Happily several have been spared, and they speak to us of the old methods of municipal government; of the merchant guilds, composed of rich merchants and clothiers, who met therein to transact their common business.  The guild hall was the centre of the trade of the town and of its social and commercial life.  An amazing amount of business was transacted therein.  If you study the records of any ancient borough you will discover that the pulse of life beat fast in the old guild hall.  There the merchants met to talk over their affairs and “drink their guild.”  There the Mayor came with the Recorder or “Stiward” to hold his courts and to issue all “processes as attachementes, summons, distresses, precepts, warantes, subsideas, recognissaunces, etc.”  The guild hall was like a living thing.  It held property, had a treasury, received the payments of freemen, levied fines on “foreigners” who were “not of the guild,” administered justice, settled quarrels between the brethren of the guild, made loans to merchants, heard the complaints of the aggrieved, held feasts, promoted loyalty to the sovereign, and insisted strongly on every burgess that he should do his best to promote the “comyn weele and prophite of ye saide gylde.”  It required loyalty and secrecy from the members of the common council assembled within its walls, and no one was allowed to disclose to the public its decisions and decrees.  This guild hall was a living thing.  Like the Brook it sang:—­

        “Men may come and men may go,
        But I flow on for ever.”

Mayor succeeded mayor, and burgess followed burgess, but the old guild hall lived on, the central mainspring of the borough’s life.  Therein were stored the archives of the town, the charters won, bargained for, and granted by kings and queens, which gave them privileges of trade, authority to hold fairs and markets, liberty to convey and sell their goods in other towns.  Therein were preserved the civic plate, the maces that gave dignity to their proceedings, the cups bestowed by royal or noble personages or by the affluent members of the guild in token of their affection for their town and fellowship.  Therein they assembled to don their robes to march in procession to the town church to hear Mass, or in later times a sermon, and then refreshed themselves with a feast at the charge of the hall.  The portraits of the worthies of the town, of royal and distinguished patrons, adorned the walls, and the old guild hall preached daily lessons to the townsfolk to uphold the dignity and promote the welfare of the borough, and good feeling and the sense of brotherhood among themselves.

[Illustration:  The Town Hall, Shrewsbury]

We give an illustration of the town hall of Shrewsbury, a notable building and well worthy of study as a specimen of a municipal building erected at the close of the sixteenth century.  The style is that of the Renaissance with the usual mixture of debased Gothic and classic details, but the general effect is imposing; the arches and parapet are especially characteristic.  An inscription over the arch at the north end records:—­