er, but this
appears to have been discontinued for a considerable period. This Fisher
was a jolly fellow, if all the tales are true which are related of him,
as, besides the sack drinking, he stipulated that the Cordwainers should
give a grand feast on the same day yearly to all their tenants. What a
quaint picture might be made of the churchwardens in the old church
drinking to the memory of Mr. Fisher! Wynkyn de Worde, the father of
printing in England, lived in Fleet Street, at his messuage or inn known
by the sign of the Falcon. Whether it was the inn that stood on the site
of Falcon Court is not known with certainty, but most probably it was.

Charles Lamb came to 16, Mitre Court Buildings in 1800, after leaving
Southampton Buildings, and remained in that quiet harbour out of Fleet
Street till 1809, when he removed to Inner Temple Lane.

It was whilst Lamb was residing in Mitre Court Buildings that those
Wednesday evenings of his were in their glory. In two of Mr. Hazlitt's
papers are graphic pictures of these delightful Wednesdays and the
Wednesday men, and admirable notes of several choice conversations.
There is a curious sketch in one of a little tilt between Coleridge and
Holcroft, which must not be omitted. "Coleridge was riding the high
German horse, and demonstrating the 'Categories of the Transcendental
Philosophy' to the author of _The Road to Ruin_, who insisted on his
knowledge of German and German metaphysics, having read the 'Critique of
Pure Reason' in the original. 'My dear Mr. Holcroft,' said Coleridge, in
a tone of infinitely provoking conciliation, 'you really put me in mind
of a sweet pretty German girl of about fifteen, in the Hartz Forest, in
Germany, and who one day, as I was reading "The Limits of the Knowable
and the Unknowable," the profoundest of all his works, with great
attention, came behind my chair, and leaning over, said, "What! you read
Kant? Why, I, that am a German born, don't understand him!"' This was
too much to bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out, in no measured
tone, 'Mr. Coleridge, you are the most eloquent man I ever met with, and
the most troublesome with your eloquence.' Phillips held the
cribbage-peg, that was to mark him game, suspended in his hand, and the
whist-table was silent for a moment. I saw Holcroft downstairs, and on
coming to the landing-place in Mitre Court he stopped me to observe that
he thought Mr. Coleridge a very clever man, with a great comman