boshed fellows about Cornhill used foully to assail him and his apprentices, for no better reason than that he would not share in their naughtiness. He received the battery of their heavy tongues without reply, and even bade his loving helpmate to be quiet when the queans on the pavé mocked her as the spouse of a poor scholar. For be it said, Cornhill was frequented by the lowest as well as the highest in the land, and its prison "Tun" for night-brawlers, and its pillory for other offenders, bespoke a neighbouring lawless population; and this is further proved by Lydgate, who says, in his London Lick-Penny:'

"Then into Corn Hil anon I rode,

Where was much stolen gear among;
I saw where hung mine own fair hood,
That I had lost among the throng.
To buy my own hood, I thought it wrong;
I knew it well, as I did my creed,

But for lack of money I could not speed."

Stow's monument was ostensibly raised to his memory by his widow, but there is no doubt that it was by subscription. It is of terra cotta; and the figure, once painted to represent life, is seen as the original used to be seen, seated at a table, engaged with pen and book. Maitland states that the remains were disturbed, and even removed, but he does not say whither nor wherefore, in the year 1732. Like the mortal remains of Fernand Cortes, no man can speak decisively of their resting-place.

Leaving those who love such research to make due inquiry after them, we will now hold brief converse touching another celebrated "John of the Needle," the Chronicler Speed.

JOHN SPEED,

THE ANTIQUARIAN TAILOR.

"Summus et eruditus Antiquarius.”—SHERINGHAM.

So said a learned antiquary of a humble, but also learned, and a pains-taking brother. Far more reluctant was Nicolson to give praise where praise was due. The latter person does indeed say of the laborious John, that he had a head the best disposed towards history of any of our writers. "Speed," says Nicolson, "would certainly have outdone himself, as far as he has gone, beyond the rest of his profession, if the advantages of his education had been answerable to those of his natural genius. But what," he adds most impertinently, "what could be expected from a tailor? However," reluctantly continues this costive eulogist, "we may boldly say that his chronicle is the largest and best we have hitherto extant;"-nay, he even adds that Sheringham was right in speaking of honest John Speed as "summus et eruditus antiquarius."

So, go on, little Farington, in pleasant Cheshire, to be proud of your son. Just three centuries have dissolved in the abyss of Time, since his father, on his shopboard, heard the boy's first cry from an inner room; and if any one could have then asked, "What could be expected from a tailor ?" he might have pointed to the little stranger, and exclaimed, Ecce filius!

Stow was an indifferent tailor, yet excellent author. Speed was both; and he was more fortunate than his brother antiquary and tailor. After he had served in Cheshire,

he settled in London as master, and he had Sir Fulke Greville for a customer. The men, wide as they were apart socially, were brothers intellectually; and both loved and comprehended literature. Sir Fulke paid his tailor after a better fashion than that of most fine gentlemen of his day. He took the artisan from his board, and set him a student at his books. The result was profitable not only to those then present living, but also to posterity. Speed nobly inaugurated the opening years of the seventeenth century by producing his 'Theatre of Great Britain,' wherein the three kingdoms of our own empire are presented in their exact geography, and there is an elaborate detail not only of counties, but of county towns. The maps were designed by the author, who applied to his use, in the text, much scattered matter from other sources.

Some few years after, he published his 'History of Great Britain under the Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans; their originals, manners, wars, coins, and seals, with the successions, lives, acts, and issues of the English Monarchs, from Julius Cæsar to our most gracious Sovereign King James.' In this work, he judiciously borrowed from Camden, and was supplied with materials by Sir Henry Spelman, Sir Robert Cotton, and other eminent antiquarians. The book very much raised a reputation that was already of no mean height.

Nor did he confine himself to antiquities. Two years had scarcely elapsed since the appearance of his last work, when he produced his octavo volume on a religious subject :—' The Cloud of Witnesses, or the Genealogies of Scripture, confirming the truth of holy history and humanity of Christ.' For many a long year was this essay prefixed to the English translation of the Bible and King James vested the copyright of it in the author and his heirs for ever;—we emphatically say "for ever," as a hint to the pirate publishers. "What could be expected from a tailor, Master Nicolson ?"

Well, were you yourself a better man? Did you live half a century and seven years in harmony with your wife? and did eighteen children-twelve sons and six daughters-call you father? What could be expected from a tailor? Why, thou sorry slanderer, John Speed excelled thee in all things. A dozen and a half of his children stood at his grave-side, in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in 1629; and above that grave his name lives, whereas thine is forgotten.

"What could be expected of a tailor?" Whatever might be expected, he performed much. The most famous of his many sons was that Dr. John Speed, who was patronized by Laud; and from him, through Colonel Speed, descended that Countess de Viri, wife of a Sardinian ambassador in London, whom Lord Cobham adopted as his child, after the death of her own father the Colonel. To her visit to Gray we owe that charming' Long Story' narrated by Gray, and which consequently would never have been written but for John Speed, the tailor and antiquary, of Farington. The ladies are described as

"A brace of warriors not in buff,

But rustling in their silks and tissues."

Of Speed's fair descendant the poet sings:

"The other Amazon, kind Heaven

Had arm'd with spirit, wit, and satire ;

But Cobham had the polish given,

And tipp'd her arrows with good-nature."

Being on the subject of dress, I may add, that Speed's great-granddaughter was attired "in bonnet blue and capuchine;" and I may further and finally remark, that to have written history and divinity with a learned pen, and to have been remotely the cause of the authorship of Gray's 'Long Story,' may fairly save Speed, and indeed the fellowcraftsmen who should hold him in honour, from such a nez

retroussé sort of sarcasm as "What could be expected from a tailor ?"

Speed the tailor is remembered when Bishop Nicolson is forgotten. We will pass from him to consider a tailor's son of another kidney,-garrulous, vain, rakish, clever, and everwelcome Samuel Pepys.