a petitioner to the Corporation for a loan of 3000l., for three years, at six per cent., which was granted him "in consideration of the benefit likely to accrue to the city from his New River;" his sureties being the Lord Mayor (Hayes), Mr. Robert Myddelton (his brother), and Mr. Robert Bateman. There is every reason to believe that Myddelton had involved himself in difficulties by locking up his capital in this costly undertaking; and that he was driven to solicit the loan to carry him through until he had been enabled to dispose of the greater part of his interest in the concern to other capitalists. This he seems to have done very shortly after the completion of the works. The capital was divided into seventy-two shares,* one-half of which belonged to Myddelton and the other half to the King, in consideration of the latter having borne one-half of the cost. Of the thirty-six shares owned by the former, as many as twenty-eight were conveyed by him to other persons; and that he realized a considerable sum by the sale is countenanced by the circumstance that we find him shortly after embarked in an undertaking hereafter to be described, requiring the command of a very large capital.

The shareholders were incorporated by letters patent on the 21st of June, 1619, under the title of "The Governors and Company of the New River brought from Chadwell and Amwell to London." † The government of the corporation was vested in the twenty-nine adventurers who held amongst them the thirty-six shares originally belonging to Myddelton, who had by that time reduced his holding

* In Pennant's 'London' it is stated that the original shares in the concern were 100l. each, whereas Entick makes them to have amounted to not less than 7000l. each! This is only another illustration of the hap-hazard statements put forth respecting Sir Hugh and his works. The original cost of the New River probably did not amount to more

than 18,000l., in which case the capital represented by each original share would be about 2501.

† On the occasion of its subsequent confirmation by parliament, Sir Edward Coke said: "This is a very good bill, and prevents one great mischief that hangs over the city. Nimis potatio: frequens incendium."

to only two shares. At the first Court of proprietors, held on the 2nd of November, 1619, he was appointed Governor, and Robert Bateman Deputy-Governor of the Company. Sir Giles Mompesson was appointed, on behalf of the King, Surveyor of the profits of the New River, with authority to attend the meetings, inspect the accounts, &c., with a grant for such service of 2001. per annum out of the King's moiety of the profits of the said river. It was long, however, before there were any profits to be divided; for the cost of making repairs and improvements, and laying down wooden pipes, continued to be very great for many years; and the ingenious method of paying dividends out of capital, to keep up the price of shares and invite further speculation, had not yet been invented. In fact, no dividend whatever was paid until after the lapse of twenty years from the date of opening the New River at Islington; and the first dividend only amounted to 157. 38. 3d. a share. The next dividend of 31. 4s. 2d. was paid three years later, in 1636; and as the concern seemed to offer no great prospect of improvement, and a further call on the proprietors was expected, Charles I., who required all his available means for other purposes, finally regranted his thirty-six "King's shares" to the Company, under his great seal, in consideration of a fee farm rent of 5007., which is to this day paid by them yearly into the King's exchequer.

Notwithstanding this untoward commencement of the New River Company, it made great and rapid progress when its early commercial difficulties had been overcome; and after the year 1640 its prosperity steadily kept pace with the population and wealth of the metropolis. By the end of the seventeenth century the dividend paid was at the rate of about 2007. per share; at the end of the eighteenth century the dividend was above 500l. per share; and at the present date each share produces about 8501. a year. At only twenty years' purchase, the capital value of a single share at this day would be about 17,000l. But

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most of the shares have in course of time, by alienation and bequeathment, become very much subdivided; the possessors of two or more fractional parts of a share being enabled, under a decree of Lord Chancellor Cowper, in 1711, to depute a person to represent them in the government of the Company.

Source of the New River at Chadwell, near Ware, with the Monumental Pedestal

CHAPTER IV.

HUGH MYDDELTON (continued) — HIS OTHER ENGINEERING AND MINING WORKS- AND DEATH.

SHORTLY after the completion of the New River, and the organization of the Company for the supply of water to the metropolis, we find Hugh Myddelton entering upon a new and formidable enterprise-that of enclosing a large tract of drowned land from the sea. The scene of his operations on this occasion was the eastern extremity of the Isle of Wight, at a place now marked on the maps as Brading Harbour. This harbour or haven consists of a tract of about eight hundred acres in extent. At low water it appears a wide mud flat, through the middle of which a small stream, called the Yar, winds its way from near the village of Brading, at the head of the haven, to the sea at its eastern extremity; whilst at high tide it forms a beautiful and apparently inland lake, embayed between hills of moderate elevation covered with trees, in many places down to the water's edge. At its seaward margin Bembridge Point stretches out as if to meet the promontory on the opposite shore, where stands the old tower of St. Helen's Church, now used as a sea-mark; and, as seen from most points, the bay seems to be completely landlocked.

The reclamation of so large a tract of land, apparently so conveniently situated for the purpose, had long been matter of speculation. It is not improbable that at some early period neither swamp nor lake existed at Brading Haven, but a green and fertile valley; for in the course of the works undertaken by Sir Hugh Myddelton for its recovery from the sea, a well, strongly cased with stone, was discovered near the middle of the haven, indicating the