The other part lay on the west of the High Street, stretching along the river nearly as far as Lambeth. This was the disreputable quarter, the place of amusement: the people who lived there, one and all, made the providing of amusement, pleasure and excitement their means of livelihood. It was like a never-ending fair where nothing was sold, and there were no booths except those of Ursula, with roast sucking pig, black puddings, custards, and gingerbread. From every tavern all day long came the tinkling of the guitar and the trolling of some lusty voice and the silvery notes of a girl who sang like the wood pigeon because nature taught her. Here marched along the bear rolling his head from side to side, a monkey chattering on his back, the tabor and pipe going before him. After him came the dogs straining at the chain which held them, barking madly in anticipation of the fight. Or it was a young bull who was led by two men to the ring where he would defend his life as long as the dogs allowed; or it was the arrival at Falcon Stairs of boats by the dozen, each turning out its complement of citizens and their wives, who made for the theatre where the flag was flying. On the open bank were placed tables for those who drank: the balladmonger sang his songs and sold them afterwards: the posturer spread his carpet and went through his performance: the boys cried nuts and apples: the drawer ran about and filled his cans. In no other part of London was there a scene of greater animation and cheerfulness than on Bankside, on an afternoon or evening in the summer. And then to go home again across the broad and peaceful river at full tide, when the sun was set, and the river, like the sky, was aglow, and the people sang softly in the boats, and still from Bankside came the dying snatches of music, the soft breath of the cornet, and the tingling touch of the harp, and the voices of those who sang, and the baying of the hounds from Paris Gardens. The early history of the playhouses on the Bank involves many questions, and may be safely left to the antiquarian historian. The reader will find most of these questions raised and settled in a book, already quoted here, by Mr. T. Fairman Ordish ('Early London Theatres'). It appears, however, that there were players, if not playhouses, here as early as 1547. After the death of Henry VIII. Gardiner proposed to have a solemn dirge in memory of the King, but, he complained to the Council, the players of Southwark say that they also will have a 'solemn playe to trye who shall have most resorts, they in game, or I in earnest.'