tly written by Johanna
Berners, a prioress of St. Alban's. In De Worde's "Collection of
Christmas Carols" we find the words of that fine old song, still sung
annually at Queen's College, Oxford,--

"The boar's head in hand bring I,
With garlands gay and rosemary."

De Worde also published some writings of Erasmus. The old printer was
buried in the parish church of St. Bride's, before the high altar of St.
Katherine; and he left land to the parish so that masses should be said
for his soul. To his servants, not forgetting his bookbinder, Nowel, in
Shoe Lane, he bequeathed books. De Worde lived near the Conduit, a
little west of Shoe Lane. This conduit, which was begun in the year 1439
by Sir William Estfielde, a former Lord Mayor, and finished in 1471,
was, according to Stow's account, a stone tower, with images of St.
Christopher on the top and angels, who, on sweet-sounding bells, hourly
chimed a hymn with hammers, thus anticipating the wonders of St.
Dunstan's. These London conduits were great resorts for the apprentices,
whom their masters sent with big leather and metal jugs to bring home
the daily supply of water. Here these noisy, quarrelsome young rascals
stayed to gossip, idle, and fight. At the coronation of Anne Boleyn this
conduit was newly painted, all the arms and angels refreshed, and "the
music melodiously sounding." Upon the conduit was raised a tower with
four turrets, and in every turret stood one of the cardinal virtues,
promising never to leave the queen, while, to the delight and wonder of
thirsty citizens, the taps ran with claret and red wine. Fleet Street,
according to Mr. Noble, was supplied with water in the Middle Ages from
the conduit at Marylebone and the holy wells of St. Clement's and St.
Bridget's. The tradition is that the latter well was drained dry for the
supply of the coronation banquet of George IV. As early as 1358 the
inhabitants of Fleet Street complained of aqueduct pipes bursting and
flooding their cellars, upon which they were allowed the privilege of
erecting a pent-house over an aqueduct opposite the tavern of John
Walworth, and near the house of the Bishop of Salisbury. In 1478 a Fleet
Street wax-chandler, having been detected tapping the conduit pipes for
his own use, was sentenced to ride through the City with a vessel shaped
like a conduit on his felonious head, and the City crier walking before
him to proclaim his offence.

The "Castle Tavern," mentioned as e