“And now that we are speaking of the property appertaining to London Bridge, it will be a fit place to give you some idea whence it was in general derived; I say, in general, because the inquiry into all its sources would be not only difficult, but almost impossible. Stow tells you in his ‘_Survey_,’ volume i., page 59, that after the erection of buildings upon London Bridge, ‘many charitable men gave lands, tenements, or sums of money, towards the maintenance thereof: all which was sometimes noted, and in a table fair written for posterity remaining in the Chapel, till the same Chapel was turned to a dwelling-house, and then removed to the Bridge-House.’ The honest old Antiquary states, however, that he would willingly have given a copy of this table of benefactors, but that he could not procure a sight of it; for, as he was known to be a notable restorer of decayed and dormant charities, he was occasionally refused admission to such records as would have enabled him to compile a lasting register of all the pious gifts and benefactions in London. He never hesitated to reprove unfaithful Executors, whether Corporations, or private persons, some of which he caused to perform the testaments which they proved; whilst the dishonesty of others he left on record to futurity. It is then not to be wondered at, if he often-times met with a repulse instead of information; ignorance opposed him in one quarter, and interest in another; and he might very well have taken up the significant, though homely complaint of Ames, when he was composing his History of Printing, ‘Some of those persons _treats_ folks, as if they came as spies into their affairs.’ We have, however, some particulars of the Bridge property, as well collected by Stow, as gathered since his time; and, firstly, I must notice to you, that at page 60 of his ‘_Survey_,’ he states that ‘John Feckenham, _Civis et Bracciator_,’--Citizen and Brewer, or perhaps, Corn-Meter, ‘by his will, dated May 11th, 1436, bequeathed to the Mayor and Commonalty of the City of London, a Tenement with a Shop and Garden, in the Parish of St. Augustine Pappey,’--that is to say in St. Mary at Axe,--‘between the tenement and lands of the Bridge of the City of London on the East, &c. To have to the Mayor and Commonalty of London, _ad usum et sustentationem operis Pontis prædictis in perpetuum_,’--for the use and support of the work of the aforesaid Bridge for ever,--‘on condition that the Chaplains of the Chapel of St. Thomas the Martyr, on the Bridge, celebrating, have his soul, and also the souls of the late Lord Richard II., King of England, Edward Boteler, knight, and the Lady Anne his wife, Richard Storme, and Alice his wife, and the soul of Joan, his’--the said Feckenham’s--‘wife, perpetually recommended in their prayers.’ You may see both the original and an authentic copy of this Will, and that which I shall hereafter mention, in the Bishop of London’s Registry in St. Paul’s Cathedral.