pair and restoration was
defeated in the Common Council; and twelve months later, a number of
bankers, merchants, and traders set their hands to a petition for its
removal altogether, as serving no practical purpose, as it impeded
ventilation and retarded improvements. Since then Mr. Heywood has
proposed to make a circus at Temple Bar, leaving the archway in the
centre; and Mr. W. Burges, the architect, suggested a new arch in
keeping with the new Law Courts opposite.

[Illustration: THE ROOM OVER TEMPLE BAR (_see page 37_).]

It is a singular fact that the "Parentalia," a chronicle of Wren's works
written by Wren's clever son, contains hardly anything about Temple Bar.
According to Mr. Noble, the Wren manuscripts in the British Museum,
Wren's ledger in the Bodleian, and the Record Office documents, are
equally silent; but from a folio at the Guildhall, entitled "Expenses of
Public Buildings after the Great Fire," it would appear that the Bar
cost altogether L1,397 10s.; Bushnell, the sculptor, receiving out of
this sum L480 for his four stone monarchs. The mason was John Marshall,
who carved the pedestal of the statue of Charles I. at Charing Cross and
worked on the Monument in Fish Street Hill. In 1636 Inigo Jones had
designed a new arch, the plan of which still exists. Wren, it is said,
took his design of the Bar from an old temple at Rome.

The old Bar is now a mere piece of useless and disused armour. Once a
protection, then an ornament, it has now become an obstruction--the
too-narrow neck of a large decanter--a bone in the throat of Fleet
Street. Yet still we have a lingering fondness for the old barrier that
we have seen draped in black for a dead hero and glittering with gold in
honour of a young bride. We have shared the sunshine that brightened it
and the gloom that has darkened it, and we feel for it a species of
friendship, in which it mutely shares. To us there seems to be a dignity
in its dirt and pathos in the mud that bespatters its patient old face,
as, like a sturdy fortress, it holds out against all its enemies, and
Charles I. and II., and Elizabeth and James I. keep a bright look-out
day and night for all attacks. Nevertheless, it must go in time, we
fear. Poor old Temple Bar, we shall miss you when you are gone!

[Illustration: TITUS OATES IN THE PILLORY (_see page 33_).]

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Amongst these we must not forget Joseph Sullivan, who was executed
at Tyburn for high treason, for enlist