Until a Maiden,[7] near to Sherborne Lane,
Saved me--and rescued London from that stain.

And now, vain mortal, I have told thee all,
My fate, my primal use, the what and which;
And though my struggling spirit owned thy salt,
Once more I'll slumber in my holy niche,
And "Britain's sun may set," what's that to me,
Since I, stone-blind and dumb, for aye will be.

J.E.

[2] See _Ode to London Stone_. MIRROR, No. 357, p. 114.

[3] See Shakspeare's Henry VI., part 2, act 4, scene 6.

[4] The ancient name for London.

[5] The cause of the great plague in 1665, was ascribed to the
importation of infected goods from Holland, where the plague
had committed great ravages the preceding year.

[6] Stowe in his history describes the London Stone, "fixed in
the ground very deep, fastened with bars of iron and otherwise,
so strongly set that if carts do runne against it through
negligence, the wheels be broken, and the stone itself unshaken."
See No. 64 of the Mirror for an account of London Stone.

[7] When the church of St. Swithin was repaired in 1798, some of
the parishioners declared the London Stone a nuisance which