In 1552 the first manufactory of glass in England was established at the old Savoy House. It was here that, in 1658, the Independents met and drew up their famous Declaration of Faith. In 1671 the Royal Society’s publications were printed here. In Dryden’s time, the wounded English sailors who had been mangled by Van Tromp’s and De Ruyter’s shot were nursed here. The good and witty Fuller, who wrote the _Worthies_ lectured here. Half-crazed Alexander Cruden, who compiled the laborious Concordance to the Bible, lived here; and here grinding Jacob Tonson had a warehouse. In 1843 the Queen repaired the Savoy Chapel, in virtue of her being the patron of it. The duty, indeed, fell upon the Crown, for the chapel stood in the Liberty of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the office of the Duchy is in Lancaster Place, to the right as you approach Waterloo Bridge. In July 1864 the Savoy Chapel was unfortunately destroyed by a fire occasioned by an explosion of gas. The coloured ceiling, the altar window, containing a figure of St. John the Baptist, and a solitary niche with some tabernacle work at the east end, all perished. It was shortly afterwards restored and decorated afresh throughout, at the cost of Her Majesty. Mr. George Augustus Sala has admirably sketched the present condition of the Precinct,--its almost solemn silence and its gravity,--its loneliness, as of Juan Fernandez, Norfolk Island, or Key West,[218] although on the very verge of the roaring world of London, and but five minutes’ walk from Temple Bar. The royal property is chiefly covered now by shops, public-houses, and printing-offices. The Precinct still retains traditions of the vagabond squatters who, till about the middle of the last century, assumed possession of the ruinous tenements in the Savoy, till the Footguards turned them out, and the houses were pulled down, rebuilt, and let to respectable tenants. The old churchyard has long since been sealed up by the Board of Health, but the trees and grass still flourish round the old stones. Clean-shaved, nattily dressed actors come to this quiet purlieu to study their parts. Musicians of theatrical orchestras, penny-a-liners, and printers haunt the bar of the Savoy tavern. Those quiet houses with the white door-steps, shining brass plates and green blinds, are inhabited by accountants’ clerks, retired and retiring small tradesmen, and commission agents interested in pale ale, pickles, and Wallsend coals. “So,” says Mr. Sala, “run the sands of life through this quiet hour-glass; so glides the life away in the old Precinct. At its base a river runs for all the world; at its summit is the brawling, raging Strand; on either side are darkness and poverty and vice, the gloomy Adelphi arches, the Bridge of Sighs that men call Waterloo. But the Precinct troubles itself little with the noise and tumult; it sleeps well through life without its fitful fever.”