e two
usurers in Quintin Matsys' picture, and suggest war taxes to each other
under the leafy limes of the old garden. Sir Ambrose Nicholas and Sir
John Hart, both Salters, kept their mayoralties here.

The fourth hall, built after the Great Fire had made clear work of
Oxford House, was a small brick building, the entrance opening within an
arcade of three arches springing from square fluted pillars. A large
garden adjoined it, and next that was the Salters' Hall Meeting House.
The parlour was handsome, and there were a few original portraits. This
hall, the clerk's house, with another at the gate of St. Swithin's Lane,
were pulled down and sold in 1821. The present hall was designed by Mr.
Henry Carr, and completed in 1827.

As a chartered company there is no record of the Salters before the 37th
year of Edward III., when liberties were granted them. In the 50th of
Edward III. they sent members to the common council. Richard II. granted
them a livery, but they were first incorporated in 1558 by Elizabeth.
Henry VIII. had granted them arms, and Elizabeth a crest and supporters.
The arms are:--Chevron azure and gules, three covered salts, or,
springing salt proper. On a helmet and torse, issuing out of a cloud
argent, a sinister arm proper, holding a salt as the former. Supporters,
two otters argent plattee, gorged with ducal coronets, thereto a chain
affixed and reflected, or; motto, "Sal sapit Omnia." "A Short Account of
the Salters' Company," printed for private distribution, rejects the
otters as supporters, in favour of ounces or small leopards, which
latter, it states, have been adopted by the assistants, in the arms put
up in their new hall; and it gives the following, "furnished by a London
antiquary," as the Salters' real supporters:--Two ounces sable besante,
gorged with crowns and chased gold. The Salters claim to have received
eight charters.

The Romans worked salt-pits in England, and salt-works are frequently
mentioned in Domesday Book. Rock or fossil salt, says Herbert, was never
worked in England till 1670, when it was discovered in Cheshire. The
enormous use of salt fish in the Catholic households of the Middle Ages
brought wealth to the Salters.

In a pageant of 1591, written by the poet Peele, one clad like a
sea-nymph presented the Salter mayor (Webb) with a rigged and manned
pinnace, as he took barge to go to Westminster.

In the Drapers' pageant of 1684, when each of the twelve companies were