Produced by Chris Curnow, John Campbell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE This small book printed in 1863 is a reproduction of the original ‘Catalogue’ published in 1677. The many printing errors and inconsistencies in spelling and punctuation in that Catalogue were deliberately carried forward to this 1863 book, which notes in the Introduction that it was “here reproduced as almost a fac-simile”. This etext has also retained these misspellings and inconsistencies and not tried to correct or ‘improve’ the content, and only spacing between words is different--two or three or more spaces in the original text have been condensed to one space in this etext. A few other minor changes are noted at the end of the book. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. [Illustration: (Decorative banner)] THE LITTLE LONDON DIRECTORY OF 1677. [Illustration: (Small decorative icon)] THE LITTLE LONDON DIRECTORY OF 1677. THE OLDEST PRINTED LIST OF THE MERCHANTS AND BANKERS OF LONDON. REPRINTED FROM THE EXCEEDINGLY RARE ORIGINAL; WITH AN INTRODUCTION POINTING OUT SOME OF THE MOST EMINENT MERCHANTS OF THE PERIOD. [Illustration: (Decorative banner)] LONDON: JOHN CAMDEN HOTTEN, PICCADILY. 1863. [Illustration: (Decorative banner)] INTRODUCTION. This little book might easily, by a competent pen, be made the text to a volume, as large, if not as useful, as the huge “Post Office Directory,” of which it was the modest precursor. No such ambitious object as the production of a volume of that class is to be here indulged in. On the contrary, the purpose of the present short introduction is to offer a few suggestions upon topics obviously belonging to the contents of this commercial record of the merchants and _goldsmiths_ of London in the second half of the seventeenth century. It will be found to demonstrate the value of not a few family _names_ as significant elements of the history of social progress. It has, indeed, been so in all time. From Homer’s catalogues down to the knightly nomenclature of the “Roman de la Rose,” and other long-breathed poems of the middle ages; from the Battle-abbey Roll of the conqueror’s chiefs at Hastings, and from that of King Henry’s army at Agincourt to our modern musters, such documents elucidate acceptably the course of military heroism. The conjecture is as ingenious, as it is just, lately made about _Shakespeare’s_ early life, that the Admiralty books, with their myriad of seamens’ names, may give his in some royal ship, and so account for his perfect sea phrases.