their saliva was worse than their bite.... "When Hone was tried before him for blasphemy, Lord Tenterden treated him with great forbearance; but Hone, not content with the indulgence, took to vilifying the judge. 'Even in a Turkish court I should not have met with the treatment I have experienced here,' he exclaimed. 'Certainly,' replied Lord Tenterden; 'the bowstring would have been round your neck an hour ago.'" That sturdy political writer, William Cobbett, lived at No. 183 (north), and there published his _Political Register_. In 1819 he wrote from America, declaring that if Sir Robert Peel's Bank Bill passed, he would give Castlereagh leave to lay him on a gridiron and broil him alive, while Sidmouth stirred the coals, and Canning stood by and laughed at his groans. In 1827 he announced in his _Register_ that he would place a gridiron on the front of his shop whenever Peel's Bill was repealed. The "Small Note Bill" was repealed, when there was a reduction of the interest of the National Debt. The gridiron so often threatened never actually went up, but it was to be seen a few years ago nailed on the gable end of a candle manufacturer's at Kensington. The two houses next to Cobbett's (184 and 185) are the oldest houses standing in Fleet Street. "Peele's Coffee-House" (Nos. 177 and 178, north side) once boasted a portrait of Dr. Johnson, said to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the keystone of the mantelpiece. This coffee-house is of antiquity, but is chiefly memorable for its useful files of newspapers and for its having been the central committee-room of the Society for Repealing the Paper Duty. The struggle began in 1858, and eventually triumphed, thanks to the president, the Right Hon. Milner Gibson, and the chairman, the late Mr. John Cassell. The house within the last few years has been entirely rebuilt. In former times "Peele's Coffee-House" was quite a house of call and post-office for money-lenders and bill-discounters; though crowds of barristers and solicitors also frequented it, in order to consult the useful files of London and country newspapers hoarded there for now more than a century. Mr. Jay has left us an amusing sketch of one of the former frequenters of "Peele's"--the late Sir William Owen Barlow, a bencher of the Middle Temple. This methodical old gentleman had never travelled in a stage-coach or railway-carriage in his life, and had not for years read a book. He came in for dinner at the same hour every day, except in Term-time, and was very angry if any loud talkers disturbed him at his evening paper. He once requested the instant discharge of a waiter at "Peele's," because the civil but ungrammatical man had said, "There are a leg of mutton, and there is chops." CHAPTER V. FLEET STREET (_continued_).