Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 3
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter XXXVI: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
Chapter XXXVI: Covent Garden and its Neighbourhood (continued).
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The motto at the head of this chapter contains the opinion of of the sages of antiquity upon the benefits which accrue to man as a being through the instrumentality of, the deviser of what would now-a-days be called and but what the Athenians styled a system, that is, of common tables for citizens. The same institution, under a different name, flourished, so we are told, even among the hardy youth of Sparta; and in fact, as man is not merely a gregarious but also a social animal, we may lay it down as a principle that wherever a refined and polished society has prevailed, its life has been attended by some means or other for bringing men into each other's company to discuss questions of social, political, or literary interest.: With these few remarks by way of preface, we pass to some further notice of the Club Life of Covent Garden and its neighbourhood. | |
The Club was the natural of the coffee-houses, which, as we have stated in a previous volume, were introduced in St. Michael's Alley, , by a Turkey merchant in the time of the Commonwealth. In it was ordained by Act of Parliament that all coffee-houses should be licensed by the magistrates; and years later, as Mr. Cunningham tells us, Charles II. issued a royal edict to close up the coffee-houses as The principle above quoted, however, asserted itself, and a few days afterwards the proclamation was cancelled. | |
Our modern celebrated clubs are founded upon eating and drinking, which are points therein most men agree, and in which the learned and illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon, can all of them bear a part. The Kit-Cat itself--of which we have already spoken in our account of is said to have taken its original from the mutton pie. The Beef-steak and October Clubs were neither of them averse to eating and drinking, as is clear from their names. | |
[extra_illustrations.3.281.1] as a boy had an innate love for the neighbourhood of Covent Garden, as instinct with human life. With Johnson, he knew that and if so, it can scarcely be wondered at that, precocious child, he loved to sit on the shore and watch its waves breaking on its northern bank. To be taken out for a walk into the real town, especially if it were anywhere about Covent Garden or the Strand, perfectly entranced him with pleasure. But most of all he had a to . If he could only induce any soever to take him through Dials he was supremely happy. he would exclaim, On the same authority we learn that George Colman's seized his fancy very much, and that he was so impressed by its description of Covent Garden in the piece called , that he stole down to the Market by himself to compare it with the book. says Mr. J. Forster, But we must pass on from the domain of poetry into the prosaic region of fact. | |
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In , Covent Garden (now absorbed into , of which it forms a continuation), facing the entrance to , was a tavern bearing the sign of who is supposed by Mr. Larwood to have been the last literary celebrity to whom such an honour was paid. There the club of used at time to hold its meetings. Sheridan Knowles was of its especial patrons and frequenters; and as it embraced many authors, wits, and composers, its members, it may well be imagined, were not owls of the sort, whom Gray commemorates in his Every panel was inscribed with the name of some dead or living dramatist. | |
Now-a-days the carriages of the upper have no difficulty in finding their way to Old Drury or . The access to , however, was remarkably bad in old times. Walker, writing in in , says:--
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On the south side of , in a narrow court leading out of , called Vinegar Yard, is a small tavern-or rather oyster and refreshment-rooms-dear to artists, who are, indeed, its chief customers, and, if we may trust the , enjoys a reputation of much the same kind as that which in former days attached to or Coffee-houses. The house rejoices in the fanciful name of and its sign is a weirdly and grotesquely comical representation of a gigantic oyster whistling a tune, and with an intensely humorous twinkle beaming in its eye. The shop was established by a Mr. Pearkes, in . says a writer in the As for the jokes and good sayings to which the creature gave rise during its brief span of life, they would fairly fill a large folio; and readers of in its early volumes may even remember the famous picture of the --drawn, it is almost needless to add, from a purely imaginary point of view, and which those who have not been so fortunate as to have seen can behold reproduced in large upon the lamp which now marks the door of the | |
p.284 | establishtion was that the said oyster Thackeray used to declare that he was once actually in the shop when an American came in to see the phenomenon, as everybody else was doing, and, after hearing the talented mollusk go through its usual performance, strolled contemptuously out, declaring The subsequent fate of this interesting creature is a mystery --whether he was eaten alive, or ignominiously scalloped, or still more ignominiously handed over to the tender mercies of a cook in the neighbourhood to be served up in a bowl of oyster sauce as a relish to a hot beefsteak. In fact, like the of Wordsworth- , But it is somewhat singular that so.eccentric a creature should have existed in the middle of London, and in the middle of the century, and that no history of his career should be on record: still more strange, we think, that he should have been set up over his master's shop as a sign, and yet that, with all its notoriety, it should have escaped the notice of Mr. PeterCunningham, Mr. John Timbs, and even Mr. Jacob Larwood, the author of
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If we may be allowed at this point to travel a little beyond the strict bounds of Covent Garden, it may be added that in , , there was a the last haunt of the club of --so called from the late hours they maintained. The tavern was kept at time by Mr. Mark Lemon, afterwards the genial editor of , assisted by his wife, formerly a singer of repute as Miss Romer. Mr. Larwood tells us that it was much frequented by actors, and that a club of used to meet on its floor. Not far off hence was in Clare Court, close to , where Charles Dickens as a boy used to look in, whilst employed as a drudge at , carrying his daily supply of bread, and the waiter staring at the precocious boy eating his humble dinner, as if he had been a monster. | |
, strange to say, is not mentioned by Mr. P. Cunningham in his usually so exhaustive. It leads from , in a straight line with , across the Strand to , and was newly made as an approach to that bridge in -. It follows as nearly as possible the line of what was once the boundary-wall separating the grounds of Exeter House from those of Wimbledon House, described in a previous chapter. | |
, to which we have alluded in a former chapter, runs out of to the west, parallel with the Strand. In this street are the offices of the Dramatic, Equestrian, and Musical Sick Fund Association. This institution was founded in , in order to assist members of these professions in sickness and in distress, and to help them to obtain employment. Here, too, is the office of the Royal Dramatic College, which was established in . The object of this institution is to furnish homes and maintenance for aged and infirm actors and actresses. The as this cluster of homes is called, is situated at Maybury, near Woking, Surrey. | |
As we walk down the rather steep incline which leads across the Strand to and , we pass on the right and left of us. In this street, as we remarked in a previous chapter, Dr. Johnson lodged when he came to town from Lichfield, and it was during his residence here that he commenced his condensation of the speeches in Parliament for the . At the corner of was the office for the publication of , and as such it was the constant haunt of Charles Dickens in his later years. Here is now published the founded and edited by Dr. W. H. Russell. In are the publishing-offices of the and , edited by Dr. Doran; the , the , the , the , the and newspapers, as also those of the (already described), the , the , and the . It must have been as nearly as possible on this spot that Dr. Johnson offended Dr. Percy, author of by parodying the style of that charming and simple tale, thus:--
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says Nichols in his
adds Nichols,
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On the eastern side of the street, occupying the corner of , is a handsome and substantial building of the Italian order, ambitiously styled It has nothing, however, of royalty or aristocracy about it, and is haunted by -rate betting men only. It was built about the year ; and some idea may be formed of the contrast between its members and the literary society which used to meet in the coffee-houses of the neighbourhood less than a century before it, when we add that its highly intelligent committee and secretary are ignorant, or profess to be ignorant, of its brief and unimportant history, and even of the name of its founder! | |
In , too, are the offices of the Royal General Theatrical Fund. This institution was founded, in , for the relief of to whom annuities of from to per annum are granted; aid is likewise afforded to the widows and orphans of members. | |
About half-way down , and opening into , is . Here Mr. Henry G. Bohn, of the most original and enterprising of modern publishers, carried on business from about the year down to , when he retired, transferring his stock to Messrs. Bell and Daldy. He was of the who commenced the republication of standard works in a cheap form in of various kinds. Those published under his auspices amounted to about volumes, and the cost of their production could not have been much short of . In was the literary auction-room of Mr. Samuel Baker, in the middle of the last century, now represented by Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, of whom we shall have to speak when we reach the southern part of . Here, too, was the Inn--a tavern, if we may believe Aubrey, having happened within its walls in his time. It was afterwards turned into a private house, its former master having hanged himself! It is as well, perhaps, in this case that the timbers and walls of houses are not usually gifted with speech, or it would have been hard for its owner to find another tenant. | |
Another tavern in this street at time enjoyed a different reputation to that of the This house bore the sign of the which was admirably painted by Cotton, and was much admired. The tavern had among its usual frequenters Bernard Lintot, the bookseller of the Strand, the rival of Tonson, and the of Pope's who sang as none before or after him could sing it. | |
In , about -, was a theatrical club which met of an evening at Foote, Holland, Powell, and many of the leading actors of the time were members; and Mr. Cradock, in his tells us how he went thither evening with a young friend from the country, named Farmer, who had written on the subject of Shakespeare, and who particularly wanted to see Foote. The latter was a much kinder and more genial personage, as is clear from Cradock's narrative, than Dr. Johnson would have been if placed in a similar position.
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Foote was a man of great natural and ready wit, as would appear from the following anecdotes, which we owe to the same source :--
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We have said that Covent Garden, in all probability, served not only as a monastic garden, but also as a burial-place for the members of the abbey of at . This supposition is confirmed by a fact mentioned by Mr. J. H. Jesse in his that
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As we cross the Strand, we see, a door or off us, on the left, the shop which once was Tonson's, and afterwards passed to Millar, and from him to Alderman Cadell, and about which Sir N. W. Wraxall tells us a good story, on Cadell's authority. Millar gave Fielding for the copyright of his --a high price at that time. A literary friend having expressed an opinion that it was not worth anything like that amount, and that he had better get rid of it as soon as possible, Millar resorted to a capital At his he said to his brother bibliopoles that he had several works to put up, for which he would be glad if they would bid, but that every copy of was already bespoke. says Wraxall;
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In that part of which joins the Strand to , on the west side, on the site of part of the old Savoy, are the wellknown rooms of Messrs. Sotheby, Wilkinson, and Hodge, auctioneers of literary property. The business was established by Mr. Samuel Baker, in , as stated above, in . years later he was joined by Mr. G. Leigh, who appears to have conducted the business singlehanded from downto , when the name of Sotheby appears as his partner. In the firm was reinforced by the addition of Mr. Sotheby's son, and in the firm was styled their rooms being removed to In the name of Leigh has disappeared from the title-pages of the sale catalogues, which mention the name of only From down to Mr. Sotheby carried on the business at , , since which time the establishment has gone on steadily progressing. Among the most celebrated sales which have been entrusted to this firm in the last and present centuries have been the libraries or other collections of Prince Talleyrand, Professor Porson, Bishop Horsley, Joseph Addison, W. S. Rose, John Gifford, E. Malone, Dr. Hawtrey, Sir William Tite, the Emperor Napoleon, the Chevalier d'Eon, Dr. Charles Burney, the Marquis of Lansdowne, the Earl of Bute, Sir William Dolben, Mr. H. T. Hope, the Earl of Halifax, Sir M. Sykes, Mr. John Nichols, Sir Samuel Romilly, Sir William Tite, and Mr. J. Gough Nichols. It may interest our readers to learn that the volumes of catalogues of sales conducted by this firm are regularly deposited in the , where about volumes, all carefully priced, may be seen, giving a history of literary properties sold from down to , and about more carrying the same record down to nearly the present day. | |
The western frontage of , nearly opposite to Messrs. Sotheby's auction-rooms, was erected in the year , from the designs of Mr. Pennethorne, and is considered of the most successful facades in modern London. In this wing of are the offices of the Inland Revenue Department. On the opposite side of the street, standing somewhat back from the roadway, is a terrace of large houses, called , as standing on ground belonging to the Duchy of Lancaster. They are mostly cut up into chambers for artists, engineers, and lawyers. of them is used as the chief office of the London Necropolis Company, which owns the large cemetery near Woking station. In another, Mr. Samuel Carter Hall for many years edited the | |
Passing this terrace, we are at the northern end of , at full liberty to find our way down the steps to , where, strictly speaking, judging from the meaning of the term, we might have expected to find the itself, and where we certainly should have found it in very --say the London of a years ago. Thence we pass on to the Thames itself, to which our next chapters shall be devoted. | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.3.281.1] Charles Dickens [] Little Will--Turks Head Coffee House |
