ANTIQUARIES tell us that there was an ancient Saxon law-imposed probably by the rulers of that people after the conquest of this country, the better to keep its wild and conflicting elements in order-which ordained that every freeman of fourteen years old should find sureties to keep the peace; and that, in consequence, "certain neighbours, consisting of ten families, entered into an association, and became bound to each other to produce him who committed an offence, or to make satisfaction to the injured party. That they might the better do this, they raised a sum of money amongst themselves, which they put into a common stock, and when one of the pledges had committed an offence, and was fled, then the other nine made satisfaction out of this stock, by payment of money according to the offence. In the mean time, that they might the better identify each other, as well as ascertain whether any man was absent on unlawful business, they assembled at stated periods at a common table, where they ate and drank together."* This primitive custom, so simple and confined in its operations, was to beget mighty consequences in the hands of the amalgamated Anglo-Saxon people. We find its associating principle following them into the fortified places or burghs where they first assembled for the purposes of trade * Johnson's Canons, Laws of Ina, transcribed from Herbert's Livery Companies,' vol. i. VOL. V. · G p. 3. and commerce (the nuclei of our towns), and affording to them an infinitely safer defence against aggression than any fortifications could give, in the Trade Guilds. If, therefore, there be one of the great and still existing institutions of antiquity, possessing in its history matters of deeper interest and instruction than any other, it is that of our municipal government, whose very meeting-places constantly remind us by their designation what they were the guild-halls, and what we owe to the system, which has, unfortunately, through causes into which it is not our province to enter, enjoyed of late years more of the popular contempt than of popular gratitude: a feeling which, if it promised to be permanent, might well excite the apprehension of the political philosopher as to the ultimate well-being of the country. All considerations, then, tend to invest the very word guildhall with a more than ordinary sense of the value of the associations that may belong to a name, and which is of course enhanced when it refers, not merely to a hall of a guild, but to the hall of the guilds generally of the metropolis, as in that we are about to notice in connection with Civic Government. The building itself, as we now approach it from Cheapside, through King Street, appears no unapt type of the discordant associations that have grown up around the institution: the old hall, in the main, is there still, but with a new face, which shows how ludicrously inadequate were its builders to accomplish their apparent desire of restoring it in harmony with, but improving upon, the general structure; and they seem to have had some misgivings of the kind themselves; for they have so stopped short in the elevation, as to leave the dingy and supremely ugly brick walls, with their round-headed windows, added by their predecessors to the upper portion of the hall after the fire of London, obtrusively visible. It is possible that the "little college" which stood here prior to the year 1411, had been either in itself or in its predecessors founded by the Confessor, whose arms are yet visible in the porch; at the time mentioned, the present hall was begun by the corporation, Thomas Knowles being then Mayor. Among the modes adopted of obtaining the requisite monies, are some which, though common enough in connection with ecclesiastical structures, are remarkable as applied to a guildhall: Stow, whose authority is Fabyan, having remarked that the companies gave large benevolences towards the charges thereof, adds, "Also offences of men were pardoned for sums of money towards this work, extraordinary fees were raised, fines, amercements, and other things employed during seven years, with a [partial, probably is meant] continuation thereof three years more."* Even then the whole was not completed; a variety of miscellaneous items of a later date occur in connection with the edifice, such as that in 1422-3 the executors of Whittington gave 351. towards the paving of the hall with Purbeck marble; about the same time was also erected the Mayor's Court, the Council Chamber, and the porch; in 1481, Sir William Harryot, Mayor, defrayed the expense of making and glazing two louvres in the roof of the hall; the kitchen was built by the "procurement" of Sir John Shaw, goldsmith and Mayor, about 1501; finally, tapestry, to hang in the Hall on principal days, was provided about the same time by Sir Nicholas Aldwyn, another Mayor. If we add to this, that a new council chamber was erected in 1614, that after the Great Fire the walls remained so comparatively uninjured, that only roofs and out-offices had to be rebuilt, and that it was towards the close of the last century * Survey,' ed. 1633, p. 282. that the "truly Gothic façade," as Brayley satirically calls it, using the word in its less usual but sufficiently evident acceptation, was built, we shall not need to dwell any longer on the general history of the erection. Before we enter the porch, we may cast a brief glance at the surrounding buildings. The one on the left is the Justice Room of Guildhall, where the ordinary magisterial business of that part of the City which lies west of King Street is conducted, under the superintendence of an Alderman; the other, or eastern portion, forming the business of the Justice Room at the Mansion House, where the Mayor presides. The building opposite, on the right, contains the Courts of Queen's Bench and Common Pleas, held, with the Court of Exchequer, at Guildhall three several days during each term, and on the next day but one after each term, from time immemorial. The City receives 3s. 6d. for each verdict given in these Courts, in payment for the use of the buildings provided; and there the connection ends at present, whatever may have been the case in former times, when the custom originated. In both courts the excessively naked and chilly aspect of the walls is somewhat relieved by the portraits of the judges, who, after the fire of London, sat at Clifford's Inn, to arrange all differences between landlord and tenant during the great business of rebuilding; and who thus, as Pennant observes, prevented the endless train of vexatious lawsuits which might have ensued, and been little less chargeable than the fire itself. We wonder whether the judges or the legislature will ever take it into their heads to give us the blessing of such courts of reconciliation and summary determination of differences without a preliminary fire! Sir Matthew Hale was the chief manager of the good work in question, which so won upon the City, that, after the affair was concluded, they determined to have the portraits of the whole of the judges painted and hung in their hall, as a permanent memorial of their gratitude. Lely was to have been the artist, but, being too great a man to wait upon the judges at their respective chambers, Michael Wright, a Scotchman, obtained the commission. He is the painter of a highlyesteemed portrait of Lacy, the actor, in three characters, preserved in the collection at Windsor. Sixty pounds each was his remuneration for the portraits at Guildhall, and it certainly seems as much as they were worth. On the site of these Law Courts, there was standing, till the year 1822, the chapel or college, shown in our engraving of the exterior of Guildhall, in the preceding number, which was built so early as 1299, and had, in its palmiest days, an establishment of a custos or warden, seven priests, three clerks, and four choristers. "Here used to be service once a week, and also at the election of the Mayor, and before the Mayor's feast, to deprecate indigestion and all plethoric evils"*—the chapel having been given by Edward VI. to the City at the dissolution of the college. Adjoining the chapel there had been, before Stow's time, "a fair and large library," belonging to the Guildhall and College, which that wholesale pillager, the Protector Somerset, laid his hands upon during the reign of the young Edward, on the plea of merely borrowing the books for a time. In consequence, till the present century, the citizens of London, in their corporate capacity, had scarcely a book in their possession; but in 1824, an annual grant of 2001., and a preliminary one of 500l., for the formation of a new library, was made; and *Pennant, London,' ed. 1791, p. 415. the collection, already rich in publications in civic topography and history, promises to become, in course of time, not unworthy of the body to which it belongs. As we enter the porch the genuine architecture of the original structure strikes upon the eye with a sense of pleasurable surprise. Its arch within arch, its beautifully panelled walls, looking not unlike a range of closed-up Gothic windows, the pillars on the stone seat, and the numerous groins that spring from them intersecting the vaulted ceiling; and, lastly, the gilt bosses, so profusely scattered about, all seem to have remained untouched-certainly uninjuredfrom the days of their erection, during the reign of Bolingbroke. They are, however, the only things here unchanged. A citizen of that period would be a little puzzled, we suspect, to understand, for instance, the long bills which hang on each side of the doors leading from the porch into the hall, containing a list of the brokers authorised by the Mayor and Aldermen to exercise their vocation in the City: the funded system would certainly be too much for him. We enter the hall, and it does not need many glances to tell us that it has been a truly magnificent place, worthy of the extraordinary exertions made for its erection, and of the City-we might almost say, considering its national importance, of the empire, to which it belonged. Nay, it is magnificent still, in spite of the liberties that have been taken with it, such as closing up some of its windows with enormous piles of sculpture; and above all, in spite of the miserable modern upper story, with its vile windows, and of the flat roof, which has taken the place of the oaken and arched one, with its carved pendants, its picturesque combinations, and its rich masses of shade, such as we may be certain once rose from the tops of those clustered columns. But the vast dimensions (152 feet in length, 50 in breadth, and about 55 in height), the noble proportions, and the exquisite architecture are still there, and may possibly at no distant period lead to the restoration of the whole in a different spirit from that which at once mangled and burlesqued it, under the pretence of admiration, in the last century: already the restoring of the roof is talked of. The crypt below the Hall has been but little interfered with, and still shows the original design of the architect. The contents of the Hall are too well known to render any lengthened description necessary; we may therefore briefly observe, that they comprise in one department of art the monuments of the great men whom the City has delighted to honour, and in another the renowned giants Gog and Magog. Among the former is that of William Beckford, Esq., who so astonished George III. by addressing him against all courtly precedent, on receiving the unfavourable answer vouchsafed by the monarch to the Remonstrance of the City on the subject of Wilkes's election; and so delighted the citizens, that they caused this memorial to be erected after his death, which is said to have been accelerated by the excitement of the times acting upon ill health. The others are Lord Nelson's, the Right Hon. William Pitt's, and his father's, the Earl of Chatham; the last by Bacon, the only one that seems to us deserving even of criticism. Allan Cunningham says, an eminent artist remarked to him one day, "See, all is reeling-Chatham, the two ladies [Commerce and Manufacture], the lion, the boys, the cornucopia, and all the rest, have been tumbled out of a waggon from the top of the pyramid." There certainly never was, in the history of art, men capable of such great things making such melancholy mistakes as our modern sculptors in a large proportion of their more ambitious productions. The author of the strange jumble here so justly satirized is also the same man of whom Cowper no less justly says→→ "Bacon there Gives more than female beauty to a stone, referring, in the last line, either to the chief figure on this very monument, or to that on Bacon's other Pitt memorial in Westminster Abbey. The inscriptions on the monuments of Nelson and the two Pitts seem to have called forth the literary powers of our statesmen in a kind of rivalry: Burke wrote the Earl of Chatham's, Canning William Pitt's, and Sheridan Nelson's. The fine old crypt beneath the Hall, extending through its entire length, is in such excellent preservation that we cannot but regret some endeavour is not made to restore it to the light of day. As it is, what with the rise of the soil on the exterior, and the blocking up of windows, we can only dimly perceive through the gloaming the pillars and arches which divide it lengthwise into three aisles. Some of the uses of the great civic hall are well known. On the dais at the east end are erected the hustings for the parliamentary elections of the City of London. The Corporation banquets are also given here; and their history from the time Sir John Shaw-excellent man!-built the kitchen, in 1501, down to the visit of her present Majesty, would furnish rich materials for an essay on the art and science of good living, for that the latter is both, cooks and aldermen unanimously agree. The most magnificent of these feasts seems to have been that of 1814, after the overthrow of Napoleon, when the chief guests were the Prince Regent, the Emperor of Russia, and the King of Prussia, when the dinner was served entirely on plate, valued at above 200,000l., when all the other arrangements were conducted on a correspondingly sumptuous scale, and when, in a word, the expenditure was estimated at 25,000l. On some occasions the Guildhall banquets have had an historical interest attached to them. A good dinner, it is well known, is often the readiest and most effectual way of opening an Englishman's heart. Charles I., |