to an end. We have already seen that the Hanseatic League and its factory had outlived its age in England as early as the sixteenth century. The fate of this institution was materially affected by the great fire of London, which took place in September, 1666, when the Steelyard, like the best part of the city, was laid in ashes. When the English government hesitated to renew the privileges of the Company, the members again obstinately insisted upon their good old rights, and after some litigation actually obtained a confirmation of their ancient charters from Charles II. The new building, which was then erected, was much more devoid of pretension than the old edifice with its solid walls, ponderous arches, and capacious halls, for only one dwelling house was erected for the Master of the Steelyard, while the rest of the space was appropriated to warehouses and wharfs, differing in very few respects from the numerous buildings of the same nature that are to be seen on either side of the Thames. The Guild in fact existed only in its past history, and it no longer needed its foreign counting-houses, for the position of continental merchants in England had been completely changed since the introduction of Cromwell's important measures of maritime policy. The associates of the Steelyard required, therefore, only a very small portion of their old premises in London, and they consequently let out the ground, in separate lots, to the London merchants for warehouses; and although the value of the land and the amount of the rent which it brought, more than supplied the expenses incurred by keeping up the establishment, the property sometimes became burdensome

to the free-cities of Lubeck, Hamburg, and Bremen, which were the heirs of the once powerful Hanseatic League. At length, after prolonged negotiations between the various governments of those cities, and after a careful investigation of the historical and legal organization of the Steelyard, the property was sold in the year 1853, to a company of English speculators, for the sum of £72,500.

There are some invaluable blessings which have been secured to the German population in London-which at present amounts to more than 50,000,-by the associates of the Steelyard, which it is to be hoped their countrymen may continue to enjoy for many ages. When, after the great fire, the Steelyard had been rebuilt, the Warden and Masters petitioned King Charles II. to grant one of the small city churches for their special use, and in consequence of this petition, a small church, known as Trinity Church, in the immediate neighbourhood of the Steelyard, was assigned to them by royal letters patent, in the year 1673. After the restoration of the building, which had suffered materially by the great fire, it was appropriated to the celebration of the protestant service in their own language, and with the exception of the German Court Chapel, Trinity Church is the mother of the other three or four protestant German chapels in London.

German merchants certainly no longer live within the Steelyard as in olden times, nor do they enjoy the exceptional privileges which were once possessed by their countrymen, but in exchange for the prerogatives of the Steelyard Corporation, they have attained a

footing of perfect equality with the natives of the land. The monopolies and restrictions of the middle ages have passed away, never to be revived, and in their place has arisen a system of free and untrammelled competition open alike to foreigners and native-born Englishmen.

VII.

TWO POETS, GOWER AND CHAUCER.

THE dawn of national poetry is generally contemporaneous with some brilliant epoch in the literary history and general development of a nation. When this awakening of a poetic spirit is coincident with an advanced period of the historical existence of a country, its language passes at the same time from an unsettled stage of immaturity to a consciousness of development, while it proclaims its own individuality with a characteristic and expressive force, which enables it to maintain its integrity, notwithstanding the modifications to which it naturally is subjected in the course of ages. This transition from the youth to the maturity of a language is always attended by special phenomena among nations of mixed origin, and more especially when it occurs at an historical age. Where two races blend together into one nationality, their respective languages also become gradually fused together into a new idiom. The origin and course of development of the English language present therefore both in respect to comparative philology and the history of literature an equally abundant mass of rich materials and equally numerous points of interest, whether we direct our investigations to its recent, or its remote history.

It would be difficult to estimate the relative proportions in which Celtic, Latin, Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, and Norman elements have combined to form the character and speech of Englishmen of the present day. We are only made conscious of one or other of these constituents as they in turn predominate, and it requires a more mature consideration to enable us to recognise the fact that there are some elements, whose presence we can scarcely trace, although their effects remain permanent. When the Angles and Saxons first subjugated the British race, after its previous contact with a Celto-Roman civilization, the victors, like all the other Germanic tribes, and like the ancient conquering nations of the East, kept themselves for a while widely separated from the vanquished. Neither party could, however, for any length of time escape from the effect of the opposing influences to which they were subjected, and even now the English language contains a number of words, some of which are of common every day use, which it does not possess in common with other Indo-European tongues, and which could only have been incorporated from the ancient British dialects.

The links, moreover, which once bound the island to the Roman empire of the west, and which were severed with its downfall, were again united through the Church of Rome. It is a question, however, whether in addition to the ecclesiastical type, which is easily recognised in the combination and style of the AngloSaxon diction, classical influences may not also have contributed their part. More marked and more unavoidable was the effect produced by contact with the