As for the unfortunate
Steelyard, that, as I said, is now completely covered by the Cannon
Street Railway. As you walk under the railway arch you may now look
southward and say, 'Here for 300 years lived the Hanseatic
merchants--here the fraternity had their warehouses, their exchange,
their great Hall. Here the German porters loaded and cleared the
ships, the German clerks took notes and kept accounts, and the German
merchants bought and sold.' They ventured not far from their own
place; the Londoners have never loved foreigners or the sound of an
unknown language; they lived here making money as fast as they could
and then going home to Lubeck, Bremen, or Hamburg, others coming to
take their place.
On Dowgate Hill was another famous old house called the Erber--which
is, I suppose, the same word as Harbour. It belonged at successive
periods to Lord Scroope, the Earl of Warwick, the Earl of Salisbury,
and to George, Duke of Clarence. This house, too, perished in the
Fire. In this street Sir Francis Drake lived, and here are now three
Companies' Halls. Close by, on Laurence Poultney Hill, lived Dr.
William Harvey, who discovered the circulation of the blood.
In Suffolk Lane the Earls of Suffolk had a great house, and here,
before they moved to Charter House, stood the Merchant Taylors'
School.
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