Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 4.djvu/296

 274 NOTICES OF NEW PUBLICATIONS. the sixteenth century. The great arteries, it is true, the Strand, Holborn, Cheap, Cornhill, &c., still exist, but their subordinate districts are either strangely altered, or altogether metamorphosed. Yet though little more than names remain to connect modern with ancient London, monumental links being out of the question, there is not perhaps another city in the world so rich in documentary evidences of its growth and expansion. Saxon charters still preserved carry us back to those remote times when the now thronged and busy wharves of Thames-street acquired, as hithes, in the occupation of Saxon traders, the names by which, in a corrupted form, many are yet known in the nineteenth century. For the period after the Conquest these evidences increase in numbers and value : there are few of the great city companies whose title-deeds do not extend so far back as the beginning of the thirteenth century ; and we have nearly intact the muniments of the greatest ecclesiastical corporation in the city, which pos- sessed property in every part of it — the Priory of the Holy Trinity of Aid- gate — commencing with the times of Henry the First, and ending only with the Dissolution. In the earlier documents in this remarkable collec- tion, of which one portion is at Glasgow and another in London, we recog- nise the prevalence of Saxon names, both of persons and places, in the metropolis, and see the former gradually passing away, and the latter be- coming corrupted, as we approach the times of the Plantagenets. Again, the antique privilege of the Hustings' Court, a relic of Saxon municipal law, by which it took cognizance and granted probate of the wills of citizens relating to real property within the franchise, led to a registry of wills, which, surpassing in antiquity, as in some respects it does in importance, that of the ecclesiastical courts, commences in the reign of Henry the Third, and is continued to the beginning of the eighteenth century. There is also a registry of deeds of equal antiquity attached to the same court. From these and other materials it would be quite possible to trace the suc- cessive occupation of nearly every foot of ground within the walls of an- cient London ; nor would the work be uninstructive considered otherwise than topographically, for in perusing these ancient conveyances we neces- sarily gather those minute details relating to the progress of society and civilization which are needed to complete, and it may be to explain, the narratives of contemporary chroniclers. We have said that names, in a corrupted form, are almost the only re- mains which associate modern with old London ; it would be a valuable contribution to literature if some one of our numerous antiquaries would avail himself of the materials we have enumerated, were it only for the purpose of sliewing the derivation of the ancient appellations which many of the streets and lanes in, and some of the districts surrounding,' London still bear. Pursued with judgment, such an enquiry would yield much curious and entertaining information. For example, as we write an adver- tising cart passes the window, on which the word Vauxhall is conspi- cuous in lofty letters. Whence the name ? Many efforts have been made to explain it, and Guy Faux, of gunjwwder notoriety, is assumed to have