I know not through what intermediate hands the business at No. 113 has past, since the name of Allison was withdrawn from the firm; nor whether Mr. Evans, by whom it is now carried on there, is in any way related by descent with that family. Matters of no greater importance to most men have been made the subject of much antiquarian investigation; and they who busy themselves in such investigations must not be said to be ill employed, for they find harmless amusement in the pursuit, and sometimes put up a chance truth of which others, soon or late, discover the application. The house has at this time a more antiquated appearance than any other in that part of the street, though it was modernized some forty or fifty years after Mr. Bacon's friend left it. The first floor then projected several feet farther over the street than at present, and the second several feet farther over the first; and the windows, which still extend the whole breadth of the front, were then composed of small casement panes. But in the progress of those improvements which are now carrying on in the city with as much spirit as at the western end of the metropolis, and which have almost reached Mr. Evans's door, it cannot be long before the house will be either wholly removed, or so altered as no longer to be recognized. The present race of Londoners little know what the appearance of the city was a century ago;—their own city, I was about to have said; but it was the city of their great grandfathers, not theirs, from which the elder Allisons retired in the year 1746. At that time the kennels (as in Paris) were in the middle of the street, and there were no foot paths; spouts projected the rain-water in streams against which umbrellas, if umbrellas had been then in use, could have afforded no defence; and large signs, such as are now only to be seen at country inns, were suspended before every shop, from posts which impeded the way, or from iron supports strongly fixed into the front of the house. The swinging of one of these broad signs in a high wind, and the weight of the iron on which it acted, sometimes brought the wall down; and it is recorded that one front-fall of this kind in Fleet-street maimed several persons, and killed “two young ladies, a cobler, and the King's Jeweller.” The sign at No. 113 was an Indian Chief, smoking the calumet. Mr. Allison had found it there; and when it became necessary that a new one should be substituted, he retained the same figure,—though if he had been to chuse he would have greatly preferred the head of Sir Walter Raleigh, by whom, according to the common belief, he supposed tobacco had been introduced into this country. The Water-Poet imputed it to the Devil himself, and published A Proclamation, Or Approbation, From the King of Execration To every Nation, For Tobacco's propagation.