ol--Restoration of the Carvings in Mercers' Hall--The Glories of
the Mercers' Company--Ironmonger Lane.

In Milk Street was the milk-market of Mediaeval London. That good and
wise man, Sir Thomas More, was born in this street. "The brightest man,"
says Fuller, with his usual quaint playfulness, "that ever shone in that
_via lactea_." More, born in 1480, was the son of a judge of the King's
Bench, and was educated at St. Anthony's School, in Threadneedle Street.
He was afterwards placed in the family of Archbishop Morton, till he
went to Oxford. After two years he became a barrister, at Lincoln,
entered Parliament, and opposed Henry VII. to his own danger. After
serving as law reader at New Inn, he soon became an eminent lawyer. He
then wrote his "Utopia," acquired the friendship of Erasmus, and soon
after became a favourite of Henry VIII., helping the despot in his
treatise against Luther. On Wolsey's disgrace, More became chancellor,
and one of the wisest and most impartial England has ever known.
Determined not to sanction the king's divorce, More resigned his
chancellorship, and, refusing to attend Anne Boleyn's coronation, he was
attainted for treason. The tyrant, now furious, soon hurried him to the
scaffold, and he was executed on Tower Hill in 1535.

This pious, wise, and consistent man is described as having dark
chestnut hair, thin beard, and grey eyes. He walked with his right
shoulder raised, and was negligent in his dress. When in the Tower, More
is said to have foreseen the fate of Anne Boleyn, whom his daughter
Margaret had found filling the court with dancing and sporting.

"Alas, Meg," said the ex-chancellor, "it pitieth me to remember to what
misery poor soul she will shortly come. These dances of hers will prove
such dances that she will sport our heads off like foot-balls; but it
will not be long ere her head will dance the like dance."

It is to be lamented that with all his wisdom, More was a bigot. He
burnt one Frith for denying the corporeal presence; had James Bainton, a
gentleman of the Temple, whipped in his presence for heretical opinons;
went to the Tower to see him on the rack, and then hurried him to
Smithfield. "Verily," said Luther, "he was a very notable tyrant, and
plagued and tormented innocent Christians like an executioner."

The City of London School, Milk Street, was established in 1837, for the
sons of respectable persons engaged in professional, commercial, or
trading p