At the corner of Seething-lane stands the church of Allhallows Barking. In this lane died Sir Francis Walsingham, who in Elizabeth's time planted so many spies around the unfortunate Mary Queen of Scots. Here also lived Pepys, adjoining the old Navy-office. He makes frequent mention of Seething-lane in his _Diary_. The church of Allhallows Barking very nearly marks the site of the termination of the Great Fire eastward; for though the church itself escaped destruction, its walls were licked by the flames and the porch destroyed. A glance at the map of London will shew its proximity to the Tower, and readily suggest that many a headless victim was removed from the scaffold to the grave in the old churchyard of Allhallows. The Earl of Surrey, who was beheaded in 1547, was buried here; also Bishop Fisher, beheaded in 1535, though his body was afterwards removed; so were the remains of Archbishop Laud. The first chapel founded on the site of the present church dates as far back as the time of Richard I.; and there is an old tradition that the heart of the king of the Crusaders was buried under the altar of that church. Here Edward I. set up an image of the Virgin Mary, which almost became as famous as the shrine of Thomas à Becket, so many were the pilgrims who visited it. Our engraving represents a silver-gilt shrine, in which, in ancient times, the relics of saints were deposited. [Illustration: SILVER-GILT SHRINE.] Richard III. (it may be, to make amends for the murders he caused to be committed in the adjacent Tower) rebuilt this church, and founded within it a college of priests. Even now it bears proofs of its great antiquity, in its massive and stunted Norman pillars, old inscriptions, ancient monuments, and early brasses, one of the latter dating back nearly four centuries. There is a story about an explosion of gunpowder, which destroyed twenty or thirty houses, and in which a cradle, "baby and all," was blown on the leads of this church, and there found uninjured. Seething-lane runs into Hart-street, Crutched Friars, and Jewry-street, Aldgate. In Hart-street stands the church of St. Olave, so often mentioned by Pepys. It escaped the Fire, and contains a few tablets well worth visiting. Some portion of the interior appears to be very ancient, though I am not able to assign any date to these remains, nor when the first church was built. Here Pepys and his wife (the "poor wretch" of his _Diary_) are buried. The chapel in which the Crutched Friars dwelt was, in Stowe's time, demolished, and its site occupied by a tennis-court and other buildings.