In the year 1608, King James I. granted the city a charter, by which he not only confirmed all the ancient rights, liberties, and immunities of the citizens, but added to the bounds and jurisdiction of the city the precincts of Duke’s Place, St. Bartholomew’s the Great and Less, Black and White Friars, and Cold Harbour. That King also granted the city two other charters. In 1613, the water of the New River, brought from Ware by the great Sir Hugh Middleton, was let into the lower reservoir at Islington, with great ceremony: the next year Smithfield was first paved, and in 1615, the sides of the streets of this city being paved with pebble stones, which had hitherto rendered walking very troublesome, the inhabitants of the principal streets first began to pave their doors with broad free stone and flags. In the year 1625, when King Charles I. ascended the throne, a most dreadful pestilence raged in London; the fatal effects of this distemper had been frequently felt; but it now carried off, within the space of a year, in the city and suburbs, 35,417 persons, besides those who died of other distempers, which, in the whole, amounted to 54,265, said to be one third of the inhabitants. It is remarkable that in the year 1629, the goldsmiths shops in the south row of Cheapside, reached from the Old Change to Buckler’s Bury, exclusive of only four shops of other trades in all that space; but these four shops gave King Charles I. and his Privy Council such offence, that they sent an order to the Lord Mayor and Aldermen, commanding them to turn out the tenants, and to oblige all the goldsmiths in the city, to settle in Cheapside and Lombard street. This arbitrary order however not being complied with, several others were sent, both by the Council and the court of Star-chamber, in which they were commanded to commit the tenants to prison, if they refused to give security to quit their houses by a certain day: and the court of Star-chamber even threatened the Alderman of the ward, that if he or his deputy did not immediately cause every such shop to be shut up, he or his deputy should be sent to prison, by warrant from the Board. In 1633, King Charles I. being returned from his progress into Scotland, the gentlemen of the four Inns of Court entertained their Majesties with a pompous masque, which excelled every thing of the kind that had been seen in England, the expence amounting to 21,000l. the greatest sum probably ever expended in this kingdom in mere shew, except at a coronation; we shall therefore give it our readers, as a specimen of the taste of the times; the following account being the more curious, as these kinds of entertainments are now entirely laid aside. The masquers, musicians, and all who were actors, met on Candlemas day in the afternoon, at Ely House in Holborn, where the Committee for the management of it sat all day, and in the evening they set forward, in the following order, down Chancery lane to Whitehall.