e early prayers. Lilly, the astrologer, went to these
lectures when a young man; and Scott makes Mike Lambourne, in
"Kenilworth," refer to them. Nor have they been overlooked by our early
dramatists. Randolph, Davenant, and others make frequent allusions in
their plays to the Puritanical fervour of this parish. The tongue of
Middleton's "roaring girl" was "heard further in a still morning than
St. Antlin's bell."

In the heart of the City, and not far from London Stone, was a house
which used to be inhabited by the Lord Mayor or one of the sheriffs,
situated so near to the Church of St. Antholin that there was a way out
of it into a gallery of the church. The commissioners from the Church of
Scotland to King Charles were lodged here in 1640. At St. Antholin's
preached the chaplains of the commission, with Alexander Henderson at
their head; "and curiosity, faction, and humour brought so great a
conflux and resort, that from the first appearance of day in the
morning, on every Sunday, to the shutting in of the light, the church
was never empty."

Dugdale also mentions the church. "Now for an essay," he says, "of those
whom, under colour of preaching the Gospel, in sundry parts of the
realm, they set up a morning lecture at St. Antholine's Church in
London; where (as probationers for that purpose) they first made tryal
of their abilities, which place was the grand nursery whence most of the
seditious preachers were after sent abroad throughout all England to
poyson the people with their anti-monarchical principles."

In Watling Street is the chief station of the London Fire Brigade. The
Metropolitan Board of Works has consolidated and reorganised, under
Captain Shaw, the whole system of the Fire Brigade into one homogeneous
municipal institution. The insurance companies contribute about L10,000
per annum towards its maintenance, the Treasury L10,000, and a
Metropolitan rate of one halfpenny in the pound raises an additional sum
of L30,000, making about L50,000 in all. Under the old system there were
seventeen fire-stations, guarding an area of about ten square miles, out
of 110 which comprise the Metropolitan district. At the commencement of
1868 there were forty-three stations in an area of about 110 square
miles. From Captain Shaw's report, presented January 1, 1873, it appears
that during the year 1872 there had been three deaths in the brigade,
236 cases of ordinary illness, and 100 injuries, making a total of 336
c