tended by the river-side, where every kind of food, dressed in the most approved style, might be obtained. At these, he tells us, you may call for fish, small or great, ordinary flesh for the poorer sorts, and more dainty, such as venison and fowl, for others;" and he enlarges, in a very housekeeperlike way, on the great convenience of these shops ; for "if a citizen have friends come in, let the servants give them water to wash, and bread to stay their stomachs, and in the mean time run to the water-side," where they would find every thing necessary to furnish a complete and even sumptuous. entertainment.

The commerce of the city appears to have been (even making allowances for the inflated diction of this most laudatory of statistical writers,) very extensive. 66 Hither," says he, "the Arabian sends his gold; the Saracen, his frankincense, spices, and oil of palms; Nilus, precious stones; the Seres, purple garments; Norway and Russia, furs, sables, and trout; and the French their wines." That London was, even at this early period, supplied both with spices and other products of the East, is a fact which we learn from other sources, but the medium of supply was the commerce of the Venetians, from whom the travelling merchants of the continent obtained them; and through this circuitous route were the riches and delicacies of Asia introduced

into England. The " purple garments," subsequently mentioned, and which Fitz Stephen assigns to the Chinese (Seres), are probably those peculiarly rich silken vestments, which being at this period in

demand for occasions of the highest solemnity, he might naturally choose to designate by the general term applied to such garments in classical times. That they were sent by the Chinese, or even made of East-Indian silk, is altogether a fiction; the great European silk-mart was Sicily, where, about a hundred years previously, Roger Guiscard had established a most noble and flourishing silk manufactory, which about this period contained 2000 looms, and produced not merely the common kinds of silk, but velvets, satins, and brocades of the most splendid quality. The intercourse with the north of Europe had, from the very earliest times, been continued by our forefathers; and the merchants of the free towns of the north of Germany were the first foreign traders who were permitted to be domiciliated in London. Furs were at this time beginning to be in great request for the decoration of dress, but what species of fish the worthy monk means to designate by the name of "trout," it is impossible to imagine.

The antiquity of London, he next proceeds to tell us, is," according to the chronicles," higher than Rome; "therefore it uses the same ancient laws and common institutions; for this city, like to that, has wards, sheriffs also answering in dignity to their consuls; aldermen enjoying like honour with their senators, besides inferior magistrates. It hath also common sewers, and channels for water in the streets." Of the population in the city and its suburbs, little can be ascertained; for when he proceeds to tell us, that during the wars of Stephen twenty-thousand horse and sixty thousand foot were

Q

raised there alone, the statement is too extravagant to merit a moment's notice. A mistake of the transcriber may perhaps have originated this incredible statement; for it is a fact that even centuries after, when the city enjoyed the highest degree of prosperity, her armed force was probably not more than half.

The description that Fitz-Steven gives of the amusements of the citizens is highly interesting. The winter's sports on the ice in Moorfields have been already alluded to. At spring-tide river sports commenced. A post was fixed in the midst of the Thames, having a shield suspended from it a small boat without oars was then provided, in which a young man bearing a long lance placed himself. The boat being driven by the current against the post, he endeavoured with his lance to strike the shield; if he struck so firmly that he broke his lance against it without losing his standing, he was considered victorious; if he struck without breaking the lance, or without keeping his standing, he was adjudged a loser, and besides, mostly fell into the water; "the which," says our relator, "caused much laughter to the crowds which stood about." He however takes care to inform us, that boats were always moored close beside, with young men in them, appointed to take these luckless tilters out of the water. During the long evenings of summer, FitzSteven also tells us that the maidens of the city were accustomed to lead dances even until moonlight in the streets, while their more elderly neighbours and friends, sate at their doorways looking on. Besides

these amusements, he mentions public declamations, and scholastic disputations in the schools; miracle plays, of which it is much to be regretted that he gives no description; and exercises in arms, which, from their general similarity, have been mistaken by many historians for actual tournaments. "Every Sunday in Lent," says he, (and so habitual had the licence become, that the writer, though an ecclesiastic, passes over this profanation of the sabbath without a single remark,)“ immediately after dinner, crowds of noble youths, mounted on war-horses admirably trained to perform all their turnings and evolutions, ride into fields in distinct companies, armed with lances and shields, and exhibit representations of battles, and go through all their martial exercises. Many of the young nobility, who have not yet received the honour of knighthood, issue from the king's court, and from the houses of bishops, earls, and barons, to make trial of their courage, strength, and skill in arms. The hope of victory rouses the spirits of these noble youths; their fiery horses neigh and prance, and champ the foaming bit. At length the signal is given, and the sports begin. The youths, divided into opposite bands, encounter one another. In one place some fly, and others pursue, without being able to overtake them. In another place, one of the bands overtakes and overturns the other."

This pompous description, stripped of its highsounding words, will be found merely to delineate the usual chivalric exercises of the period.—The enclosed space, the surrounding spectators, the

regularly marshalled combatants, the presiding judge with his warder, the heralds, the marshals, the ladies-all that gave its peculiar character to the tournament, is wanting here; and the passage, so far from contradicting the assertion of William of Newborough, that tournaments, during the whole of the second Henry's reign, were prohibited throughout England, derives, from this minute description of Fitz-Steven, even additional proof; for surely, had the regular tournament been customary in England, among so many minute delineations of inferior sports and entertainments, that most splendid and most important of all would never have been passed

over.

It were greatly to be wished that, of the other towns now rapidly rising into eminence, a description as minute as this of the metropolis had been given. In the absence of more specific information, we are warranted in believing that the peace which with one short interruption had pervaded the land throughout the thirty-four years of the reign of Plantagenet, the comparatively better administration of justice, and the extension of commerce, brought to the various other cities some measure of that prosperity which London unquestionably enjoyed. In the numerous accounts of the religious and charitable endowments of the times, we can perceive the existence of an advancing state of prosperity among the various classes of society; while, in the splendid and expensive structures erected during this reign, the possession of no trifling degree of wealth is indicated.