and it appears to have been a plain narrow edifice, castellated and covered with lead on the top, having two principal stories, the lower one of which had a kind of gallery or balcony, an ornament which was very common to buildings in this part of London. The Companies of the Salt-fish and Stock-fish mongers were anciently possessed of so many as six Halls; of which two stood in New Fish-street, now called Fish-street Hill; two more were in Old Fish-street, and two others were erected in Thames-street; in each place one for each Company. These, however, were all united in the year 1536, the 28th of Henry the Eighth; after which they were to have but one Hall, namely, the house given to them by Sir John Cornwall, afterwards created Baron Fanhope, in 1427, the 6th year of Henry VI., which I take to have been the building represented in the print; since Stow, in his ‘_Survey_,’ volume i., page 499, from whom we derive these few particulars, says that it was in the Parish of St. Michael, Crooked Lane: and adds on the preceding page, that ‘Fishmongers’ Hall, with other fair houses for merchants, standeth about midway between the Bridge foot and Ebgate, or Old Swan-lane.’ Still more brief, however, are the notices, which he furnishes us concerning the Company’s other Halls, which once stood about the same spot. ‘On the West side of this Ward,’--says the old Citizen,--‘at the North end of London Bridge, is a part of Thames-street, which is also of this Ward, to wit, so much as of old time was called Stock-Fishmonger Row,’--a place, you will remember, referred to in that manuscript Survey of Bridge lands which I some time since recited to you--‘of the Stock-fishmongers dwelling there, down West to a Water-gate, of old time called Ebgate, since Ebgate Lane, and now the Old Swan.’ I will not enter into the history of the Fishmongers’ Company, Mr. Barbican, because it does not belong to our present subject, and you may read the chief particulars for yourself, in Stow’s ‘_Survey_,’ volume i., page 498, and volume ii., page 268; and shall therefore only add a very few particulars concerning the present Hall. According to the splendid plan of Sir Christopher Wren, for adorning the banks of the Thames, it presents to the river, a handsome, though somewhat old-fashioned front of red brick, having the windows ornamented with stone cases. From the wharf on which the Shades’ Tavern is situate, a grand double flight of stone steps leads to the chief apartments; and the door is decorated with Ionic columns supporting an open pediment, containing a shield with the Company’s Arms, all of stone. I shall say nothing, however, of the handsome North front of this building, its spacious court-yard, and its beautiful carved gateway in Thames-street; nor yet of the rich state chambers, their fine paintings of fish, their massive and richly-chased silver branches, their large brazen chandeliers, the interesting relique of