Old and New London, A Narrative of its History, its People and its Places. Illustrated with Numerous Engravings from the Most Authentic Sources. vol I
Thornbury, Walter
1872-78
Fleet Street (continued).
Fleet Street (continued).
There is, in an almost unknown essay by Dr. Johnson, a delightful passage that connects him indissolubly with the neighbourhood of . The essay, written in for the , is entitled and is full of humour, which, indeed, those who knew him best considered the chief feature of Johnson's genius. We rather pride ourselves on the discovery of this pleasant bit of autobiography ;-- says Johnson, This extract seems to us to form an admirable companion picture to that in which we have already shown Goldsmith bantering his brother Jacobite, Johnson, as they looked up together at the grim heads on . | |
[extra_illustrations.1.37.3] , next to , but now being replaced by a building more worthy of the site--is the oldest banking-house in London except . For centuries gold has here been shovelled about, and reams of bank-notes have been shuffled over by practised thumbs. Private banks originated in the stormy days before the Civil War, when wealthy citizens, afraid of what might happen, entrusted their money to their goldsmiths to take care of till the troubles had blown over. In the time of the Stuarts, Francis Child, an industrious apprentice of the old school, married the daughter of his master, William Wheeler, a goldsmith, who lived door west of , and in due time succeeded to his estate and business. In the London Directory (), among the goldsmiths, of whom lived in , at the , figure conspicuously as The original Marygold [extra_illustrations.1.37.1] (sometimes mistaken for a rising sun), with the motto, , gilt upon a green ground, elegantly designed in the French manner, is still to be seen in the front office, and a marigold in full bloom still blossoms on the bank cheques. In the year it was at Mr. Blanchard's, the goldsmith's, next door to , that Dryden the poet, bruised and angry, deposited as a reward for any who would discover the bullies of Lord Rochester who had beaten him in for some scurrilous verses really written by the Earl of Dorset. The advertisement promises, if the discoverer be himself of the actors, he shall still have the , without letting his name be known or receiving the least trouble by any prosecution. Black Will's cudgel was, after all, a clumsy way of making a repartee. Late in Charles II.'s reign Alderman Backwell entered the wealthy firm; but he was ruined by the iniquitous and arbitrary closing of the Exchequer in , when the needy and unprincipled king pocketed at swoop more than a million and a half of money, which he soon squandered on his shameless mistresses and unworthy favourites. In that quaint room over Temple | |
Bar the firm still preserve the dusty books of the unfortunate alderman, who fled to Holland. There, on the sallow leaves over which the poor alderman once groaned, you can read the items of our sale of Dunkirk to the French, the dishonourable surrender of which drove the nation almost to madness, and hastened the downfall of Lord Clarendon, who was supposed to have built a magnificent house (on the site of , ) with some of the very money. Charles II. himself banked here, and drew his thousands with all the careless nonchalance of his nature. Nell Gwynne, Pepys, of the and [extra_illustrations.1.37.2] also had accounts at Child's, and some of these ledgers are still hoarded over in that Venetian-looking room, approached by strange prison-like passages, for which chamber Messrs. Child pay something less than a-year. | |
When Prince Rupert died at his house in the , the valuable jewels of the old cavalry soldier, valued at , were disposed of in a lottery, managed by Mr. Francis Child, the gold smith; the king himself, who took a halfbusiness- like, half-boyish interest in the matter, counting the tickets among all the lords and ladies at . | |
38 | |
In North's , the courtier and lawyer of the reign of Charles II., there is an anecdote that pleasantly connects Child's bank with the fees of the great lawyers who in that evil reign ruled in : | |
says his biographer,
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Year by year the Sir Francis Child grew in honour. He was alderman, sheriff, Lord Mayor, President of , and M.P. for the City, and finally, dying in , full of years, was buried under a grand black marble tomb in Fulham churchyard, and his account closed for ever. The family went on living in the sunshine. Sir Robert, the son of the Sir Francis, was also alderman of his ward; and on his death, his brother, Sir Francis, succeeded to all his father's dignities, became an East Indian director, and in received the special thanks of the citizens for promoting a special act for regulating City elections. Another member of this family (Sir Josiah Child) deserves special mention as of the earliest writers on political economy and a man much in advance of his time. He saw through the old fallacy about the balance of trade, and explained clearly the true causes of the commercial prosperity of the Dutch. He also condemned the practice of each parish paying for its own poor, an evil which all Poor-law reformers have endeavoured to alter. Sir Josiah was at the head of the East India Company, already feeling its way towards the gold and diamonds of India. His brother was Governor of Bombay, and by the marriage of his numerous daughters--the rich merchant became allied to half the peers and peeresses of England. The grandson of Alderman Backwell married a daughter of the Sir Francis Child, and his daughter married William Praed, the Truro banker, who early in the present century opened a bank at , . So, like strands of a gold chain, the banking families were welded together. In Child's bank seems to have for a moment tottered, but was saved by the timely loan of proffered by that overbearing woman the [extra_illustrations.1.38.2] Hogarth is said to have made an oil sketch of the scene, which was sold at Hodgson's sale-room in , and has since disappeared. | |
In Pennant's time () the original goldsmith's shop seems to have still existed in , in connection with this bank. The principal of the firm was the celebrated Countess of Jersey, a former earl having assumed the name of Child on the countess inheriting the estates of her maternal grandfather, Robert Child, Esq., of Osterly Park, Middlesex. A small full-length portrait of this great beauty of George IV.'s court, painted by Lawrence in his elegant but meretricious manner, hangs in the -floor room of the old bank. The last Child died early in this century. A descendant of Addison is a member of the present firm. In Chapter I., Book I., of his Dickens has sketched Child's bank with quite an Hogarthian force and colour. He has playfully exaggerated the smallness, darkness, and ugliness of the building, of which he describes the partners as so proud; but there is all his usual delightful humour, occasionally passing into caricature:--
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In (George III.) the firm purchased the [extra_illustrations.1.38.3] , and upon the site erected the retiring row of houses up a dim court, now called , finally absorbing the old place of revelry and hushing the unseemly clatter of pewter pots and the clamorous shouts of for ever. | |
The noisy (No. , ) had stood next the quiet goldsmith's shop ever | |
39 | since the time of James I. Shakespeare himself must, day after day, have looked up at the old sign of St. Dunstan tweaking the Devil by the nose, that flaunted in the wind near the Bar. Perhaps the sign was originally a compliment to the goldsmith's men who frequented it, for St. Dunstan was, like St. Eloy, a patron saint of goldsmiths, and himself worked at the forge as an amateur artificer of church plate. It may, however, have only been a mark of respect to the saint, whose church stood hard by, to the east of . At the the Apollo Club, almost the institution of the kind in London, held its merry meetings, presided over by that grim yet jovial despot, [extra_illustrations.1.39.1] . [extra_illustrations.1.39.2] , skilfully modelled from the head of the Apollo Belvidere, that once kept watch over the door, and heard in its time millions of witty things and scores of fond recollections of Shakespeare by those who personally knew and loved him, is still preserved at Child's bank. They also show there among their heirlooms probably written by immortal Ben himself, which is full of a jovial inspiration that speaks well for the canary at the It used to stand over the chimney-piece, written in gilt letters on a black board, and some of the wittiest and wisest men of the reigns of James and Charles must have read it over their cups. The verses run,-- Beneath these verses some enthusiastic disciple of the author has added the brief epitaph inscribed by an admirer on the crabbed old poet's tombstone in ,-- The rules of the club (said to have been originally cut on a slab of black marble) were placed above the fireplace. They were devised by Ben Jonson, in imitation of the rules of the Roman entertainments, collected by the learned Lipsius; and, as Leigh Hunt says, they display the author's usual style of elaborate and compiled learning, not without a taste of that dictatorial self-sufficiency that made him so many enemies. They were translated by Alexander Brome, a poetical attorney of the day, who was of Ben Jonson's adopted poetical sons. We have room only for the few, to show the poetical character of the club:-- The later rules forbid the discussion of serious and sacred subjects. No itinerant fiddlers (who then, as now, frequented taverns) were to be allowed to obtrude themselves. The feasts were to be celebrated with laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs, and the jests were to be No man (and this smacks of Ben's arrogance) was to recite poems, and no person was to be pressed to write verse. There were to be in this little Elysium of an evening no vain disputes, and no lovers were to mope about unsocially in corners, No fighting or brawling was to be tolerated, and no glasses or windows broken, or was tapestry to be torn down in wantonness. The rooms were to be kept warm; and, above all, any who betrayed what the club chose to do or say was to be, , banished. Over the clock in the kitchen some wit had inscribed in neat Latin the merry motto, --a happy version of the dangerous axiom of
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At these club feasts the old poet with as he has painted himself, presided, ready to enter the ring against all comers. By degrees the stern man with the worn features, darkened by prison cell and hardened by battle-fields, had mellowed into a Falstaff. Long struggles with poverty had made Ben arrogant, for he had worked as a bricklayer in early life and had served in Flanders as a common soldier; he had killed a rival actor in a duel, and had been in danger of having his nose slit in the pillory for a libel against King James's Scotch courtiers. Intellectually, too, Ben had reason to claim a sort of sovereignty over the minor poets. His had been a great success; Shakespeare had helped him forward, and been his bosom friend. Parts of his , such as the speech of Envy, beginning,-- are as sublime as his songs, such as are graceful, serious, and lyrical. The great compass of his power and the command he had of the lyre no could deny; his learning Donne and Camden could vouch for. He had written the most beautiful of court masques; his Bobadil some men preferred to Falstaff. Alas! no Pepys or Boswell has noted the talk of those evenings. | |
A few glimpses of the meetings we have, and but a few. night at the. a country | |
40 | gentleman was boastful of his property. It was all he had to boast about among the poets en, chafed out of all decency and patience, at last roared,
retorted Master Shallow. cried out a laughing friend,
growled Ben, with a surly smile. |
Another story records the [extra_illustrations.1.40.1] , a clever poet and dramatist, who became a clergyman, and died young. The young poet, who had squandered all his money away in London pleasures, on a certain night, before he returned to Cambridge, resolved to go and see Ben and his associates at the cost what it might. But there were great obstacles-he was poor, and he was not invited. Nevertheless, drawn magnetically by the voices of the illustrious men in the Apollo, Randolph at last peeped in at the door among the waiters. Ben's quick eye soon detected the eager, pale face and the scholar's threadbare habit. he shouted, a summons Randolph gladly obeyed. The club-men instantly began rhyming on the meanness of the intruder's dress, and told him if he could not at once make a verse he must call for a quart of sack. There being of his tormentors, [extra_illustrations.1.40.2] , replied as quick as lightning:--
roared the giant president, and on his owning himself, the young poet was kindly entertained, spent a glorious evening, was soaked in sack, and became of the old poet's adopted sons. | |
Shakerley Marmion, a contemporary dramatist of the day, has left a glowing Rubenesque picture of the Apollo evenings, evidently coloured from life. Careless, of his characters, tells his friends he is full of oracles, for he has just come from Apollo. says his wondering friend, Then Careless replies, with an inspired fervour worthy of a Cavalier poet who fought bravely for King Charles.:.
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Simon Wadloe, the host of the who died in , seems to have been a witty butt of a man, much such another as honest Jack Falstaff; a merry boon companion, not only witty himself, but the occasion of wit in others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him, and called his was the favourite old-fashioned ditty in which Fielding's rough and jovial Squire Western after. wards delighted. | |
Old Simon's successor, John Wadloe (probably his son), made a great figure at the Restoration procession by heading a band of young men all dressed in white. After the Great Fire John rebuilt the behind the , and was loyal, wealthy, and foolish enough to lend King Charles, certain considerable sums, duly recorded in Exchequer documents, but not so duly paid. | |
In the troublous times of the Commonwealth the was the favourite haunt of [extra_illustrations.1.41.7] , generally known as from his favourite beverage of spiced sherry negus. This impudent rascal, a sweep who had turned highwayman, with the most perfect impartiality rifled the pockets alternately of Cavaliers and Round. heads. Gold is of no religion; and your true cut-purse is of the broadest and most sceptical Church. He emptied the pockets of Lord Protector Cromwell day, and another he stripped Charles II., then a Bohemian exile at Cologne, of plate valued at . of his most impudent exploits was stealing a watch from Lady Fairfax, that brave woman who had the courage to denounce, from the gallery at Hall, the persons whom she considered were about to become the murderers of Charles I. (and a portly handsome woman she was, to judge by the old portraits), says a pamphlet-writer of the day,
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The [extra_illustrations.1.41.2] has the following verses beneath:--
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In Charles II.'s time the became frequented by lawyers and physicians. The talk now was about drugs and latitats, jalap and the law of escheats. Yet, still good company frequented it, for Steele describes Bickerstaff's sister Jenny's wedding entertainment there in ; and in (Queen Anne) [extra_illustrations.1.41.3] writes of those charming letters to Stella to tell her that he had dined on at the with [extra_illustrations.1.41.4] and [extra_illustrations.1.41.5] , when the good-natured doctor, whom every loved, stood treat, and there must have been talk worth hearing. In the Apollo chamber the intolerable court odes of [extra_illustrations.1.41.6] , the poet laureate, used to be solemnly rehearsed with fitting music; and Pope in says, scornfully: But Colley had talent and he had brass, and it took many such lines to put him down. A good epigram on these public recitations runs thus:
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Dr. Kenrick afterwards gave lectures on Shakespeare at the Apollo. This Kenrick, originally a rulemaker, and the malicious assailant of Johnson and Garrick, was the Croker of his day. He originated the , and when he assailed Johnson's Johnson laughingly replied,
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In the Royal Society held its annual dinner in the old consecrated room, and in the year concerts of vocal and instrumental music were given in the same place. It was an upstairs chamber, probably detached from the tavern, and lay up a or court, like some of the old Edinburgh taverns. | |
The last ray of light that fell on the was on a memorable spring evening in . Dr. Johnson (aged ), then busy all day with his amanuenses in a garret in compiling his Dictionary, at night enjoyed his elephantine mirth at a club in , . night at the club, Johnson proposed to celebrate the appearance of Mrs. Lennox's novel, by a supper at the Mrs. Lennox was a lady for whom Johnson-ranking her afterwards above Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Hannah More, or even his favourite, Miss Burney-had the greatest esteem. Sir John Hawkins, that somewhat malign rival of Boswell, describes the night in a manner, for him, unusually genial. says Hawkins (and his words are too pleasant to condense), (The club consisted of Hawkins, an attorney; Dr. Salter, father of a master of the ; Dr. Hawkesworth, a popular author of the day; Mr. Ryland, a merchant; Mr.John Payne, a bookseller; Dr. Samuel Dyer, a young man training for a Dissenting minister; Dr. William M'Ghie, a Scotch physician; Dr. Barker and Dr. Bathurst, young physicians.) How longs to dredge up some notes of such a night's conversation from the cruel river of oblivion! The Apollo Court, on the | |
opposite side of , still preserves the memory of the great club-room at the
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In , on an Act passing for the removal of the dangerous projecting signs, the weather-beaten picture of the saint, with the Devil gibbering over his shoulder, was nailed up flat to the front of the old gable-ended house. In , Collins, a public lecturer and mimic, gave a satirical lecture at the on modern oratory. In some young lawyers founded there a Pandemonium Club; and after that there is no further record of the till it was pulled down and annexed by the neighbouring bankers. In Steele's time there was a at , and a | |
43 44 | rival near St. Dunstan's; but these competitors made no mark. |
The [extra_illustrations.1.44.1] (), opposite the Temple, has been immortalised by [extra_illustrations.1.44.2] as thoroughly as the was by Ben Jonson. The playful verses inspired by a pint of generous port have made for ever, though old Will Waterproof has long since descended for the last time the well-known cellarstairs. The poem which has embalmed his name was, we believe, written when Mr. Tennyson had chambers in . At that time the room was lined with wainscoting, and the silver tankards of special customers hung in glittering rows in the bar, This tavern was shut up at the time of the Plague, and the advertisement announcing such closing is still extant. [extra_illustrations.1.44.3] , in his mentions bringing pretty Mrs. Knipp, an actress, of whom his wife was very jealous, here; and the gay couple On his way home to , the amorous Navy Office clerk with difficulty avoided thieves with clubs, who met him at the entrance into the ruins of the Great Fire near St. Dunstan's. These dangerous meetings with Mrs. Knipp went on till night Mrs. Pepys came to his bedside and threatened to pinch him with the red-hot tongs. The waiters at the are fond of showing visitors [extra_illustrations.1.44.7] in the time of Charles II. The old carved chimneypiece is of the age of James I.; and there is a doubtful tradition that the gilt bird that struts with such self-serene importance over the portal was the work of that great carver, Grinling Gibbons. | |
[extra_illustrations.1.44.4] (No. , south) was kept in George II.'s time by a Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, who were much admired by the young Templars who patronised the place. The Rev. James Miller, reviving an old French comedietta by Rousseau, called and introducing malicious allusions to the landlady and her fair daughter, so exasperated the young barristers that frequented that they went in a body and hissed the piece from the boards. The author then wrote an apology, and published the play; but unluckily the artist who illustrated it took the bar at as the background of his sketch. The Templars went madder than ever at this, and the Rev. Miller, who translated Voltaire's for Garrick, never came up to the surface again. It was at that Cowper the poet showed the symptoms of derangement. When his mind was off its balance he read a letter in a newspaper at which he believed had been written to drive him to suicide. He went away and tried to hang himself; the garter breaking, he then resolved to drown himself; but, being hindered by some occurrence, repented for the moment. He was soon after sent to a madhouse in Huntingdon. | |
In a quarrel arose between hot-headed gallants in about the size of dishes they had both seen at the in . The matter eventually was roughly ended at the in the Vintry--a tavern mentioned by Ben Jonson--by of them, Rowland St. John, running his companion, John Stiles, of , through the body. The St. Dunstan's Club, founded in , holds its dinner at
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The (No. , south) was the coffee-house started in London. years before the Restoration, Mr. Farr, a barber, began the trade here, trusting probably to the young Temple barristers for support. The vintners grew jealous, and the neighbours, disliking the smell of the roasting coffee, indicted Farr as a nuisance. But he persevered, and the Arabian drink became popular. A satirist had soon to write regretfully,. About , according to Mr. Timbs, the was kept by Alexander Moncrieff, grandfather of the dramatist who wrote | |
Bernard Lintot, the bookseller, who published Pope's lived in a shop [extra_illustrations.1.44.5] . In an inimitable letter to the Earl of Burlington, [extra_illustrations.1.45.12] has described how Lintot (Tonson's rival) overtook him once in Windsor Forest, as he was riding down to Oxford. When they were resting under a tree in the forest, Lintot, with a keen eye to business, pulled out and said to Pope, The poet smiled, but said nothing. Presently they remounted, and as they rode on Lintot stopped short, and broke out, after a long silence:
replied Pope, naively. He told Pope that by giving the hungry critics a dinner of a piece of beef and a pudding, he could make them see beauties in any author he chose. After all, Pope did well with Lintot, for he gained by his Dr. Young, the poet, once unfortunately sent to Lintot a letter meant | |
45 | for Tonson, and the words that Lintot read were: In the same shop, which was then occupied by Jacob Robinson, the publisher, Pope met Warburton. An interesting account of this meeting is given by Sir John Hawkins, which it may not be out of place to quote here. he says, At the Middle Temple Gate, [extra_illustrations.1.45.3] , successor to Ben Tooke, published Swift's for which he had grudgingly given only . [extra_illustrations.1.45.1] , [extra_illustrations.1.45.2] [extra_illustrations.1.45.10] [extra_illustrations.1.45.11] |
The door from (No. , north side), Mr. Timbs points out, was in Charles II.'s time a tombstone-cutter's; and here, in , Howel, whose give us many curious pictures of his time, saw a huge monument to of the Oxenham family, at the death of each of whom a white bird appeared fluttering about their bed. These miraculous occurrences had taken place at a town near Exeter, and the witnesses names duly appeared below the epitaph. No. was afterwards Rackstrow's museum of natural curiosities and anatomical figures; and the proprietor put Sir Isaac Newton's head over the door for a sign. Among other prodigies was the skeleton of a whale more than feet long. Donovan, a naturalist, succceded Rackstrow (who died in ) with his London museum. Then, by a harlequin change, No. became the office of the newspaper. [extra_illustrations.1.45.4] was turned over to this journal from . The editor, John Fenwick, the of Lamb's was a needy, sanguine man, who had purchased the paper of a person named Lovell, who had stood in the pillory for a libel against the Prince of Wales. For a long time Fenwick contrived to pay the Stamp Office dues by money borrowed from compliant friends. says Lamb, in his delightful way, Lamb hinted at possible abdications. Blocks, axes, and tribunals were covered with flowers of so cunning a periphrasis--as, Mr. Bayes says, never naming the directly--that the keen eye of an Attorney-General was insufficient to detect the lurking snake among them. | |
At the south-west corner of (No. ) once stood an old house said to have been the residence of that unfortunate reformer, Sir John Oldcastle, [extra_illustrations.1.45.5] , who was burnt in Fields in (Henry V.) In Charles II.'s reign the celebrated Whig Green Ribbon Club used to meet here, and from the balcony flourish their periwigs, discharge squibs, and wave torches, when a great Protestant procession passed by, to burn the effigy of the Pope at the Temple Gate. The house, stories high and covered with carvings, was pulled down for City improvements in . | |
Upon the site of No. (east corner of ) the father of Cowley, that fantastic poet of Charles II.'s time, it is said carried on the trade of a grocer. In a later grocer there sold the finest caper tea for per lb., his fine green for per lb., hyson at per lb., and bohea at per lb. | |
No house in has a more curious pedigree than that [extra_illustrations.1.45.13] , falsely called it was originally the office of the Duchy of Cornwall, in the reign of James I. It is just possible that it was the house originally built by Sir Amyas Paulet, at Wolsey's command, in resentment for Sir Amyas having set Wolsey, when a mere parish priest, in the stocks for a brawl. Wolsey, at the time of the ignominious punishment, was schoolmaster to the children of the Marquis of Dorset. Paulet was confined to this house for or years, to appease the proud cardinal, who lived in . Sir Amyas rebuilt his prison, covering the front with badges of the cardinal. It was afterwards a famous coffee-house, where [extra_illustrations.1.45.8] picked up his great brief. night Thurlow, arguing here keenly about the celebrated Douglas case, was heard by some lawyers with delight, and the next day, to his astonishment, was appointed junior counsel. This cause won him a silk gown, and so his fortune was made by that lucky night at [extra_illustrations.1.45.14] No. was afterwards [extra_illustrations.1.45.9] exhibited her [extra_illustrations.1.45.15] [extra_illustrations.1.45.16] | |
46 | waxwork kings and queens.
[extra_illustrations.1.46.1] There was a figure on crutches at the door; and
[extra_illustrations.1.46.2]
the witch, kicked the astonished visitor as he left. Mrs. Salmon died in . The exhibition was then sold for , and removed to . When Mrs. Salmon removed from to near St. Dunstan's Church, she announced, with true professional dignity, that the new locality Her included figures. When the exhibition removed to , some thieves night got in, stripped the effigies of their finery, and broke half of them, throwing them into a heap that almost touched the ceiling. |
Tonson, Dryden's publisher, commenced business at the near the Inner Temple gate, so that when at the Kit-Kat Club he was not far from his own shop. day Dryden, in a rage, drew the greedy bookseller with terrible force:-- The poet promised a fuller portrait if the tormented him further. | |
Opposite Mrs. Salmon's, doors west of old , till , when the lawyer's lane was widened, stood an old, picturesque, gabled house, which was once the milliner's shop kept, in , by that good old soul, [extra_illustrations.1.46.3] . He was on the Vestry Board of St. Dunstan's, and was constable and overseer for the precinct next ; and on pleasant summer evenings he used to stroll out to the Tottenham fields, rod in hand, to enjoy the gentle sport which he so much loved. He afterwards () lived doors up , west side, and there married the sister of that good Christian, Bishop en, who wrote the of the most simply beautiful religious poems ever written. It is pleasant in busy to think of the good old citizen on his guileless way to the river Lea, conning his verses on the [extra_illustrations.1.46.4] . | |
Praed's Bank (No. , north side) was founded early in the century by Mr. William Praed, a banker of Truro. The house had been originally the shop of Mrs. Salmon, till she moved to opposite , and her wax kings and frail queens were replaced by piles of strong boxes and chests of gold. The house was rebuilt in , from the designs of Sir John Soane, whose curious museum still exists in . Praed, that delightful poet of society, was of the banker's family, and in him the poetry of refined wealth found a fitting exponent. , indeed, is rich in associations connected with bankers and booksellers; for at No. (south side) we come to Messrs. Gosling's. This bank was founded in by Henry Pinckney, a goldsmith, at the sign of the [extra_illustrations.1.46.5] to be seen in the ironwork over the centre window. The original sign of solid silver, about feet in height, made to lock and unlock, was discovered in the house in . It had probably been taken down on the general removal of out-door signs and forgotten. In a secret service-money account of the time of Charles II., there is an entry of a sum of for several parcels of gold and silver lace bought of William Gosling and partners by the fair Duchess of Cleveland, for the wedding clothes of the Lady Sussex and Lichfield. | |
No. (south side), still a bookseller's, was originally kept for years by William Sandby, of the partners of Snow's bank in . He sold the business and goodwill in for , to a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, named John M'Murray, who, dropping the Mac, became the well-known Tory publisher. Murray tried in vain to induce Falconer, the author of to join him as a partner. The Murray died in . In John Murray, the son of the founder, removed to , . In the of a writer describes how [extra_illustrations.1.46.6] used to stroll in here fresh from his fencing-lessons at Angelo's or his sparringbouts with Jackson. He was wont to make cruel lunges with his stick at what he called on Murray's shelves, generally striking the doomed volume, and by no means improving the bindings. Murray used to say with a laugh, Here, in , was published Mrs. Rundell's in , the ; and, in , Byron's | |
The original Columbarian Society, long since extinct, was born at offices in , near St. Dunstan's. This society was replaced by the Pholoperisteron, dear to all pigeon-fanciers, which held its meetings at and eventually amalgamated with its rival, the National Columbarian, the fruitful union producing the National Peristeronic Society, now a flourishing institution, meeting periodically at and holding a great fluttering and most pleasant annual show at the Crystal Palace. It is on these occasions that clouds of carrier-pigeons are let off, to decide the speed with which the swiftest and best | |
47 | trained bird can reach a certain spot (aflight, of course, previously known to the bird), generally in Belgium. |
The [extra_illustrations.1.47.2] [extra_illustrations.1.47.1] -- as it is now called, to distinguish it from near Tower Street--was built prior to . [extra_illustrations.1.47.5] . The older church stood feet forward, blocking the carriage-way, and shops with projecting signs were built against the east and west walls. The churchyard was a favourite locality for booksellers. of the most interesting stories connected with the old building relates to [extra_illustrations.1.47.3] . The murderer's mother and sisters lodged at a haberdasher's in and were attending service in St. Dunstan's Church when the news arrived from Portsmouth; they swooned away when they heard the name of the assassin. Many of the clergy of St. Dunstan's have been eminent men. Tyndale, the translator of the New Testament, did duty here. The poet Donne was another of the St. Dunstan's worthies; and Sherlock and [extra_illustrations.1.47.4] both lectured at this church. The rectory house, sold in , was No. . [extra_illustrations.1.47.6] was of the great London sights in the last century. The giants that struck the hours had been set up in , and were made by Thomas Harrys, of , for and the old clock. Lord Hertford purchased them, in , for , and set them up at his villa in . When a child he was often taken to see them; and he then used to say that some day he would buy Hatton, writing in , says that these figures were more admired on Sundays by the populace than the most eloquent preacher in the pulpit within; and Cowper, in his cleverly compares dull poets to the St. Dunstan's giants:-- The most interesting relic of modern St. Dunstan's is that unobtrusive figure of Queen Elizabeth at the east end. This figure from the old church came from Ludgate when the City gates were destroyed in . It was bought for when the old church came to the ground, and was re-erected over the vestry entrance. The companion statues of King Lud and his sons were deposited in the parish bone-house. On occasion when Baxter was preaching in the old church of St. Dunstan's, there arose a panic among the audience from alarms of the building falling. Every face turned pale; but the preacher, full of faith, sat calmly down in the pulpit till the panic subsided, then, resuming his sermon, said reprovingly,
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Mr. Noble, in his record of this parish, has remarked on the extraordinary longevity attained by the incumbents of St. Dunstan's. Dr. White held the living for years; Dr. Grant, for ; the Rev. Joseph Williamson (Wilkes's chaplain) for years; while the Rev. [extra_illustrations.1.47.7] continued lecturer for years. The solution of the problem probably is that a good and secure income is the best promoter of longevity. Several members of the great banking family of Hoare are buried in St. Dunstan's; but by far the most remarkable monument in the church bears the following inscription:--
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Among the burials at St. Dunstan's noted in the registers, the following are the most remarkable:---, Doctor Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, who crowned Queen Elizabeth; , Dame Bridgett Browne, wife of Sir Richard Browne, major-general of the City forces, who offered reward for the capture of Oliver Cromwell; Christopher Pinchbeck, the inventor of the metal named after him and a maker of musical clocks. The Plague seems to have made great havoc in St. Dunstan's, for in , out of burials, in only months are marked for Plague. The present church, built in -, was designed by John Shaw, who died on the day after the completion of the outer shell, leaving his son to finish his work. The church is of a flimsy Gothic, the true revival having hardly then commenced. The bells are from the old church. The heads over the chief entrance are portraits of Tyndale and Dr. Donne; and the painted window is the gift of the Hoare family. | |
According to Aubrey, Drayton, the great topographical poet, lived at Now it is a clearly proved fact that the Great Fire stopped just doors east of St. Dunstan's, as did also, Mr. Timbs says, another remarkable | |
48 | fire in ; so it is not impossible that the author of that good epic poem, once lived at the present No. , though the next house eastward is certainly older than its neighbour. We have given a drawing of the house. |
That shameless rogue, Edmund Curll, lived at the against St. Dunstan's Church. When this clever rascal was put in the pillory at , he persuaded the mob he was in for a political offence, and so secured the pity of the crowd. The author of describes Curll as a tall, thin, awkward man, with goggle eyes, splay feet, and knock-knees. His | |
translators lay in a bed at the at . He published the most disgraceful books and forged letters. Curll, in his revengeful spite, accused Pope of pouring an emetic into his half-pint of canary when he and Curll and Lintot met by appointment at the . By St. Dunstan's, at the also lived the publisher of the correct edition of | |
Among the booksellers who crowded round old St. Dunstan's were Thomas Marsh, of the who printed Stow's and William Griffith of the in St. Dunstan's | |
49 | Churchyard, who, in the year , issued, without the authors' consent, , written by Thomas Norton and Lord Buckhurst, the real English tragedy and the play written in English blank verse. John Smethwicke, a still more honoured name, of St. Dunstan's Church, published and Richard Marriot, another St. Dunstan's bookseller, published Quarles' Dr. Donne's that delightful, simple-hearted book, Isaak Walton's and Butler's that wonderful mass of puns and quibbles, pressed close as potted meat. Matthias Walker, a St. Dunstan's bookseller, was of |
| the timid publishers who ventured on a certain poem, called giving [extra_illustrations.1.49.1] , the blind poet, the enormous sum of down, on the sale of copies of the , , and impressions, in all the munificent recompense of ; the agreement was given to the in , by Samuel Rogers, the banker poet. | |
Nor in this list of printers must we p forget to insert [extra_illustrations.1.49.2] [extra_illustrations.1.50.3] , who had worked at Caxton's press, and was a contemporary of De Worde. According to Mr. T. C. Noble, to whose work we are deeply indebted, Pynson printed, at his office, the ( | |
50 | in , and afterwards beside St. Dunstan's Church, in ), no less than works. The of these, completed in the year , was probably the book printed in , afterwards a gathering-place for the ink-stained craft. A copy of this book, was sold a few years since for no less than . In the same busy Frenchman published an edition of
the Latin classic printed in England. In he became printer to King Henry VII., and after this produced editions of Fabyan's and Froissart's He seems to have had a bitter feud with a rival printer, named Robert Rudman, who pirated his trade-mark. In of his books he thus quaintly falls foul of the enemy:
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To this brief chronicle of early printers let us add Richard Bancks, who, in , at his office, printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's How envies the of that office, the compositors--nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched a passage or about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious glance! Another great printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the correct folio English translation of the Bible, by permission of Henry VIII. When in Paris, Grafton had to fly with his books from the Inquisition. After his patron Cromwell's execution, in , Grafton was sent to the Fleet for printing Bibles; but in the happier times of Edward VI. he became king's printer at the Grey Friars, now . His former fellowworker in Paris, Edward Whitchurch, set up his press at De Worde's old house, the near the conduit. He published the a copy of which, Mr, Noble says, existed, with its desk-chains, in the vestry of St. Benet's, . Whitchurch married the widow of Archbishop Cranmer. | |
The (now No. , , south) was a celebrated tavern as early as the reign of James I., and in the now nameless alley by its side several houses of entertainment nestled themselves. The tavern is interesting to us chiefly because it was a favourite resort of Pepys, who frequently mentions it in his quaint and graphic way. | |
[extra_illustrations.1.50.1] , is well known by [extra_illustrations.1.50.2] hangs, exciting curiosity, over the fanlight of the entrance. Popular legend has it that this gilt case contains the original leather bottle carried by the founder when he came up to London, with the usual half-crown in his pocket, to seek his fortune. Sir Richard Colt Hoare, however, in his family history, destroys this romance. The bottle is merely a sign adopted by James Hoare, the founder of the bank, from his father having been a citizen and cooper of the city of London. James Hoare was a goldsmith who kept running cash Golden Bottle a low-browed building with a narrow entrance, To Mr. Hoare, for plate, ; Charles Duncombe and James Hoare, Esqrs. In an autobiographical record still extant of the shrievalty of the of these gentlemen, the writer says :-- This Richard Hoare, with Beau Nash, Lady Hastings, & c., founded, in , the Bath General Hospital, to which charity the firm still continue treasurers; and to this same philanthropic gentleman, Robert Nelson, who wrote the well-known book on gave in trust as the legacy to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Noble quotes a curious broadside still extant in which the Sir Richard Hoare, who died in , denies a false and malicious report that he had attempted to cause a run on the , and to occasion a disturbance in the City, by sending persons to the Bank with notes of each. What a state of commercial wealth, to be shaken by the sudden demand of a mere ! | |
Next to Hoare's once stood the where some of the most interesting of the meetings between Dr. Johnson and Boswell took place. | |
51 | The old tavern was pulled down, in , by the Messrs. Hoare, to extend their banking-house. The original was of Shakespeare's time. [extra_illustrations.1.51.1] [extra_illustrations.1.51.2] [extra_illustrations.1.51.3] In some MS. poems by Richard Jackson, a contemporary of the great poet, are some verses beginning, inscribed as The balcony was partly burnt during the Great Fire, and had to be pulled down. Here, in , [extra_illustrations.1.51.4] came by solemn appointment to meet Johnson, so long the god of his idolatry. They had met at the shop of Davis, the actor and bookseller, and afterwards near an eating-house in . Boswell describes his feelings with delightful sincerity and self-complacency. he says, That memorable evening Johnson ridiculed Colley Cibber's birthday odes and Paul Whitehead's and ran down Gray, who had declined his acquaintance. He talked of other poets, and praised poor Goldsmith as a worthy man and excellent author. Boswell fairly won the great man by his frank avowals and his adroit flattery. at last cried the great man to the small man: They then finished a bottle of port each, and parted between and in the morning. As they shook hands, on their way to No. , , where Johnson then lived, Johnson said, A few weeks after the Doctor and his young disciple met again at the and [extra_illustrations.1.51.6] was present. The poet was full of love for Dr. Johnson, and speaking of some scapegrace, said tenderly, At another meeting, on a Scotch gentleman present praising Scotch scenery, Johnson uttered his bitter gibe, In the same month Johnson and Boswell met again at the The latter confessed his nerves were much shaken by the old port and the late tavern hours; and Johnson laughed at people who had accepted a pension from the house of Hanover abusing him as a Jacobite. It was at the that Johnson urged Boswell to publish his [extra_illustrations.1.51.7] [extra_illustrations.1.51.9] and at the he said finely of London, It was here the famous was planned and laid out. Another time we find Goldsmith and Boswell going arm-in-arm to Bolt Court, to prevail on Johnson to go and sup at the but he was indisposed. Goldsmith, since could not go, would not venture at the with Boswell alone. At Boswell's last evening with Johnson, , Johnson would not leave Mrs. Williams, the blind old lady who lived with him, till he had promised to send her over some little dainty from the tavern. This was very kindly and worthy of the man who From to the Society of Antiquaries met at the and discussed subjects then wrongly considered frivolous. The Royal Society held also conclaves at the same celebrated tavern; and here, in , [extra_illustrations.1.51.8] the strongest man of his day, in the presence of persons, rolled up with his iron fingers a large pewter dish. In the ceased to be a tavern, and became, Macklin's Poet's Gallery, and then an auctionroom. The present spurious in , was originally known as
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It was at No. (south side) that Lamb's friend, William Hone, the publisher of the delightful and commenced business about . In he was brought before the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop on Sundays, and for carrying on a retail trade as bookseller and stationer, not being a freeman. The Government had no doubt suggested the persecution of so troublesome an opponent, whose defence of himself is said to have all but killed Lord Ellenborough, the judge who tried him for publishing blasphemous parodies. In Hone took great interest in the case of Eliza Fenning, a poor innocent servant girl, who was hung for a supposed attempt to poison her master, a law stationer in . It was afterwards believed that a nephew of Mr. Turner really put the poison in the dough of some dumplings, in revenge at being kept short of money. | |
Mr. Cyrus Jay, a shrewd observer, was present at Hone's trial, and has described it with vividness:-- | |
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That sturdy political writer, [extra_illustrations.1.52.3] lived at No. (north), and there published his . In I he wrote from America, declaring that if Sir Robert Peel's Bank Bill passed, he would give Castlereagh leave to lay him on a gridiron and broil him alive, while Sidmouth stirred the coals, and Canning stood by and laughed at his groans. In he announced in his that he would place a gridiron on the front of his shop whenever Peel's Bill was repealed. The was repealed, when there was a reduction of the interest of the National Debt. The gridiron so often threatened never actually went up, but it was to be seen a few years ago nailed on the gable end of a candle manufacturer's at Kensington. [extra_illustrations.1.52.4] are the oldest houses standing in . | |
(Nos. and , north side) once boasted a portrait of Dr. Johnson, said to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the keystone of the mantelpiece. This coffee-house is of antiquity, but is chiefly memorable for its useful files of newspapers and for its having been the central committee-room of the Society for Repealing the Paper Duty. The struggle began in , and eventually triumphed, thanks to the president, the Right Hon. T. Milner-Gibson, and the chairman, the late Mr. John Cassell. The house within the last few years has been entirely rebuilt. In former times was quite a house of call and post-office for money-lenders and bill-discounters; though crowds of barristers and solicitors also frequented it, in order to consult the files of London and country newspapers which were hoarded there for more than a century. Mr. Jay has left us an amusing sketch of of the former frequenters of --the late Sir William Owen Barlow, | |
53 | a bencher of the Middle Temple. This methodical old gentleman had never travelled in a stage-coach or railway-carriage in his life, and had not for years read a book. He came in for dinner at the same hour every day, except in Term-time, and was very angry if any loud talkers disturbed him at his evening paper. He once requested the instant discharge of a waiter at because the civil but ungrammatical man had said,
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Footnotes: [extra_illustrations.1.37.3] No. 1--formerly a quiet, grave-looking house [extra_illustrations.1.37.1] Paper with Marygold Water-mark, Child's Cheque, with Temple Bar [extra_illustrations.1.37.2] Prince Rupert [extra_illustrations.1.38.2] Duchess of Marlborough. [extra_illustrations.1.38.3] renowned Devil Tavern, next door eastward [extra_illustrations.1.39.1] Ben Jonson [extra_illustrations.1.39.2] The bust of Apollo [extra_illustrations.1.40.1] first visit to the Devil of Randolph [extra_illustrations.1.40.2] Randolph, ready enough at such work opposite [extra_illustrations.1.41.7] John Cottington [extra_illustrations.1.41.2] portrait of Mull Sack [extra_illustrations.1.41.3] Swift [extra_illustrations.1.41.4] Addison [extra_illustrations.1.41.5] Dr. Garth [extra_illustrations.1.41.6] Colley Cibber [extra_illustrations.1.44.6] Aldworth [extra_illustrations.1.44.1] Cock Tavern interior [extra_illustrations.1.44.2] Tennyson [extra_illustrations.1.44.3] Pepys [extra_illustrations.1.44.7] one of the old tokens of the house [extra_illustrations.1.44.4] Dick's Coffee House [extra_illustrations.1.44.5] between the two Temple gates (No. 16) Title pages [extra_illustrations.1.45.12] Pope [extra_illustrations.1.45.3] Benjamin Motte 2 Title Pages [extra_illustrations.1.45.1] 4 Title Pages: Fleet Street Printers [extra_illustrations.1.45.2] Old Building, Fleet Street [extra_illustrations.1.45.10] Queen Catherine Howard [extra_illustrations.1.45.11] Queen Jane Seymour [extra_illustrations.1.45.4] Charles Lamb [extra_illustrations.1.45.5] Baron Cobham [extra_illustrations.1.45.13] gilt and painted shop opposite Chancery Lane (No. 17, south side) [extra_illustrations.1.45.8] Thurlow [extra_illustrations.1.45.14] Nando's, [extra_illustrations.1.45.9] the place where Mrs. Salmon (the Madame Tussaud of early times) [extra_illustrations.1.45.15] Queen Catherine Howard [extra_illustrations.1.45.16] Queen Jane Seymour [extra_illustrations.1.46.1] Title page [extra_illustrations.1.46.2] Old Mother Shipton [extra_illustrations.1.46.3] Isaak Walton [extra_illustrations.1.46.4] delights of angling [] title page Complete Angler [extra_illustrations.1.46.5] Three Squirrels --a sign still [extra_illustrations.1.46.6] Byron [extra_illustrations.1.47.2] first St. Dunstan's Church [extra_illustrations.1.47.1] Font in St. Dunstan's [extra_illustrations.1.47.5] The present building was erected in 1831 [extra_illustrations.1.47.3] Felton, the fanatical assassin of the Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of Charles I [extra_illustrations.1.47.4] Romaine [extra_illustrations.1.47.6] The clock of old St Dunstan's [extra_illustrations.1.47.7] William Romaine [extra_illustrations.1.49.1] John Milton [extra_illustrations.1.49.2] Richard Pynson, from Normandy [extra_illustrations.1.50.3] Pynson's Printer's Mark [extra_illustrations.1.50.1] No. 37 (Hoare's Bank), south [extra_illustrations.1.50.2] the golden bottle that still [extra_illustrations.1.51.1] Boswell's Introduction to the Club [extra_illustrations.1.51.2] 5 Illustrations of Johnson's life [extra_illustrations.1.51.3] Pascal Paoli [extra_illustrations.1.51.4] Boswell [extra_illustrations.1.51.6] Goldsmith [extra_illustrations.1.51.7] Travels in Corsica; [extra_illustrations.1.51.9] Title page [extra_illustrations.1.51.8] Thomas Topham [extra_illustrations.1.52.3] William Cobbett [extra_illustrations.1.52.4] The two houses next to Cobbett's (184 and 185) |
