y_.--_St. Barbara's
chapel_.--_Legend of St. Barbara_.--_Assize court_.--_Old
document_.--_Trial by Jury_.--_Council chamber_.--_Old record
room_.--_Guilds_.--_St. George's company_.--_History of St.
George_.--_Legend of St. Margaret_.

Our rambles have now brought us to the threshold of that quaint, but
beautiful old "studwork" chamber, the guildhall; the seat of civic
honour, power, and glory, with its many appendages of courts and cells,
the witnesses of those multiplied alternations of tragedy, comedy, and
melodrama, that may be looked for to have been enacted during centuries,
beneath a roof covering a council chamber, an assize court, and a prison.
Once again, we avow that we aim not to be complete topographers, or
guides to all the strange old carvings, and grotesque remains of ancient
sculpture, that may be found in such rich abundance around the pathways
of a venerable city, neither do we profess to furnish all the historic
details that may be gleaned concerning these relics of antiquity; are
they not chronicled elsewhere, in many mighty tomes, readable and
unreadable, in "guides," and "tours," and manifold "directories?" We
look and think, and odd associations weave our thinkings sometimes,
perhaps, into a queer mottled garb, though we would solemnly aver the
woof through which the shuttle of our fancy plays is every fibre of it
truth.

Such a preface is needed to our sketch of this fine old ornament of the
city's market-place, lest disappointment should attend the hopes of the
inquisitive investigator of sights and relics.

The guildhall, once like the municipal body it represents, was but a tiny
little thing compared with what it since has grown, and when bailiffs and
burgesses were the only distinctive titles and offices, a simple chamber
thatched, and commonly used to collect the market dues, sufficed for the
seat of civic government; but when, in the reign of the third Henry, the
citizens received from him a charter for a mayor and sheriffs, they took
off the thatched roof of their little toll-booth, and built upon it, and
round about it, spacious rooms and courts, to accommodate and do honour
to their newly acquired municipal dignitaries; for which purpose a
warrant was obtained, to press all carpenters, builders, and bricklayers,
into active service, from eight o'clock in the morning until eight
o'clock at night, as long as occasion might require; and by such
compulsory process, the design was compl