plate is taken. It is, of course, reduced, for the original is 6 feet and ½ inch long, by 2 feet 4½ inches wide. The notes attached to this issue are by W. H. Overall, F.S.A., one of the leading authorities on the question. He doubts Agas's connection with the map, but thinks if he were the originator it could not have been done before 1591. The arms in the corner on the two oldest extant maps are those of James I., but as the arms on the royal barge in the river are those of Elizabeth, it has been conjectured that the maps are themselves copies of a later edition, wherein the arms were altered in conformity with conventional opinion. The chief points which give data from internal evidence are as follows: St. Paul's Cathedral is bereft of its spire. This was struck by lightning in 1561, so the map must be subsequent to that date. The Royal Exchange is apparently built. This was opened in 1570. Northumberland House, built about 1605, has not been begun. We may take it, therefore, generally that the original map, which was engraved on wooden blocks, was made some time in the latter half of Elizabeth's reign, and it is probable that it was done by Agas.
Details.—The map abounds in interesting detail.
Beginning in the extreme left-hand lower corner, we see St. Margaret's Church, St. Stephen's Chapel, and Westminster Hall. In the river are swans of monstrous size. King Street, now merged in Whitehall, is very clearly shown, also the two heavy gates barring the way. The most northern of these, designed by Holbein, was called after him, and stood until the middle of the eighteenth century. North of it, on the west, is the tilting-ground; and stags browse in St. James's Park. Between the gates, on the east, are the Privy Gardens, overlooked by the Palace of Whitehall—most unpalatial in appearance.
Piccadilly is "the Waye to Redinge," and Oxford Street "the Waye to Uxbridge." Near Whitcomb Lane and the Haymarket women are spreading clothes in the fields to dry, while cows as large as houses graze around. St. Martin's Lane leads up to St. Giles, more particularly dealt with in the description of the next plate. The irregular buildings of St. Mary Rouncevall, a religious house, had not yet been taken down to make way for Northumberland House, itself to be replaced by Northumberland Avenue. The houses of great nobles, with their magnificent gardens stretching down to the waterside, are still in evidence. North of the well-laid-out Covent Garden, owned by the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, are nothing but trees and fields. Passing on quickly down the Strand, we find Temple Bar blocking the way to the City. This is the old Temple Bar, replaced after the Great Fire by the one much more familiar to us, which stood until 1878. A very fine illustration of the old one is given in Sir Walter Besant's London in the Time of the Tudors, p. 245. This book should certainly be studied by anyone desirous of understanding the map. From Temple Bar past the back of St. Clement's Church runs a broad road roughly corresponding with our new Kingsway. Further eastward the Fleet River still flows strongly down from its northern heights, crossed by many
