Once arrived at the second half of the sixteenth century we are in modern times. We have maps, surveys, descriptions of the city; we have literature in plenty to illustrate the manners of the time. There is no longer any doubt upon any point. The daily life of London under Elizabeth and the first James may be learned in all its details, by any one who will take the trouble to read, as easily as the daily life in our own time. Perhaps more easily, because things which are so trivial and yet mean so much are passed over or taken for granted in the literature of our day. But let no one be content with reading the modern books upon the Elizabethan period. They contain a great deal, but the literature of the time itself is a storehouse, into which every one who wishes, however lightly, to study the time should look for himself. And it is a storehouse so full that no man can hope to exhaust though he could carry out of it load upon load of treasure. [Illustration: THE POOL] Before me hangs a fac-simile of the map made by Ralph Agas. "Civitas Londinium." One remarks first, that the part lying south of Chepe is still the most crowded, yet not so crowded that there are no open spaces. Between Size Lane, for instance, and Walbrook is a great garden. Behind Whittington College is a large open court, which was also certainly a garden. There are gardens in Blackfriars of which the only remains at the present day are the pretty little square called Wardrobe Court and the tiny garden--I believe there is still one other garden left--at the back of the rectory of St. Andrew's. North of Chepe the streets are wider, and the open spaces larger and more frequent. At Grey Friars, already the Bluecoat School, the courts of the monastery are yet standing with the church, and the great garden still stretches unto the city wall; in the corner of the wall, where is now Monkwell Street, with Barber Surgeon's Hall, is a fine large garden. On either side of Coleman Street there are very extensive gardens; those on the west belonged to the Augustine Friars, the last remnant of which, the Drapers' Garden, was built over a few years ago to the enrichment of the Company and the loss of the city. Some part of the gardens of the Holy Trinity Priory remain. There are gardens and trees and an open space within Aldgate; and an open court, or series of courts, where had been the nunnery of St. Helen's. Without the walls, on the east, East Smithfield is a large field, with paths across. The sites of New Abbey and the convent of the Clare Sisters are marked by courts and gardens. Houses stand north and south along the Whitechapel Road, but not far; a single row of houses runs along Hound's ditch from Aldgate to Bishopsgate. Without the latter there is a line of houses as far as Shoreditch Church, and here the open country begins. Finsbury and Moorfields are to a great extent divided up into gardens, each with its