ment. The average number of inmates for 1842 was 209, and 242 were discharged during the year. The Hospital is a very substantial brick edifice, but it is to be regretted that it is not situated at least in the suburbs. The income (above 8000l. a-year) is derived from legacies and donations amounting to 159,9567. invested in the funds, and receipts on account of uncured patients.

The great Lunatic Asylum for the county of Middlesex, situated at Hanwell, a short distance to the left of the Great Western Railway, and about seven miles from London, is one of the most remarkable establishments in the country: and though it is somewhat out of our limits, we cannot pass it by without a brief general notice.* The Asylum is intended for one thousand inmates, and accommodation will probably be eventually provided for thirteen hundred. The present number of servants and officers exceeds one hundred. The grounds contain fiftythree acres, twenty of which are cultivated as a farm, four as a garden, two as an orchard, and nearly four are shrubberies. The airing-grounds and courts occupy a space of eighteen acres, and the asylum buildings cover above three and a half acres. The ancient bodily restraints, on which entire reliance was formerly placed, have been disused, and even severity of tone has almost ceased to be employed. We can here only say of the system, that it is in every respect precisely opposite to that which, until within a comparatively short period, was acted upon at Bethlem.

*We take the opportunity (as we have not space for details) to recommend all who are interested in the subject to the admirable Reports of Dr. Conolly, the physician at Hanwell, and also the Reports of the Visiting Justices, by whom his enlightened efforts have been supported in a most excellent spirit.

"IF you would know and be not known," it has been said, "live in a town; if you would be known and not know, then vegetate in a village." When taken with some qualifications there is a great deal of truth in this apothegm. It is impossible to live long in a town and not speedily "know" much, unless we resolutely shut one's self up within doors. The shops of London are in themselves a very cyclopædia of instruction, in which he "who runs may read," and he who walks may read more. We there place ourselves in communion with artificers and producers from all corners of the earth; the bowls of "souchong" and "twankay" in the window of the grocer introduce us to the millions of the Celestial Empire; the spices in the same window carry us in imagination to Ceylon, to the Moluccas, and to the tropical regions generally; the "Italian warehouse," with its thousand and one seductions for the palate, shows us what sunny Italy, and Greece, and the Levant can do for us: in short, the shops of a busy town are among the most suggestive of all subjects for reflection, if we choose to carry the eye of the mind

VOL. V.

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a little beyond the mere external appearance of the commodities displayed therein, and think of the productive and commercial agencies by which those commodities have been placed at our disposal.

Different periods of time, and different parts of the town, and different branches of trade, afford very different means for prosecuting our observations on the shops of London; and these differences afford the means for marking the social progress of our townsmen-nay, the commercial progress likewise; for the "division of labour," the "power of combination," and many other elements of political economy, are brought to bear upon the philosophy of shop-keeping as well as upon that of national government. We may view the arrangement of London shops either chronologically, or technologically, or topographically, and we should under each view find remarkable changes observable; but perhaps a little of all these will serve our purpose best.

The general character of the shops in olden London was to have the wares exposed openly to the street, without any barrier of glass between the buyer and seller. Wherever our old topographers and chroniclers give a representation of a London shop--at least anterior to about the time of Queen Anne-this was the observable feature. The shop, too, unlike those of modern days, was generally smaller than the rooms above, on account of the overhanging of each floor or story beyond the one beneath it. There are yet remaining at the south end of Gray's Inn Lane, and in a few other parts of London, specimens of this curious variety of domestic architecture; although most of such houses now display the luxury of a window to the shop.

If we go back to the time of Fitz-Stephen, who wrote in the twelfth century, we find that the bazaar system was much more extensively adopted in London than at the present day; that is, that the members of one trade were wont to congregate at one spot, which thence became known as the mart for that particular kind of goods. This system is well known to be very prevalent in the East, where at Constantinople, Smyrna, Cairo, and other large towns, most of the retail shops are assembled in this manner. If we look at the names of some of the older London streets, such as Bread Street, Milk Street, Cornhill, Fish Street Hill, the Poultry, the Vintry, Honey Lane, Hosier Lane, Cordwainer Street, Wood Street, &c., we can scarcely avoid a conjecture that these were, at some distant day, the points of rendezvous for dealers in those commodities. Fitz-Stephen says: "The followers of the several trades, the vendors of various commodities, and the labourers of every kind, are daily to be found in their proper and distinct places, according to their employments." He also has a passage which has given rise to some discussion concerning such of the shops as provided provisions. "On the bank of the river, besides the wine sold in ships and vaults, there is a public eating-house or cook's shop. Here, according to the season, you may find victuals of all kinds, roasted, baked, fried, or boiled; fish large and small, with coarse viands for the poorer sort and more delicate ones for the rich, such as venison, fowls, and small birds. In case a friend should arrive at a citizen's house, much wearied with his journey, and chooses not to wait, an hungered as he is, for the buying and cooking of meat, recourse is immediately had to the bank above mentioned, where everything desirable is instantly procured." Now, in the first part of this description there is an allusion to wine being sold in ships,

a custom which is so different from any now followed that we can only understand it thus-that wine being admitted duty free, purchasers went to the ships with their bottles or vessels, and bought the wine "in draught" at a cheaper price than would suffice if the seller had the expense of keeping a shop. Fitz-Stephen speaks of a public eating-house, situated near the river, as if it were the only one of the kind; and it would appear that this was frequented by high and low, as there was a choice between "delicate viands" and "coarse viands."

The "frippery" or clothes-stall of Shakspere's time probably represented a large class of shops such as existed in London during the reigns of the Edwards and Henrys. In the fourth act of the Tempest,' where Ariel brings in some handsome garments, Prospero says, "Come, hang them on this line." This passage has given rise to much diversity of opinion among commentators, some thinking that "line" ought to be taken in reference to the branches of a line, linden, or lime-tree. The editor of the Pictorial Shakspere' expresses an opinion that the meaning is rightly rendered in the common reading of the passage. "Had not," he asks, "the clowns a distinct image in their minds of an old clothes-shop

"We know what belongs to a frippery'?"

Here is a picture of a frippery, from a print dated 1587, with its clothes hung in line and level. This frippery is evidently something more than an old clothesshop: the tailor is seated on his board with the implements of his craft about him, and has the aspect of one who could make new clothes as well as sell old ones.

There is a print in Smith's Antiquities of London,' of which we give a copy at the head of our paper, of a house which stood at the corner of Chancery Lane so late as the year 1799, where now stands the large and modern residence and shop of a robe-maker. If this house had not undergone alteration, then it would seem to show that shop-windows were tolerably common in the time of Edward VI., the date to which the house was referred. The print presents to view a small double-parted shop, having hanging on the

outside several articles for sale which look like saddles; and over this are five stories of private apartments, each of three projecting beyond the one beneath it, and all decorated in a highly curious manner. But the shop windows do not by any means accord with the general character of the front, and give evidence of having been put in at a later date: indeed, this is rendered certain by a paragraph which Smith quotes from the 'Morning Herald' of May 20, 1799:—“ The house in Fleet Street, which the City is now pulling down to widen Chancery Lane, is the oldest in that street, being built in the reign of Edward VI. for an elegant mansion, long before there were any shops in that part of the City." Among other plates given by Smith, and illustrating the shop architecture of other days, is one of Winchester Street, London Wall. The houses were built in 1656, and two of them have small-squared glass shop-windows; but many of the others appear to be open shops. In another, representing houses on the north side of Long Lane, Smithfield, said to be built during the Commonwealth, two of the shops appear to have glass windows, with shutters sliding in grooves at top and bottom; while another has an unglazed shop-window. Another represents a house on the west side of Little Moorfields, built in the time of Charles I., and presenting a curious arrangement of scroll ornaments in the front: there is a bow window to the shop below, but we incline to think that it is more modern than the rest of the house. There is another of Smith's prints which represents a more singular-looking assemblage of shops than any of the others: this is a view of part of Duke Street, West Smithfield, as it appeared down to the end of the last century. Here the shops are almost buried; for the upper rooms project considerably beyond them; while, through the gradually raising of the street, the level of the shop has been relatively lowered; till all the shops, some with windows and some without, look nearly as much like cellars as shops.

That sash-windows were not common to shops till towards the beginning of the last century, we may judge from many circumstances. Addison, in No. 162 of the Tatler,' while speaking of many changes that had recently occurred in London, says, "As for the article of building, I intend hereafter to enlarge upon it, having lately observed several warehouses, nay, private shops, that stand upon Corinthian pillars, and whole rows of tin pots showing themselves, in order to their sale, through a sash-window." But if the shops of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries have possessed that which was wanting in their predecessors, the moderns have fallen off in one very characteristic feature, viz. the sign-boards over the shops. We cannot look upon Hogarth's street pictures without remarking the almost universal prevalence of this custom. The signs of the "Golden Key," of the "Golden Fleece," of the "Bible and Crown," &c., are displayed conspicuously before us, in connexion not only with public-houses, as in modern times, but also with most other trading shops. In former times the houses in a street were by no means uniformly numbered, as at present: indeed, the numbering was a rare practice; and, therefore, the owner of a shop was compelled to adopt some symbol by which his shop could be known. This symbol was depicted on a sign-board in front of his house, and was often as incongruous as those of modern taverns. The "Naked Boy" was the sign of a bookseller's shop in Fleet Street, where many works were published in the early part of the last century; and the title-pages of old books would show many equally ludicrous instances.