But Ralegh was no paragon of a young man continually engaged in staid discourse with his elders. It is refreshing to have authority for a different and delightfully human glimpse of his life. The authority is Aubrey, and Aubrey loved gossip--and especially scandalous gossip--so fervidly, that his stories bear the hall-mark of truth, apart from the fact that they are too ridiculous to be worth even Aubrey's while to fabricate. This is the tale, which Aubrey is careful to mention (his solemnity in telling his gossip comes little short of genius), was recounted to him by Dr. John Gell. "In his youthful time was one Charles Chester, that often kept company in his acquaintance: he was a bold, impertinent fellow, and they could never be at quiet for him; a perpetual talker and made a noise like a drumme in a roome. So one time at a taverne Sir W. R. beates him and seales up his mouthe (_i.e._ his upper and neather beard) with hard wax." Probably Charles Chester took this summary Elizabethan hint, but Aubrey throws no light on the hint's effect. [Illustration: MAP OF LONDON] The little incident is typical, not so much of Ralegh, though it shows his swift vigour, as of the times. Such a thing happening now would be likely to cause a scandal which would be known to most of the civilized world. Then the continents were being discovered which would now join in the outcry of amazement or laughter. London was small. St. Paul's was the centre of life: Chepeside was the main and fashionable street; the streets were narrow and the houses were chiefly built of wood. The Mermaid Tavern was in Friday Street. There were large residences with gardens in the city, public gardens on Tower Hill, and green graveyards round the churches. The river, crossed by one bridge--London Bridge--was in constant use; and a wall ran round the semicircle of the city. Temple Bar, Holborn Bar, Aldgate, Bishopsgate, Aldersgate, the bar at Smithfield, the bar on the Whitechapel highway--the gates and bars tell the city area, and outside the walls clustered the Liberties, where vagrants had their quarters. London was becoming crowded. In 1580 the Lord Burghley took measures to stop the expansion of the city, and from his table of births and deaths the population has been estimated at about ninety thousand. That figure is only approximate. There was no actual census until some eighty years later, when John Graunt, of Birchin Lane, at length succeeded in his scheme.