wife of King Stephen, and still belonging to the Queen of England, being, I think, her only possession. It is now removed to Regent's Park, but has left its name in St. Katharine's Docks. Beyond this a street of poor houses reached to Wapping, and was inhabited by watermen and fishermen. North of that a few houses had gathered round the White Chapel erected on the high road that led to the old gate which we know as Aldgate. From Aldgate, outside the wall, ran Houndsditch, and the name still suggests an unsavoury memory of the dead dogs which there accumulated. North of it lay Spitalfields, an open space around the dissolved Hospital of St Mary, described as "a pleasant place for the citizens to walk in, and for housewives to whiten their clothes". Beside it was the Artillery Ground, reserved for military training. Moor Fields had just been drained, and formed another open space. I can best describe to you North London by telling you that I heard, a year ago, of an old lady who was still alive at the age of a hundred and five, and remembered in her childhood that she went with her nurse to see the cows milked at a farm where now is Finsbury Square, and then walked through cornfields to the quiet village of Islington. Beyond Gray's Inn the open high road went through the country to Hampstead. North of Lincoln's Inn Fields a row of houses extended to the church of St Giles, which, with its neighbour St Martin's, still bears the title of "in the fields," to indicate that with them for a long period habitation ceased. St. James's Palace stood in its park, well stocked with deer. Westminster was merely the
