When the old pole was once more erected, decked with ribbons and spring flowers, in front of St. Andrew’s, the holy wrath of a curate, “Sir Stephen” of old, was fired against it. He flew into the stone pulpit at Paul’s Cross, and he denounced the parishioners of St. Andrew’s as accursed idolaters, inasmuch as they had set up an idol, and by naming their church “under the shaft,” they had done honour to the pole as well as to the apostle. Stow, who appears to have been ubiquitous, was among the listeners, but not among that portion of them who were subsequently actors, and who rushed from beneath the pulpit, swept along St. Mary Axe, and seizing the idolatrous shaft, righteously hewed the same into fragments, and then religiously burnt the whole at the very church door. Ah, thought honest John with a sigh, if they thus destroy what was old yet lovely, I will take more pains than ever to preserve the memory of what perishes;—and he faithfully did so. It was the over-zeal of members of adverse parties that made of this learned tailor a Christian, rather than a Romanist or a Reformer; and he was too gentle of heart to feel unlimited wrath against any but the defacers of monuments: his own was as little free from assault however as his own stall had been, when he was alive. The idle deboshed fellows about Cornhill used foully to assail him and his apprentices, for no better reason than that he would not share in their naughtiness. He received the battery of their heavy tongues without reply, and even bade his loving helpmate to be quiet when the queans on the _pavé_ mocked her as the spouse of a poor scholar. For be it said, Cornhill was frequented by the lowest as well as the highest in the land, and its prison “Tun” for night-brawlers, and its pillory for other offenders, bespoke a neighbouring lawless population; and this is further proved by Lydgate, who says, in his ‘London Lick-Penny:’— “Then into Corn Hil anon I rode, Where was much stolen gear among; I saw where hung mine own fair hood, That I had lost among the throng. To buy my own hood, I thought it wrong; I knew it well, as I did my creed, But for lack of money I could not speed.” Stow’s monument was ostensibly raised to his memory by his widow, but there is no doubt that it was by subscription. It is of terra cotta; and the figure, once painted to represent life, is seen as the original used to be seen, seated at a table, engaged with pen and book. Maitland states that the remains were disturbed, and even removed, but he does not say whither nor wherefore, in the year 1732. Like the mortal remains of Fernand Cortes, no man can speak decisively of their resting-place. Leaving those who love such research to make due inquiry after them, we will now hold brief converse touching another celebrated “John of the Needle,” the Chronicler Speed. JOHN SPEED, THE ANTIQUARIAN TAILOR. “Summus et eruditus Antiquarius.”—SHERINGHAM.