recognized the foul fiend, and accordingly seizing him by the nose with his red-hot tongs, he made him utter such terrific shrieks as to be heard by the whole neighbourhood. After the death of Athelstan, he was recalled to court by King Edmund, and in the reign of King Edred, rose successively to be Bishop of Worcester and London, and Archbishop of Canterbury. He died at Canterbury in 987, and was buried under the high altar of its cathedral. Although St. Dunstan's Church, Fleet Street, appears to have been of very ancient foundation, we discover no direct mention of it till 1237, in which year the abbot and convent of Westminster transferred it to King Henry the Third, "towards the maintenance of the house called the Rolls, for the reception of converted Jews." The present church was built between the years 1829 and 1833, after designs of the late John Shaw. Old St. Dunstan's Church appears to have contained the remains of a greater number of Lord Mayors, Sheriffs, and Aldermen, than perhaps any other church in London. The great Lord Strafford, and Bulstrode Whitelocke, the author of the well-known "Memorials," were baptized in this church, and in 1620 Dr. Donne was appointed to the vicarage. Many of our readers will doubtless recollect the quaint dial-piece of old St. Dunstan's clock, as it formerly projected into Fleet Street. In an alcove above it stood two figures of savages of the size of life, each holding a knotted club in his right hand, with which they struck the hours and the quarters on two bells suspended between them. We are told that it was "a whimsical conceit, calculated only for the amusement of countrymen and children," and so in fact it was; and yet, among the childish recollections of thousands, it has probably not been the least vivid. "When labour and when dulness, club in hand, But such mere quarter-strokes are not for me." COWPER'S Table Talk. The statue of Queen Elizabeth, a conspicuous object on the exterior of St. Dunstan's Church, anciently ornamented the front of old Lud-Gate. The fire of London was arrested within three doors of St. Dunstan's Church, on one side of Fleet Street; and, on the other side, within a short distance from the Inner Temple Gate. THE FLEET PRISON. -- THE FLEET USED AS A STATE PRISON AT AN EARLY DATE.-PERSONS INCARCERATED THERE: BISHOPS GARDINER AND HOOPER, -DR. DONNE,-MARTIN KEYS, PRYNNE, LILBURNE, JAMES HOWELL,-LORDS SURREY AND FALKLAND,—SIR RICHARD BAKER,-OLDYS,—WYCHERLEY,—SANDFORD. TYRANNY AND TORTURES PRACTISED IN THE PRISON.-GENERAL OGLETHORPE.-PRISON BURNT AT THE GREAT FIRE.-FLEET MARRIAGES.KEITH, THE NOTORIOUS FLEET PARSON. COULD the walls of the old Fleet Prison have spoken, what fearful tales of vice, misery, and misfortune might they not have unfolded! This interesting pile, with its host of melancholy and historical associations, has passed away for ever. It was very soon after its demolition had commenced that the author wandered through its dingy apartments and narrow corridors, which then offered a striking contrast, by their utter stillness and desolation, to what they must have presented but a short time before when they were the scenes of reckless riot and crowded wretchedness. The Fleet-prisona de la Fleet-was used as a state prison at least as early as the twelfth century. In the first year of the reign of Richard the First we find that monarch conferring the custody of it on Osbert, brother to Longchamp, Chancellor of England, and on his heirs for ever; twelve years after which, however, we find King John installing the Archbishop of Wells in its care and custody. From this time till it was burned by the followers of Wat Tyler, in 1381, we discover no important incident connected with its history. During the reigns of Edward the Sixth and Queens Mary and Elizabeth, the Fleet appears to have been constantly the prison of conscientious sufferers in the cause of religion, many of whom, in the reign of the former Queen, suffered martyrdom in the flames. Hither, shortly after the accession of Edward the Sixth, was committed the learned but unfeeling Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, who was doomed to experience within its walls, and subsequently in the dungeons of the Tower, those rigours which he had formerly so unrelentingly practised against the unfortunate Protestants. Hither, also, was committed, on the 1st of September, 1547, the infamous Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London, for refusing to take the oath of supremacy to the young King. Neither of these unworthy prelates appear to have been long inmates of the Fleet. Gardiner was removed to the Tower, and Bonner, after suffering an imprisonment of six weeks, obtained the freedom which he so little deserved. But the most illustrious prisoner about this period was Bishop Hooper, who has left us a very interesting account of his sufferings in the Fleet, as preserved by Fox in his "Book of Martyrs."-" On the 1st of September, 1553," he writes, "I was committed unto the Fleet from Richmond, to have the liberty of the prison; and within five days after I paid for my liberty five pounds sterling to the warden for fees, who immediately upon the payment thereof complained unto Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and so I was committed to close prison one quarter of a year, in the lower chamber of the Fleet, and used very extremely. Then, by the means of a good gentlewoman, I had liberty to come down to dinner and supper; not suffered to speak with any of my friends, but as soon as dinner and supper were done to repair to my chamber again. Notwithstanding, while I came down thus to dinner and supper, the warden and his wife picked quarrels with me, and complained untruly of me to their great friend, the Bishop of Winchester. After one quarter of a year, and somewhat more, Babington, the warden, and his wife, fell out with me for the wicked mass; and thereupon the warden resorted to the Bishop of Winchester, and obtained an order to put me into the ward, where I have continued a long time, having nothing appointed to me for my bed but a little pad of straw, and a rotten covering with a tick and a few feathers therein, the chamber being vile and stinking, until by God's means good people sent me bedding to lie in. Of the one side of which prison is the sink and filth of the house, and on the other side the town ditch, so that the stench of the house hath infected me with sundry diseases. During which time I have been sick, and the doors, hasps, and chains being all closed, and made fast upon me, I have mourned, called, and cried for help; but the warden, when he hath known me many times ready to die, and when the poor men of the wards have called to help me, hath commanded the doors to be kept fast, and charged that none of his men should come at me, saying, 'Let him alone, it were a good riddance of him.' And amongst many other times, he did thus the 18th of October, 1553, as many are witness. I paid always like a baron to the said warden, as well in fees as for my board, which was twenty shillings a week, besides my man's table, until I was wrongfully deprived of my bishoprick, and since that time I have paid him as the best gentleman doth in his house; yet hath he used me worse, and more vilely than the veriest slave that ever came to the hall commons. The said warden hath also imprisoned my man, William Downton, and stripped him out of his clothes to search for letters, and could find none, but only a little remembrance of good people's names that gave VOL. III. 18 |