Brevis est via.--Virgil, Eclogues.

The , as we have already shown, serving for many centuries as the entrance into London from Surrey and Kent, and, indeed, from the Continent, has always been a very important thoroughfare of the metropolis; but, as a pleasant, gossiping writer of modern times, Mr. Miller, has truthfully observed in his

Picturesque Sketches

What a different feature does the

Southwark

entrance to

London Bridge

present to what it did only a few brief years ago! Every few minutes omnibuses are now thundering to and from the railway terminus; while passengers think no more of journeying to Brighton and back, and remaining

eight

or

ten

hours there, on a long summer's day, than they formerly did of travelling to Greenwich; for it took the old, slow stage-wagons as long to traverse the

five

miles to the latter as our iron-footed steed to drag the

five hundred

passengers at his heels, and land them within sight of the wide, refreshing sea.

Starting from , and passing under the railway bridge which spans the road, we now make our way southward. The alterations made in the , when was planned and formed, involved the demolition of the [extra_illustrations.6.57.2] . This building stood at the angle formed by the and Compter Street, and dated its erection from the close of the last century, when it was built in place of an older edifice, which had become ruinous. The old , in its turn, too, occupied the place of a still older hall, having been rebuilt in the reign of Charles II. After the union of the parish of St. Margaret-at-Hill with that of , the old church of the former parish was desecrated, being used partly as a prison, and partly as a court of justice. The building was destroyed in the fire of . A statue of the king was placed in front of the building by which it was succeeded; and on the base of the pediment was an inscription notifying the

re-edification,

Charley.

History of the Parish of St. Mary Overy:

Justice and Charles have left the hill, The City claimed their place; Justice resides at Dick West's still; But mark poor Charles's case: Justice, safe from wind and weather, Keeps the tavern score; But Charley, turned out altogether Keeps the watch-house door.

After remaining for some time in Crown Court, the poor unfortunate monarch, we believe, found a resting-place in the shady nook of a garden in the . The prison, or compter, as it was called, was removed to , , but has since been demolished. [extra_illustrations.6.58.1] 

[extra_illustrations.6.58.2]  was a very plain and unpretending structure. It consisted of a rusticated basement, from which rose Ionic pilasters. The windows were arched, and the interior was fitted up as a police-office. The police-court was eventually removed further southward, to . In front of the , facing , the hustings for the election of representatives for the borough were usually erected.

The has been occasionally used for criminal trials. Thus we read that on the , of the judges went in procession from to the on Hill, and opened the special commission for the trial of the prisoners concerned in the rebellion in Scotland. Those prisoners who were found guilty and received sentence of death were soon afterwards hung, drawn, and quartered on Common. Between their trial and execution the prisoners were confined in the new gaol, .

On Hill, in the immediate neighbourhood of the , Fair was formerly held. This fair, afterwards so famous, was established by virtue of a charter from King Edward VI., dated . The charter cost the good citizens of London nearly -a large sum at that period-and the fair itself was to be held on the , , and . It was of the great fairs of special importance, described in a proclamation of Charles I.,

unto which there is usually extraordinary resort out of all parts of the kingdom.

Bartholomew Fair, in

Smithfield

; Sturbridge Fair, in Cambridge; and Our Lady Fair, in the borough of

Southwark

.

The

hood-bearer

on this occasion,

wore a fine embroidered cap, said to have been presented to the City by a monastery in

1473

.

Allusions to the fair are frequent enough in the old writers; but it is most familiar to us through Hogarth's picture of

Southwark

Fair.

which,

the town has lately been in expectation to see performed.

Jo Miller,

Matt Prior,

Mr. Doggett, the famous player, is likewise dead, having made a standing provision annually for a coat and badge, to be rowed for by

six

watermen on the

1st of August

, being the day of His Majesty's happy accession to the Throne.

Yesterday the remains of Mr. Dogget were interred at Eltham, in Kent.

The same evening the remains of Matthew Prior, Esquire, were carried to the Jerusalem Chamber, and splendidly interred in

Westminster Abbey

.

Jo

Angel Tavern,

Besides the theatrical entertainments, Faux's sleight of hand and the mechanical tricks and dexterity of Dr. Pinchbeck were for many years favourite adjuncts of Fair.

John Evelyn in his

Diary,

I saw in

Southwark

, at

St. Margaret's

Faire, monkies and asses dance and do other feates of activity on ye tight rope; they were gallantly clad

a la mode

, went upright, saluted the company, bowing and pulling off their hatts; they saluted

one

another with as good a grace as if instructed by a dancing-master. They turned heels over head with a basket having eggs in it, without breaking any; also with lighted candles in their hands and on their heads, without extinguishing them, and with vessells of water, without spilling a drop. I also saw an Italian wench daunce and performe all the tricks on ye tight rope to admiration; all the Court went to see her. Likewise here was a man who tooke. up a piece of iron cannon of about

400

lb. weight, with the haire of his head onely.

From Pepys's own quaint and amusing description, too, we glean some further particulars of the entertainments provided here. On the , he writes:

To

Southwark

Fair, very dirty, and there saw the puppet-show of Whittington, which is pretty to see; and how that idle thing do work upon people that see it, and even myself too! And thence to Jacob Hall's dancing on the ropes, where I saw such action as I never saw before, and mightily worth seeing; and here took acquaintance with a fellow who carried me to a tavern, whither came the music of this booth, and by-and-by Jacob Hall himself, with whom I had a mind to speak, whether he ever had any mischief by falls in his time. He told me,

Yes, many, but never to the breaking of a limb.

He seems a mighty strong man. So giving them a bottle or

two

of wine, I away.

In the reign of George II. the fairs of London were in the zenith of their fame. Mr. Frost observes in his

Old Showmen:

During the

second

quarter of the eighteenth century they were resorted to by all classes of the people, even by royalty; and the theatrical booths which formed part of them boasted of the best talent in the profession. Not only were they regarded as the nurseries of histrionic ability, as the provincial theatres came afterwards to be regarded; but they witnessed the efforts to please of the best actors of the London theatres when in the noon of their success and popularity. Cibber, Quin, Macklin, Woodward, Shuter, did not disdain to appear before a Bartholomew Fair audience, nor Fielding to furnish them with the early gushings of his humour. The inimitable Hogarth made the light of his peculiar genius shine upon them, and the memories of the

Old Showman

are preserved in more than

one

of his pictures.

In the registers of the parish of occurs the following curious entry, under date -:

Recd in dawnsing [dancing] money of the Maydens, iiis. viiji.

At the east end of , close by Hill, formerly stood Union Hall. On the opening of this street to the Borough by taking down the

Greyhound Inn,

Swan Inn,

At No. in the was born Dr. Elliotson, F.R.S., the celebrated physician. He was the son of a chemist and druggist, whose house bore the sign of the

Golden Key,

Pendennis,

, opposite , keeps in remembrance a mint for the coinage of money, which was established here by Henry VIII. at Suffolk House, the residence of his brother-in-law, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. The mansion was a large and stately edifice, fronting upon the . It was ornamented with turrets and cupolas, and enriched with carved work; at the back, the range of outbuildings formed an enclosed court. The house was sometimes called the

Duke's Palace,

Brandonne's Place, in Southwarke,

Edward VI., in the year of his reign, came from and dined at this house, where he knighted John Yorke, of the Sheriffs of London. He afterwards returned through the City to . Queen Mary gave the mansion to Nicholas Heath, Archbishop of York,

and to his successors for ever, to be their inn or lodging for their repair to London,

Archbishop Heath sold the premises, which were partly pulled down, many small cottages being built on the site. Some portion of the house which was left became the residence of Edward Bromfield, who was Lord Mayor in . He was owner of the premises in . His son John was created a baronet in , and in he was described as

of

Suffolk Place

, Bart.,

A back attic at the house of an

Insolventcourt agent

A bed and bedding,

were sent over for me and made up on the floor. The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took possession of my new abode, I thought it was a Paradise.

Garlands

Old Curiosity Shop.

The Mint is thus curiously described in the

New View of London,

It is on the west side of

Blackman Street

, near against

St. George's Church

, and was so called for that a sumptuous house, built by Charles Brandon,

The King's Bench, Southwark, In 1830.

late Duke of Suffolk, in the reign of Henry VIII., coming into the king's hands, was called Southwork

(sic

) Place, and a mint of coinage was there kept for the king. The inhabitants of late-like those of the White Fryars, Savoy, &c.-have assumed to themselves a protection from arrests for debts, against whom a severe though just statute was made in the

8

and

9

William and Mary, whereby any person having moneys owing from any in these pretended privileged places, may, upon a legal process taken out, require the Sheriffs of London and Middlesex, the head Bailiff of the Dutchy Liberty, or the High Sheriff of Surrey, or Bailiff of Southwork, or their deputies, to take out a

posse comitatus

, and arrest such persons, or take their goods upon execution.

Yet notwithstanding this place pretends as much to Privilege as before, though this Act has supprest all other (such-like) places. And these streets are reckoned within the compass of this Mint-viz.,

Mint Street

, Crooked Lane, and Bell's Rents; also

Cannon Street

,

Suffolk Street

,

St. George Street

,

Queen Street

, Kin;, Street,

Peter Street

, Harrow

Alley, Anchor Alley, and

Duke Street

, all in the parish of

St. George's

, Southwork.

Ambulator

has since been suppressed by the legislature, who have lately passed an Act for establishing a Court of Conscience here for the better recovery of small debts.

The place had become a refuge for the worst characters--in fact, another Alsatia, into which few bailiffs or officers of justice dared to venture. Felons and outlaws, debtors and vagabonds, herded there ; and to this day it is of the plague-spots of the metropolis. Marriages, not , like those of Mayfair and the Fleet, were performed here constantly, and highwaymen and burglars found a secure retreat in its mazy courts. Mat o' the Mint is of Macheath's companions, and Jonathan Wild was a frequent visitor. To poor authors it was a more secure Grub Street; but though duns could not enter, starvation and death could. Here, in , died Nahum Tate, once poet laureate, and, in conjunction with Brady, the author of that metrical version of the Psalms which superseded Sternhold and Hopkins's psalmody in prayer-books. Allusion is often made to the precincts of the Mint by the poets and comic writers. The reader of Pope's satires will not forget the lines-

No place is sacred, not the church is free,

E'en Sunday shines no Sabbath Day to me;

Then from the Mint walks forth the man of rhyme,

Happy to catch me just at dinner-time.

Nathaniel Lee, the dramatist, lived often in the Mint; he had frequent attacks of insanity, and at period of his life spent years in Bedlam. He wrote plays, and possessed genius (as Addison admitted) well adapted for tragedy, though clouded by occasional rant, obscurity, and bombast. Latterly, this ill-starred poet depended for subsistence on a small weekly allowance from the theatre. He died in or . Pope often alludes to the Mint with scorn, and he makes mention of Lee's existence here in the following couplet:--

In durance, exile, Bedlam, or the Mint,

Like Lee or Budgell, I will rhyme and print.

There are numerous allusions in old gossiping books and pamphlets of the century to the customs of the Mint, the vagabond population of which maintained their privileges with a high hand. If a bailiff ventured to cross the boundary of the sanctuary, he was seized and searched for proofs of his calling; then, when the perilous documents were found, dragged by the mob from pump to pump, and thoroughly soused. A ducking in of the open sewer ditches followed, and then he was made to swear, kissing a brickbat debaubed with filth from the , that he would never again attempt to serve a process in the Mint. The next step was the payment of certain fees for the purchase of gin. If he had no money in his pockets, he was handed over to the tender mercy of the women and boys, who gave him a few more duckings and shampooings with filthy brickbats, and then kicked him out of the precincts.

An attempt was made to curtail the privilege of protection afforded by the Mint in the reign of William III., but it was not finally suppressed till the Georgian era.

Thomas Miller, in his

Picturesque Sketches of London,

Stretching from

St. George's Church

, in the Borough, into the high road which leads to the cast-iron bridge of

Southwark

, are no end of narrow courts, winding alleys, and ruined houses, which a bold-hearted man would hesitate to thread after dusk. Here stand numbers of houses which are unroofed and uninhabited. Years ago they were doomed to be pulled down, and it was resolved that a wide open street should be built upon the space they now occupy. Years may still roll on before they are removed. There is no place like this in the suburbs of London, no spot that looks so murderous, so melancholy, and so miserable. Many of these houses, besides being old, are very large and lofty. Many of these courts stand just as they did when Cromwell sent out his spies to hunt up and slay the Cavaliers, just as they again were hunted in return, after the Restoration, by the Royalists, who threaded their intricacies, with sword and pistol in hand, in search of the fallen Roundheads. There is a smell of past ages about these ancient courts, like that which arises from decay--a murky closeness--as if the old winds which blew through them in the time of the Civil Wars had become stagnant, and all old things had fallen and died just as they were blown together, and left to perish. So it is now. The timber of these old houses looks bleached and dead; and the very brickwork seems never to have been new. In them you find wide, hollow-sounding, decayed staircases, that lead into great ruinous rooms, whose echoes are only awakened by the shrieking and running of large black-eyed rats, which eat through the solid floors, through the wainscot, and live and die without being startled by a human voice. From the

Southwark Bridge Road

you may see the roofs

of many of these great desolate houses; they are broken and open; and the massy oaken rafters are exposed to the summer sun and the snow of winter. Some of the lower floors are still inhabited; and at the ends of these courts you will see standing, on a fine day, such characters as you will meet with nowhere besides in the neighbourhood of London. Their very dress is peculiar; and they frequent the dark and hidden public-houses which abound in these close alleys-placed where the gas is burning all day long. Excepting the courts behind

Long Lane

, in

Smithfield

, we know no spot about London like this, which yet fronts

St. George's Church

, in the Borough.

The Mint,

London,

was the scene of

the life, character, and behaviour

of Jack Sheppard; and within the same precincts, at the

Duke's Head,

still standing in Redcross Street, his companion in villainy, Jonathan Wild, kept his horses. The Mint and its vicinity has been an asylum for debtors, coiners, and vagabonds of every kind, ever since the middle of the

sixteenth

century. It is districts like these which will always furnish the population of the prisons, in spite of the best attempts to reform and improve offenders by a wise, beneficent, and enlightened system of discipline, until moral efforts of a similar nature be directed to the fountainhead of corruption. There are districts in London whose vicious population, if changed to-day for

one

of a higher and more moral class, would inevitably be deteriorated by the physical agencies by which they would be surrounded, and the following generation might rival the inhabitants of

Kent Street

or the Mint.

The Mint is awfully memorable in modern annals; for amid the squalor of its narrow streets appeared, in , the case of Asiatic cholera in the metropolis. Again, Thomas Miller, in his work above quoted, refers to this miserable locality when he says,

The

Land of Death,

in which we dwelt, was

Newington

, hemmed in by

Lambeth

,

Southwark

,

Walworth

,

Bermondsey

, and other gloomy parishes, through which the pestilence

The cholera, during the visitation of 1849.

stalked like a destroying angel in the deep shadows of the night and the open noon of day.

In the autobiographical reminiscences of his childhood, which are embodied in his

Life,

low-browed

a golden dog licking a golden pot,

Fat Pig,

Wild Indian,

Little Dwarf Lady,

In the early part of the year , steps were taken by the Metropolitan Board of Works with the view of levelling with the ground a large part of the disreputable neighbourhood now under notice. The areas comprised , , and Elizabeth Place. area included the wretched street of that name, associated with robberies and crimes of all sorts, which leads from the Borough to ; and it was further proposed to widen the new street and to a minimum width of feet, and to extend Little of the same width into , at a cost of over .

, nearer

Stones' End,

Dirty Lane,

Moon-rakers

The original of this,

History of Sign-boards,

may have been

one

of the stories of the

Wise Men of Gotham.

A party of them going out

one

bright night, saw the reflection of the moon in the water; and, after due deliberation, decided that it was a green cheese, and so raked for it. Another version is, that some Gothamites, passing in the night over a bridge, saw from the parapet the moon's reflection in the river below, and took it for a green cheese. They held a consultation as to the best means of securing it, when it was resolved that

one

should hold fast to the parapet whilst the others hung from him hand-in-hand, so as to form a chain to the water below, the last man to seize the prize. When they were all in this position, the uppermost, feeling the load heavy, and his hold giving away, called out,

Hallo! you below, hold tight while I take off my hand to spit on it!

The wise men below replied,

All right!

upon which he let go his hold, and they all dropped into the water, and were drowned.

In this street lived the last barber who let blood and drew teeth in London, the last of the

To which,

Autobiography,

I may add my remembrance of his shop-window, with its heap of drawn teeth, and the barber's pole at the door. His name was Middleditch, and,

renovare dolorem,

I have a vivid recollection of his dentistry.

At the corner of and stands Winchester Hall. This is neither more nor less than a concert-room, of the ordinary music-hall type, and is attached to a public-house which originally bore the sign of

The Grapes.

Here herbs did grow And flowers sweet; But now 'tis called St. George's Street.

Within my remembrance,

Records of My Life,

there was a place called Finch's Grotto Gardens, a sort of minor

Vauxhall

, situated near the

King's Bench Prison

. There was a grotto in the middle of the garden, and an orchestra and rotunda. The price of admission was sixpence, and the place was much frequented by the humbler classes.

was absolutely reduced to the necessity of accepting an engagement at these Grotto Gardens.

Finch's Grotto Gardens, doubtless, was of those suburban tea-gardens which were at time pretty plentiful in the outskirts of London. The Prussian writer, D'Archenholz, in his account of England, published towards the close of the last century, is represented by Chambers as observing that,

The English take a great delight in the public gardens near the metropolis, where they assemble and take tea together in the open air. The number of these in the neighbourhood of the capital is amazing, and the order, regularity, neatness, and even elegance of them are truly admirable. They are, however,

very rarely frequented by people of fashion; but the middle and lower ranks go there often, and seem much delighted with the music of an organ which is usually played in an adjoining building.

A large building, occupying sides of a quadrangle, adjoining Finch's Grotto Gardens, was at time the workhouse of parish. It was built at an expense of about , and was opened in . Under the new Poor Law Act, the parish of forms a union with that of Christchurch; is the larger parish of the .

At the south-west corner of , and at the entrance to the , stands the large building, surrounded by a high brick wall, formerly known as the King's (or Queen's) Bench Prison. The original stood on the east side of the , near the Marshalsea, and was certainly as old as the time of Richard II. Thither Prince Hal (afterwards Henry V.) was sent by Judge Gascoigne for endeavouring to rescue a convicted prisoner, of his personal attendants--that is, if we may believe the genial old gossiper, Stow-but some historians have repudiated the story altogether. It is, however, mentioned by Hall, Grafton, and Sir Thomas Elyot, a favourite of Henry VIII., in his book called

The Governour.

In a play called ., written in the time of Elizabeth, before , in the scene in which the historical account of the violence of the prince against the chief justice is introduced, [extra_illustrations.6.64.2] , a famous comedian and mimic, acts both judge and clown. Knell, another droll comedian of the time, acted the prince, and gave the chief justice such a blow as felled him to the ground, to the great diversion of the audience. Tarlton, the judge, goes off the stage, and returns as Tarlton, the clown: he demands the cause of the laughter.

Oh,

hadst thou been here to have seen what a terrible blow the prince gave the judge.

What! strike a judge!

terrible indeed must it be to the judge, when the very report of it makes my cheek burn.

Readers of the

Uncommercial Traveller

dry-rot.

wilful murder

Jack Boot,

History of Surrey,

The prison occupies an extensive area of ground; it consists of

one

large pile of building, about

120

yards long. The south, or principal front, has a pediment, under which is a chapel. There are

four

pumps of spring and river water. Here are

224

rooms, or apartments,

eight

of which are called state-rooms, which are much larger than the others. Within the walls are a coffee-house and

two

public-houses; and the shops and stalls for meat, vegetables, and necessaries of almost every description, give the place the appearance of a public market; while the numbers of people walking about, or engaged in various amusements, are little calculated to impress the stranger with an idea of distress, or even of confinement. The walls surrounding the prison are about

thirty

feet high, and are surmounted by

cheveaux de frise

; but the liberties, or

rules,

as they are called, comprehend all

St. George's

Fields,

one

side of

Blackman Street

, and part of the

Borough High Street

, forming an area of about

three

miles in circumference. These rules are usually purchasable after the following rate, by the prisoners:

five

guineas for small debts;

eight

guineas for the

first hundred pounds

of debt, and about half that sum for every subsequent

hundred pounds

. Day-rules, of which

three

may be obtained in every term, may also be purchased for

4s. 2d.

for the

first

day, and

3s.

iod. for the others. Every description of purchasers must give good security to the governor, or, as he is called, marshal. Those who buy the

first

-mentioned may take up their residence anywhere within the precincts described; but the day-rules only authorised the prisoner to go out on those days for which they are bought. These privileges,

render the King's Bench the most desirable (if such a word may be thus applied) place of incarceration for debtors in England; hence persons so situated frequently remove themselves to it by

habeas corpus

from the most distant prisons in the kingdom.

rules,

rules,

The discipline of the prison,

was tyrannical, yet lax, capricious and undefined. The regulations were either enforced with violence and suddenness, or suffered to become a dead letter. Nobody cared much about them; and at

one

time or other they were broken by every prisoner within the walls. Occasionally an example was made of a more than usually refractory inmate; but the example was despised as a warning, and operated as an incentive to infraction. The law by which the prisoners were kept in some sort of moral subordination emanated from themselves, and from the necessity which is recognised in all communities of combinations of the weak to resist the oppressions of the strong, a very mild administration of justice was acknowledged and enforced. The exigencies of the system demanded dispatch and vigour. A sort of

lynch-law

superseded the orders of the marshal. It was the duty of that functionary to reside in a house in the court-yard, within the outward boundary of the prison. It was meant by the legislature that he should be at hand to administer justice, to attend to applications for redress, to enforce obedience by his presence, prevent dis turbance among the unruly host of his subjects, and to carry into effect the orders which, as a servant of the Court of King's Bench, he was bound to see respected. It is notorious that Mr. Jones, for many years the marshal of the prison, did not reside. He was only in attendance on certain days at his office, and held a sort of court of inquiry into the state of his trust, the turnkeys and the deputy-marshal acting as

amici curie

, and instructing him in his duties. He made, at stated times, inspections of the prison; and in his periodical progress was attended by his subordinates in great state. He was a fat, jolly man, rather slow in his movements, not very capable of detecting abuses by his own observation, and not much assisted in his explorations by others. It was a mere farce to see him waddle round the prison. His visits produced no beneficial effect: the place, somewhat more orderly during the time of his stay, on the

moment of his departure relapsed into its normal state of irregularity and disorder. In the halcyon days of his authority there was no such institution as the Court for the Relief of Insolvent Debtors. The legislature from time to time cleared out the over-gorged prisons by passing Acts to discharge unfortunate insolvents, and what was called the

Lords' Act

helped to prevent the enormous conflux of such people. But this inefficient kind of legislation was not what was wanted; it acted as a temporary alleviation of the miseries and abominations of the system, but it failed to abate. the nuisance, which may be said to have flourished with renewed vigour from the prunings which removed its effects. The consequence was that the prison was crowded with persons of all classes,

The Marshalsea Prison, In The Eighteenth Century.

ranks, callings, professions and mysteries-nobles and ignobles, parsons, lawyers, farmers, tradesmen, shopmen, colonels, captains, gamblers, horsedealers, publicans, butchers, &c. The wives of many of these shared the fortunes and misfortunes of their husbands; and scores of widows and spinsters were amongst the majority who could not pass the gates. It may be calculated that the numerical strength of this strange colony amounted to an average of

eight hundred

or a

thousand

individuals.

The state of this gaol is thus described by Smollett, about the time of its establishment in the ; it was much in the same state down till late in the present century:--

The

King's Bench Prison

. . appears like a neat little

The Marshalsea In 1800. The Racquet Court Of The Marshalsea. Interior Of The Palace Court Of The Marshalsea.

regular town, consisting of

one

street, surrounded by a very high wall, including an open piece of ground, which may be termed a garden, where the prisoners take the air, and amuse themselves with a variety of diversions. Except the entrance, where the turnkeys keep watch and ward, there is nothing in the place that looks like a gaol, or bears the least colour of restraint. The street is crowded with passengers; tradesmen of all kinds here exercise their different professions; hawkers of all sorts are admitted to call and vend their wares, as in any open street in London. There are butchers' stands, chandlers' shops, a surgery, a tap-house, well frequented, and a public kitchen, in which provisions are dressed for all the prisoners gratis, at the expense of the publican. Here the voice of misery never complains, and, indeed, little else is to be heard but the sound of mirth and jollity. At the further end of the street, on the right hand, is a little paved court leading to a separate building, consisting of

twelve

large apartments, called staterooms, well furnished, and fitted up for the reception of the better sort of Crown prisoners; and on the other side of the street, facing a separate direction of ground, called the common side, is a range of rooms occupied by prisoners of the lowest order, who share the profits of a beggingbox, and are maintained by this practice and some established funds of charity. We ought also to observe that the gaol is provided with a neat chapel, in which a clergyman, in consideration of a certain salary, performs divine service every Sunday.

John Howard, the philanthropist, found in the a subject for deserved complaint. He describes the Gatehouse at as empty, but this as full to overflowing. Indeed, it was so crowded in the summer of , that a prisoner paid for a separate bed, and many who had no crown-pieces to spare for such a luxury, lay all night in the chapel. The debtors, with their families, amounted to a , -thirds of whom were lodged within the prison walls, the rest

living within the rules.

Here, at the close of the last century, the notorious George Hanger, Lord Coleraine, was an inmate for nearly a twelvemonth. We have already had occasion to speak of this eccentric and unfortunate nobleman. At time he tried to

make both ends meet

costs out of pocket,

those blessed regions of rural retirement,

Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage; Minds innocent and peaceful take That for a hermitage ;

lived there as a gentleman on

three shillings

a day.

persons of quality,

In this prison were confined many of the objects of Government prosecutions during the ministries of Pitt, Addington, Perceval, and Lord Liverpool.

John Timbs tells us, in his

Autobiography,

within the rules of the King's Bench,

Dr. Syntax,

A Tour in Search of the Picturesque.

The Letters of a Nobleman to his Son

German Gil Bias,

the grand tour,

Diary

at this time, and indeed till his death, he was an inhabitant of the

King's Bench Prison

,

when he came to Printing House Square it was only by virtue of a day-rule. I believe,

that Mr. Walter offered to release him from prison by paying his debts; but this he would not permit, as he did not acknowledge the justice of the claim for which he suffered imprisonment. He preferred to live upon an allowance from Mr. Walter, and was, he said, perfectly happy.

Poor Haydon, about , was an inmate of this prison, where he painted a

Mock Election

within the rules,

In this cavern of indolence, dissipation, and misery,

Great Painters and their Works,

Morland reigned and revelled. But the inevitable end was approaching. He was struck with palsy; and when the Insolvent Act of

1802

brought release, it was to the poor miserable wreck-physical, intellectual, and moral --of what had once been George Morland.

In the early part of the present century, the emoluments of the

marshal

rules.

day-rules

Near the was the manufactory and bleaching-ground of Mr. Alsager, who gave up his prosperous business in order to write the

City Articles

Again making our way towards , we pass by

Stones' End

The Merry Man's Resolution

Roxburgh Ballads :

Farewel to the Bankside, Farewel to Blackman's Street, Where with my bouncing lasses I oftentimes did meet; Farewel to Kent Street garrison, Farewel to Horsly-down, And all the smirking wenches That dwell in Redriff town:

And come, love,

Stay, love,

Go along with me;

For all the world I'll forsake for thee.

In a large house, on the east side of this street, resided for many years Mr. (afterwards Sir James) South, the son of a chemist and druggist. While practising medicine, South gave special attention to astronomy. Between and , from the roof of his house, which was nearly opposite , he, in conjunction with Mr. (afterwards Sir) J. F. Herschel, made some valuable observations on double and triple stars, both astronomers being armed with what in that day were considered powerful telescopes of inches aperture, constructed by Tulley. A few years later South removed to , Kensington, where he fitted up a telescope of larger dimensions. Of the sale of his instruments at the last-named place we have given an account in a former chapter. He was of the founders of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was knighted by William IV. in . He died in .

George IV., in his last hours, expressed a desire that Sir James should receive from the Civil List a pension of per annum, which was

Philosophical Transactions

Another distinguished native of the same part of is the gifted poetess, Eliza Cook, who was born here in , and who from early womanhood has stirred the hearts of the middle classes of Englishmen and Englishwomen by her spirited and hearty songs as few other poets have done. Joseph Lancaster, the educationist, was born in in .

Until the formation of the Dover Road early in the present century, , commencing eastward of , at the north end of , was part of the great way from Dover and the Continent to the metropolis. This narrow thoroughfare, originally called Kentish Street, was a wretched and profligate place. As far back as it was described as

very long and ill-built, chiefly inhabited by broom-men and mumpers,

whom God so blessed that he became a very rich and a very honest man, and in the end Sheriff of Surrey.

Came home, there perishing neere

10,000

poor creatures weekly; however, I went all along the City and suburbs from

Kent Street

to St. James's, a dismal passage, and dangerous to see so many coffins expos'd in the streetes, now thin of people; the shops shut up, and all in mournful silence, as not knowing whose turn might be next. I went to the Duke of Albemarle for a pest-ship, to wait on our infected men, who were not a few.

was the route taken by Chaucer's jolly pilgrims, of whom we shall have more to say in the next chapter, when dealing with the

Tabard

has borne its evil reputation to the present day; and it is immortalised in Charles Dickens's

Uncommercial Traveller

the worst kept part of London--in a police sense, of course-excepting the

Haymarket

.

It would be for the honour of the kingdom to improve the avenue to London by way of

Kent Street

, which is a most disgraceful entrance to such an opulent city. A foreigner, in passing this beggarly and ruinous suburb, conceives such an idea of misery and meanness, as all the wealth and magnificence of London and

Westminster

are afterwards unable to destroy. A friend of mine who brought a Parisian from Dover in his own post-chaise, contrived to enter

Southwark

when it was dark, that his friend might not perceive the nakedness of this quarter.

wild Arabs

Southwark

Sunday-school Society,

It is very little of this world's goods that they get, unless it is now and then a flea, or another insect not quite so nimble in its movements.

, at the corner of the , Borough, and of , is dedicated to [extra_illustrations.6.71.3] , the patron saint of England. The original church, which stood here, belonged to the Priory of ; it was a very ancient edifice, and was dedicated to St. George of Cappadocia. It is described in the

New View of London,

a handsome building, the pillars, arches, and windows being of Gothic design, and having a handsome window about the middle of the north side of the church, whereon were painted the arms of the

twenty-one

companies of London who contributed to the repair of this church in

1629

, with the names of the donors; the sums respectively given by them amounting in all to

£ 156

16s. 8d.

This edifice was

sixty-nine

feet long to the altar-rails,

sixty

feet wide, and

thirty-five

feet high. The tower, in which were

eight

bells, was

ninety-eight

feet high.

We hear of the old church as having been given in , by Thomas Arderne, on whose ancestor the parish had been bestowed by the Conqueror, to the abbot and monks of . It is stated in the work above mentioned that among the distinguished persons who lie buried in , are Bishop Bonner, who is said to have died in , in the Marshalsea Prison (a place, as Dr. Fuller observes, the safest to secure him from the people's fury); and the famous Mr. Edward Cocker, a person so well skilled in all parts of arithmetic as to have given rise to the classic phrase,

according to Cocker.

the most eminent composer and engraver of letters, knots, and flourishes of his time,

in the passage at the west end, within the church, near the school.

Vulgar Arithmetic,

Ingenious Cocker! now to rest thou'st gone,

No art can show thee fully but thine own.

Thy vast arithmetic alone can show

The sums of thanks we for thy labours owe.

Here also was interred John Rushworth, the author of

Historical Collections

In this church General George Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle, was married in , to Nan Clarges, the daughter of a farrier in , and widow of another farrier named Radford or Ratford, who had been his sempstress, and

used to carry him linen.

The old church having undergone many repairs, and being ruinous, the parishioners applied to Parliament, and obtained an Act to have another church erected in its place; in consequence of which the present edifice was begun in , and

Ichabod! the glory of the Church has departed. I never observe the new churches on the Surrey side of the river without imagining that their long bodies and short steeples look, from a distance, like the rudders of so many sailing-barges. Where is the grand oriel? where is the old square tower? What have we in their stead? A common granary casement and a shapeless spire.

most awkwardly standing upon stilts.

About midway between and , stood in very remote times the Marshalsea, or prison of the Court of the Knight Marshal, in which all disputes arising between servants of the royal household, and offences committed within the King's Court, were adjudicated upon. Its jurisdiction extended for miles round , the City of London excepted. It was once of high dignity, and coeval with the Courts of Common Law. This [extra_illustrations.6.72.1] , as it was afterwards called, was removed from to in ; it was abolished by Act of Parliament in , and ceased to exist from the end of that year. For very many years no legal business was transacted in the Marshalsea Court, though it continued to be opened and closed with the same legal formalities as the , the judges and other officers being the same in both.

In the

New View of London

The Marshal's Court, situate or kept in the Marshalsea Prison on the eastern side of the Burrough

(sic

) of

Southwark

, was

first

intended for determining causes

or differences among the king's menial servants, held under the Knight Marshal, whose steward is judge of this court, and whereunto also belong

four

council

(sic

) and

six

attorneys.

none except members of

Clifford's Inn

may practise in this court.

the county gaol for felons and the Admiralty gaol for pirates.

We have no exact record of the establishment of the [extra_illustrations.6.73.1] , but we find it casually mentioned in an account of a mob riot in . A sailor belonging to the fleet commanded by the Duke of Lancaster, Lord High Admiral, was killed by a man of gentle blood, who was imprisoned in the Marshalsea; but it being supposed by the sailors that powerful friends were at work to obtain his pardon, a number of sailors broke into the prison, murdered the offender, and then hanged his body on the gallows, returning afterwards to their ships with trumpets sounding. years afterwards, Wat Tyler's followers seized and murdered the marshal of the prison. Bishop Bonner, the last Roman Catholic Bishop of London, having been deposed by Queen Elizabeth. died (as f

Another anecdote is told of Bishop Bonner,

London,

at the period of his committal to the Marshalsea, which is worth repeating here, as it shows his temper in a more favourable light than that which the voice of the public ascribes to him. On his way to the prison,

one

called out,

The Lord confound or else turn thy heart!

Bonner coolly replied,

The Lord send thee to keep thy breath to cool thy porridge.

To another, who insulted him on his deprivation from the episcopal rank, he could even be witty.

Good morrow, Bishop quondam,

was the remark.

Farewell, knave semper,

was the reply.

Rejected Addresses.

In Colonel Culpeper was consigned to the Marshalsea as a prisoner. John Evelyn tells the story of his seizure, in his

Diary,

Just as I was coming into the lodgings at

Whitehall

, a little before dinner, my Lord of Devonshire standing very neere his Majesty's bed-chamber doore in the lobby, came Colonel Culpeper, and in a rude manner looking my lord in the face, asked whether this was a time and place for excluders to appeare. My lord at

first

tooke little notice of what he said, knowing him to be a hot-headed fellow, but he reiterated it, my lord asked Culpeper whether he meant him; he said, yes, he meant his lordship. My lord told him he was no excluder; the other affirming it againe, my lord told him he lied, on which Culpeper struck him a box on the eare, which my lord return'd, and fell'd him. They were soone parted; Culpeper was seiz'd, and his majesty order'd him to be carried to the Greene Cloth officer, who sent him to the Marshalsea as he deserved.

The Marshalsea escaped Lord George Gordon's rioters, in , when the King's Bench, the Borough, and Clink prisons were demolished; but shortly afterwards it was removed nearer to , where it remained until its abolition in . At that time it contained rooms and a chapel.

For a description of this prison as it was half a century ago, the reader may as well be referred to the

Little Dorritt

Boz,

The family,

lived more comfortably in prison than they had done for a long time out of it. They were waited on still by the maid-of-all-work from

Bayham Street

, the orphan girl from Chatham workhouse, from whose sharp little worldly, yet also kindly, ways I took my

first

impressions of the Marchioness in

The Old Curiosity Shop.

Most readers of Dickens's works will remember old Mr. William Dorritt, the

father of the Marshalsea,

Little Mother

child of the Marshalsea.

In , whilst engaged in the purchase of Gad's Hill, Charles Dickens paid a visit to the Marshalsea, then in the course of demolition, to see what traces were left of the prison, of which he had received such early and vivid impressions as a boy, and which he had been able to rebuild almost brick by brick in

Little Dorritt,

Went to the Borough yesterday morning before going to Gad's Hill, to see if I could find any ruins of the Marshalsea. Found a great part of the original building, now

Marshalsea Place.

I found the rooms that had been in my mind's eye in the story. . . . There is a room there, still standing, that I think of taking. It is the room through which the ever-memorable signers of Captain Porter's petition filed off in my boyhood. The spikes are gone, and the wall is lowered; and any body can go out now who likes to go, and is not bed-ridden.

Some considerable portion of the Marshalsea is still standing, in , on the north side of ; it is now used for business purposes.

In was published a book entitled

The Ancient Legal Course and Fundamental Constitution of the Palace-Court or Marshalsea; with the Charges of all Proceedings there, and its present Establishment explained, whereby it will appear of what great authority this Court hath been in all Times.

In the neighbourhood of the Marshalsea prison there was formerly an inn with a sign-board called the

Hand.

Amusements for the Meridian of London,

, it is almost needless to remark, embraces an important manufacturing and commercial district. Along the water-side, from to , there is a long succession of wharves and warehouses, which all seem to ply a busy trade. A considerable hat manufacture is carried on in and around parish.

the Borough

that a certain Harry Baily, or Bailly, a

hostelry keeper

of

Southwark

, represented that borough in Parliament in the reigns of Edward III. and Richard II.

Ostyler,

We cannot read Chaucer's description of the Host without acknowledging the likelihood of his being a popular man among his fellow-townsmen, and

one

likely to be selected for his fitness to represent them in Parliament.

The tradesmen of Southwark-even if some of them have attained to opulence-are, however, we fear, like those of most other places; and there are, or have been,

black sheep

History of Quack Doctors

cheating people out of their money, by pretending to cure them by charms, or by only looking at the patient.

The principles of free trade would seem to have been almost unknown in the reign of Edward I., if, as stated by Maitland in his

History of London,

no person should go out of the City into

Southwark

to buy cattle,

The Surrey side of the Thames being so low and flat, and void of all that can act as a relief to its monotony, was almost on that very account predisposed to be made into a pleasure resort. Added to this, its rents were low, on account of the tolls upon the bridges, and hence a sufficient number of acres to constitute a public garden were easily obtainable, even by somewhat impecunious speculators, and the very great success of had somehow or other familiarised the public mind with the idea that it was the

right thing

The sanitary arrangements of certainly were not good in the early part of the reign of George III. Pigs and sheep were killed for the London markets in many parts of the Borough.

The kennels of

Southwark

,

run blood

two

days in every week.

We can form a tolerably accurate notion of the extent and appearance of at the beginning of the century. Southward of and the Mint spread Fields, reaching nearly to the archiepiscopal palace at , and the village of . The was a lane between hedgerows; and there were bishops' palaces and parks, mansions, theatres, and pleasure-gardens near the green banks of the river. There were forts for the defence of the borough at the end of , near the , and in Fields, where afterwards stood the

Dog and Duck,

The journal of a London alderman, at the close of the last century, under date of Sunday, , thus describes the of his day:--

I dined in the Boro' with my friend Parkinson

en famille

, and in the evening walked thro' some gardens near the Kentish Road, at the expense of

one

halfpenny each. We went and saw a variety of people who had heads on their shoulders, and eyes and legs and arms like ourselves, but in every other respect as different from the race of mortals we meet at the West-end of the town as a native of Bengal from a Laplander. This observation may be applied with great truth in a general way to the whole of the Borough and all. that therein is. Their meat is not so good, their fish is not so good, their persons are not so cleanly, their dress is not equal to what we meet in the City or in

Westminster

; indeed, upon the whole, they are

one hundred

years behindhand in civilisation.

[extra_illustrations.6.57.2] Town Hall

[extra_illustrations.6.58.1] Southwark toward St. Margaret's Hill

[extra_illustrations.6.58.2] The new Town Hall

[extra_illustrations.6.59.1] Turkish Rope Dancer

[extra_illustrations.6.64.2] Richard Tarlton

[extra_illustrations.6.64.3] Kempe

[] See Vol. V, p. 294.

[] See Vol. V., p. 209.

[] See Vol. V., p. 131.

[] See Vol. V., p. 215.

[extra_illustrations.6.71.1] New School of St. George the Martyr

[extra_illustrations.6.71.2] Rev. Rowland Hill

[extra_illustrations.6.71.3] St. George the Martyr

[] Others, however, hold that he lies buried at Copford, in Essex.

[] See Vol. III., p. 122.

[extra_illustrations.6.72.1] Marshal's, or Palace Court

[extra_illustrations.6.73.1] Marshalsea prison