poor Goldy."

Goldsmith's apartment is said to have been an old oak room on the first floor, in the eastern corner of which was a large press-bedstead in which he slept. The walls of this apartment present a good example of oak panelling, sur

passed, however, by an upper room, which for carving and delicate tracery is hardly to be equalled.

The account given by Washington Irving of the miseries of his "Poor Devil Author" in Canonbury Tower, has probably as much truth in it as fiction. "Sunday came," he writes, "and with it the whole City world, swarming about Canonbury Castle. I could not open my window but I was stunned with shouts and noises from the cricket ground. The late quiet road beneath my windows was alive with the tread of feet and the clack of tongues, and, to complete my misery, I found that my quiet retreat was absolutely a 'show-house,' being shown to strangers at sixpence a head. There was a perpetual tramping up stairs of citizens and their families to look about the country from the top of the tower, and to take a peep at the City through a telescope, to try if they could discern their own chimneys."

It was probably not in connection with Goldsmith alone that Washington Irving was induced to fix upon Canonbury Tower as the retreat of his "Poor Devil Author." Here, at different times, resided the unfortunate poet, Christopher Smart; David Humphreys, an indifferent poet, author of "Ulysses,” an opera; and Ephraim Chambers, the author of the "Cyclopædia.”

Behind Canonbury Tower stood till our time a mansion which, according to tradition, was the occasional rural retreat of Queen Elizabeth, and which bore internal evidence of having been anciently the habitation of royalty. The old drawing-room, with its fine stuccoed ceiling, its scroll-work ornaments, and its beautiful mantel-piece, must at one time have been a stately apartment. In the centre of the ceiling were the initials E. R., affording circumstantial, if not positive, evidence that the mansion was once inhabited by the virgin queen. On the ground-floor was

another fine apartment, known as the Stone Parlour. This apartment had also a fine decorated mantel-piece, on which were represented the Cardinal Virtues, as well as a stuccoed ceiling embossed and ornamented with pendants.

Adjoining this house, and standing on a rather elevated lawn, was the ancient residence of Prior Bolton, probably erected by him about the year 1520. The lawn was terminated by a raised and embowered terrace, which must at one time have commanded a fine view of the surround

ing country. At each end of the wall was an octagonal garden-house, erected by Prior Bolton, in one of which was to be traced the Prior's rebus, or device-a bolt, or arrow, and a tun. The same quaint device is also to be traced in St. Bartholomew's Church and in some of the houses in the adjoining Close. Ben Jonson speaks of

"Old Prior Bolton, with his bolt and ton."

From the same source, apparently the ancient and wellknown Inn in Fleet Street derived its name.

Among other relics of the past the mansion contained a carved mantel-piece of the reign of Elizabeth, and a stone passage, or corridor, in which could be seen a Tudor doorway of considerable beauty and elegance, ornamented by the rebus of Prior Bolton.*

Who is there who has not felt an interest in that great Smithfield Fair, which derived its name from having been for centuries held under the shadow of the neighbouring Priory. The privilege of holding a fair at Smithfield during St. Bartholomew Tide was originally granted to the Priory by Henry the Second. It lasted for three days, being prin

The writer is indebted to Knight's "London" for many interesting particulars connected with the Priory of St. Bartholomew and its founder Rahere. See Knight's "London," vol. ii., p. 33, et seq., and p. 49, et seq.