432
NOTES AND QUERIES. tn s. vi. NOV. 30, 1912.
State Senator, and in 1789 represented the
city of New York in the first U.S. Congress.
In 1794 he was appointed judge of the
District Court of New York, but resigned
two years later on his election as U.S.
Senator. Lawrance was a warm supporter
of Washington and Alexander Hamilton.
He married in 1791, as his second wife,
Mrs. Elizabeth Allen of Philadelphia.
Further details of him will be found in
Appleton's ' Cyclopaedia of American Bio-
graphy.' X. W. HILL.
San Francisco.
ESSEX BATH, STRAND LANE (11 8. vi. 348). I take the following from a contribu- tion of my own in The Evening Post (Exeter) for 21 Aug., 1886 :
" The old Roman Bath is situated in Strand Lane just out of the Strand itself a narrow passage leading towards the water, between the Strand Theatre and Somerset House. The venerable Roman Bath 2,000 years or thereabouts old is afaoutlS feet long by 7 feet wide, and nearly fifeet deep. It is built of Roman bricks; the water which is as clear as crystal flows through it perpetually at the rate of ten tons per diem. It is distinctly at all times of the year ' as cold as charity.' In A.I>. 1588 the Earl of Essex (Queen Elizabeth's favourite) built a plunge bath of marble, adjoining it and beneath the same roof. In this the Virgin Queen was wont to bathe, and to-day any one can enjoy it to their heart's content and health's benefit, for the small charge of sixpence. . . .It is, without a doubt, the oldest, the most interesting, and the best cold bath in London."
To the above I added some later notes in The Illustrated Carpenter and Builder of 26 Nov., 1897 :
" Curiously, this splendid bath was rarely patronized, and I have seldom had an Englishman as a fellow-bather there. When, by an odd chance, another save my own dressing-box was occupied, the bather would almost invariably be an Ame- rican. The Roman bricks were in such a perfect state around the old bath when last I was there, that it is not reassuring, but very discomforting, to read that portions of the marble of the now alas ! ruthlessly destroyed sixteenth-century bath made by the Earl of Essex have been used to line it,"
It may be observed that Mr. Edward Walford, after quoting Knight's descrip- tion, is on one point a trifle misleading. The former records : " There is another bathroom to the right of the passage by wluch we entered." Strand Lane itself was little more than a passage, gained from the main thoroughfare by going under an arch- way. The second bath was to the right on entering the actual building itself. The caretaker who, I think, was a cobbler lived in a small house next door, on the lower side of the alley. Upon pulling a bell at the
door of the premises in which the baths
were situated, one presently saw him appear,
unlock the door, and receive his sixpence,
whereupon he left the visitor to follow his
own sweet will. I have occasionally used
the Roman bath itself, but the somewhat
irregular old bricks with which it was lined
and floored did not at all add to the comfort
of bathing. This custodian was accustomed
to sell pitcher and bucketfuls of the water
in the higher (Roman) bath to local inhabit-
ants, charging a penny a pailful for it. He
has told me that the actual spring from which
the water came was situated somewhere
Hampstead way. The Essex Bath was
square in plan, considerably larger than
its Roman neighbour, but not quite so deep.
There were marble steps at one corner, and
the original metal handrail was in situ to
assist descent into the pool.
HARRY HEMS. Fair Park. Exeter.
THE GARDNER PRINTS AND DRAWINGS OF OLD LONDON (11 S. vi. 348). Through the courtesy of relatives of the late Mr. John E. Gardner I am able to give the following particulars of the several displays of this remarkable collection. The first and largest exhibition was at the opening of the " new " St. Martin's - le - Grand Post Office. (My informant presumes this refers to the building recently closed. ) The next was at the Guildhall, when the present library was opened ; and the third at the Westminster Aquarium. There have also been others at the halls of various City companies. The treasures were purchased by Major Coates, himself a collector.
This information may help to meet MR. ALECK ABRAHAMS'S inquiry. I well remem- ber getting a peep at the array of port- folios which lined the shelves of, I think, more than one room of Mr. Gardner's resi- dence in St. John's Wood Park.
CECIL CLARKE. Junior Athenaeum Club.
THE ROCKET TROOP AT LEIPSIC (11 S. vi. 230, 313, 377). In addition to decora- tions for valour bestowed by the Swedish Government on some members at least of the second Rocket Troop, Royal Horse Artillery, for their services at the Battle of Leipsic, 1813, "regimental" medals, as described in Tancred, were also awarded. The silver specimen forming the subject of the illustration in Tancred was originally in Col. Murray's collection. A similar medal, also inscribed " Vittoria and Leipsic/' is in the Royal Artillery Institution at
