to the praise given him by his friend Daniel Defoe, as ’a worthy and noble patriot, one of the most eminent, to whom we owe more than ever he would tell us, or, I am afraid, we shall ever be sensible of, whatever fools, madmen, or Jacobites may asperse him with.’ We cannot attempt to give a history of the Bank of England in our limited space, but a short account of the Bank building may not unfitly close this notice of the founder of the establishment. The business was originally started at Mercers’ Hall, and next removed to, and for many years carried on at, Grocers’ Hall in the Poultry. In August, 1732, the governors and directors laid the first stone of their new building in Threadneedle Street, on the site of the house and garden formerly belonging to Sir John Houblon, the first Governor of the Bank. At first the buildings comprised only the centre of the principal or south front, the Hall, Bullion Court, and the Courtyard, and were surrounded by St. Christopher-le-Stocks Church, three taverns, and several private houses. From the year 1766 onwards considerable additions were made to the building. All the adjoining houses on the east side to Bartholomew Lane, and those occupying the west side of that lane almost to Lothbury, were taken down, and their places occupied by offices of the Bank. The south side buildings, forming the eastern continuation of the establishment, presented a range of fluted columns in pairs, with arched intervals between, pointing out where windows should have been placed, which, however, were filled up with stone. This necessitated the rooms within being lighted by small glass domes in the roof, a circumstance much complained of at the time by the clerks as injuriously affecting their eyes. It was intended to extend the façade on the western side by taking down the Church of St. Christopher, which by the removal of that part of Threadneedle Street had been deprived of a great part of its parish. Noorthouck, who wrote in 1773, says: ’How far so extensive a plan may answer the vast expense it will call for to complete it is a question proper for the consideration of those who are immediately concerned; an indifferent spectator cannot view this expanded fabric without comparing it with the growth of public debts negotiated here, and trembling more for the safety of the one than of the other.’ Could he see the Bank now, covering nearly four acres of ground, what would he say?