cannot be had, but it is considered dangerous for these small boats to go under the Bridge when the tide is running up, for the water has then an extreme rapidity, even greater than when it is returning, and the two currents are united.’ On page 121, in mentioning his visit to the Tower, he states that neither in going nor returning did his boat pass under the Bridge; for the tide being running up, there was a fall of more than two feet. The passengers left the boat, crossed to the other side of the Bridge, and then re-entered it: whilst the watermen, he adds, had no difficulty in descending the fall, but a great deal in mounting up it again. “It has been reported, that during the awful time when London was being devastated by the terrible Plague of 1665, the inhabitants of the Bridge were free from its ravages; which is attributed to the ceaseless rushing of the river beneath it. I have not yet discovered, however, the least foundation for such a tradition in any of the numerous publications which appeared concerning the pestilence; and, indeed, the only place in which I find this edifice at all mentioned, is in that terrible volume attributed to Daniel Defoe, and called ‘_A Journal of the Plague Year, by a Citizen who continued all the while in London_;’ London, 1722, octavo, where, on page 255, when speaking of the fires made in the streets for clearing the air after the pestilence, he says, ‘I do not remember whether any was at the City gates, but one at the Bridge foot there was, just by St. Magnus’ Church.’