In 1616 Raleigh was allowed to leave the fortress, but, as I have said before, in order to obtain his liberty he had been obliged to bribe George Villiers and his brother, who had roused James’s cupidity by persuading him that if Raleigh were allowed to lead a fresh expedition to the West Indies, he might return with a great treasure of which James would take the lion’s share. A warrant, dated the 19th of March of this year, was drawn up, giving Raleigh permission to go abroad in order that he might make the necessary arrangements for his voyage. The twelve years of imprisonment had sadly marred and aged the gallant knight, but his spirit was as bold and courageous as ever, and he employed the first days of his liberty in revisiting his old London haunts; many changes must have struck him in the city. In Visscher’s panoramic view of London, taken from Southwark nearly opposite to St Paul’s, a very clear general impression may be gained of the appearance of the English capital in that year of sixteen hundred and sixteen, the year when Shakespeare was dying at Stratford-on-Avon, when Raleigh was on his way to his last journey across the Atlantic, and when Francis Bacon was writing his famous essays in Gray’s Inn. Those quaint, circular, Martello-like buildings in the foreground are the Globe and Swan theatres, with the Bear Garden close by; but the former theatre, in Visscher’s view, is not the one so intimately connected with Shakespeare, for that was burned down in 1613, and the building represented here is the new one erected upon its site. Opposite to the Swan Theatre, on the Surrey side of the river, are Paris Garden Stairs, where was a much frequented ferry, Blackfriars Bridge now spanning the river where this ferry once used to ply. There was also a theatre at Blackfriars, and Shakespeare and his players must often have used the ferry on their way from the Globe Theatre across the river from Blackfriars, where the poet lived. In front is old St Paul’s, towering over all the surrounding buildings and dwarfing the highest; scores of spires and towers break the skyline as the eye follows the panorama towards the west, where stands the former old London Bridge, covered along its sides with picturesque houses. So large and massive are the great blocks of gabled buildings that span the bridge, that it presents the appearance of a little town crossing the river, such as is the Ponte Vecchio at Florence in little. The gates at its ends are covered with men’s heads, stuck all over their roofs like pins upon a pincushion. More steeples and towers crown the opposite bank, and as the eye travels farther eastward it is arrested by the Tower, with its encircling wall, and its river wharf all covered with cannon. The river is alive with vessels of every shape and size, State barges and little pinnaces, great galleons and small craft, appear in all directions, some with, some without sails. Beyond, the distant hills of Middlesex