Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol 2
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Chapter LI: Newgate Street.Tallis
Chapter LI: Newgate Street.Tallis
In Grey Franciscan friars arrived in London from Italy, and by the assistance of the of , obtained a temporary residence in . They soon found patrons, John Ewin, a mercer, purchasing for them a vacant spot of ground in the parish of St. Nicholas Shambles (from a fleshmarket held there), which he gave for the use of these friars; and William Joyner, Lord Mayor in (Henry III.), built the choir. Henry Wallis, a succeeding Lord Mayor, added the body of the church. A new and grander church was commenced in (Edward I.) at the joint expense of Queen Margaret, wife of Edward I.; John of Brittany, Earl of Richmond; Gilbert de Clare, the Earl of Gloucester; and other pious and generous persons. This church, according to Stow, was consecrated in , and is described as feet long, feet broad, and feet inches high. The chancel ceiling was painted, and the windows glowed with stained glass. | |
In connection with this church the illustrious Richard Whittington founded a library, in , and furnished it with desks and settles for students. It is especially noted that patient transcriber was paid for copying the works of Nicholas de Lira. | |
At the dissolution, Henry VIII., who tore all he could from piety and poverty, used the church as a warehouse for French plunder. In the king gave the priory (church, library, chapter-house, | |
and cloisters) to the Mayor and Corporation of London. The magnificent tyrant, at the same time, gave the city the Hospital of St. Bartholomew the Little, and the parish churches of St. Ewin in Newgate Market and Nicholas in the Shambles, and directed that these parishes, a part of St. Sepulchre's parish, situated within Newgate, and all the site of the late dissolved priory, should form parish, and that the church of the priory should be the parish church, and be called
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The church, swept away in the fiery flood of , was rebuilt from Wren's design, in , and was completed in the year of Queen Anne. The patronage of is vested in the Mayor and Commonalty of London, as governors of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. The parish of St. Leonard, , was united to that of , and the Dean and Chapter of , patrons of , therefore present alternately. By the original grant of Henry VIII. there be assistant readers. The present ,. feet long and broad, is not more than half as large as the old church, the western plot of ground being turned into a burial-ground. The steeple is feet high. The interior is generous and spacious, with a wagon-headed ceiling and clerestory windows, with the old pagan adornments of fat cherubims, tasteless scrolls, and coarse foliage. An ornamental band connects each | |
p.428 | Corinthian column. A great theatrical gallery at the west end, piled up with a huge organ, is set apart, together with the side galleries, for the Bluecoat boys. The pulpit has carved panels representing, after a fashion, the Evangelists and the Last Supper. The marble font is carved with fruit, flowers, and cherubims. The church was repaired, and what churchwardens are pleased to call beautified, in , and again in . The old burial fees in the happily bygone days of intramural interments were high enough at this church - for an inhabitant in the chancel; for a stranger. While the lucky inhabitant paid for his tombstone, the poor stranger's friends had to lay down for his. |
On the north wall at the east end of the church is a brass tablet to the memory of Dame Mary Ramsey, who died in , and who established a free writing-school in . Here, where queens have rested and murderers mouldered, lies the great Nonconformist minister, Richard Baxter, on whose tomb no more fitting epitaph could be placed than the title of his own book, This excellent man, of Shropshire birth, in the earlier part of his life became master of a free-school at Dudley. In he took orders, having then no scruples about conformity, but soon after, some Nonconformist friends began to slowly influence his mind. He then began to distrust the surplice, objected to the cross in baptism, and found flaws in the Prayer Book and the Liturgy. In he was minister at Kidderminster; but when the civil wars broke out, and after Naseby, he became chaplain to Colonel Whalley's Puritan regiment, and was present at several sieges. The Cavaliers said he killed of their party and stole his medal, a story which Baxter publicly denied. On his preaching against Cromwell he was sent for to Court, and told of the great things God ha done for the Parliament. Baxter replied that the honest people of the land took their ancient monarchy to be a blessing, and not an evil, and humbly craved Cromwell's patience, that he might ask him how they had forfeited that blessing, and to whom that forfeiture was made. Cromwell replied, angrily, A few days after, Cromwell sent to ask Baxter for his opinion on liberty of conscience, which Baxter gave him. On Charles's restoration, Baxter, who was a sect in himself was appointed of the king's chaplains, and was frequently with the godless monarch. He assisted as a commissioner at the Savoy Conference, and drew up a reformed liturgy. Lord offered this crochety but honest theologian the bishopric of Hereford, but he declined the appointment, and went on preaching about London. For illegal preaching he was sent to gaol for months, but eventually discharged before the expiration of that period. After the indulgence in he preached at Pinner's Hall, in , in House, at a chapel he built himself in , and in . In Baxter was taken before Lord Chief Justice Jefferies, for remarks on James II. in his and sent to prison, after much vulgar abuse from Jefferies, for years, but in he was pardoned by King James. At Baxter's last disgraceful trial, that cruel bully, the Lord Chief Justice, told him that Oates was then standing in the pillory in New , and that if he. (Baxter) was on the other side of the pillory at the same time, he (Jefferies) would say that of the greatest rogues and rascals in the kingdom stood there. Like an avalanche of mud the foul words poured forth from this unjust judge. said [extra_illustrations.2.428.1] , Mr. Baxter beginning to speak again, says he to him,
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After this Baxter retired to a house in Charterhouse Yard, where he assisted a Mr. Sylvester every Sunday morning, and preached a lecture every Thursday. He died in the year . Baxter is said to have written more than distinct treatises. This somewhat hair-splitting man | |
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[extra_illustrations.2.429.1] believed in election, but rejected the doctrine of reprobation. If any improved the common grace given to all mankind, it was Baxter's belief that the improvement must be followed by special grace, which led on to final acceptance and salvation. This was the half-way road between Calvinism and Arminianism. | |
On the east wall is a tablet to the memory of Dr. Trapp, who was vicar of the united parishes of and St. Leonard, , for years, and died in . This learned translator and controversialist lived in . Near the communion-table is a large monument to Sir John Bosworth, Chamberlain of the city, who died in , and his wife, Dame Hester Bosworth; and also a plain tablet to Mr. John Stock, many years a painter at the Royal Dockyard, and who died in . He left for charitable and philanthropic purposes. A marble monument, with a bust, records the Rev. Samuel Crowther, nearly years incumbent of this church. He was a grandson of Richardson, the novelist, and was born in New . He was struck down with apoplexy while reading morning prayers. The inscription to his memory runs thus :--
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The tombs of alabaster and marble, and the marble gravestones from this church, sold for by the greedy goldsmith, Martin Bowes, we have already mentioned, in our chapter on . | |
Among the more remarkable epitaphs is the following, on the tablet to the memory of the Rev. Joseph Trapp just referred to; It was written by Trapp himself:--
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The steeple of is thought by many very pleasing. says Mr. Godwin, who in some respects condemns it, There are small Grecian columns on each storey of the tower, and an elliptical pediment. The vases on the top of the peristyle were taken down some years ago. The basement storey of is open on sides, and forms a porch to the east chancel. The east end, which faces , is disfigured by enormous buttresses. In a vault, discovered in , near the church, is the well-preserved body of a man, supposed to be that of some Newgate malefactor. | |
The Spital sermons, says Mr. Trollope in , in his book on , originated in an old custom, by which some learned person was appointed yearly by the Bishop of London to preach at Cross, on Good Friday, on the subject of On the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday following other divines were appointed to uphold the doctrine of at the pulpit-cross in the Spital (Spitalfields). On the Sunday following, a preached at Paul's Cross, and passed judgment upon the merits of those who had preceded him. At these sermons the Lord Mayor and aldermen attended, ladies also, on the Monday, forming part of the procession; and, at the close of each day's solemnity, his lordship and the sheriffs gave a private dinner to such of their friends amongst the aldermen as attended the sermon. From this practice the civic festivities at Easter were at length extended to a magnificent scale. The children of took part in the above solemnities, so that, in , When it became necessary to rebuild the pulpit-cross at the Spital, a gallery was erected also for their accommodation. In the great Rebellion the pulpit was destroyed, and the sermons were discontinued till the Restoration, after which the Spital sermons, as they were still called, were revived at , | |
p.430 | . They have since been reduced to , and, from , have been delivered at , . |
It was on their appearance at the Spital that the children of wore the blue costume by which they have since been distinguished. continues Mr. Trollope,
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A curious old bas-relief, says Mr. Cunningham (writing in ), not ill-cut, over the entrance to Bull's head Court, preserves the memory of a small giant and a very great dwarf. The quaint effigies of the disproportioned couple represent William Evans, an enormous Welsh porter, at , in the service of Charles I., and [extra_illustrations.2.430.1] , the vain but gallant dwarf immortalised by Scott, in This bas-relief, Walpole thinks, was probably a shop-sign. Evans, a mammoth-like man, stood feet inches high, while his choleric companion was only feet inches. At a court masque at , the porter drew Sir Jeffrey out of his pocket, to the amazement and amusement of all the ladies of that not too respectable court. | |
says Sir Walter, in a noteto Being teased by a young gallant, named Crofts, who threatened to drown him with a syringe, Hudson called out his antagonist at Calais, and killed him with his shot. | |
says Scott, | |
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It was to the (odd combination of incongruous signs), No. , , that Coleridge used to retreat, in his youthful fits of melancholy abstraction at college debts, bad health, impotency of will, and lost opportunities. This was about the time that, by a wild impulse, day, at the corner of , the young philosopher enlisted in the Light Dragoons, under the odd north-country name of Comberbach. It was at the that [extra_illustrations.2.430.2] day ferreted out the lost dreamer, the veritable Alnaschar of modern literature, and tried to rouse him from the trance of fear and half-insane idleness. The a very old inn on the north side of this street (where the old sign of the place was reverently preserved in the bar), has lately been pulled down. | |
At a convivial meeting at the (No. ), says Peter Cunningham, Tom D'Urfey obtained the suggestion of his merry but coarse miscellany, This Court wit, a naturalised French Huguenot seems to have been the gay, witty, careless Captain Morris of his day. People often spoke of seeing | |
p.431 | King Charles II., at , leaning on Tom's shoulder and humming, over a song with him, and to have heard him at Kensington, singing his own gay songs, to amuse heavy Queen Anne. He was the author of plays, which have not been forgotten by original dramatists of a later date. He became poor in his old age, and Addison saved him from poverty by a well-timed theatrical benefit, |
In , south side of , a was built by Wren, when the Great Fire had destroyed their house at , where Harvey had lectured on his great discovery of the circulation of the blood. The house, built on part of the mansion of the old Earl of Warwick, was began in , and opened in . The special point of the college was the octagonal domed entrance-porch, feet in diameter, which was of the ingenious architect The interior above the porch was the lecture-room, light, lofty, and open to the roof. Garth, in --his pleasant satire against the apothecaries, thus sketched it--
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The amphitheatre, afterwards degraded into a meat-market, is praised by Elmes for its convenient arrangement and its acoustic qualities. Nor could even the modern Goth despise the fine lofty hall, the magnificent staircase, the stucco-garlands of the dining-room, and the carved oak chimney-piece and gallery. On the north and south were the residences of the college officers, on the west the principal front, -storeyed, the lower Ionic, the upper Corinthian. On the east was the octagon, with the gilt ball above, and below a statue of Sir John Cutler. | |
About this same Cutler an odd story is told, which is well worth repeating. | |
In (Charles II.) Sir John Cutler, a rich city man, and a notorious miser, related to Dr. Whistler, the president of the college, expressed a generous wish to contribute largely to the rebuilding of the house, and a committee was actually appointed to thank him for his kind intentions. Cutler gravely accepted the thanks, renewed his promises, and mentioned the parts of the building for which he intended to pay. In the college, grateful for favours yet to come, voted statues to the king and Cutler, and years afterwards borrowed money of Sir John, to discharge some builder's debts, the college being now completed. This loan seems to have in some way changed Cutler's intentions, for in his executors brought a demand on the college for , including the promised sum which had never been given, but had been set down as a debt. The indignant college threw down , which the imperturbable executors took as payment in full. The college at once erased the grateful inscription- which they had engraved on the pedestal of the miser's statue, and would no doubt have ground the statue down to powder, had they not been ashamed. | |
This Cutler was the same Volpone whom Pope mentions, in his -
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Cutler is ridiculed by Arbuthnot, in his where, in ridicule of of Locke's philosophic opinions, he describes a pair of Cutler's cottons, which were darned so often by his maid, that they at last became silk. Cutler's funeral is said to have cost , and of his daughters married the Earl of Radnor. | |
Some anecdotes of th old physicians who have paced up and down seem almost indispensable to a sketch, however brief, of the old . No can we begin better than with the famous Dr. Radcliffe, the preeminent physician that arose after the removal of the college to the building erected by Wren in . Radcliffe, a man eager for money, and of rough Abernethy manners, had the cream of all the London practice, when he lived in , next door to Sir Godfrey Kneller, the great painter. He was brusque even with kings. When called in to see King William, at Kensington, finding his legs dropsically swollen, he frankly said, and on another visit the Jacobite doctor boldly told the little Dutch hero- added the doctor, (where, to tell the truth, the king was wont to drink very hard),
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On occasion, when Radcliffe was sent for from the tavern (for he did not dislike wine) by | |
p.432 | Queen Anne, he flatly refused to leave his bottle and the company. he bellowed, With a fantastic wit worthy of Sydney Smith himself, he told a hypochondriacal lady who consulted him about a nervous singing in the head, to and in his vexation at the fancies of female patients, he anticipated female doctors, by proposing an Act of Parliament to entitle nurses alone to attend women. |
says the author of
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Steele, in the , ridiculed the old doctor's love-making. Dr. Radcliffe was unlucky enough to be accused by the Whigs of killing Queen Mary, and by the Tories of causing the death of Queen Anne, by refusing to attend her in her last illness. He was himself dying at the time, and was unable to attend; but the clamour of the mob was so loud, accompanied even by threats of assassination, that they are said to have hastened the great physician's death, which took place just months after the queen died. | |
Dr. Mead, the physician of George II., was, unlike Radcliffe, a polished and learned man, who succeeded to much of his predecessor's business, and occupied his old house in . He was the doctor to encourage inoculation for the small-pox, and practised the Oriental system on condemned criminals, with the consent of George I. He attended Pope, Sir Isaac Newton, and Bishop Burnet in their last illnesses. Mead is | |
p.433 | said to have gained nearly a year yet was so hospitable, that he did not leave more than . When not at his house in , Mead usually spent his evenings at Coffee House, and in the afternoon his apothecaries used to meet him at near Covent Garden, with written or verbal reports of cases for which he prescribed without seeing the patient, and took half-guinea fees. He died in , and was buried in the Temple. As an instance of Mead's generosity the following story is told:--In , when the celebrated Dr. Friend, a friend of Atterbury, was sent to the Tower, Mead kindly took his practice, and on his release by Sir Robert Walpole, presented the escaped Jacobite with the result, guineas. |
Dr. Askew, another of the great physicians of the Georgian era, lived in , where he crammed his house with books, and entertained such men as Archbishop Markham, Sir William Jones, Dr. Farmer, Taylor, Dr. Parr, and Hogarth. The sale of Dr. Askew's library, in , Covent Garden (), occupied days. | |
Dr. William Pitcairn, who resided in , , was for several years president of the college. [extra_illustrations.2.434.1] , another eminent physician here, was a nephew of the great John Hunter. Sir Hans Sloane was elected President of the in . He was an Irishman by birth, and a Scotchman by descent, and had accompanied the Duke of Albemarle to | |
p.434 | Jamaica as his physician. In he was created President of the Royal Society, on the death of Sir Isaac Newton, and became physician to George II. On his death, in , his museum and library were purchased by the nation, and became the nucleus of the . |
In this brief notice of early physicians we must not forget to include that very -rate poet, Sir Richard Blackmore, son of a Wiltshire attorney. No poor poet was ever so ridiculed as this great man of Saddlers' Hall. Dryden and Pope both set him up in their Parnassian pillory; and of him Swift wrote- Dryden called him- In spite of this endless abuse of a well-meaning man, William III. knighted him, and Addison pronounced his ambitious poem, to be
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Among the eccentric physicians who have paced up and down , and passed across the shadow of the Golden Pill, was [extra_illustrations.2.434.2] , a friend of Garrick, and physician to College. Of this rough old cynic Mr. J. C. Jeaffreson, in his tells the following capital stories:-- | |
says Mr. Jeaffreson, | |
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Monsey lived to extreme old age, dying in his Rooms in College on the , in his year; continues Mr. Jeaffreson,
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As a physician, Dr. John C. Lettsom, who died in , was a most fortunate man; for without any high reputation for professional acquirements, and with the exact reverse of a good preliminary education, he made a larger income than any other physician of the same time. Dr. John Fothergill never made more than in year; but Lettsom earned in ; in ; in ; and in . After that period his practice rapidly increased, so that in some years his receipts were as much as . | |
That singular club, the Cauliflower, chiefly patronised by booksellers from , was held at the in Butcher Hall | |
p.435 | Lane, now . says the anonymous author of Tavern Anecdotes (),
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The permanent secretary of the was a worthy old fellow, Mr. Christopher Brown, an assistant of Mr. Thomas Longman, in , who delighted in his quiet glass of Tabby's punch, a pipe, and a song, after the labours of the day. This faithful old clerk had refused all offers of friends to set him up in independent business. Before the purchase of Mr. Evans's business the great firm of Longman was conducted by merely principals and assistants. | |
The large cauliflower painted on the ceiling of the club was intended to represent the cauliflower head on the gallon of porter, which was paid for by every member who sat under it at his initiation. The president's chair, a masterpiece of Chippendale's workmanship, was sold in at Christie and Manson's. The height is feet less inches; breadth in front, from to inches. An exquisitely-carved cauliflower adorns the chair, extending from near the top of the chair downwards to the end of the root exactly foot; while the spread-out leaves, including the flower, extend a foot across; so that it was literally true of whoever occupied the chair, that he sat The sides and arms of the chair are adorned with leaves, and both legs and arms are fluted, the whole being carved out of solid dark Spanish mahogany. A footboard, serving the purpose of a slightly-raised platform for the use of the speaker, also of solid mahogany, is attached to the chair by hinges. | |
In , , of the bagnios, or Turkish bath, was opened in , as Aubrey carefully records. Strype calls it A writer in the , No. , mentions the bagnio in , and in . Hatton, in , describes it as a very spacious and commodious place for sweating, hot bathing, and cupping, and with a temperature of eighteen degrees of heat. The roof was of a cupola shape, and the walls set with Dutch tiles. The charge was a person, and there were special days for ladies. There were servants in attendance; and to prove the healthiness of the place, Hatton mentions that servant had been in attendance for years, days a week. | |
, an obscure turning between and , was, in , the scene of a great imposture. The ghost supposed to have been heard rapping there, in reply to questions, singularly resembled the familiar spirits of our modern mediums. The affair commenced in , by Parsons, the officiating clerk of St. Sepulchre's, observing, at early prayer, a genteel | |
p.436 | couple standing in the aisle, and ordering them into a pew. On the service ending, the gentleman stopped to thank Parsons, and to ask him if he knew of a lodging in the neighbourhood. Parsons at once offered rooms in his own house, in , and they were accepted. The gentleman proved to be a widower of family from Norfolk, and the lady the sister of his deceased wife, with whom he privately lived, unable, from the severity of the cruel old canon law, to marry her, as they both wished. In his absence in the country, the lady, who went by the name of Miss Fanny, had Parson's daughter, a little artful girl about years of age, to sleep with her. In the night the lady and the child were disturbed by extraordinary noises, which were at attributed to a neighbouring shoemaker. Neighbours were called in to hear the sounds, which continued till the gentleman and lady removed to Clerkenwell, where the lady soon after died of small-pox. In January of the next year, according to Parsons, who, from a spirit of revenge against his late lodger, organised the whole fraud, the spiritualistic knockings and scratchings re-commenced. The child, from under whose bedstead these supposed supernatural sounds emanated, pretended to have fits, and Parsons began to interrogate the ghost, and was answered with affirmative and negative knocks. The ghost, under cross-examination, declared that it was the deceased lady lodger, who, according to Parsons, had been poisoned by a glass of purl, which had contained arsenic. Thousands of persons, of all ranks and stations, now crowded to , to hear the ghost, and the most ludicrous scenes took place with these poor gulls. |
Even Horace Walpole was magnetically drawn to the clerk's house in . The clever fribble writes to Sir Horace Mann, :
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Again Walpole writes:-- (Walpole to George Montagu, .) | |
Of the descent into the vaults of , Clerkenwell, to hear the spirits rap on her coffinlid, Johnson, who was present, writes :--
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In the following account of a a pamphleteer of the time says:-- | |
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The girl was at last, we are glad to say, detected. When the child was bound hand and foot in a hammock, the ghost, it was found, was always silent. morning, when the child had been threatened with Newgate if she did not arouse the ghost, she was found to have concealed a small board under her stays, on which she produced the supernatural sounds. The bubble then burst. | |
The gentleman accused, remarks Mr. Pinks;
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says Mr. J. W. Archer,
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At the in , Dr. Johnson established of his earliest clubs for literary dis cussion. The chief members were the Rev. Dr Salter, father of the Master of the Charterhouse Mr. (afterwards Dr.) John Hawkesworth; Mr Ryland, a merchant, a relation of Johnson's; Mr John Payne, then a bookseller, afterwards chief accountant of the Bank; Mr. Samuel Dyer, a learned young man, intended for the dissenting ministry; Dr. William M'Ghie, a Scots physician; Dr. Edmund Barker, a young physician; Dr. Richard Bathurst, and Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Hawkins. | |
[extra_illustrations.2.439.1] , now removed to the neighbourhood of Charterhouse, was originally a mealmarket. in Strype, says that before the Great Fire there was a market-house here for meal, and a middle row of sheds, which had gradually been converted into houses for butchers, tripe-sellers, and the like. The country-people who brought provisions were forced to stand with their stalls in the open street, exposed to all the coaches, carts, horses, and cattle. The meat-market, says Peter Cunningham, had become a centre of trade | |
| when the stalls and sheds were removed from and the localities round the church of St. Nicholas Shambles. | |
, Stow says, derived its name from an ancient house there, built by the Earls of Warwick. This messuage in Eldenese Lane (the old name) is on record in the year of Henry VI. as occupied by Cicille, Duchess of Warwick. In the year of Henry VI., when the greater estates of the realm were called to London, Richard Nevill, the Earl of Warwick, justly named the came there, backed by sturdy vassals, all in red jackets embroidered with ragged staves before and behind. says Stow, [extra_illustrations.2.439.2] , with the date , is inserted in the wall of end of . | |
The [extra_illustrations.2.440.1] , on the east side of the lane, is the house where Archbishop Leighton | |
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[extra_illustrations.2.440.3] died. According to Burnet, in his
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The Inn, formerly on the west side of the street, is mentioned in a carrier's advertisement in the , -. Edward Bartlet, an Oxford carrier, who had removed from the at Bridge, started his coaches and wagons from thence times a week. He also announced that he kept a hearse, to convey to any part of England. | |
is called Snore Hill by Stow, and Sore Hill by Howell. At the time of the Great Fire it seems to have been known as Snore Hill and indifferently. By the time Gay wrote his antithetical line- however, the latter name seems to have become fixed. It was always an awkward, roundabout road; and in , when was built, it was superseded as the highway between and . | |
There is event in its history, brief as it is, that deserves special remembrance. At the house of his friend, Mr. Strudwick, a grocer, at the sign of the , that brave old Christian, [extra_illustrations.2.440.5] , died, in . This extraordinary genius was the son of a tinker, at Elstow, near Bedford, and grew up a wild, dissolute youth, but seems to have received early strong religious impressions. He served in the Parliamentary army at the siege of Leicester, and the death of a comrade who took his post as a sentry produced a deep effect on his thoughtful mind. On returning to Elstow, Bunyan married a pious young woman, who seems to have led him to read and study religious books. At the age of , after great spiritual struggles, Bunyan was admitted into church-fellowship with the Baptists, and baptised, probably near midnight, in a small stream near Bedford Bridge. His spiritual struggles still continued, he believed himself rejected, and the day of grace past; then came even doubts of the being of a God, and of the authority of the Scriptures. A terrible illness, threatening consumption, followed this mental struggle, but with health came the calm of a serene faith, and he entered the ministry. A great trouble followed, to further purify this great soul. He lost his wife; but a wife proved equally good and faithful. It being a time of persecution, Bunyan was soon thrown into Bedford gaol, where he pined for long years. There, with some other innocent people, Bunyan preached and prayed incessantly, and wrote the part of his immortal | |
Parting with his wife and children Bunyan himself describes as and his heart was especially wrung by the possible hardships of his poor blind daughter, Mary. he says, Bunyan maintained himself in prison by making tagged laces, and the only books he had were the bible and Foxe's
he says, in of his works, The jug in which his broth was daily taken to the prison is still preserved as a relic, and his gold ring was discovered under the floor when the prison was demolished. | |
Bunyan was released in , when Quakers and Baptists were also set free. He then obtained a licence to preach at a [extra_illustrations.2.440.6] in Bedford, and he also continued his trade as a brazier. In this good man published his allegory, and completed the last part of | |
In spite of his consistent zeal, Bunyan was denounced by his enemies as a wizard, a Jesuit, and a highwayman. His popularity among his own people was, however, very great. When he preached in London some people used to collect, so that he had almost to be pulled over their heads into the pulpit. His end was characteristic. He was returning home from a visit to Reading, where he had gone to reconcile an offended father to a prodigal son, when he was seized, at the house in , with a fatal fever. His departure must have been like that of the pilgrims he himself describes :--
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To also belongs an anecdote of Dobson, of the most eminent of our early painters. Dobson, son of the master in the Alienation Office, was compelled by his father's extravagance to become an apprentice to a stationer and picturedealer. He soon began to excel in copying Titian and Vandyke, and exhibited his copies in a window in . Vandyke himself, who lived in Blackfriars, not far off, passing day, was so struck with Dobson's work, that he went in and inquired for the author. He found him at work in a poor garret, from which he soon rescued him. He shortly afterwards recommended him to King Charles, who took him into his service, and sat to him often for his portrait, and gave him the name of the English Tintoret. Dobson's style is dignified and thoughtful, and his colour delightful in tone. of his finest portrait groups is at , and in the in the fine collection at Wilton House, he is said to have introduced a portrait of Prince Rupert. The Civil Wars, and the indifference which the Puritans manifested to art, no doubt reduced Dobson to poverty, and he died poor and neglected, in , in . | |
Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.2.428.1] Jefferies [extra_illustrations.2.429.1] Bill head-Henry Servante, 103 Newgate Street [extra_illustrations.2.430.1] Sir Geoffrey, or Jeffrey Hudson [extra_illustrations.2.430.2] Southey [extra_illustrations.2.434.1] Dr. Baillie [extra_illustrations.2.434.2] Monsey [extra_illustrations.2.439.1] Newgate Market [extra_illustrations.2.439.2] A little bas-relief of the famous Guy, Earl of Warwick [extra_illustrations.2.440.1] Old Bell Inn [extra_illustrations.2.440.2] St. Andrew's Church from Snow Hill [extra_illustrations.2.440.3] Bunyan's Statue, Bedford [extra_illustrations.2.440.5] John Bunyan [extra_illustrations.2.440.6] chapel |
