In ancient times the London goldsmiths all lived in or near Cheapside, or, as it was often called, West Cheap, to distinguish it from the other Cheap Street, more to the east. “Cheap” was the same as market. Close by was the Royal Exchange, where the bullion for the coinage of the realm was received and kept, and the street in which stood this building is still called the Old Exchange. Whether by law or custom, only goldsmiths were allowed to have shops in this neighborhood; but even if the right was at first but a prescriptive one, the company soon contrived to have laws passed to forbid any other craft from encroaching on their domains. This localizing of various crafts was common all over Europe in the middle ages, and in many instances was really a convenience to purchasers, as well as a means of defence for the members of the guilds. In the case of the goldsmiths the government had an object of its own. It might have been thought that the concentration of other turbulent companies would have been rather a danger and a provocation to the royal authority; but it was obviously the policy of the king to make the services of this wealthy company as accessible as might be, in case of any sudden emergency requiring a loan or a tax. It was not politic to let any of the fraternity escape contribution by hiding himself in some obscure part of the city; so that not only were other tradesmen prohibited from opening shops among the goldsmiths, but the latter were themselves forbidden from setting up their shops elsewhere. Although neither law nor custom now interferes with them, the majority of the great jewellers have their glittering shops in Bond Street, London, while in other countries the same rule, on the whole, still prevails. The _Rue de Rivoli_ and the _Palais Royal_ are the chief emporiums for these precious goods in Paris; in Vienna they are mainly sold in the _Graben_, and one street leading out of it; Rome has its _Via Condotti_, thronged with jewelry shops and those selling objects of _virtu_; Venice has its _Procurazie_, an arcade beneath which nearly all the jewellers in the city are congregated; and in many old Italian cities the _Strada degli Orefici_ (goldsmiths’ street) still fully deserves its name. This is particularly the case at Genoa, where this old, crooked lane, bordered by the booths and dens that we moderns would take for poor cobblers’ shops, is still one of the most surprising and picturesque sights of the city. Goldsmiths’ Row is thus described in Maitland’s _History_: