eam terrae,
ac unam gardniam, cum aliis edificis," in Shoe Lane, London. In 1647
(Charles I.) Sir John Birkstead purchased of the Parliamentary trustees
the bishop's lands, that had probably been confiscated, to build streets
upon the site. But Sir John went on paving the old place, and never
built at all. Cromwell's Act of 1657, to check the increase of London,
entailed a special exemption in his favour. At the Restoration, the land
returned to its Welsh bishop; but it had degenerated--the palace was
divided into several residences, and mean buildings sprang up like fungi
around it. A drawing of Malcolm's, early in the century, shows us its
two Tudor windows. Latterly it became divided into wretched rooms, and
two as three hundred poor people, chiefly Irish, herded in them. The
house was entirely pulled down in the autumn of 1828.

[Illustration: BANGOR HOUSE, 1818 (_see page 131_).]

Mr. Grant, that veteran of the press, tells a capital story, in his
"History of the Newspaper Press," of one of the early vendors of
unstamped newspapers in Shoe Lane:--

"_Cleaves Police Gazette_," says Mr. Grant, "consisted chiefly of
reports of police cases. It certainly was a newspaper to all intents and
purposes, and was ultimately so declared to be in a court of law by a
jury. But in the meantime, while the action was pending, the police had
instructions to arrest Mr. John Cleave, the proprietor, and seize all
the copies of the paper as they came out of his office in Shoe Lane. He
contrived for a time to elude their vigilance; and in order to prevent
the seizure of his paper, he resorted to an expedient which was equally
ingenious and laughable. Close by his little shop in Shoe Lane there was
an undertaker, whose business, as might be inferred from the
neighbourhood, as well as from his personal appearance and the
homeliness of his shop, was exclusively among the lower and poorer
classes of the community. With him Mr. Cleave made an arrangement to
construct several coffins of the plainest and cheapest kind, for
purposes which were fully explained. The 'undertaker,' whose
ultra-republican principles were in perfect unison with those of Mr.
Cleave, not only heartily undertook the work, but did so on terms so
moderate that he would not ask for nor accept any profit. He, indeed,
could imagine no higher nor holier duty than that of assisting in the
dissemination of a paper which boldly and energetically preached the
extinction of the