The outward aspect of Elizabethan London reflected this social change. On the south of the city, along the line of Thames Street, the wall had entirely disappeared. On the east and west it was in decay, and was becoming absorbed in fresh buildings. Only on the north side of the city, where it had been re-edified as late as 1474, did the wall suggest its uses for defence. In the map of Agas, executed early in the reign of Elizabeth, this portion of the wall, with its defensive towers and bastions, appears singularly well preserved. Thus the condition of the wall suggested the passing of the old and the coming of the new order. The gates which formerly defended the city, where the chief roadways pierced the wall, still remained as monuments, and they were admirably adapted to the purpose of civic pageantry and ceremonial shows. Indeed, the gateway on the Oxford road was rebuilt in 1586, and called Newgate, "from the newness thereof," and it was the "fairest" of all the gates of London. It is reckoned that this was the year that Shakespeare came to London from Stratford-on-Avon; and the assumption is generally allowed that he entered the city by Newgate, which would be his direct road. A new gate, of an artistic and ornamental character, set in the ancient wall, was a sign and a symbol of the new conditions in London, of which Shakespeare himself was destined to become the chief result. * * * * * With the characteristics of London as a great mart and port is included the foreign elements in its population. In Lombard Street the merchants of Lombardy from early mediæval times had performed the operations of banking and foreign exchange; and around them were assembled the English merchants of all qualities and degrees. Business was conducted in the open street, and merchants merely adjourned into the adjoining houses to seal their bonds and make their formal settlements. Henry VIII. tried to induce the city to make use of the great building of Leadenhall for this purpose; but the innovation was resisted, and Lombard Street continued to be the burse of London till long after the accession of Elizabeth. The name of Galley Key remained in Tower Street ward to mark the spot on the river bank "where the galleys of Italy and other parts did discharge their wines and merchandises brought to this city." The men of the galleys lived as a colony by themselves in Mincing Lane; the street leading to their purlieus was called, indifferently, Galley Row and Petit Wales. Here was a great house, the official territorium of the Principality. The original of Shakespeare's "Fluellen" may very possibly have been a denizen of this quarter.