, or inn, of the Tudor
age, which was pulled down in April, 1836, and was described soon
afterwards in the 'Gentleman's Magazine.' While the work of
destruction [Picture: Ancient tobacco pipe] was going on, a tobacco
pipe of ancient and foreign fashion was found behind the old
wainscot. The stem was a crooked shoot of bamboo, through which a
hole had been bored, and a brass ornamental termination (of an
Elizabethan pattern) formed the head of the pipe.--Why may not this
have been the pipe of that Bishop of London who had risen into
Elizabeth's favour by attending Mary on the scaffold at Fotheringay,
and who, having fallen into disgrace in consequence of a second
marriage at an advanced period of his life, sought, we are told, in
the retirement of his house at Fulham, "to lose his sorrow in a mist
of smoke,"--and actually died there suddenly on the 15th June, 1596,
"while sitting in his chair and smoking tobacco?"

Could this have been the tobacco pipe produced at "Crowner's 'quest"
assembled at the Golden Lion to inquire into the cause of his
lordship's sudden death? It is not even impossible that it may have
been produced there by his son, John Fletcher, whose name is
associated with that of Francis Beaumont in our literature.

Mr. Charles Knight has set the example of an imaginary biography of
Shakespeare, and has brought many probable and some improbable things
together on the subject.--Why, then, has he overlooked the Golden
Lion in Fulham? The name of John Fletcher naturally leads to this
question. At the time of his father's death, he was in his twentieth
year; and who will doubt that, at that period of his life, his
father's (the Bishop's) house was his home. That he may have
resorted to the Golden Lion, and there have met with Shakespeare, is,
therefore, quite as probable as that our great dramatist associated
with Fletcher at the Falcon or the Mermaid, if good cause can only be
shown for Shakespeare's having had as much reason to frequent Fulham
as the Bank-side--or Borough of London.

I have already stated that Florio's house was assessed for the
poor-rate in Fulham Street, on the 12th October, 1625, the year of
Florio's death; and be it remembered that Florio was the translator
of Montaigne's Essays, of which a copy of the original edition,
bearing Shakespeare