----I do walk
Methinks like Guide Vaux, with my dark lanthorn,
Stealing to set the town o’ fire; i’ th’ country
I should be taken for William o’ the Wisp,
Or Robin Goodfellow.
FLETCHER.
I AM somewhat of an antiquity-hunter, and am fond of exploring London in
quest of the relics of old times. These are principally to be found in
the depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost in a wilderness of
brick and mortar, but deriving poetical and romantic interest from the
commonplace, prosaic world around them. I was struck with an instance of
the kind in the course of a recent summer ramble into the city; for the
city is only to be explored to advantage in summer-time, when free from
the smoke and fog and rain and mud of winter. I had been buffeting for
some time against the current of population setting through Fleet
Street. The warm weather had unstrung my nerves and made me sensitive to
every jar and jostle and discordant sound. The flesh was weary, the
spirit faint, and I was getting out of humor with the bustling busy
throng through which I had to struggle, when in a fit of desperation I
tore my way through the crowd, plunged into a by-lane, and, after
passing through several obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaint
and quiet court with a grassplot in the centre overhung by elms, and
kept perpetually fresh and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet of
water. A student with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partly
reading, partly meditating on the movements of two or three trim
nursery-maids with their infant charges.
I was like an Arab who had suddenly come upon an oasis amid the panting
sterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and coolness of the place
soothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued my walk, and came,
hard by, to a very ancient chapel with a low-browed Saxon portal of
massive and rich architecture. The interior was circular and lofty and
lighted from above. Around were monumental tombs of ancient date on
which were extended the marble effigies of warriors in armor. Some had
the hands devoutly crossed upon the breast; others grasped the pommel of
the sword, menacing hostility even in the tomb, while the crossed legs
of several indicated soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades to
the Holy Land.
I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangely
situated in the very centre of sordid traffic; and I do not know a more
impressive lesson for the many of the world than thus suddenly to turn
aside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit down
among these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust, and
forget-fullness.
In a subsequent tour of observation I encountered another of these
relics of a “foregone world” locked up in the heart of the city. I had
been wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets, destitute
of anything to strike the eye or excite the imagination, when I beheld
before me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It opened into a
spacious quadrangle forming the courtyard of a stately Gothic pile, the
portal of which stood invitingly open.
It was apparently a public edifice, and, as I was antiquity-hunting, I
ventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting no one either to oppose
or rebuke my intrusion, I continued on until I found myself in a
great hall with a lofty arched roof and oaken gallery, all of Gothic
architecture. At one end of the hall was an enormous fireplace, with
wooden settles on each side; at the other end was a raised platform,
or dais, the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man in
antique garb with a long robe, a ruff, and a venerable gray beard.
The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and seclusion, and
what gave it a mysterious charm was, that I had not met with a human
being since I had passed the threshold.
Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of a large
bow window, which admitted a broad flood of yellow sunshine, checkered
here and there by tints from panes of colored glass, while an open
casement let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my head on my hand
and my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort of reverie about
what might have been the ancient uses of this edifice. It had evidently
been of monastic origin; perhaps one of those collegiate establishments
built of yore for the promotion of learning, where the patient monk,
in the ample solitude of the cloister, added page to page and volume to
volume, emulating in the productions of his brain the magnitude of the
pile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door in an arch at
the upper end of the hall was opened, and a number of gray-headed old
men, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one, proceeding in
that manner through the hall, without uttering a word, each turning a
pale face on me as he passed, and disappearing through a door at the
lower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaks and
antiquated air comported with the style of this most venerable and
mysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years, about
which I had been musing, were passing in review before me. Pleasing
myself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit of romance, to
explore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows existing in the
very centre of substantial realities.
My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts and corridors
and dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice had many additions and
dependencies, built at various times and in various styles. In one open
space a number of boys, who evidently belonged to the establishment,
were at their sports, but everywhere I observed those mysterious
old gray men in black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimes
conversing in groups; they appeared to be the pervading genii of the
place. I now called to mind what I had read of certain colleges in
old times, where judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and other
forbidden and magical sciences were taught. Was this an establishment of
the kind, and were these black-cloaked old men really professors of the
black art?
These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced into
a chamber hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouth
objects--implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffed
alligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece;
while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a human
skull, flanked on each side by a dried cat.
I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which seemed a
fitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I was startled at beholding
a human countenance staring at me from a dusky corner. It was that of a
small, shrivelled old man with thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry,
projecting eyebrows. I at first doubted whether it were not a mummy
curiously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that it was alive. It was
another of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I regarded his quaint
physiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous and sinister objects by
which he was surrounded, I began to persuade myself that I had come upon
the arch-mage who ruled over this magical fraternity.
Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to enter. I
obeyed with singular hardihood, for how did I know whether a wave of his
wand might not metamorphose me into some strange monster or conjure me
into one of the bottles on his mantelpiece? He proved, however, to be
anything but a conjurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all the
magic and mystery with which I had enveloped this antiquated pile and
its no less antiquated inhabitants.
It appeared that I had made my way into the centre of an ancient asylum
for superannuated tradesmen and decayed householders, with which was
connected a school for a limited number of boys. It was founded upwards
of two centuries since on an old monastic establishment, and retained
somewhat of the conventual air and character. The shadowy line of old
men in black mantles who had passed before me in the hall, and whom I
had elevated into magi, turned out to be the pensioners returning from
morning, service in the chapel.
John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities whom I had made the
arch magician, had been for six years a resident of the place, and
had decorated this final nestling-place of his old age with relics
and rarities picked up in the course of his life. According to his
own account, he had been somewhat of a traveller, having been once in
France, and very near making a visit to Holland. He regretted not having
visited the latter country, “as then he might have said he had been
there.” He was evidently a traveller of the simple kind.
He was aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I found,
from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blind
man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum was
profoundly ignorant, and a broken-down gentleman who had run through
a fortune of forty thousand pounds left him by his father, and ten
thousand pounds, the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemed
to consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as of lofty
spirit to be able to squander such enormous sums.
P.S.--The picturesque remnant of old times into which I have thus
beguiled the reader is what is called the Charter House, originally
the Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on the remains of an ancient
convent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble charities set
on foot by individual munificence, and kept up with the quaintness and
sanctity of ancient times amidst the modern changes and innovations
of London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen better days,
are provided in their old age with food, clothing, fuel, and a yearly
allowance for private expenses. They dine together, as did the monks of
old, in the hall which had been the refectory of the original convent.
Attached to the establishment is a school for forty-four boys.
Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, speaking of the
obligations of the gray-headed pensioners, says, “They are not to
intermeddle with any business touching the affairs of the hospital,
but to attend only to the service of God, and take thankfully what is
provided for them, without muttering, murmuring, or grudging. None to
wear weapon, long hair, colored boots, spurs, or colored shoes, feathers
in their hats, or any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but such as
becomes hospital-men to wear.” “And in truth,” adds Stow, “happy are
they that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the world, and
fixed in so good a place as these old men are; having nothing to care
for but the good of their souls, to serve God, and to live in brotherly
love.”
For the amusement of such as have been interested by the preceding
sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a
little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of local
history put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small
brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted
shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a little
dubious at first whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales often
passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have brought
our general character for veracity into such unmerited reproach. On
making proper inquiries, however, I have received the most satisfactory
assurances of the author’s probity, and indeed have been told that he
is actually engaged in a full and particular account of the very
interesting region in which he resides, of which the following may be
considered merely as a foretaste.