transplanted a colony of Black Dominican friars from Holborn, near
Lincoln's Inn, to the river-side, south of Ludgate Hill. Yet so
conservative is even Time in England, that a recent correspondent of
_Notes and Queries_ points out a piece of mediaeval walling and the
fragment of a buttress, still standing, at the foot of the _Times_
Office, in Printing House Square, which seem to have formed part of the
stronghold of the Mountfiquets. This interesting relic is on the left
hand of Queen Victoria Street, going up from the bridge, just where
there was formerly a picturesque but dangerous descent by a flight of
break-neck stone steps. At the right-hand side of the same street stands
an old rubble chalk wall, even older. It is just past the new house of
the Bible Society, and seems to have formed part of the old City wall,
which at first ended at Baynard Castle. The rampart advanced to
Mountfiquet, and, lastly, to please and protect the Dominicans, was
pushed forward outside Ludgate to the Fleet, which served as a moat, the
Old Bailey being an advanced work.

King Edward I. and Queen Eleanor heaped many gifts on these sable
friars. Charles V. of France was lodged at their monastery when he
visited England, but his nobles resided in Henry's newly-built palace of
Bridewell, a gallery being thrown over the Fleet and driven through the
City wall, to serve as a communication between the two mansions. Henry
held the "Black Parliament" in this monastery, and here Cardinal
Campeggio presided at the trial which ended with the tyrant's divorce
from the ill-used Katherine of Arragon. In the same house the Parliament
also sat that condemned Wolsey, and sent him to beg "a little earth for
charity" of the monks of Leicester. The rapacious king laid his rough
hand on the treasures of the house in 1538, and Edward VI. sold the hall
and prior's lodgings to Sir Francis Bryan, a courtier, afterwards
granting Sir Francis Cawarden, Master of the Revels, the whole house and
precincts of the Preacher Friars, the yearly value being then valued at
nineteen pounds. The holy brothers were dispersed to beg or thieve, and
the church was pulled down, but the mischievous right of sanctuary
continued.

And now we come to the event which connects the old monastic ground with
the name of the great genius of England. James Burbage (afterwards
Shakespeare's friend and fellow actor), and other servants of the Earl
of Leicester, tormented out of the City by t