chapter xiv., section xv., pages 390, 391, note z, and cited from

the Great Roll of the 26th year of Henry II.; the following being those articles which immediately refer to the present subject. ‘The Bridge-Guild, whereof Thomas Cocus is Alderman, oweth 1 mark,’--13_s._ 4_d._: ‘the Bridge-Guild, whereof Ailwin Fink is Alderman, oweth 15 marks:’--‘the Bridge-Guild, whereof Robert de Bosco is Alderman, oweth 10 marks:’--‘the Bridge-Guild, whereof Peter Fitz Alan was Alderman, oweth 15 marks.’

“In speaking, too, of the reign of Queen Mary, I omitted to mention that short notice with which John Fox has furnished us, of certain ‘vaine pageants,’ exhibited to her upon London Bridge. You will find the passage in the second volume of that edition of his ‘_Acts and Monuments_’ which I have already cited, page 1338, and it runs thus. ‘And the next day, being Saturday, the xix. of August--1554,--the King and Queene’s Majesties rode from Suffolk Place, accompanied with a great number as well of noblemen as of gentlemen, through the City of London to White Hall, and at London Bridge, as he entered at the Draw-Bridge, was a great vaine spectacle set vp, two images presenting two Giants, one named Corineus and the other Gogmagog, holding between them certain Latin verses, which, for the vain ostentation of flattery, I overpasse.’ I can discover no other particulars of this exhibition, but the preceding paragraph was copied, by Holinshed, into his ‘_Chronicles_,’ volume ii., page 1120.

“In mentioning the tradesmen who resided on London Bridge, I ought, also, to have pointed out to your notice that paragraph concerning them, first inserted in Strype’s edition of _Stow’s Survey_, edit. 1720, Book i.; chapter xxix., volume 1, page 242; where it is said that ‘Men of trades, and sellers of wares in this City, have oftentimes,’--since the days of Fitz Stephen--‘changed their places as they have found to their best advantage. For, whereas, Mercers and Haberdashers used then to keep their shops in West-Cheap, of later time they held them on London Bridge, where, partly, they do yet remain.’

“One would expect to find frequent references to London Bridge, in the works of our ancient Dramatists, yet my memory supplies me with but very few instances; though I may observe, that Shakspeare has an allusion to the heads of traitors erected over the gate of this edifice, in Act iii. Scene 2, of ‘_King Richard the Third_,’ where _Catesby_ says to _Hastings_:

‘The Princes both make high account of you,-- For they account his head upon the Bridge. [_Aside._’

Another passage, referring to this custom, is also to be found in the second Act of George Wilkins’s ‘_Miseries of Inforced Marriage_,’ first printed in quarto, 1607, and inserted in Dodsley’s ‘_Select Collection of Old Plays_,’ London, 1780, duodecimo, volume v., page 27; where _Ilford_ says to _Wentloe_, ‘S’foot! you chittiface, that looks worse than a collier through a wooden window, an ape afraid of a whip, or a knave’s head, shook seven years in the weather on London Bridge;--do you catechise me?’ In Act v., Scene 1, of Shakerley Marmion’s ‘_Antiquary_,’ originally printed in 1641, quarto, and published in the preceding collection, volume x., page 97, is likewise the following passage, the idea of which appears to be taken from the noisy situation of the houses on the Old Bridge: ‘That man that trusts a woman with a privacy, and hopes for silence, may as well expect it at the fall of a bridge.’ But ‘rare Ben Jonson,’ in his ‘_Staple of News_,’ Act ii.,