look at, but, at half-tide, affording the best view one can get anywhere of the Pool and the shipping.  In the good old days of the scuffle-hunters and the heavy horsemen, the view of the thousand ships moored in their long lines with the narrow passage between was splendid.  History has deigned to speak of Ratcliff Stairs.  ’Twas by these steps that the gallant Willoughby embarked for his fatal voyage; with flags flying and the discharge of guns he sailed past Greenwich, hoping that the King would come forth to see him pass.  Alas! the young King lay a-dying, and Willoughby himself was sailing off to meet his death.

The parish contains four good houses, all of which, I believe, are marked in Roque’s map of 1745.

One of these is now the vicarage of the new church.  It is a large, solid, and substantial house, built early in the last century, when as yet the light horsemen and lumpers were no nearer than Wapping.  The walls of the dining-room are painted with Italian landscapes, to which belongs a romance.  The paintings were executed by a young Italian artist.  For the sake of convenience he was allowed by the merchant who then lived here, and employed him, to stay in the house.  Now the merchant had a daughter, and she was fair.  The artist was a goodly youth, and inflammable; as the poet says, their eyes met; presently, as the poet goes on, their lips met; then the merchant found out what was going on, and ordered the young man, with good old British determination, out of the house.  The young man retired to his room, presumably to pack up his things.  But he did not go out of the house; instead of that, he hanged himself in his room.  His ghost, naturally, continued to remain in the house, and has been seen by many.  Why he has not long ago joined the ghost of the young lady is not clear unless that, like many ghosts, his chief pleasure is in keeping as miserable as he possibly can.

The second large house of the parish is apparently of the same date, but the broad garden in which it formerly stood has been built over with mean tenement houses.  Nothing is known about it; at present certain Roman Catholic sisters live in it, and carry on some kind of work.

The third great house is one of the few surviving specimens of the merchant’s warehouse and residence in one.  It is now an old and tumbledown place.  Its ancient history I know not.  What rich and costly bales were hoisted into this warehouse; what goods lay here waiting to be carried down the Stairs, and so on board ship in the Pool; what fortunes were made and lost here one knows not.  Its ancient history is gone and lost, but it has a modern history.  Here a certain man began, in a small way, a work which has grown to be great; here he spent and was spent; here he gave his life for the work, which was for the children of the poor.  He was a young physician; he saw in this squalid and crowded neighbourhood the lives of the children needlessly sacrificed by the