[Illustration: END OF HOLBORN BRIDGE, TAKEN FROM THE SOUTH, AND PART OF HOLBORN HILL. JUNE 2, 1840. (_Art. Crosby._)] Gay, too, in his "Trivia," more than once mentions the foulness of the Fleet in book ii. "Or who that rugged street[72] would traverse o'er, That stretches, O Fleet-Ditch, from thy black shore To the Tour's moated walls?" And again: "If where Fleet-Ditch with muddy current flows." Here is a pen-and-ink sketch of Holborn Bridge--from some old engraving or painting (Crosby does not give his authority), which gives an excellent idea of old London--squalid and filthy according to our ideas. How different from that noble viaduct which now spans the course of the Fleet River! which her Majesty opened on November 6, 1869. [Illustration: HOLBORN BRIDGE.] [Footnote 66: Hollinshed says--speaking of a Council at the Tower, relative to the Coronation of Edward V., at which the Protector presided, "After a little talking with them, he said unto the Bishop of Ely, 'My Lord, you have verie good strawberries at your garden in Holborne, I require you let us have a messe of them.' 'Gladlie, my Lord,' quoth he, 'would God I had some better thing as readie to your pleasure as that!' And there withall, in all haste, he sent his servant for a messe of strawberries."] [Footnote 67: Gray, "_A long Story_."] [Footnote 68: Afterwards Anglicised into Audrey.] [Footnote 69: There is now _Bowling Green Street_, Farringdon Street.] [Footnote 70: See next two pages.] [Footnote 71: "London Spy," part vi.] [Footnote 72: Thames Street.] [Illustration] CHAPTER XV. Then, close by (still keeping up its title of the River of the Wells) was Lamb's Conduit, on Snow Hill, which was fed from a little rill which had its source near where the Foundling Hospital now stands, its course being perpetuated by the name of Lamb's Conduit Street, where, according to the "Old English Herbal," watercresses used to flourish. "It groweth of its own accord in gardens and fields by the way side, in divers places, and particularly in the next pasture to the Conduit Head, behind Gray's Inn, that brings water to Mr. Lamb's Conduit in Holborn." William Lamb was a citizen of London, and of the Guild of Cloth-workers, besides which, he was some time Gentleman of the Chapel to Henry VIII. He benefited his fellow-citizens by restoring a conduit in 1577, which had been in existence since the fifteenth century; and, after the Great Fire, the busy Sir Christopher Wren was employed to design a covering for the spring, which he did, putting a _lamb_ on the top, with a very short inscription on the front panel, to the effect that it was "Rebuilt in the year 1677 S^r Tho^s Davis Kn^t L^d Mayor."