Team follows team, crowds heap'd on crowds appear,
And wait impatient till the road grow clear."
Everybody can testify to the truth of this description. A little patience, however, is well repaid by the sight of the noble creatures dragging up the loads. The horses of the colliers and brewers of London are worth notice at all times for the magnificence of their build. Gay proceeds to other particulars, now no longer to be encountered. He cautions you how you lose your sword; and adds a pleasant mode of theft, practised in those times:—
"Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn:
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy, whose hands, to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."[140]
Clement's Inn is named from the church. The device over the gate, of an anchor and the letter C, is supposed to allude to the martyrdom of St. Clement, who is said to have been tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, by order of the Emperor Trajan.
"The hall is situated on the south side of a neat but small quadrangle. It is a Tuscan diminutive building, with a very large Corinthian door, and arched windows, erected in 1715. Another irregular area is surrounded by convenient houses, in which are the possessor's chambers. Part of this is a pretty garden, with a kneeling African, of considerable merit, supporting a dial, on the eastern side."[141]