the safe preservation and custody of treasure. From a From a notice which Malcolm has preserved in his 'Londiniam Redivivum,' vol. ii., p. 414, it would appear that the practice of banking had been continued by the goldsmiths in London down to a very recent period. The passage is extracted from 'A General Description of All Trades,' published in 1747, and contains the following statement: "Goldsmiths, the fifth company, are, strictly speaking, all those who make it their business to work up, and deal in, all sorts of wrought gold and silver plate; but, of late years, the title of Goldsmith has been generally taken to signify one who banks or receives, and pays running cash for others, as well as deals in plate; but he whose business is altogether cash-keeping is properly a Banker, who seldom takes apprentices, but has his business done chiefly by clerks. The others who keep to plate only, and do not bank, are distinguished by the name of Silversmiths; who are two-fold,—the working silversmiths, who make up as well as sell (though some of them do not sell at all), and the shopkeepers, many of whom do nothing at the working part." The distinction here mentioned as having been made between the Goldsmiths and the Silversmiths (which, we believe, is now obsolete) can only have been a popular mode of expression, by which the principal persons in the trade were marked out from the rest. It was the former only, we may suppose, who acted as bankers; but it is certain that this custom was not, as the writer seems to intimate, one of recent introduction, though perhaps it might have been revived about the time to which he refers after having fallen into disuse.

In England the mystery of working in gold and silver has not, perhaps, been usually considered to be so closely allied to the fine arts as it is or was wont to be in Italy and some other foreign countries. Some of the most eminent of the Italian painters and sculptors, Benvenuto Cellini, for instance, for one, were originally goldsmiths; and acquired their first acquaintance with the arts of design in chasing the precious metals.

In ancient times the goldsmiths of London resided in or near Cheapside, or, as it was then often called, West Cheap, to distinguish it from the other Cheap (that is, Market) Street, more to the east. The Royal Exchange, where all bullion was received for the king's coinagers, was in a street in this vicinity, which still bears the name of the Old Exchange. It runs down towards the river from the west end of Cheapside; "but the very housing and office of the exchange and coinage," says Maitland, " were about the midst thereof, south from the east gate that entereth St. Paul's churchyard, and on the west side."

It appears to have been thought, indeed, that no other persons except goldsmiths had a right to reside, or at least to open shops, in this vicinity. Maitland quotes a representation addressed by the company to Edward III., in the first year of his reign (1327), in which we find this stated along with several other curious particulars respecting those times. It would scarcely, perhaps, have been suspected by many of our readers, that the substitution of pastes for precious stones, and of plated wares for genuine metal, with other similar tricks, had been carried to such perfection by the artists of the early part of the fourteenth century, as they would seem to have been by the following extract from this representation :-"That no private merchant nor stranger heretofore were wont to bring into this land any money coined, but plate of silver to exchange for our coin. And that it had been also ordained that all who were of the goldsmiths' trade were to sit in their shops in the High Street of Cheap; and that no silver in plate, nor vessel of gold or silver, ought to be sold in the city of London, except at or in the Exchange, or in Cheapside among the goldsmiths,

and that publicly; to the end that the people of the said trade might inform themselves whether the seller came lawfully by such vessel or not. But that now—— many of the said trade of goldsmiths kept shops in obscure turnings, and by-lanes and streets, and did buy vessels of gold and silver secretly, without enquiring whether such vessel were stolen or lawfully come by; and, immediately melting it down, did make it into plate, and sell it to merchants trading beyond sea, that it might be exported. And so they made false work of gold and silver, as bracelets, lockets, rings, and other jewels; in which they set glass of divers colours, counterfeiting right stones, and put more alloy in the silver than they ought, which they sold to such as had no skill in such things. And that the cutlers in their workhouses covered tin with silver so subtilly, and with such slight, that the same could not be discerned and severed from the tin; and by that means they sold the tin so covered for fine silver, to the great damage and deceit of the king and his people."

Upon this petition order was taken for remedying the several evils complained of; and among other things it was commanded that none that pretended to be goldsmiths be goldsmiths "should keep any shops but in Cheapside, that it might be seen that their works were good and right." For a long time this regulation was rigidly enforced, so that Cheapside presented a very gay appearance. Maitland eulogizes in a strain of fond admiration," the most beautiful frame and front of fair houses and shops that were within the walls of London or elsewhere in England, commonly called Goldsiniths' Row, betwixt Bread Street end and the Cross in Cheap." This cross stood at the west end of Cheapside, in the middle of the open space, from which St. Martin le Grand branches out on the one hand and St. Paul's Church Yard on the other. It was one of those erected in 1290, by Edward I., in memory of Queen Eleanor, at the different places where her coffin had rested on its way from Herdeley in Lincolnshire, to Westminsterthis and that at Charing being the two last of the number. With regard to Goldsmiths' Row the historian continues:-"The same was built by Thomas Wood, goldsmith, one of the sheriffs of London in the year 1491. It contained in number ten dwellinghouses and fourteen shops, all in one frame, uniformly built, four stories high, beautified towards the street with the Goldsmiths' Arms, and the likeness of woodmen, in memory of his name, riding on monstrous beasts, all which were cast in lead, richly painted over and gilt. The said front was again new painted and gilt over in the year 1594, Sir Richard Martin being then mayor, and keeping his mayoralty in one of them." In course of time, however, a few other tradesmen ventured to invade the privileged district. Under the year 1629, Maitland writes:-"At this time the city greatly abounded in riches and splendour, such as former ages were unacquainted with: then it was beautiful to behold the glorious appearance of goldsmiths' shops in the South Row of Cheapside, which in a continued course reached from the Öld Change to Bucklersbury, exclusive of four shops only of other trades in all that space; which occasioned the privy council, on the 18th of November, to make the following order:-" Forasmuch as his majesty hath received information of the unseemliness and deformity appearing in Cheapside, by reason that divers men of mean trades have shops amongst the goldsmiths; which disorder it is his majesty's express pleasure to have reformed;-it was therefore thought fit, and accordingly ordered, that the two Lord Chief Justices, with such other judges as they shall think meet to call unto them, shall consider what statutes or laws there are to enforce the goldsmiths to plant themselves for the use of their trade in Cheapside and Lombard Street, and the parts adjacent, and thereupon

pation of Gibraltar. That promontory, besides its admirable advantages as a place of strength, may be said, owing to the narrowness of the strait upon which it juts out, to command, not merely the corner of Andalusia immediately under it, but the whole of the western coast of Spain, comprising nearly two-thirds of the whole maritime circumference of that country. It effectually cuts off all communication by sea between that part of Spain which is bounded by the Mediterranean and those parts which are bounded by the Atlantic. It disables that power as much as England would be disabled by another nation having the ability to hinder a ship passing from Liverpool, or Belfast, or Dublin, or Cork, or Plymouth, to Leith, or Hull, or London.

It appears, however, to have been late before the importance of this rock was discovered. The ancients had

a fable that Europe and Africa were originally joined at this point, and that the two continents were riven asunder by Hercules, and a passage thereby opened between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean. Gibraltar, under the name of Calpe, and Mount Abyla opposite to it on the African coast, were called the Pillars of Hercules, and appear to have been in very early ages regarded by the people dwelling to the east of them, including the Carthaginians, the Greeks, and the Romans, as the western boundary of the world. It was probably long before navigation penetrated beyond this limit. Even in after-times, however, when Spain became well known to the Romans and a province of their empire, we do not read of any fort being erected on the rock of Calpe. It is doubtful if it was even the site of a town. No Roman antiquities have ever been found on the spot or in the neighbourhood.

The place appears to have been first seized upon and converted into a military station by the Moors when they invaded Spain in the beginning of the eighth century. From their leader, Tarif, it was in consequence called Gibel-Tarif, or the Mountain of Tarif, of which Arabic name Gibraltar is a corruption. Soon after establishing themselves here, the Moors erected a lofty and extensive castle on the north-west side of the mountain, the ruins of which still remain. Gibraltar continued in the possession of the Moors for between seven and eight centuries, with the exception of about thirty years, during which it was held by the Christians, having been taken soon after the commencement of the fourteenth century by Ferdinand, king of Castile. It was recovered, however, in 1333, by Abomelek, the son of the emperor of Fez, and the Moors were not finally dispossessed of it till the middle of the following century. After that it remained a part of the kingdom of Spain, down nearly to our own times.

The promontory of Gibraltar forms the south-western extremity of the province of Andalusia, running out into the sea in nearly a due south direction for about three miles. The greater part of this tongue consists of a very lofty rock. It rises abruptly from the land to the height of fully 1300 feet, presenting a face almost perfectly perpendicular, and being consequently from that, its northern extremity, completely inaccessible. The west side, however, and the southern extremity, consist each of a series of precipices or declivities which admit of being ascended. The town, now containing a population of above 17,000 persons, is built on the west side. Along the summit of the mountain, from north to south, runs a bristling ridge of rocks, forming a ragged and undulating line against the sky when viewed from the east or west. The whole of the western breast of the promontory is nearly covered with fortifications. Anciently, it is said, used to be well wooded in many places; but there are now very few trees to be seen,

although a good many gardens are scattered up and down both in the town and among the fortifications. A great part of the rock is hollowed out into caverns, some of which are of magnificent dimensions, especially one called St. George's Cave, at the southern point, which although having only an opening of five feet, expands into an apartment of two hundred feet in length by ninety in breadth, from the lofty roof of which descend numerous stalactitical pillars, giving it the appearance of a gothic cathedral. These caves seem to have been the chief thing for which Gibraltar was remarkable among the ancients. They are mentioned by the Roman geographer, Pomponius Mela, who wrote about the middle of the first century of our era. The southern termination of the rock of Gibraltar is called Europa Point, and has been sometimes spoken of as the termination in that direction of the European continent; but Tarifa Point, to the west of Gibraltar, is fully five miles farther south.

It is impossible for us here to attempt any description of the fortifications which now cover so great a part of this celebrated promontory. Gibraltar was first fortified in the modern style by the German engineer, Da

niel Speckel, at the command of the emperor Charles V. towards the close of the sixteenth century. But little of what was then erected probably now remains. Since the place fell into the possession of the English, no expense has been spared to turn its natural advantages to the best account, and additions have repeatedly been made to the old fortifications on the most extensive scale. It is, now, without doubt, the most complete fortress in the world.

More than half a century ago Gibraltar was accounted by military men almost impregnable. "No power whatever," says Colonel James in his History of the Herculanean Straits, published in 1771, can take that place, unless a plague, pestilence, famine, or the want of ordnance, musketry, and ammunition, or some unforeseen stroke of Providence, should happen." It is certainly now much stronger than it was then. One improvement which has especially added to its security is the formation of numerous covered galleries excavated in the rock, with embrasures for firing down upon both the isthmus and the bay. The interior of part of these works is represented in the annexed wood-cut. Gibraltar was taken by an English fleet, under the

command of Sir George Rooke and the Prince of Hesse Darmstadt, in July, 1704. The project of the attack was very suddenly formed at a council of war held on board the admiral's ship, while the fleet was cruising in the Mediterranean, and it was apprehended that it would be obliged to return to England without having performed any exploit commensurate to the expectations with which it had been fitted out. The affair proved a very easy one; the garrison, which consisted of one hundred and fifty men, having surrendered after a bombardment of only a few hours. The assailants lost only sixty lives, the greater part by a mine which was sprung after they had effected a landing. In the latter part of the same year a most resolute effort was made to recover the place by the combined forces of France and Spain, which failed after it had been persevered in for several

months, and had cost the besiegers not less than 10,000 The loss of the garrison was about 400.

men.

At the Peace of Utrecht, in 1713, the possession of Gibraltar was confirmed to England. In 1727, however, another attempt, on a formidable scale, was made by Spain to dislodge the foreigners. An army of 20,000 men having encamped in the neighbourhood, the attack was commenced in February and continued till the 12th of May, when it was put an end to by the general peace. In this siege the garrison lost 300 in killed and wounded; but the loss of the besiegers was not less than 3000. The guns in the fortifications, it is worthy of remark, proved so bad, that seventy cannons and thirty mortars burst in the course of the firing.

But the most memorable of all the sieges of Gibraltar was the last, which commenced in 1779, and did not