WhUtington and His Cat. 



115 



commanded his executors, as they would answer before God at the day 

 of the resurrection of all flesh, that if they found any debtor of his, 

 that ought to him any money, that if he were not in their consciences 

 well worth three times as much, and also out of the debt of other men, 

 and well able to pay, that then they should never demand it, for he 

 clearly forgave it, and that they should put no man in suit for any 

 debt due to him. Look upon this, ye aldermen, for it is a glorious 

 glass." 



Ah ! good master Grafton, there be few aldermen that prepare them- 

 selves for the discharge of their official duties, in the way you have 

 pointed out ; and there be still fewer, aldermen or citizens, that would 

 ever look into the glass you hold up before them. 



From this account of Whittington's good deeds it would be no won- 

 der if Englishmen should cherish his memory lovingly, and so they do; 

 but the curious part of it is, that it is the mythical or legendary por- 

 tion of his history that has been preserved and has come down to us, 

 while the true facts of his life are even now being slowly gathered to- 

 gether, and still are difficult to obtain. 



Look at the history connected with the stone on which he sat while 

 listening to the Bow Bells of Ohepe. The original stone is said to 

 have been placed in Highgate Hill by himself, and it had a pavement 

 around it eighteen feet, in circumference. This stone remained as he 



placed it until 1795, when one S (history does not tell us what his 



name was; it only gives us the first letter, but he was the parish 

 clerk at Islington) had the stone removed and sawed in two, and 

 placed the halves on each side of Queen's Head Lane, in the lower street 

 of that town. He tore up the pavement around the stone, and with it paved 

 the yard of the Blue Last public-house, now the Marlborough Head, Is- 

 lington. That disposed of the first and original stone. But another stone 

 of smaller dimensions was immediately erected on the same spot and on 

 it was inscribed " Whittington's Stone;" and, strange to say, it was 

 never known by whose order or at whose expense it was done. This sec- 

 ond stone, in point of fact, was three stones — two stones being used as 

 bases to keep the Whittington stone upright. These remained until 

 May, 1821, when they were removed by order of the church wardens of 

 St. Mary Islington, and we find that it cost them £10 13s. 8d to do it, 

 but we are not told why it was done ; then the trustees of the parish 

 ways erected a third stone, but in a different place. This was removed 

 in 1854, and a tavern erected where it stood. Whether the turning 

 point in Whittington's life remained unrecorded until 1869, T cannot 

 Bay, although it is likely ; but in that year, Mr. Richard Perkins, pro- 

 prietor of the Whittington Stone Tavern, at an expense of £40, re- 



