STORY OF THE CLOCK TOWER.

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and here apparently he died. By a curious writ, dated the 13th of July, 1389, the poet was appointed Clerk of the Works at the palace of Westminster, the Tower of London, the Mews near CharingCross, and other places, with a salary of two shillings a day.

In New Palace Yard anciently stood a handsome conduit or fountain, which, according to Stow, on the occasion of great triumphs, was "made to run with wine out of diverse spouts." And opposite the hall, on the site of the present passage into Bridge Street, was a lofty tower, called the Clock Tower.

In regard to this tower, the following rather curious story is related. In the reign of Henry the Third, a certain poor man having been fined the sum of thirteen and four-pence in an action for debt, Radulphus de Ingham, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, commiserating his case, caused the court roll to be erased, and the fine to be reduced to six shillings and eightpence; which, being soon afterwards discovered, the judge was sentenced to pay a fine of eight hundred marks. This sum, it is said, was expended on building the Clock Tower, in which there was a bell or clock, which, striking hourly, was intended to remind the judges in the hall of the fate of their brother. There seems to have been some truth in the story. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when Catlyn, Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench, proposed to a brother judge to have a

court-roll erased, "No," said the other, "I have no inclination to build a clock-house." The Bell, or Clock Tower, was pulled down in 1715, when the ancient bell was granted to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's Cathedral, and some time afterwards was recast. On it was inscribed the

following doggrel distich,

Tertius aptavit me rex, Edwardque vocavit,
Sancti decore Edwardi signaretur ut hora.

signifying that the King gave the bell and called it Edward, in order that the hours of the neighbouring Abbey of St. Edward the Confessor might be properly denoted. In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, the name of the bell seems to have been changed to Tom of Westminster, at least if we may judge by the following couplet,

Hark! Harry, 'tis late, 'tis time to be gone,

For Westminster Tom, by my faith, strikes one.

In New Palace Yard, extending from the northeast corner of Westminster Hall in the direction of the bridge, stood the old buildings of the Exchequer, containing the despotic and terrible Star Chamber, with its thousand dark but interesting associations. The name is generally supposed to have been derived from the stars with which the ceiling was anciently decorated; but according to Blackstone, it was from the Starra, (corrupted from the Hebrew Shetar,) or Jewish covenants, which were deposited here by Richard the First. According to some accounts, the Painted Chamber was the original Star Chamber in the time of the

Norman Kings. At all events, the Exchequer Buildings, which contained the Star Chamber of Queen Elizabeth and Charles the First, dated no further back than the reign of the former sovereign. Well does the author remember the interesting old apartment, with its panelled walls, and its curious oaken roof divided into compartments, and ornamented with roses, portcullises, and fleurs-de-lys. It was pulled down within the last few years; when, to the disgrace of the authorities, the old panelling, and the oak-ceiling, with its interesting ornaments, for which many would have given large sums, and would have preserved with religious care, were sold as fire-wood, or were probably converted to even some baser purpose.

When, in September, 1498, the unsuccessful attempt of Perkin Warbeck on the city of Exeter delivered him into the merciless hands of Henry the Seventh, the young, the handsome, and accomplished adventurer, was conducted to London in a kind of mock triumph; and, in order to complete his humiliation, was placed in the stocks before the great entrance to Westminster Hall. "Incontinently," says Holinshed, "Perkin was brought to the court at Westminster, and was one day set fettered in a pair of stocks before the door of Westminster Hall, and there stood a whole day, not without innumerable reproaches, mocks, and scornings; and the next day he was carried through London, and set upon a like scaffold in Cheapside, by the Standard, with like gins and stocks as he