pitched roof, on the north side, nearly opposite the site of Portsmouth House, is quite worthy of record on account of its age and picturesque appearance, but its claim to be the original of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop, a claim which has been also urged for a house in Fetter Lane, will not, we fear, hold water. In the first place Dickens himself says that "the old house had been long ago pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place." An even stronger argument against the legend is contained in an article contributed to the Echo during December 1883, when the still existing house in Portsmouth Street was said to be threatened with destruction, and in consequence crowds were flocking to the spot. The writer, Mr. Charles Tesseyman, makes the following clear statement :-" My brother, who occupied No. 14 Portsmouth Street between 1868 and 1877, the year of his decease, had the words "The Old Curiosity Shop' placed over the front for purely business purposes, as likely to attract custom to his shop, he being a dealer in books, paintings, old china, etc. Before 1868-that is before my brother had the words put up-no suggestion had ever been made that the place was the veritable Old Curiosity Shop' immortalised by Dickens." The

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late Mr. C. W. Heckethorn in his book on Lincoln's Inn Fields boldly affirmed that it was a relic of the Duchess of Portsmouth's dairy-house.

In 1897 a curious tavern, the Black Jack, on the opposite side of the way, disappeared. It was known in the neighbourhood as "the Jump," the story being that Jack Sheppard on one occasion escaped capture there by jumping out of a firstfloor window. The house was also connected by tradition with Joe Miller of the Jest Book, who was buried in the churchyard of Portugal Street, now absorbed and obliterated by King's College Hospital, which in its turn will soon be "improved " away from this site, and be more or less forgotten. Miller's tombstone (the second one), still in existence, describes him as "a tender husband, a sincere friend, a facetious companion, and an excellent comedian." It may be mentioned incidentally that Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre stood on the south side of the Fields at the back of what is now the Royal College of Surgeons. Until 1816 a club called "the Honourable Society of Jackers," to which John Kemble and Theodore Hook belonged, used to meet at the Black Jack. The adjacent George the Fourth Tavern, which stood at the north-east corner of Gilbert's Passage (the site