II. could not bribe.--Who would suppose that the Borough was the most
classical ground in the metropolis? And yet it is undoubtedly so. The
Globe Theatre was there, of which Shakspeare himself was a proprietor,
and for which he wrote his plays. Globe-lane, in which it stood, is
still extant, we believe, under that name. It is probable that he lived
near it: it is certain that he must have been much there. It is also
certain that on the Borough side of the river, then and still called the
Bank-side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some say,
with other participations more remarkable, lived Beaumont and Fletcher.
In the Borough, also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger in
one grave; in the same church, under a monument and effigy, lies
Chaucer's contemporary, Gower; and from an inn in the Borough, the
existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed out by a
picture and inscription, Chaucer set out his pilgrims and himself on
their famous road to Canterbury.

"To return over the water, who would expect any thing poetical from East
Smithfield? Yet there was born the most poetical even of poets, Spenser.
Pope was born within the sound of Bowbell, in a street no less
anti-poetical than Lombard-street. So was Gray, in Cornhill. So was
Milton, in Bread-street, Cheapside. The presence of the same great poet
and patriot has given happy memories to many parts of the metropolis. He
lived in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street; in Alders-gate-street, in
Jewin-street, in Barbican, in Bartholomew-close; in Holborn, looking
back to Lincoln's Inn Fields; in Holborn, near Red-lion-square; in
Scotland-yard; in a house looking to St. James' Park, now belonging to
an eminent writer on legislation, and lately occupied by a celebrated
critic and metaphysician; and he died in Artillery-walk, Bunhill-fields;
and was buried in St. Giles', Cripplegate.