idling before the Coffee-house, and jerking his leg and stick
alternately against the pavement. We have mentioned the birth of Ben
Jonson, near Charing-cross. Spenser died at an inn, where he put up on
his arrival from Ireland, in King-street, Westminster--the same which
runs at the back of Parliament-street to the Abbey. Sir Thomas More
lived at Chelsea. Addison lived and died in Holland House, Kensington,
now the residence of the accomplished nobleman who takes his title from
it. In Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, lived Handel; and in
Bentinck-street, Manchester-square, Gibbon. We have omitted to mention
that De Foe kept a hosier's shop in Cornhill; and that, on the site of
the present Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane, stood the mansion of
the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, one of whom was the celebrated
friend of Shakspeare. But what have we not omitted also? No less an
illustrious head than the Boar's, in Eastcheap--the Boar's Head Tavern,
the scene of Falstaff's revels. We believe the place is still marked out
by a similar sign. But who knows not Eastcheap and the Boar's Head? Have
we not all been there time out of mind? And is it not a more real, as
well as notorious thing to us, than the London Tavern, or the Crown and
Anchor, or the Hummums, or White's, or What's-his-name's, or any other
of your contemporary and fleeting taps?

[2] The Temple must have had many eminent inmates. Among them,
it is believed, was Chaucer, who is also said, upon the strength
of an old record, to have been fined two shillings for beating a
Franciscan Friar in Fleet-street.

"Before we rest our wings, however, we must take another dart over the
city, as far as Stratford at Bow, where, with all due tenderness for
boarding-school French, a joke of Chaucer has existed as a piece of
local humour for nearly four hundred and fifty years. Speaking of the