City Scenes Part 11

Footnotes

{9} Published at 58, Holborn Hill.

{14} Here Ann Boleyn, and many other ill.u.s.trious persons, languished out their miserable hours of captivity; especially the amiable and learned, the good Jane Gray, who was shut up in it for five months. She fell a victim to the jealousy of Mary. Her piety, magnanimity, and conscious innocence, afforded her invincible fort.i.tude in this trying hour, which, even the sight of her husband's body, reeking from the scaffold, did not shake.

{29} The summer of 1794 had been very dry, and a pitch-kettle, happening to boil over at a wharf near Ratcliffe Cross, it set fire to a warehouse containing many bags of saltpetre: this soon exploded, and the wind blowing from the south, directed the flames towards Ratcliffe High Street, which took fire on both sides, and more houses were consumed than in any conflagration since the great fire in 1666. It was estimated that upwards of four hundred families lost all their possessions, and many of them lived in tents or booths for a considerable time after.

{65} When in Palestine, Edward nearly escaped being murdered by an a.s.sa.s.sin, from whom he received a wound in his arm, which was given by a poisoned dagger. It is affirmed that he owed his life to the affection of Eleanor, his wife, who was with him, and sucked the venom out of the wound.

{75} In the year 1813, one of the turn-c.o.c.ks in Giltspur Street, found a very unusual stoppage at the extremity of the Thames water-pipe there, and on searching for the cause, to his great surprise found a live salmon, which weighed about eight pounds.