he rendered himself one of the most opulent merchants in the kingdom; and the queen showed her sense of his merit, by bestowing on him the office of knighthood.

"Gresham had been always liberal and patriotic; but the death of his only son, in 1564, determined him to render his country his principal heir.

"Hitherto the citizens of London had been unprovided with any building in the shape of a Burse, or an Exchange, such as Gresham had been accustomed to see abroad, in the commercial cities of Flanders; and he now munificently offered, if the city would give him a piece of ground, to build one at his own expence.

"The edifice was begun accordingly, in 1566, and finished within three years. It was a quadrangle of bricks, with walks on the ground-floor for merchants, (who now ceased to transact their business in the middle aisle of St. Paul's Cathedral,) with vaults for warehouses beneath, and a row of shops above; from the rent of which the proprietor sought some remuneration for his great charges. But the shops did not immediately find customers; and it was partly with a view of bringing them into vogue, that the queen promised to give her countenance to the undertaking, in Janu

ary, 1571. Holinshed gives the following particulars of this visit. On the twenty-third of January, the queen, accompanied by her nobility, came from Somerset House, and entered the city by Temple Bar, Fleet-street, and by the north side of the Burse, to Sir Thomas Gresham's in Bishopsgate-street, where she dined. After dinner, her grace, returning through Cornhill, entered the Burse on the south side; and, after she had viewed every part thereof, above the ground, especially the Pawne, which was richly furnished with all sorts of the finest wares in the city, she caused proclamation to be made by the sound of trumpet, that it should henceforth be called the Royal Exchange.

"Gresham offered the shops rent-free, for a year, to such as would furnish them with wares and wax-lights, against the coming of the queen; and the proposal produced a very sumptuous display. Afterwards, the shops of the Exchange became the favourite resort of the fashionable of both sexes. The building was destroyed by the fire of 1666; and the divines of that day, according to their custom, pronounced this catastrophe a judgment on the avarice and unfair dealing of the merchants, and the pride, prodigality, and luxury of the

purchasers and idlers, by which it was frequented and maintained."

"Then the present Exchange is not the building erected by Sir Thomas?" said Ann.

"No, my dear," replied Mr. Wilmot: "the first stone of the second fabric was laid by Charles the Second, who rode in state into the city for this purpose, in 1667. It bears the original title, and was erected in about three years, at the expence of £.80,000."

Mrs. Spencer remarked, that Gresham was a splendid benefactor to the city of London; for, besides the Royal Exchange, he left his magnificent residence in Bishopsgate-street, as a college for the benefit of the citizens of London. He thought that, as the inhabitants of that city possessed much money, a proportionate quantity of knowledge and learning should be diffused among them. He bequeathed annuities for public lectures in divinity, law, physic, and astronomy, geometry, music, and rhetoric: his house was appointed for the residence of the lecturer, and there the lectures were to be read. But Gresham College is now turned into the Excise Office.

"Did I understand you, Sir," said Susan, "that the aisle of St. Paul's was formerly used

by the merchants of London, as a resort in which to transact business?"

"You may well ask the question, indeed," answered Mr. Wilmot; "and, in replying to it, I shall first tell you, that, in the year 1441, the beautiful steeple of St. Paul's was struck by lightning; (it was the loftiest in the kingdom;) and, together with the bells and roof, was utterly destroyed. Never did parties in religion run higher than about this period of the reign of Elizabeth. The manner in which this accident was commented upon, by adverse disputants, not only marks the temper of the times; but informs us to how many purposes this building, professedly devoted to divine worship, was appropriated.

"A papist immediately dispersed a paper, representing this accident as a judgment from Heaven, for the discontinuance of the meeting, and other services, which used to be performed in the church, at different hours of the day and night. Pilkington, bishop of Durham, who preached at Paul's Cross, after the accident, was equally disposed to regard it as a judgment; but on the sins of London in general, and particularly on certain abuses, by which the church had formerly been polluted. In a tract, published in answer to that of the pa

pists, he afterwards gave an animated description of the practices of which this cathedral had been the theatre; curious, in the present day, as a record of forgotten customs.

"He said, "No place had been more abused than St. Paul's had been, nor more against the receiving of Christ's gospel; wherefore it was more wonderful that God had spared it so long, than that he overthrew it now. From

the top of the spire, at coronations, or other solemn triumphs, some, for vain-glory, had thrown themselves down by a rope, and so killed themselves, vainly to please other men's eyes. At the battlements of the steeple, sundry times, were used their popish anthems, to call upon their gods, with the torch and taper, in the evenings. In the top of one of the pinnacles was Lollard's Tower, where many an innocent soul had been cruelly terminated and murdered. In the middest alley was their long censer, reaching from the roof to the ground; as though the Holy Ghost came down in their censing, in likeness of a dove. In the arches, men complained of wrong and delayed judgments in ecclesiastical causes; and divers had been condemned there by Annas and Caiphas, for Christ's cause. Their images hung on every wall, and pillar, and door, with their pilgrim