Its width, its length, the precipitous hill over which it passes, the noble viaduct that now eases the too rapid descent, the memories that are connected with this, one of the most ancient, as well as one of the most important streets of the English capital, render it more than ordinarily interesting to the foreigner, and to the stranger. A few of the ancient houses are still in existence, and from their quaint old casements many royal pageants and many sorrowful processions have been witnessed. Kings and Queens arrayed in gorgeous robes, blazing with costly jewels, and surrounded by glittering courtiers, have gaily moved onwards amid the blare of trumpets, and the shouts of admiring crowds, to partake of sumptuous Court festivals. In awe-inspiring contrast to the gay trains, and to the beauty and mirth of the pleasure-seekers so joyously riding forward to fresh delight, other scenes have, alas! been too frequently witnessed from these same windows. Amid the derisive cries of a savage rabble, or amid the gloomy silence of a suffering and oppressed people, other and ghastly processions have also passed this way. Merciless guards and black-robed priests are here, and in their midst, watched with zealous and cruel care, are tottering and emaciated figures--martyrs on their way to Smithfield, prepared to seal by their blood the testimony they have borne to the truth of their faith. Broken down by suffering, with a frame ofttimes racked by the torture it has undergone, many an heroic heart has still triumphed over the crushed and mangled body, and with uplifted hands and in fervid accents the Christian hero, even amidst the flames, praises God, who permits His faithful servant to testify, though in death, undying love and confidence in his Divine Father. God be thanked, however, that these hideous old times have long since passed away, and that England is now, by her noble tolerance and enlightened Christianity, doing much to show the world that it is not by cruelty and persecution that our holy religion requires to be upheld. Oldbourne, as it was called in olden times, was early one of the important thoroughfares in, or rather leading to the City of London, and although the traffic must in days of yore have been but a faint shadow of what it now is, still even as far back as the reign of Richard II. it was necessary to make special laws for its good ordering, by reason of the number of carts, wains, drays, and other conveyances that passed that way. One old chronicler complains thus quaintly: "The coachman rides behind his horses' tails," saith he, "he lasheth them, but looketh not before nor behind him. The drayman sitteth and sleepeth on his dray, and so letteth his horses lead him home."