nobles and princes "by witcisms and flattering talk." Then he repented
of such a mode of life and made a pilgrimage to Rome to obtain
forgiveness. On his way back he had a vision of St Bartholomew, by whom
he was directed to found a church in Smithfield.

It seems that "no part of the hospital as built by Rahere is now
standing, but within the present building, which covers the original
site, there still remains one thing which was there in his time. It is a
legal document which his eyes beheld, and which was sealed in his
presence. This charter is written on vellum in the clear hand-writing of
the first half of the twelfth century." The seal shows a "turreted
building, which is probably the Priory of St Bartholomew's as it looked
in the first twenty years of its existence."

The two parts of an indented chirograph have been preserved in the
hospital, which give (i., p. 239) a view of the state of agriculture in
Essex in the reign of King John. Mention is made of fields of wheat,
rye, barley, oats and beans; of oxen, horses, of brew-house and barn.
Rent was paid in kind and sent by water to the hospital quay, which may
have been on the River Fleet and therefore nearer to the hospital than a
landing-place on the Thames. The Fleet river, as Dr Moore happily points
out (i., p. 246), is now shut up in a tubular dungeon, "as if to remind
it of all the unhappiness it had passed by in the Gaola de Flete from the
time" when the prisoners watched "the ships passing up it with corn for
St Bartholomew's Hospital . . . to the days when the body of Samuel
Pickwick was confided to the custody of the tipstaff, to be by him taken
to the Warden of the Fleet Prison, and there detained until the amount of
the damages and costs in the action of Bardell against Pickwick was fully
paid and satisfied."

The author never fails to make interesting use of the driest of charters.
Thus in the reign of King John a person with the pleasant name of Adam
Pepercorn grants to the hospital ten shillings quit-rent for some land in
Grub Street, a region full of unhappy memories. Dr Moore quotes passages
from Johnson, Swift, and Goldsmith to show that the name Grub Street
should have been protected by such associations from any change; but
nothing is sacred, and Grub Street is now known as Milton Street.

The author (i., p. 279) asks whether the brethren of St Bartholomew's
made any medical studies, and points out they may well have read parts of