The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and
Instruction, by Various

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Title: The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction
Vol. 14, Issue 380, July 11, 1829

Author: Various

Release Date: March 8, 2004 [EBook #11516]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRROR OF LITERATURE, NO. 380 ***

Produced by Jonathan Ingram, Lazar Liveanu, David King, and the Online
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THE MIRROR OF LITERATURE, AMUSEMENT, AND INSTRUCTION.

VOL. 14, No. 380.] SATURDAY, JULY 11, 1829. [PRICE 2d.

MERCERS' HALL, AND CHEAPSIDE

[Illustration: Mercers' Hall, and Cheapside]

The engraving is an interesting illustration of the architecture of the
metropolis in the seventeenth century, independent of its local
association with names illustrious in historical record.

In former times, when persons of the same trade congregated together in
some particular street, the mercers principally assembled in West Cheap,
now called Cheapside, near where the above hall stands, and thence
called by the name of "the Mercery." In Lydgate's _London Lyckpenny_,
are the following lines alluding to this custom:

Then to Chepe I began me drawne,
When much people I saw for to stand;
One offered me velvet, silk and lawne
And another he taketh me by the hand.
Here is Paris thread, the finest in the land.

Pennant thus describes the principal historical data of the spot:

"On the north side of Cheapside, (between Ironmonger Lane and Old
Jewry,) stood the Hospital of St. Thomas of Acon, founded by Thomas
Fitz-Theobald de Helles, and his wife Agnes, sister to the turbulent
Thomas Becket, who was born in the house of his father, Gilbert,
situated on this spot. The mother of our meek saint was a fair Saracen,
whom his father had married in the Holy Land. On the site of this house
rose the hospital, built within twenty years after the murder of Thomas;
yet such was the repute of his sanctity, that it was dedicated to him,
in conjunction with the blessed Virgin, without waiting for his
canonization. The hospital consisted of a master and several brethren,