As we are now in busy Lombard-street, so proverbial for its wealth, we will pause a few moments, and look at it through the dim haze of former years, how different from what it is now! As we gaze through the twilight of past centuries, we catch glimpses of the objects and echoes of the sounds that moved and floated over this ancient neighbourhood nearly three centuries before the _Diamond_ let off her steam, or the _Rob Roy_ omnibus carried thirteen "insides:" glimpses of vaulters, and dancers, and bear-wards, and leaders of apes, crossing and crowding where now the bank clerks hurry to clear out, carrying thousands of pounds in their bill-cases; still, however, reminding you that the old "rogueries" of London have not vanished, by the strong steel chains with which they secure their banking books. What a roaring and barking there must have been in that narrow thoroughfare in bygone days, when the bear was followed by all the dogs "from some four parishes," as Ben Jonson has narrated! What a stir there was on that merry morning when Kemp set out from the house of the Lord Mayor to dance all the way to Norwich, accompanied by his taborer, Thomas Sly; or when Banks (the Ducrow of the Elizabethan period) exhibited his wonderful horse, named Morocco, in the London streets, and many of the simple citizens believed that both he and his marvellous steed had dealings with the old gentleman who manages the fire-office below! What cramming and jamming there would be about the Exchange on the day Queen Elizabeth ordered it to be opened by sound of trumpet; what motions and raree-shows, and antics of wooden puppets, such as Hogarth has preserved in his picture of "Southwark Fair," and Jonson has called "a civil company" who live in baskets! Add to these all the "street-cries," the balancers of straws and feathers, and all other out-of-door amusements, not forgetting the hares that played on tabors; the buzz also of the bearded merchants, who took up no small space with their ample trunk-hose: then you have, in the mind's eye, the whole of this ancient panorama, moving in that high narrow street, with half the houses sleeping in shadow, while the other half caught the full sunshine. Seated at those carven and diamond-shaped lattices, which went bowing out far over the ill-paved pathway, were the wives and pretty daughters of these "gray forefathers" of commerce; while below, many an apprentice sat sighing over his desk, wishing it were Sunday again, and he carrying the large clasped Bible behind his handsome young mistress, while thinking more about the neat foot and ankle she displayed than the sermon that was to be preached at St. Peter's or St. Michael's; or, as he passed some richly-sculptured conduit, wondering when it would again run with wine; or, if he walked that way, turning a longing look as he passed towards the apple-trees that grew around St. Martin's Church, in Ironmonger-lane, and thinking how he should like to make a party to rob