the basement and a hundred shops or booths above-stairs for retail dealers, was completed by the summer of 1569; and how it was christened on the 23rd of January, 1571, when 'the Queen's majesty, attended with her nobility, came from her house at the Strand, called Somerset House, and entered the City by Temple Bar, through Fleet Street, and, after dinner at Sir Thomas Gresham's in Bishopsgate Street, entered the Burse on the south side, and, when she had viewed every part thereof above the ground, especially the Pawn,'-the upper part with its hundred shops-'which was richly furnished with all sorts of the finest wares in the City, caused the same Burse, by an herald and trumpet, to be proclaimed the Royal Exchange, and so to be called thenceforth, and not otherwise;' is it not all written in the book of the chronicles of Stow, as well as in every other trustworthy history of London? SIR THOMAS GRESHAM'S TOMB IN ST. HELEN'S CHURCH, BISHOPSGATE.-(Page 461.) Familiar also, to readers of this magazine, at any rate,* is the affecting episode of Gresham's life in which, during three years and a half, from the summer of 1569 to the winter of 1572, he acted, much against his will, as gaoler to poor Lady Mary Grey, sister of the Lady Jane whom Northumberland's ambition made sham queen of England for a day. In that episode is included nearly all that is interesting * See London Society' for November, 1862, pp. 398-400. in our extant information about Sir Thomas Gresham's later years. He seems to have lived chiefly at his house in Bishopsgate Street, and quietly to have carried on his mercantile pursuits there and at the newly-built Exchange hard by. We see but little of him in the records of Court festivities or financial history. The work appointed for him he had done, and all the rewards he could hope for were his already. Honest and enterprising in the path he had marked out for himself, steadfast in the service of his Queen and his country, and zealous for the dignity of both, he had little in common with the new generation of men just appearing in the prime of life. He had done his work in raising to an elevation never before attained the old-fashioned sort of English commerce, within the narrow limits of European civilization, which he had learnt from his forerunners. In no unfriendly spirit, as we see from the numerous entries of his name as a subscriber to the exploring expeditions of Frobisher and others, but doubtless with the thought that he at any rate had no need to go out of the beaten track in which he had walked so well, he left the chivalrous company of Hawkinses and Raleighs, Drakes and Cavendishes to extend the empire of commerce to far-off regions, and to open up new and boundless sources of trade. And he was wise in doing so. He died in harness. On Saturday, the 21st of November, between six and seven of the clock in the evening,' says Holinshed, 'coming from the Exchange to his house, which he had sumptuously builded, in Bishopsgate Street, he suddenly fell down in his kitchen, and being taken up, was found speechless, and presently died.' On the 15th of December he was buried solemnly and splendidly, at a cost of 800l., in St. Helen's church, hard by, a hundred poor men and a hundred poor women following him to the grave. His greedy wife and her greedy son, born of a former husband, his own son and daughter being already dead, inherited his immense wealth, and the indolence of the Mercers' Company, in the course of generations, robbed of nearly all its good effect the noble bequest, by which he intended to have converted his famous house into a yet more famous college for educating young merchants in those parts of knowledge best fitted to adorn and to improve their positions. But neither avarice nor apathy have been able to deprive the noblest name in the history of Tudor commerce of its place in the heart of every Englishman, or to undo the work of its greatest owner in forwarding the interests of trade and giving dignity to the merchant's calling. H. R. F. B. M NOTES ON DRESS AT A FANCY BALL. ANY have been the comparisons by which the dress of our day has been judged. Many have been the arguments for its beauty or for its ugliness. The wide-flowing dresses with the sweeping trains of the ladies, and the straight plain coats, and general blackness of gentlemen, all have been often discussed, but not often brought to fair trial. A fair field and no favour is, for once accorded, however, to all the world (who are there) on the nights of great fancy balls. The glittering dress of the gentlemen, who, debarred from their much-loved black coats, break suddenly into splendour, compressing into one night, as it were, the finery of a lifetime; the marvellous fancies of ladies, who we must now suppose to adopt the style they conceive most charming and most becoming to them, and who make strange blunders sometimes, as people will do always in judging of their own forte; the dresses of ages past, and the dresses that are based only upon some poet's fancy, or on the shining wonders of some fancy ball; the heroes who don't look heroic; the famed beauties who don't look beautiful; the whole thing is a delusion, a burlesque of life and history. And yet never was there a scene where so many elements joined in adding each their tribute of beauty to the whole. People must be good actors to sustain a historical character; they must possess the features to picture some far-famed beauty. So far, no doubt, they often fail; but the wonder to me and to many, in seeing the throng sweep by, has been to see how very few have not possessed some beauty, some grace or charm of some kind. Amidst the gayness and brightness, each shared in the whole effect. The scene was a vast moving parterre, and who should call one flower plain? Of late, too, our liberal fashions have been apt to gather up the pretty things of all times-the open flowing dresses; the long sweeping trains; the high-heeled rosetted shoes; the large and feathery fans ; the open, soft, hanging sleeves; the knots of the gayest ribbons. In every age almost we recognize something that we have stolen, and that we now call ours, and with each year apparently more items are adopted. A few years ago, it is said any accidental revival of the oldfashioned powdered hair was thought supremely becoming; now it is rather remarkable how little this is noticed. It strikes me that the real secret was less in the white powder than in the brushed-off hair, exposing the white forehead, and softening the face wonderfully, as the hair that was raised so lightly fell back in the long repentir, or rolled lightly away backwards to be confined with combs. It was the halo of hair that was beautiful, and not the whitewash of powder. hair, as we see it now, may be as becoming as ever, but now it is very usual to hear abuse of the plastered whiteness. If women will wear powder, besides the glittering gold dust that shines in its own coloured tresses, let them at least resolve to merely powder, literally, just in the turned-off hair; then, indeed, it may soften without impairing beauty. The How strange a mistake it is when the beautiful soft white hair, which is one of the charms of age, is dismissed for some darker shade that harmonized doubtless well with some bright young colouring, but which now fails to suit the beautiful soft clear look that the smooth white hair becomes so much always in English faces, with the bright complexion and pretty colour that clings to them in age. Here we see young faces seeking the added charm that they find in white powdered tresses, because of that very softening, and there we see braids and curls that now only harden the face they pretend to shade. The soft clouds of tulle that are so much worn by every one, falling back from the head and almost |