The Chronicles of Old London Bridge are many and of eternal interest. When Sweyn, king of Denmark, on plunder and conquest bent, sailed up the Thames, there was a London Bridge with turrets and roofed bulwarks. From 994 to 1750, that bridge, built and rebuilt many times, was the sole land communication between the city and the Surrey bank of the Thames. In Queen Elizabeth’s time the bridge had become a stately one. Norden describes it as adorned with “sumptuous buildings and statelie, and beautiful houses on either syde,” like one continuous street, except “certain wyde places for the retyre of passengers from the danger of cars, carts, and droves of cattle, usually passing that way.” Near the drawbridge, and overhanging the river, was the famed Nonsuch House, imported from Holland, built entirely of timber, four stories high, richly carved and gilt. At the Southwark end was the Traitor’s Gate, where dissevered and ghastly heads were hung suspended in the air. In 1212, the Southwark end caught fire, and 3000 persons perished miserably in the flames. In 1264 Henry III. was repulsed here by Simon de Mountfort, earl of Leicester. Thundering along this road to sudden death rushed Wat Tyler, in 1381. Here came forth the citizens, in all their bravery, ten years after, to meet Richard II. Henry V. passed over this bridge twice, once in triumph, and once to be laid down in his royal tomb. In 1450, we hear a voice exclaiming: “Jack Cade hath gotten London Bridge, and the citizens fly and forsake their houses;” and thus the chronicle goes on. Nor must we forget the maid servant of one Higges, a needle-maker, who, in carelessly placing some hot coals under some stairs, set fire to the house, and thus raised a conflagration which appears to have been of the most extensive character. On London Bridge lived Holbein and Hogarth. Swift and Pope used to visit Arnold the bookseller on this bridge. From off this bridge leaped an industrious apprentice to save the life of his master’s infant daughter, dropped into the river by a careless nursemaid; the father was Lord Mayor of London. The industrious apprentice married the daughter, and the great-grandson of the happy pair was the first duke of Leeds. On the first of August, 1831, New London Bridge was opened with great pomp by King William IV., and since then the stream of life across the bridge has rushed without intermission on. CHAPTER X. THE HOUSE OF COMMONS AND THE EARLY-CLOSING MOVEMENT. When is common sense to reign over man? According to Dr. Cumming, in a few years we are to have the Millennium. Will it be then? I fear not. At any rate, I am certain it will not be before.