Cross the road to Wood Street, and, if you look through the railings at the back of the two diminutive shops that are shadowed by the great and famous plane-tree, you will see that they are built of the same red brick as No. 37 and bear a tablet with this inscription: Erected at ye sole Cost and Charges of ye Parish of St. Peter’s Cheape Ao. Dni. 1687. WILLIAM } HOWARD, } } _Churchwardens_. JEREMIAH } TAVERNER,} The owners of these little houses are forbidden by their leases to add a second story, so the tree remains, bringing a breath of the country to City dwellers, reminding them of Wordsworth’s thrush, whose habit of continuous singing used to amaze my childhood: At the corner of Wood Street, when daylight appears Hangs a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three years. In Wood Street lived Launcelot Young, that master glazier of peculiar tastes who, finding the head of James IV., the King of Scots who was slain at Flodden Field, among a lot of old rubbish in the lumber room of the Duke of Suffolk’s place at Sheen, took it home with him and kept it till it lost its novelty. When I said that there is little to remind one of the past in Cheapside, I forgot the churches that crop up round every corner. They have a wealth of memories clustering about them, and the moment you dive into the narrow courts and passages off the beaten track, you will lose the sense of modernity. In the dark, queer little lanes, most of them with a public-house tucked away in some obscure corner, may be found the London of Dickens’ day, if of no earlier. And what romance in the odd names--Gutter Lane, by Wood Street, named after Gutheran the Dane, who lived here before the time of the Conqueror; Huggin Lane that unites them farther up, called after one Hugan or Hugh; Addle Street, where King Adel the Saxon had a mansion; Love Lane of dissolute memory. CITY COMPANIES “Thy famous Maire, by pryncely governaunce, with sword of justice thee ruleth prudently.”--DUNBAR. Wandering in Cheapside, I came across some massive emblazoned coats-of-arms over great doorways, and found they always announced the halls of the City Companies of London, those great mediæval trade unions that survive to-day--so taken for granted by the Londoner that few people remark their amazing existence.