Or we can picture some newly-imported nun, arriving in her litter, or coming in with a string of pack-horses, staring about her for a few minutes, until carried away by the lady-prioress of St. Helen's from the old inn-yard and across the street, and along the grey weather-beaten cloisters, never, perhaps, to see the green country again from which she had journeyed. Or we call up the figures of old carriers, such as Shakspeare has described, exclaiming: "Pease and beans are as dank here as a dog; and that is the way to give poor jades the bots. This house is turned upside down, since Robin died. Poor fellow! never joyed since the price of oats rose: it was the death of him."--_Henry IV._ act 2. Higher up the street we find another old house, in which Sir Paul Pindar resided (who contributed so largely towards restoring old St. Paul's): it is now a public-house, still bearing his name. The monument of the worthy knight still remains in the adjoining church of St. Botolph's, though the church has been rebuilt. It stands on the edge of what was the old City moat, "without" the ancient gate which, in former times, opened into the wide waste of fen and moor that lay beyond, and the names of which are still retained in Finsbury and Moorgate. Stowe says, "it continued a waste and unprofitable ground a long time, so that the same was all letten for four marks the year, in the reign of Edward II." Thomas Falconer, Lord Mayor of London, was the first to break down the old city wall, and to make walks over this fenny ground, so that the citizens might get to the green fields beyond, though it was not until nearly two centuries after this time that the fen was drained. Throughout all these changes the church of St. Botolph stood, escaping storm and fire, until in 1720 it was pronounced unsafe--worn out with age. [Illustration] CHAPTER VIII. GUILDHALL AND THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW. Although Guildhall was seriously scarred by the Great Fire, and but little more left than the crypt and bare walls that had witnessed its ancient splendour, we are still enabled, through old records and time-honoured chronicles, to obtain glimpses of the pageants and processions which, nearly four centuries ago, were held within those grey old walls. Of the ancient hall, erected in 1411, I have met with no satisfactory description; nor does it appear that any of our kings dined in Guildhall before the time of Charles I., when, on November 25, 1641, the ill-starred monarch partook of the hospitality of the Lord Mayor. I have before mentioned that James I. dined privately with Sir John Watts, the Lord Mayor in 1607, and was afterwards made free of the Clothworkers' Company; but I do not find that he ever visited Guildhall, or that on any occasion royalty was entertained there until on the above-named day in 1641. But before describing the entertainment given to King Charles I., we will give our own account of the Lord Mayor's Banquet in November 1850.