HOLIDAYS OF THE LONDON POOR.....293
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LIST OF ENGRAVINGS.
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PAGE
Frontispiece.
Vignette in Title.
Roman Hypocaust, Thames-street 22
Roman Remains, found in Thames-street 23
St. Paul's Cathedral.--Charity Children's Anniversary Festival 31
Prerogative Court.--Doctors' Commons 39
Saracen's Head, Friday-street 48
Roman Lamp 49
Gerard the Giant 50
Gerard's Hall Crypt 52
Bow Church, Cheapside 54
St. Stephen's, Walbrook 61
Roman Vessels found in Cannon-street 63
The London Stone 64
Lord Mayor's Jewel 65
St. Michael's Church, Cornhill 68
Lombard Street 71
St. Mary's Woolnoth 73
Old Billingsgate 83
St. Dunstan's-in-the-East 92
Silver-gilt Shrine 95
Tippoo's Elephant Howdah 97
Ajunta Caves 99
Tower of London 107
Queen's Diadem, Queen's Coronation Bracelets, Prince of Wales' Crown,
Old Imperial Crown, Queen's Crown, Spiritual Sceptre, and Temporal
Sceptre 115
Imperial Orb, Ampulla, Golden Salt-Cellar of State, Anointing Spoon,
and State Salt-Cellars 117
Mast-House, Blackwall 129
London Docks--Outer Basin 140
Butcher Row, Whitechapel 143
The Four Swans' Inn Yard 151
St. Giles's, Cripplegate 165
Old Staircase in Christ's Hospital 171
Christ's Church 172
Smithfield 179
Newgate 185
Somerset House 204
Church of St. Mary-le-Savoy 205
Interior of the Savoy Church 206
Westminster Abbey 218
Horse-Guards 222
The Rookery, St. Giles's 231
Queen Anne's Bath 241
Street Performers 258
Highgate Cemetery 271
One-Tree Hill, Greenwich Park 284
Old Pensioner, Greenwich Park 285
Telescopes, Greenwich Park 286
Gipsies, Greenwich Park 287
Greenwich Park 289
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ADVERTISEMENT.
The greater portion of the following work originally appeared in the
columns of the _Illustrated London News_. The beauty of the sketches,
and the permanent interest attached to them, led the proprietors of the
_National Illustrated Library_ to believe that a reprint of them would
form a valuable and welcome addition to that series of illustrated
works. The various articles have accordingly been carefully revised by
the author; many additions have been made, and curious extracts from
rare old works have been introduced, more completely to illustrate the
various scenes and objects described.
The engravings, which consist chiefly of views of churches and other
public buildings, of antiquities, views of streets and markets, sketches
of street scenes, &c., have been carefully executed from original
drawings.
The work is not to be considered as a guide-book, but as a series of
sketches in "poetic prose" of various parts of London, in which, while
perfect accuracy is preserved, the dulness of a mere itinerary is
avoided; in which London of the _present_ is sketched from constant
personal observation, and London of the _past_ from the rich historical
and legendary lore that exists regarding it, and in which the thoughts
that arise in "a free mind and loving heart," from a contemplation of
the various objects and scenes described, are expressed in eloquent and
forcible language.
Nor must the work be considered as exhaustive of the subject. The places
and scenes chosen for "Picturesque Sketches" are chiefly in the eastern
or older part of London. To have included the whole of the metropolis
would have required not one volume, but many. Nevertheless, it will be
found that the subjects to which chapters are devoted are the most
interesting in London, and that though the work is not complete as
regards the whole of this mighty city, yet each chapter is complete as
far as regards its individual subject.
_227 Strand, July 1, 1852._
PICTURESQUE SKETCHES OF LONDON.
Ancient London.
Instead of wasting words on traditions which few can believe, or filling
my pages with accounts of the fabulous kings who are said to have
descended from Æneas, and to have reigned in Britain centuries before
the Roman Invasion, I shall commence the present work by shewing that
the remote past will ever remain a mystery which man is not permitted to
penetrate. The following opening to my _History of the Anglo-Saxons_
applies to the "unknown" origin of London--the new Troy of ancient
fiction--the Augusta of the Romans--for in it I have described my
impression of the unwritten History of the Past:
"Almost every historian has set out by regretting how little is known of
the early inhabitants of Great Britain and its metropolis--a loss which
only the lovers of hoar antiquity deplore, since, from all we can with
certainty glean from the pages of contemporary history, we should find
but little more to interest us than if we possessed written records of
the remotest origin of the Red Indians; for both would alike but be the
history of an unlettered and uncivilised race. The same dim obscurity,
with scarcely an exception, hangs over the primeval inhabitants of every
other country; and if we lift up the mysterious curtain which has so
long fallen over and concealed the past, we only obtain glimpses of
obscure hieroglyphics; and, from the unmeaning fables of monsters and
giants, to which the rudest nations trace their origin, we but glance
backward and backward, to find that civilised Rome and classic Greece
can produce no better authorities than old undated traditions, teeming
with fabulous accounts of heathen gods and goddesses. What we can see of
the remote past through the half-darkened twilight of time, is as of a
great and unknown sea, on which some solitary ship is afloat, whose
course we cannot trace through the shadows which every where deepen
around her, nor tell what strange land lies beyond the dim horizon to
which she seems bound. The dark night of mystery has for ever settled
down upon the early history of our island, and the first dawning which
throws the shadow of man upon the scene, reveals a rude hunter clad in
the skins of beasts of the chase, whose path is disputed by the maned
and shaggy bison, whose rude hut in the forest fastnesses is pitched
beside the lair of the hungry wolf, and whose first conquest is the
extirpation of these formidable animals. And so, in as few words, might
the early history of any other country be written. The shores of Time
are thickly strewn with the remains of extinct animals, which, when
living, the eye of man never looked upon, as if from the deep sea of
Eternity had heaved up one wave, which washed over and blotted out for
ever all that was coeval with her silent and ancient reign, leaving a
monument upon the confines of this old and obliterated world, for man in
a future day to read, on which stands ever engraven the solemn sentence,
'Hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther: beyond this boundary all is
mine!'
"Neither does this mystery end here; for around the monuments which were
reared by the earliest inhabitants of Great Britain there still reigns a
deep darkness; we know not what hands piled together the rude remains of
Stonehenge; we have but few records of the manners, the customs, or the
religion of the early Britons: here and there a colossal barrow heaves
up above the dead; we look within, and find a few bones, a few rude
weapons, either used in war or the chase, and these are all; and we
linger in wonderment around such remains! Who those ancient voyagers
were that first called England the 'Country of Sea Cliffs,' we know not;
and while we sit and brood over the rude fragments of the Welsh Triads,
we become so entangled in doubt and mystery as to look upon the son of
Aedd the Great, and the Island of Honey to which he sailed, and wherein
he found no man alive, as the pleasing dream of some old and forgotten
poet; and we set out again with no more success to discover who were the
earliest inhabitants of England, leaving the ancient Cymri and the
country of Summer behind, and the tall, silent cliffs to stand, as they
had done for ages, looking over a wide and mastless sea.
"We then look among the ancient names of the headlands, and harbours,
and mountains, and hills, and valleys, and endeavour to trace a
resemblance to the language spoken by some neighbouring nation; and we
only glean up a few scattered words, which leave us still in doubt, like
a confusion of echoes, one breaking in upon the other; a minglement of
Celtic, Pictish, Gaulish, and Saxon sounds; where, if for a moment but
one is audible and distinct, it is drowned by other successive clamours
which come panting up with a still louder claim; and in very despair we
are compelled to step back again into the old primeval silence. There we
find geology looking daringly into the formation of the early world, and
boldly proclaiming that there was a period of time when our island
heaved up bare and desolate amid the silence of the surrounding
ocean--when on its ancient promontories and grey granite peaks not a
green branch waved nor a blade of grass grew; and no living thing,
saving the tiny corals, as they piled dome upon dome above the naked
foundations of this early world, stirred in the 'deep profound' which
reigned over those sleeping seas. Onward they go, boldly discoursing of
undated centuries that have passed away, during which they tell us the
ocean swarmed with huge monstrous forms; and that all those countless
ages have left to record their flight are but the remains of a few
extinct reptiles and fishes, whose living likenesses never again
appeared in the world. To another measureless period are we fearlessly
carried--so long as to be only numbered in the account of time which
eternity keeps--and other forms, we are told, moved over the floors of
dried-up oceans--vast animals which no human eye ever looked upon alive;
these, they say, also were swept away, and their ponderous remains had
long mingled with and enriched the earth; but man had not as yet
appeared, nor in any corner of the whole wide world do they discover, in
the deep-buried layers of the earth, a single vestige of the remains of
the human race.
"What historian, then, while such proofs as these are before his eyes,
will not hesitate ere he ventures to assert who were the first
inhabitants of any country, whence they came, or at what period of time
that country was first peopled? As well might he attempt a description
of the scenery over which the mornings of the early world first
broke,--of summit and peak which, ages ago, have been hurled down, and
ground and powdered into atoms. What matters it about the date when such
things once were, or at what time or place they first appeared? We can
gaze upon the gigantic remains of the mastodon or mammoth, or on the
grey silent ruins of Stonehenge; but at what period of time the one
roamed over our island, or in what year the other was first reared, will
for ever remain a mystery. The earth beneath our feet is lettered over
with proofs that there was an age in which these extinct monsters
existed, and that period is unmarked by any proof of the existence of
man in our island. And during those not improbable periods, when oceans
were emptied and dried amid the heaving up and burying of rocks and
mountains,--when volcanoes reddened the dark midnights of the world,
when the "earth was without form and void,"--what mind can picture aught
but His Spirit "moving upon the face of the waters?"--what mortal eye
could have looked upon the rocking and reeling of those chaotic ruins
when their rude forms first heaved up into the light? Is not such a
world stamped with the imprint of the Omnipotent--from when He first
paved its foundation with enduring granite, and roofed it over with the
soft blue of heaven, and lighted it by day with the glorious sun, and
hung out the moon and stars to gladden the night, until at last He
fashioned a world beautiful enough for the abode of his "own image" to
dwell in: then He created man. And what matters it whether or not we
believe in all these mighty epochs? Surely it is enough for us to
discover throughout every change of time the loving-kindness of God for
mankind: we see how fitting this globe was at last made for man's
dwelling-place; that before the great Architect had put his last finish
to his mighty work, instead of leaving us to starve amid the Silurian
sterility, He prepared the world for man, and in place of the naked
granite, spread out a rich carpet of verdure for him to tread upon, then
flung upon it a profusion of the sweetest flowers. Let us not, then,
daringly stand by, and say thus it was fashioned, and so it was formed;
but by our silence acknowledge that it never yet entered the heart of
man to conceive how the Almighty Creator laid the foundation of the
world.
"To his great works must we ever come with reverential knee, and before
them lowly bow; for the grey rocks, and the high mountain summits, and
the wide-spreading plains, and the ever-sounding seas, are stamped with
the image of Eternity; a mighty shadow ever hangs over them. The grey
and weather-beaten headlands still look over the sea, and the solemn
mountains still slumber under their old midnight shadows; but what human
ear first heard the murmur of the waves upon the beaten beach, or what
human foot first climbed up those high-piled summits, we can never know.
"What would it benefit us could we discover the date when our island was
buried beneath the ocean; when what was dry land in one age became the
sea in another; when volcanoes glowed angrily under the dark skies of
the early world, and huge extinct monsters bellowed and roamed through
the old forests and swam in the ancient rivers, which have perhaps ages
ago been swept away? What could we find more to interest us were we in
possession of the names, the ages, and the numbers of the first
adventurers who were perchance driven by some storm upon our sea-beaten
coast, than what is said in the ancient Triad before alluded to? "There
were no more men alive, nor any thing but bears, wolves, beavers, and
the oxen with the high prominence," when Aedd landed upon the shores of
England. What few traces we have of the religious rites of the early
inhabitants of Great Britain vary but little from such as have been
brought to light by modern travellers who have landed in
newly-discovered countries in our own age. They worshipped idols, and
had no knowledge of the true God; and, saving in those lands where the
early patriarchs dwelt, the same Egyptian darkness settled over the
whole world. The ancient Greeks and Romans considered all nations,
except themselves, barbarians; nor do the Chinese of the present day
look upon us in a more favourable light; while we, acknowledging their
antiquity as a nation, scarcely number them amongst such as are
civilised. We have yet to learn by what hands the round towers of
Ireland were reared, and by what race the few ancient British monuments
that still remain were piled together, ere we can enter those mysterious
gates which open upon the history of the past. We find the footprint of
man there, but who he was, or whence he came, we know not; he lived and
died, and whether or not posterity would ever think of the rude
monuments he left behind concerned him not; whether the stones would
mark the temple in which he worshipped, or tumble down and cover his
grave, concerned not his creed; with his hatchet of stone, and
spear-head of flint, he hewed his way from the cradle to the tomb; and
under the steep barrow he knew that he should sleep his last sleep, and,
with his arms folded upon his breast, he left the dead past to bury its
dead: he lived not for us."
At what remote period of time the spot on which London now stands was
first peopled can never be known. A few rude huts peering perchance
through the forest-trees, with grassy openings that went sloping
downwards to the edge of the Thames, where the ancient Briton embarked
in his rude coracle, or boat made of wicker and covered with the hides
of oxen,--a pile of rugged stones on the summit of the hill which marked
the cromlech, or druidical altar, and probably stood on the spot now
occupied by St. Paul's, and which nearly two thousand years ago was
removed to make room for the Roman temple dedicated to Victory--was,
from all we know of other ancient British towns, the appearance of
London soon after the period when the old Cymri first landed in England,
and called it the "Country of Sea-Cliffs."
We next see it through the dim twilight of time occupied by the Romans.
Triumphal arches and pillared temples and obelisks look down upon the
streets of the Roman city. Then comes Boadicea thundering at the head of
her revengeful Britons in her war-chariot: we hear the tramp of horses
and the dealing of heavy blows; see the tesselated pavement stained with
blood; behold pale faces upturned in the grim repose of death; then many
a night of darkness again settles upon the streets of the old city.
[Illustration: ROMAN HYPOCAUST, THAMES-STREET.]
But deep down it is rich in Roman remains; far below the invading
legions tramped, upheaving the victorious eagles above the dim old
tesselated pavements; for London has its Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Unnumbered generations have trampled into dust its splendour, even as
our own glory may one day be mingled in the urn that holds the ashes of
empires. Crushed Samian ware, a rusted demi-god, a headless hero, whose
very memory has perished; the coins of conquerors, whose features time
and decay have corroded, and whose mere names (without a good or evil
deed to tell how they came there,) are just catalogued in the "lots" of
history; these are the mouldering remains of conquest, lying as far
beneath our feet as we in intellectual arts have towered above their
former possessors. We belong to the future, as they do to the present;
and when we perish, our glory will be found lettered in every corner of
the rounded globe. The finger of the shattered giant will be picked up
in the remotest continent, and unborn generations will sigh, as they
exclaim, "Here lies a fragment of the once mighty England that gave us
life."
Westward of London we turn backward, and endeavour to obtain a view of
that ancient neighbourhood as it looked when the Roman city stood upon
the hill; and the Strand, as it is still called, was a low, waste, and
reedy shore, over which the tide came and went, and rocked the tufted
reeds which waved over many a surrounding acre. Something like what it
was in ancient days may yet be seen in those reedy and willowy inlets
above the Red House at Battersea; and could we have stood and looked
across the river while the spot on which Westminster now stands was an
island, covered with thorns, and down to the water edged with green
flags and rushes, we should have seen, far below what was called the
Long Ditch (where the river divided, beside a low, lonely shore, on
which the waves went lapping and surging, as they still do about those
dreary bends that skirt the marshes of Woolwich), the fisherman in his
coracle, the only figure that moved beside the sedgy margin of that
mastless river, over which the piping of the tufted plover might then
have been heard.
[Illustration: ROMAN REMAINS, FOUND IN THAMES-STREET.]
Turning to the ancient city, Erkenwin the Saxon first appears with his
boasted descent from Wodin, the terrible god of battle, conquers the
remnant of the ancient Britons, tramples upon their standard of the red
dragon, and plants the banner of the white horse upon the rude
fortifications of their capital. After many convulsions we see the
kingdoms of the Octarchy overturned by Egbert, the first king of all the
Saxons; and in some old hall, with its low stunted pillars and heavy
vaulted roof (centuries ago levelled to the earth), we behold him seated
gravely with his witenagemot, or assembly of wise men, deliberating upon
the best means of repelling the incursions of the Danes. Under the reign
of Ethelwulf the city is plundered by the stormy sea-kings and their
fearless followers. We next see the army of Alfred hovering between the
outskirts of the city and the foot of Highgate-hill, and protecting the
old Londoners while they gather in their harvest; for Hastings, with his
ivory horn swung to his baldric, was encamped with his Danish army
beside the river Lea, and Alfred had thrown himself like a shield
between the city and its enemies. We behold Etheldred the Unready escape
into Normandy, and Sweyn, king of Denmark, passes the low-browed archway
which leads into the capital. The old grey wall which stretched beside
the Thames, where wharves and warehouses now stand, is defended by
Edmund Ironside and his followers against Canute the Dane, and ships
bearing the banner of the black raven are moving below the rude bridge,
which at that early period stretched over into Southwark. Harold, the
last king of the Saxons, next crosses that old bridge, in the sunset of
an autumnal evening, on his way to the fatal field of Hastings; and when
we again look upon those ancient streets they are filled with Norman
soldiers, and echoing to the bray of Norman trumpets, for William the
Conqueror is passing through the city to take possession of the remains
of the old Roman Tower.
We next glance at that ancient bridge, covered with houses, which
spanned across the Thames, part of which stood even a few years ago, and
had, after much patching and repairing, endured the wear and tear of
time, with all the assaults of wind, water, war, and fire, for above six
hundred years. Even until within the last half century the wheels of the
great water-works first erected by Peter the Dutchman continued to moan
and groan, and splash and dash, just as they had done for many a weary
year,--for those ever-moving water-wheels seemed like the living spirit
of the old bridge; and when they stopped, the ancient fabric, which had
so long tottered to its crazy foundations, was soon swept away and
numbered amongst the things that have been. Narrow, dark, and dangerous
was the gloomy old street that, hung between the water and the sky, went
stretching across the broad bosom of the Thames. Great darksome gables
spanned overhead every way; and if you looked up in the twilight of
those past days, you saw grinning above you, and looking down from the
battlements, the ghastly and gory heads of murdered men, which were
stuck upon spikes and left to bleach in the sun, wind, rain, and
darkness, day after day and night after night. When you looked down,
you still seemed to see them, as if they moved side by side with you,
past the windows of the old chapel, underneath the low-browed arches,
beside the ancient shops; and ever below went the mad waters, gibbering
and groaning and hissing; and in the deep midnight, when the old piers
echoed back every footfall, you almost fancied that all those bodiless
heads had leaped off the battlements, and, with their gory locks
streaming out, were at your heels, hallooing and shrieking above and
below the bridge, and "mopping and mowing" from every overhanging gable
you hurried under.
When the wind was high, it ever went singing through those old houses
and that silent chapel all night long; and the crazy old water-works
sent out a thousand strange supernatural sounds; while all the rickety
casements chattered again like a thousand teeth that have no power over
the bitter blast which set them in motion. Then, too, the old
swing-signs, which the least wind shook, swung and groaned upon their
rusty hinges, one against the other; and what with the creaking of the
signs, the whistling and moaning of the wind, that went booming with a
hollow and unearthly sound under and over the vaulted street, mingled
with the rush of the waters, and the cries for help from those beneath,
who had run foul against the jutting sterlings, you wonder how any one
could ever get a wink of sleep in those high old houses. That ancient
bridge was the only highway into Kent and Surrey, and many a time had it
been crossed by the conqueror and the conquered--one day a kingly
procession, the next a train of prisoners in chains. It was alternately
shaken by the shouts of Wat Tyler and his rebels, then by the acclaim
which greeted some heroic king from the throats of the assembled
citizens. And sometimes the drawbridge was raised, and the inhabitants
of Southwark left to defend themselves as they could, while the citizens
on the Middlesex side were safe, for between them there yawned an
impassable gulf.
Below the Tower we find a few old churches and ancient mansions, which
stood long before the Great Fire went reddening and blackening through
the streets of the old City. The row of picturesque shops at the
entrance of Whitechapel will recall the period when this was the court
end of London. The second house, with the projecting bay-windows, is
rich in ornamental details. The Prince of Wales's feathers, the arms of
Westminster, the _fleur de lis_ of France, and thistle of Scotland are
still standing on the front of this ancient mansion; and it is just
possible that the house was once the residence of Prince Henry, son of
James I., as the monogram, yet visible, bears the initials H.S.,
surmounted with plumes, which, very probably, stand for Henry Stuart.
The Earls of Northumberland, the Throgmortons, and many noble families
and wealthy merchants, in former days, resided in this neighbourhood;
for, beside the Tower, there was Crosby-place at no great distance,
where the Protector, afterwards Richard III., held his court.
How changed is this ancient neighbourhood! The very house in which the
Black Prince lodged when he resided in the City had long before Stowe's
time been turned into an hostel, and the apartments in which grave
councils were held, and where many a glorious victory was planned, even
then echoed back the voice of some Francis, as, amid "the clinking of
pewter," he exclaimed, "Anon, anon, sir;" or, "Score a pint of bastard
in the Half-Moon." The citizens had at that early period turned into
bowling-alleys the quaintly laid-out gardens in which the Percies of old
Northumbria "took their pleasure;" and where some pretty Kate, shewing
her pearly teeth, had no doubt threatened to "break the little finger"
of her fiery Hotspur, who was too eager to leave her dainty bower and
hasten to the wars.
He also has long since vanished--the haughty Prior of the Holy Trinity,
who, with "jingling bridle" in hand, bestrode his prancing palfrey, and
rode "second to none" amongst the rich aldermen of London, proud of his
broad domains, which in those days extended to the margin of the Thames,
and over many rich acres beside those on which Whitechapel now stands.
No Earl of Salisbury now goes "sounding" through the City streets, with
his long train of five hundred mounted followers, clad in his household
livery, and causing the old shopkeepers to cease their cry of "What do
you lack?" while they watched the gay cavalcade until it was lost under
the low-browed archway that stood before his ancient City mansion by
Dowgate.
Baynard Castle, where Henry VII. received his ambassadors, and in which
the crafty Cecil plotted against Lady Jane Grey, almost before the ink
was dry with which he had solemnly registered his name to serve her, has
long ago been numbered amongst the things that were; and seldom do the
"silver snarling trumpets," with their loud acclaim, disturb the deep
sleep of the old City, to announce the in-coming or the out-going of
royalty. The archers of Mile-end, with their chains of gold, have
departed. The spot on which the tent stood where bluff Hal regaled
himself after having witnessed their sports, is now covered with
mean-looking houses: the poetry of ancient London is dead. The voice of
the stream is for ever hushed that went murmuring before the dwellings
of our forefathers, along Aldgate and down Fenchurch-street, and past
the door of Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Lombard street, until it
doubled round by the Mansion House and emptied itself into the river.
There is still a sound of waters by the wharf at London Bridge; but,
oh, how different from the "brawling brook" of former days is the evil
odour that now arises from the poisonous sewer which there empties
itself into the Thames!
Remains of ancient London are still to be found in the neighbourhood of
Smithfield. The courts and alleys about Cloth Fair, and behind
Long-lane, are perfect labyrinths, and so full of ins and outs, that
they astonish the stranger who ventures to thread his way through them.
Bartholomew's Church is also one of the very oldest in the City; and we
never look upon its weather-beaten tower without recalling the scenes
which have taken place in the vast area which stretches out before it.
There is no spot in London richer in historical associations than
Smithfield. There the marshal of England presided over the lists; and
there also the mitred bishops congregated to gaze upon the poor martyr
who was burnt at the stake: that old church-tower has many a time glared
redly as it was lit up by the blaze of those consuming fires; its
vaulted roof has echoed back the clang of arms, when battle-axe and
sword clashed against helmet and shield, while scarcely a murmur arose
from the lips of the mighty multitude that stood silent and breathless
around the combatants.
Shakspeare and Ben Jonson have doubtless passed through those old narrow
courts which still surround Bartholomew's Church. It was to Smithfield
Bardolph went to buy a horse, which we know he would steal if once
allowed to get astride, and that, if any inquiries were made after it at
the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, Falstaff would avouch for Bardolph's
honesty. To us the whole neighbourhood is hallowed by a thousand
poetical associations, and we never journey through it without feeling
as if we were living again amid the past. As for Bartholomew Fair,
though it now only lives in name, it will be remembered for ever in the
works of rare Ben Jonson. To the thoughtful man it is a land of pleasant
and solemn memories.
Then the streets of ancient London, what must they have been? In the
west the roads were in such a state that the king could not open
parliament in wet weather, unless faggots were first thrown into the
deep pits and ruts. Foot and carriage-way had no other distinction than
a row of posts; and if the passenger missed running his head against the
low pent-house-lids, which here and there projected over the way, ten to
one he came to some opening where a grim-headed and grinning spout sent
down its torrents of water from the old-fashioned gabled building, and
drenched him to the very skin. If he rushed out into the road, there
"Laden carts with thundering wagons meet,
Wheels clash'd with wheels, and barr'd the narrow street."
The roads of London were full of pits and hollows even in William and
Anne's time; and the coach-box was then a box indeed--a regular
coach-repairer's shop on a small scale; for to get through a long street
in bad weather without either sticking fast, breaking down, turning
over, or being turned over by some reckless carman, was something to
boast about in those days. The coachman had then need to be a good hand
at repairs, and was oftener seen tinkering up his vehicle than mounted
on his box, which in time was covered with the hammer-cloth, to conceal
the materials and implements which almost every hour were called into
use. What a night-journey was in those old unpaved streets may be
readily imagined, when it is known that there were not more than a
thousand lamps to light the whole City--that these were only kept
burning until midnight during one-half of the year, and the remainder of
the season were never once lighted. Such was the London we now live in,
a hundred years ago. Little link-boys then generally lay in wait at the
corner of every street, either ready for a few pence to light the
benighted wanderer home, or more probably to lead him astray, and
extinguish the light at some dangerous spot, where the thieves he was
associated with were in waiting.
Over thousands of troubles and trials rolled the rapid years; then the
"Great Fire" broke out, and nearly every ancient landmark was destroyed;
and now we have to grope our way through the twilight of dim records and
a few rudely executed prints, to catch a glimpse of the old London in
which our forefathers lived. This we shall endeavour to do as we thread
our way through city and suburb; now glancing at the London of the
present day, then turning the eye of the imagination to the ancient
metropolis, which Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane, and Norman have in
succession traversed.
The old highway to London is that which the daring sea-kings poetically
called "the road of the swans"--the broad bosom of the sea,--and then
along the majestic river which leads to her grey old fortress, the
Tower. But the railroad has ploughed up the country, and this ancient
"silver pathway" is abandoned to commerce and pleasure-parties; so rapid
is the transit from every point of the coast, that few care to thread
the winding river when they can reach London by the railroads almost as
direct as "the crow flies." Such remains of ancient London as fall in
our way we shall again glance at; and shall now commence our
"Picturesque Sketches of London" by describing the most prominent
landmark in the City--St. Paul's Cathedral, together with a few of the
most interesting objects in the neighbourhood.
CHAPTER II.
ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL--DOCTORS' COMMONS--THE OLD CITY STREETS.
The Cathedral of St. Paul's is the great landmark of London. Long before
the eye of the approaching stranger obtains a glimpse of the graceful
spires, grey massy towers, and tall columns which ascend from every
corner of the outstretched city, it rests upon that mighty dome, which
looms through the misty sky, like some dim world hanging amid the
immensity of space; for so does it seem suspended when the smoke from
ten thousand homes throws a vapoury veil over the lower portion of the
invisible building. From the long range of hills that overlook Surrey
and Kent, from the opposite heights of Highgate and Hampstead, and for
miles away in the level valley through which the Thames ebbs and flows,
that rounded dome is seen standing sentinel day and night over the
two-million peopled city. Above the busy hum of the multitude it keeps
watch by day, and through the hushed night it looks up amid the
overhanging stars, and throws back from its golden cross (emblem of our
salvation) the silvery rays of the bright moon, when all the miles of
streets below are wrapt in drowsy silence. High up it towers, a tribute
of man to his Maker, carrying our thoughts almost unconsciously to God
while we gaze upon it, and pointing out to the unbelieving heathens who
have crossed the great deep a Christian land: an image of religion
reflected in the deep tide of our commerce, shadowing forth a haven
beyond the grave, when the fever and the fret of this life will have
died away like a forgotten dream. It stands like a calm bay amid the
ever-heaving sea of restless London, into which the tempest-tost mariner
may at any time enter and anchor his barque nearer the shores of
eternity; for while all around him the wild elements of worldly gain are
raging, scarcely a sound from without falls upon his ear to break the
solemn silence which reigns in that mighty fabric.
No stranger can say that he has seen the vastness of London until he has
mounted the hundreds of steps which lead to the Golden Gallery, and
looked out upon the outstretched city and suburbs below. It is a sight
never to be forgotten; the passengers underneath scarcely appear a foot
high, and the omnibuses so diminished, that you fancy you could take one
under your arm and walk off with it easily. But it is the immense range
of country which the eye commands that astonishes the stranger. Here
railroads branch out, there the noble river seems narrowed by distance
to an insignificant brook; while weary miles of houses spread out every
way, and the largest edifices of the metropolis are dwarfed beneath the
lofty height from which you gaze. There are hills before and hills
behind: to the right, a dim country, lost in purple haze; to the left,
thousands of masts, which look like reeds, while the hulls of the ships
seem to have dwindled to the smallness of boats.
Never did that cathedral appear to us more holy than when we visited it
last summer during the Anniversary Meeting of the Charity Children;
never did the sunbeams which occasionally streamed through the vaulted
dome seem so much like the golden ladder on which the "angels of God
ascended and descended" in the dream of the patriarch of old, as when
they shone for a few moments upon the heads of those thousands of
children who were congregated beneath. We seemed to picture Charity
herself newly alighted from heaven, and standing in the midst
overshadowing them with her white wings, while her angelic smile lighted
up the holy fabric, as she stood with her finger pointing to the sky. It
was a sight that went home to every heart, and made an Englishman proud
of the land of his birth, to know that thousands of those children, who
were fatherless and motherless, were watched over and tended by the
angel of charity; and that hundreds who waited to do her bidding, with
willing hearts and open hands, were assembled in the temple which her
overpowering presence then hallowed. Then to know that so vast a
multitude formed but a portion of the numbers which English charity
clothed, fed, and educated; and that, if all could have been assembled
tier above tier, as they then sat, they would have reached to the very
summit of the dome itself, extending, as it were, to heaven, and with
folded hands and meek supplicating faces seeming to plead in our behalf
before the footstool of God.
It was a sight never to be forgotten, to see those thousands of clean
and neatly clad children ranged one above another, to the height of
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S CATHEDRAL. CHARITY CHILDREN'S ANNIVERSARY
FESTIVAL.]
twenty feet, beneath the huge overshadowing dome; to see the girls at
the beginning or ending of a prayer (as if touched by the wand of some
magician) raise or drop their thousands of snow-white aprons at the
self-same instant of time, was like the sudden opening and folding of
innumerable wings, which almost made the beholder start, as if he had
stepped suddenly upon the threshold of another world. The gaudiest
gardens that figure in oriental romance, with all their imaginary
colouring, never approached in beauty the rich and variegated hues which
that great group of children presented. Here the eye rested upon
thousands of little faces that peeped out from the pink trimmings of
their neat caps; there the pretty head-gear was ornamented with blue
ribands, looking like blue-bells and white lilies blended together;
farther on the high range of heads stood like sheeted May-blossoms,
while the crimson baise which covered the seats looked in the distance
as if the roses of June were peeping in between the openings of the
branches. The pale pearled lilac softened into a primrose-coloured
border, which was overhung by the darker drapery of the boys, upon whom
the shadows of the arches settled. Ever and anon there was a sparkling
as of gold and silver, as the light fell upon the glittering badges
which numbers of the children wore, or revealed the hundreds of nosegays
which they held in their little hands, or wore proudly in their bosoms.
High above this vast amphitheatre of youthful heads, the outspreading
banners of blue, and crimson, and purple, emblazoned with gold, were
ranged, all filled with
"Stains and splendid dyes,
As are the tiger-moth's deep-damask'd wings."
And when the sunlight at intervals fell upon the hair or the innocent
faces of some snow-white group of girls, they seemed surrounded with
"A glory like a saint's.
They look'd like splendid angels newly drest,
Save wings, for heaven."--KEATS.
Eastward the organ rose with its sloping gallery of choristers, selected
from Westminster, the Royal Chapel, and St. Mark's; and from thence the
full choir burst, and the sounds were caught up and joined by thousands
of voices, until the huge building seemed to throb again beneath that
mighty utterance. The eye fairly ached as it rested on the vast plane of
human faces, which inclined from the west end of the cathedral, and came
dipping down almost to the very foot of the choir, so chequered was the
richly-coloured field it fell upon.
As the anthem stole upon the ear, we seemed borne away to another
state, to that heaven of which we catch glimpses in our sweetest dreams,
when all those childish voices joined in the thrilling chorus; when we
beheld thousands of childish faces in the ever-shifting light, we could
almost fancy that we stood amid those ranks "who veil their faces with
their wings" before the blinding glory of heaven. Over all pealed the
full-voiced organ, sounding like music that belongs not to earth, now
high, now low, near or remote, as the reverberated sound rose to the
dome or traversed the aisles, coming in and out like wavering light
between the pillars and shadowy recesses, spots in which old echoes seem
to sleep, old voices to linger, which only broke forth at intervals to
join in the solemn anthem that rose up and floated away, and would only
become indistinct when it reached the star-paved courts above.
There was something pleasing in the countenances of many of the girls,
something meek and patient in the expression they wore, especially in
the little ones. You could almost fancy you could distinguish those who
were orphans, by their looking timidly round, as if seeking among the
spectators for some one to love them.
From such a scene our mind naturally turned to the huge amphitheatres of
old, when the populace of ancient cities congregated to see some
gladiator die, or to witness the struggle between man and the savage
beast, while the air was rent with applauding shouts, as the combatants
bled beneath each other's swords, or were torn by the tusks of
infuriated animals. How great the contrast! Instead of the shouts of the
heathen multitude, here the solemn anthem was chanted by thousands of
childish voices, while every heart seemed uplifted in silent prayer to
God. Here we saw the youthful aspirants of heaven tuning their notes
like young birds, dim, half-heard melodies, which can only burst forth
in perfect music when they reach that immortal land where "one eternal
summer ever reigns;" and we sighed as we thought how many thousands
still uncared for were scattered through the streets and alleys of
London, and left to live as they best could amid ignorance, rags, and
hunger, with no one to teach them that, outcasts as they are on earth,
they have still a Father in heaven who careth for them. Charitably
disposed as England is to her poor children, she has yet much to do
before her great work is perfected; she has yet to bring together her
homeless thousands who have neither food nor raiment, nor any place at
night where they can lay their weary and aching heads. The time will
come when she will be convinced that she must do more than save a
remnant, when there will be none left in hunger and ignorance to hang
about her great cathedral, as we saw them then, envying the thousands of
clean and healthy-looking children, who, more fortunate than they, were
under the care of charitable guardians. All these her protecting arms
will in time encircle in one warm motherly embrace, without distinction.
God send that the time may be near at hand!
Many a "rapt soul" looked out with moistened eyes from that assemblage,
which, when this earthly pilgrimage is ended, shall hear the voice of
the great Master whom they have served exclaim: "For I was an hungered,
and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a
stranger, and ye took me in." Such we could distinguish, who felt no
greater pleasure than in sharing their wealth amongst the poor and
needy; on whose brow benevolence had set her seal; who do good by
stealth, and "blush to find it fame." Such as these feel an innate
pleasure which the miser never experienced while gloating over his
hoarded gold; and when the Angel of Death comes, he will bear them away
gently; and in the soft beating of his dark wings they will hear again
the sweet voices of those dear children singing a little way before, as
if they had but to shew their faces, when the gates of Paradise would
"Wide on their golden hinges swing;"
while outstretched arms would be seen through the surrounding halo,
holding forth the crowns of glory which had been prepared for them "from
the foundation of the world."
Glancing at the building, we must state that, from the base to the top
of the cross, which overlooks the dome, the height is 400 feet; and that
of the campanile towers, which front Ludgate-hill, 220 feet; the length
of the building, from east to west, is 500 feet; and the breadth 100
feet; while the ground enclosed by the palisade measures upwards of two
acres. As all the world knows, the architect was Sir Christopher Wren,
whose grave is in the crypt below, and whose monument is the building
itself; such a pile as no monarch ever erected to his own memory. The
choir is enriched by the beautiful carving of Grinling Gibbons, who
ought to have slept beside the great architect of St. Paul's in the
vault beneath. The sculpture on the west front is by Bird, and the
beholder will be struck by the colossal size of the figures, if he
pauses to look out as he ascends the dome. They are, Paul preaching to
the Romans, his Conversion, &c.; while those at the sides represent the
Evangelists. The minute-hand of the clock measures eight feet, and the
dial is fifty-seven feet in circumference; while the great bell, which
strikes the hour, weighs between four and five tons. It is only tolled
at the deaths and burials of the royal family, and a few others, who may
have been connected with the cathedral.
The Whispering-gallery, the Clock-room, the Library, and Model-room,
have been so often described, that we shall pass them by, and briefly
glance at the monuments.
The monument to Nelson, by Flaxman, interests us all the more through
knowing that the remains of the hero of Trafalgar, encased in a portion
of the mainmast of _L'Orient_, repose below. The memorial to
Abercrombie, by one stroke of genius, carries the mind to Egypt, while
gazing on the symbols which are introduced. There are statues or
monuments to Lord Cornwallis, Sir John Moore, Lord Heathfield,
Collingwood, St. Vincent, Howe, Rodney, Ponsonby, and Picton, and many
other naval and military heroes. John Saunders, in _Knight's London_,
says, "There must be something shocking to a pure and devout mind filled
with the spirit of Him who came to preach 'peace on earth, good will
among men,' to find the records of deeds of violence and slaughter
intruded upon his notice in the very temples where he might least expect
to find such associations, ... to make every pier, and window, and
recess in our chief cathedral repeat the same melancholy story of war,
war, still every where war. There are now about forty-eight monuments in
St. Paul's, of which there are but seven devoted to other than naval and
military men ... 'paragraphs of military gazettes,' to use Flaxman's
phrase." The other monuments are to Howard the philanthropist, Dr.
Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Jones, Bishop Heber,
Babington, Middleton, and Sir Astley Cooper.
The paintings by Sir James Thornhill look dim and faded, and can
scarcely be seen at all except through a few chinks in the dome, which
you cannot peep down through without feeling dizzy, such a depth yawns
beneath. This door, or trap, or whatever it is called, that opens above
the dome, is for the convenience of hoisting up great and celebrated
visitors, who are too distinguished and too lazy to climb the 600 steps
which lead to the summit of St. Paul's. Speaking of the summit recals to
our recollection that, when we looked from it in the afternoon sunshine,
the shadow of St. Paul's extended to the Bank, while the dome threw all
the houses on the left of Cheapside into the shade, and its rounded
shoulder darkened the crowded buildings far behind, thus depriving
hundreds of the citizens of sunshine.
In conclusion, we have only to add that Divine service commences at a
quarter past ten in the morning, and a quarter to three in the
afternoon; and that to see the whole of the building, above and below,
the visitor must submit to pay the sum of 4_s._ 4_d._; "which," as
gossiping old Pepys says, "is pretty to observe"--we mean, the amount.
There is but little to detain us in the streets behind Ludgate-hill,
running into Upper Thames-street and Earl-street, beyond the mere
mention of Apothecaries' Hall, which stands in the Broadway, that unites
with Water-lane, and which was built soon after the Fire of London.
There is a portrait of James I., and a statue of Delware, at whose
intercession James granted a charter of incorporation. The controversy
between this Company and the College of Physicians called forth Garth's
poem entitled "The Dispensary," which was very popular at that period,
and is still worthy of perusal.
The _Times_ Office, in Printing-house-square, is the great lion of this
neighbourhood; and the same spot was occupied by the king's printers at
least as far back as the reign of Charles II. A description of this
mighty lever of the "fourth estate" does not come within the compass of
our light pages.
Neither St. Andrew's-hill nor Addle-hill requires much notice, though
the former contains one of Wren's churches, called St. Andrew by the
Wardrobe; also a beautiful monument to the Rev. W. Romaine. Paul's Chain
and Bennet-hill bring us back again to St. Paul's; and here our readers
will consider that we make a fair start eastward, with the intention of
describing the principal objects of interest that lie between the
nearest great thoroughfare and the river on the south side of the way,
while a few of the principal objects in the streets on the north will
arrest our attention as we return on our journey westward.
Paul's Chain took its name from the chain thrown across the road during
the time of Divine service; a duty now performed by policemen, who,
although they do not bar up the way, caution the drivers to go on slowly
during service-time.
We have now arrived at Doctors' Commons, and our engraving over-leaf
represents the Prerogative Court, one of the chambers in which the wills
of the dead are deposited. Through those doors many a beating and
anxious heart enters to return disappointed, or half delirious with
delight, through dreaming of the many pleasures which riches will
procure. What thousands of human beings, fluttering between hope and
fear, have passed through the shadow of that arched gateway which opens
into St. Paul's Churchyard; many to repass the possessors of riches, but
never again to find that sweet sleep which hard-handed industry brought,
and which moderate competency had never before heaved a sigh for!
Legacies left, which proved a curse instead of a comfort, by arousing
ambitious thoughts to soar amid airy speculations, where hundreds of
captivating bubbles floated, tinged with the richest hues, until all in
a moment burst, and left but a naked desolation behind--a hideous
barrenness--never seen while those painted vapours danced before the
eye. Wealth, over which Care ever after kept watch with sleepless eyes
and furrowed brow, uncertain into which stream of enjoyment he should
launch with his freight, and so pondered until old age and then death
came, and instead of the castle he had so long contemplated purchasing,
he was installed without a tear into the narrow coffin, and borne
without a sigh to the grave. Others, again, raised from enduring and
patient poverty to undreamed-of comfort, because he who would not have
advanced them a shilling, would it have saved them from starvation and
death, was now powerless; his greatest agony, when he passed away, being
the thought that he could not carry his unforgiving vengeance beyond the
grave; that he had not power to disinherit the child whom he spurned and
hated. We have gazed on those dark-bound volumes in the Prerogative
Will-Office, and thought that if the dead were permitted to return
again, what ghastly forms would enter that room, shrieking aloud names
once beloved, and blotting out for ever such as they had in their blind
passion inserted. One stroke of the pen, and she who sits weeping and
plying her needle in one of the neighbouring attics (her children crying
around her for bread) might have been trailing the roses around the
trellised porch of some beautiful cottage, while they were playing on
the green lawn, strangers to sorrow and hunger.
Let us pause for a few moments and examine the attitudes and
countenances of those who are perusing the wills. See how that woman's
hand shakes as she turns over the leaves; look at the working of the
muscles of that young man's face; behold the play of light over the
wrinkled features of that old lady; see how she clasps her hands
together and is looking upward; and you may tell what each has
discovered as clearly as if you knew them, had stood beside them, and
had read every line which they have been reading. That low sound,
falling on the ear like the faint dropping of the summer rain on the
leaves, is caused by the tears shed by that pale young lady in deep
mourning; they fall quicker and quicker on the pages, and she rests her
head on her hand, for she can no longer see to read through those
blinding tears. The old objects of a once happy home are floating before
the eye of her imagination; it may be that they are all there
enumerated; that she has in fancy been passing from room to room,
looking into the mirror that threw back her image in happy childhood,
leaning from the window where stood the box of mignonette which she
watered in the dewy morning, while her shadow fell upon the sunshine
which slept on the chamber-floor. Old faces and old voices have again
been before and around her; and she weeps not at finding that she is
forgotten, but because those she so fondly loved are either no more or
far away, and refuse to countenance her for marrying the object of her
love, a man rejected by all her family only
[Illustration: PREROGATIVE COURT, DOCTORS COMMONS.]
because he was poor. In that great mustering-ground beyond the grave,
who would not rather occupy the place of that sufferer than stand ranged
amid the ranks of those who have thus neglected her? Contrast her
deportment with that of the young man at the end of the desk; his fists
are clenched, the nails of his fingers are embedded in the palms of his
hands, his teeth set, his eyebrows knit; he strikes his hat as he places
it on his head, closes the door with a loud slam, and curses the memory
of a dead man, because he has left a reckless spendthrift just enough to
live on all his life without working, yet so bequeathed it that he can
but draw a given sum monthly. He is savage because he cannot have the
whole legacy at once in his possession. If he could, he would be likely
enough to squander it all away in a single night at some notorious
gambling-house.
On another countenance you behold utter amazement slowly changing into
the expression of contempt, disgust; and at last it settles down into
black and sullen hatred. She, whose features have in a few moments
undergone so many sudden alterations, finds that all her deeply-laid
schemes and subtle plans have been of no avail, but that the poor
relative, whose character she was ever disparaging in the eyes of the
old man, and whom she kept from his bedside by the falsehoods she
uttered to both, is now the possessor of all his riches. She is gnawing
the end of her glove through sheer vexation: all he has left her is a
book, an old volume, entitled, _The Value of true Sincerity_. The
hypocrite is justly rebuked in his last will and testament. She departs
burning red through shame and anger, and would give the world could she
but leave her conscience behind her.
Watch that old man tottering on the very verge of the grave, and with
hardly strength enough to lift the volume which he so eagerly scans:
although he could already bury himself in gold, and leave the yellow
lucre piled high above his narrow bed, he still covets more. He who has
neither appetite nor taste for any rational enjoyment, who is compelled
to sit up half the night because he cannot rest, is still eager to
increase his riches. For what? the love of money alone. If he lends it,
he never considers for what object; it may be good or evil, that
concerns him not; all he looks to is the security, and the interest he
is to receive on his capital: it may be to bring waste lands into
cultivation, to aid a poor and industrious people; but one per cent
more, and he would supply any armed tyrant with funds to destroy the
whole peaceful populace, to leave their homes a mass of burning ruins,
and the furrows of their fields running red with blood.
Here is the last Will and Testament of the immortal Shakspeare; the very
handwriting of the mighty bard "who was not for an age, but for all
time." On that document his far-seeing eyes looked, on that page his
hand rested; the same hand which obeyed the influence of his high-piled
thoughts while he drew Hamlet, and Lear, and Macbeth, Desdemona,
Ophelia, Perdita, and Imogen, held the pen which traced the very lines
we now look upon. But for such old home-touches as these, we should
almost doubt whether that god-like spirit ever descended to the common
duties of this hard work-a-day world. But here we find him
"Not too bright or good
For human nature's daily food."
But for proofs like these, we might fancy that such a soul had but
mistaken its way while wandering from the abodes of the gods, and
brought with it to the earth all the wisdom and poetry which it had
taken an immortality to gather; that when he returned to his native
home, the gates of heaven closed not suddenly enough upon him to shut
out the undying echoes of his golden utterance; but that for ever the
winds of heaven were chartered to repeat them--to blow them abroad into
every corner of the earth--nor cease their mission until the language he
spoke shall be uttered by "every nation, kindred, and tongue." Such a
deed as this alone proves his mortality; for the creations of his genius
carry him as far away from the common standard of men as heaven is from
earth.
What records have we here of old families long since passed away!--their
very names forgotten in the places where they once enjoyed
"A little rule--a little sway,
A sunbeam on a winter's day,
Between the cradle and the grave."--DYER.
Perhaps the last of the race perished a pauper in some obscure
poorhouse; it may be, the one which his ancestors founded a century or
two ago.
Another visits the Will-Office, who gained information of the death of
some near and wealthy relative by chance--perhaps through the scrap of
an old newspaper which formed the wrapper of the pennyworth of butter or
cheese purchased at the little huckster's shop at the corner of the
filthy court in which for years the poor family have resided,--spots in
which misery clings to misery for companionship. Letter after letter had
they written, but received no answer; no one would take the trouble to
reply. Then they sank lower and lower, and removed from place to place,
until, at last, one single room in an undrained and breathless alley
held all their cares and all their heart-aches; and there they tried to
forget their wealthy relatives--to bury the remembrance of what they
once were.
Meantime, he who had long been dead had remembered them on his
deathbed; letters had been written and advertisements had appeared,
announcing "something to their advantage," but they had fallen amongst
the very poor, who, though living in the heart of London, concerned not
themselves with matters foreign to their own wretched neighbourhood,
unless it were some execution or low spectacle, suited to their depraved
tastes. Poverty had long ago prostrated all their finer feelings. Even
such as these have we seen enter the doors of the Prerogative Court,
after they had with difficulty raised the shilling which they were
compelled to pay before searching for the will, and come out exultingly
the possessors of thousands.
A strange place is that Prerogative Court, a fine picture of the great
out-of-door world; for there Hope and Despair stand sentinels at the
doors, and the living seem to jostle the dead in their eager hurry to
hunt after what those in the grave have left them. There is a smell as
of death about the place, as if grey old departed spirits lurked in the
musty folios, and had scattered their ashes amid the yellow and
unearthly-looking parchments, which rise up again in clouds of dust,
while you turn over the mouldy and crackling leaves, making you sneeze
again, while a hundred old echoes take up the sound, until every volume
seems to shake and laugh and mock you, as if the grim old dead found it
a rare spot to make merry in--to "mop and mow," and play off a thousand
devilish antics upon the living. That court is the great mart of
merriment and misery, and its open doors too often lead to madness;
groaning and moaning, when they open or shut, as if the spirits within
wailed over those who come in search of wealth, to return disappointed.
Beauty, Virtue, and Innocence also enter there, preceded by Pity; while
Hope, with downcast eyes, leads them gently by the hand--her smile
subdued, and her sweet countenance sorrowful. But these are angel
visitants, who are compelled to appear in that court--who come in tears,
and, when their duty is done, pass away for ever. There is a sound of
sighs within those walls--a smell of green, stagnant tears: if you
listen, you seem to hear the dead rustling among the old parchments:
they move like black-beetles, and murmur to one another in an old Saxon
language. Wickedness and Wrong have also their lurking-places
there--where they lie concealed, and laugh at Right and Justice amid a
pile of black-lettered laws, beneath which you find injured Poverty
mourning unpitied. The grim judge, who has sat here for hundreds of
years, is deaf and blind: he acts but for the dead--the living he can
neither hear nor see--but ever sits with his elbow resting on a pile of
musty volumes, mute as a marble image. It is a place filled with solemn
associations--the ante-room of Life-in-Death.
Knowing fellows are the porters who hang about this neighbourhood; you
can tell that they have not plied there for years without picking up "a
thing or two;" they appear almost as "'cute" as the learned proctors
themselves; and should you find yourself the possessor of a fat legacy,
and be so ignorant as to apply to these white-aproned messengers as to
the best way of getting it at once, they will undertake to introduce you
to a gentleman, who, from what you hear, you almost believe to be so
clever that he could whip your name into a will if he chose, and obtain
for you a fortune, if even you had no legal claim to a single shilling.
"God bless you, sir, we knows plenty of people what's got thousands as
never expected to have a blessed mag whatsomdever." And green countrymen
follow these plump images of Hope, and treat them to whatever they
please to take.
Besides the Prerogative Will-Office, Doctors' Commons contains the Court
of Arches, a name well known to all the readers of newspapers; the Court
of Faculties and Dispensation, having a good deal to do with
marriage-licenses, and many other less lawful matters; the Consistory
Court of the Bishop of London, and the High Court of Admiralty, so that
"all is fish" which falls into the net of these courts--from a lady
running away from her husband, to one ship running down another. A
captive of Cupid's or a capture in war, is all the same to these able
practitioners, where either the owner or the husband of the Nancy Dawson
may find redress--for either ship or spouse come alike to advocate or
proctor.
Here we have, also, the Heralds' College, well worthy of notice, as it
contains many curious rolls and valuable manuscripts.
At the bottom of Bennet's-hill stood Paul's-wharf--a famous
landing-place before the Great Fire; the church still bears the name of
St. Bennet, Paul's-wharf. Here Knightrider-street and Carter-lane extend
in the line of the river. Carter-lane has become classic ground, through
one Richard Quyney having directed a letter from the Bell Inn, which
formerly stood there, to Shakspeare. Little did Quyney dream how much
the handwriting of the poet he was then addressing would one day be
valued--of the hundreds of pilgrims who would visit the adjoining Court
to see the will of Shakspeare. The society which bears his name are
doing "good service" by hunting up and publishing such records as these,
for they throw a charm around the old poetical neighbourhood of
Blackfriars Bridge, and give to such places as Carter-lane an interest
which they never before possessed;
"For there is link'd unto a poet's name
A spell that can command the voice of fame."
Knightrider-street, Stowe tells us, derived its name from the knights of
old riding through it on their way from the Tower to Smithfield to hold
their jousts and tournaments. It was in Knightrider-street that the mace
was found which was stolen from the Lord Chancellor's closet, in Great
Queen-street, on Tuesday night, February 6th, 1676. A small quarto
pamphlet, of eight pages, published in 1676, bears the following
title:--"A perfect Narrative of the Apprehension, Trial, and Confession
of the five several persons who were confederates in stealing the Mace
and the two Privy Purses from the Lord High Chancellor of England, as it
was attested at the Sessions held at Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey,
the seventh and eighth of March, anno 1676." The following extract is
curious, as a picture of the old London thieves, and also of the
lodging-house keepers, many of whom still inherit the gift of "opening
the lock with a knife," or any thing that first comes to hand:--"The
manner of their apprehension was thus: some of the head of the gang had
taken a lodging in Knightrider-street, near Doctors' Commons, and there,
in a closet, they had lodged the mace and purses. The woman's daughter
of the house going up in their absence to make the bed, saw some silver
spangles, or some odd ends of silver, scattered about the chamber, which
she with no small diligence picked up, not knowing from whence such
riches should proceed. In this admiration she paused awhile, and it was
not long before her fancy led her, like the rest of her sex, to pry into
and search the furthermost point of this new and strange apparition; and
directing her course to the closet-door, she through the keyhole could
discern something that was not commonly represented to her view, which
was the upper end of the mace, but knew not what it was; however, she
thought it could not be amiss to acquaint her beloved mother with what
she had beheld; and with this resolve she hastens down stairs, and with
a voice betwixt fear and joy she cries out, 'O mother, mother! yonder is
the king's crown in the closet. Pray, mother, come along with me and see
it.'
"The admiring mother being something surprised at her daughter's report,
as also having no good opinion of her new lodgers, makes haste, good
woman, and goes to the closet-door, and opening the lock with a knife,
she entered into the closet, where she soon discerned it was not a crown
but a mace, and having heard that such a thing was lost, sends
immediately away to acquaint my Lord Chancellor that the mace was in her
house; upon which information a warrant was soon granted, and officers
sent to Mr. Thomas Northy, constable of Queenhithe ward, who, with a
sufficient assistance, went into Knightrider-street to their lodging,
and very luckily found them, being five in number, and of both sexes,
viz. three men and two women, whom they carried before the Right
Worshipful Sir William Turner, who, after examination, according to
justice, committed them to the common jail of Newgate."
It was only five years before that Colonel Blood had attempted to steal
the crown from the Tower, but he--more fortunate than Sadler--escaped
with his life, while the latter was hanged at Tyburn; the only one, we
believe, who was executed for stealing the Lord Chancellor's mace and
purses.
What melancholy processions passed through Knightrider-street, as
prisoners to the Tower, the old historian Stowe mentions not: like many
another ancient street, it was often the highway of merriment and
misery.
St. Paul's School was founded by the venerable Dean Colet about the year
1500, who made the Company of Mercers his trustees. The present building
was erected in 1824. At the commencement of June, when Anne Boleyn
passed through the City on her way from the Tower to Westminster, to be
crowned, we find, in Hall's _Chronicle_, that "at St. Paul's School, on
a scaffold, stood two hundred children, well appareled, who recited
various English versions of the ancient poets, to the honour of the king
and queen, which her grace highly commended."
To the church of St. Austin, or Augustin, Old Change and Watling-street,
was united that of St. Faith under St. Paul's, after the Fire. The
present church was built by Wren. The church of St. Faith stood in the
crypt of old St. Paul's, beneath the choir. Fuller called it the "babe
of old St. Paul's." The author of the _Ingoldsby Legends_, who has never
been surpassed in the art of grafting modern incident on the stem of old
ballad lore, was the rector of St. Augustin's.
To see this closely-crowded neighbourhood thoroughly would require many
"ups and downs." Old Fish-street was formerly the great fish-market of
London, when Queenhithe rivalled Billingsgate, and was the greatest
landing quay in the City; the church of St. Mary Somerset, built by
Wren, stands here. The former church was called St. Mary's Mounthaut, or
Mounthaw, as I find it spelt in an old pamphlet, which states that Mr.
Thrall was "sequestered and shamefully abused" when the clergymen of
London had to make room for the Puritans. Old Fish-street-hill had then
two churches, but after the Great Fire that of St. Mary's Mounthaw was
not rebuilt. This is the old Saxon name of the berry of the hawthorn,
and there was a time when Old Fish-street-hill was celebrated for its
hawthorns, when it was called Hagthorn-hill or Mounthaw, long before old
St. Mary's was built upon it. The pamphlet I have alluded to was printed
in 1661, and is entitled, "A general Bill of the Mortality of the
Clergy of London, or a brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the learned,
grave, religious, and painful Ministers of the City of London, who have
been imprisoned, plundered, and barbarously used, and deprived of all
livelihood for themselves and their families, in the late Rebellion, for
their constancy in the Protestant religion established in this kingdom,
and their loyalty to the king under that _grand_ Persecution. London:
printed against Bartholom' Day." This pamphlet, as the date shews, was
issued soon after the restoration of Charles II., no doubt with the view
of giving him a broad hint that their loyalty and sufferings ought not
to be forgotten in the then "good time coming." Whether or not any thing
was done for them by the "Merry Monarch," we have no means of
ascertaining. We shall occasionally refer to this curious list, to shew
the sufferings of the clergy during the period of the Commonwealth.
Stowe tells us that the monuments of the old church of St. Mary Somerset
were defaced; but whether by time or sacrilegious hands, he says not,
nor can we now know, for the Great Fire destroyed all the traces that
time had so long spared. We would rather the old church with the
poetical name had been rebuilt on the ancient Hawthorn Mount than this.
Stowe thinks that the old name of St. Mary Somerset was Summer Hithe.
Summer and hawthorns! how we love the memory of the old historian for
calling up these pleasant associations! We may be wrong in the name,
but, for the sake of the poetry, we must picture the pretty Saxon maids,
before London was a city, wandering down Mounthaw to Summer-wharf
between long lines of hawthorn hedges, to see their lovers return from
fishing in the Thames, or to watch the arrival of some corn-barque lower
down the bank by Queenhithe. In Fish-street we have still a portion of
the old burial-ground that belonged to St. Mary's Mounthaw.
St. Nicholas's Cold Abbey stands at the corner of Old Fish-street-hill,
and is one of the first churches completed after the Fire. There is
nothing either remarkable about this church or the neighbouring one
called St. Mary's Magdalen in Old Fish-street, except that both were
rebuilt by Wren. In the pamphlet before alluded to I find the following
entry: "St. Maudlin, Old Fish-street, Dr. Griffith sequestered,
plundered; wife and children turned out of doors; his wife dead with
grief. Mr. Weld, his curate, assaulted, beaten in the church, and turned
out." Rather rough handling of the old royalist clergymen in the stormy
times of Cromwell. What talk there must have been amongst the
parishioners of old St. Mary's Magdalen, or Maudlin, when the Ironsides
walked into the ancient City churches, and thus dragged out and beat the
venerable pastors. These brief entries bespeak volumes; and yet we wish
the details were more fully given. Some of the worthy citizens no doubt
dealt a blow or two in defence of their ministers. Poor Mr. Chestlin
seems to have made his escape for a time only to be recaptured. "St.
Matthew's, Friday-street, Mr. Chestlin sequestered, plundered, and
imprisoned in Newgate, whence being let out, he was forced to fly, and
since imprisoned again in Peter House."
Peter House stood in Aldersgate-street, and was used by Cromwell as a
prison at this period, as were also several other celebrated houses.
Friday-street was famous in former times for its taverns. Our engraving
represents the Saracen's Head, which was taken down about seven years
ago.
[Illustration: THE SARACEN'S HEAD, FRIDAY STREET.]
The stone beside the door in the wall of Allhallow's, Bread-street, and
in Watling-street, tells us that here John Milton was baptised on the
20th of December, 1608--that is, in the old church before the Fire. The
well-known lines, commencing "Three poets in three distant ages born,"
&c., are engraved on the same stone that records the date of Milton's
baptism. We wish that all the City churches had their names engraved on
some stone, like that of Allhallow's, Bread-street. We shall scarcely be
believed, when we say, that in one or two instances the people living
next the church did not know its name. When we consider how many
churches are crowded together here, on the space of a few acres of
ground, we think it would be of service to strangers visiting London,
and to thousands who reside in the City and suburbs, to have the names
either legibly engraved or painted on each building. Lower down is the
church of St. Mildred, also built by Wren. The interior is rather
pleasing, and there is some beautiful work about the pulpit; but we know
nothing of any interest connected with the church or the street, beyond
that Milton was born in it, which, to dreamers like ourselves, makes
Bread-street hallowed ground, although the Fire has swept away every
trace of the building in which the God-gifted poet first saw the light.
That this, the spot on which the great poet was born, was classic ground
long centuries ago, the portion of the Roman wall, and the ancient lamp
(which we have engraved), and which were discovered in Bread-street
about five years ago, fully prove. Who can tell what foot, renowned in
Roman history, may have trampled on the spot where the author of
_Paradise Lost_ was born?
[Illustration: ROMAN LAMP.]
Bread-street formerly contained a famous tavern and a prison. The
Mermaid is mentioned by Ben Jonson. There seems to have been a
celebrated tavern here long before the time of Stowe, for he mentions
Gerrarde's Hall in his days as a hostelry for travellers, and, in his
gossiping way, gives us an old-world story about the old building, which
stood above the ancient crypt, which we have here engraved (as one of
the vestiges of the London of our forefathers, doomed to be sacrificed
to modern improvement), and in it he gives us a giant, and a long pole,
which this son of Anak is said to have wielded in the wars. We have
heard that this Gerrarde the giant was buried under the ancient crypt,
which to this day sounds hollow to the tread. But the good old
historian, with his simple and child-like belief, and love for all
undated traditions, shall "tell the tale."
[Illustration: GERARD THE GIANT.]
"On the north side of Basing-lane is one great house of old time, built
upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen in
Normandy, the same is now [about 1600] a common hostelry [inn] for
receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde's Hall, of
a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house
some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and
was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the
wars to run with [away?]. There stood also a ladder of the same length,
which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later
years this hall is altered, and divers rooms are made in it. [Alas,
then, as now, they would improve; and cared not for their home
antiquities even in good old Stowe's time!] Notwithstanding, the pole
is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon
a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, 'The pole
lacketh half a foot of forty in length.' I measured the compass thereof,
and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the
hostelry give me none; but bade me read the 'great' Chronicles, for
there he heard of it. [Our hosts were reading men we see in the time of
Elizabeth; and we love the epithet '_great_' before Chronicles, for we
believe it was the host's word and not Stowe's.] I will now note what
myself have observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors,
Mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof [it might have been
old then, for Stowe does not say that the mayor built it]; and that Sir
John Gisors, constable of the Tower, 1311, and divers others of that
name and family since that time owned it. [The Gisors must have been men
of eminence for one to have become constable of the Tower in that
jealous age, when the Normans ruled with an iron hand.] So it appeareth
that this Gisors' Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called
Gerrardes' Hall for Gisors' Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of
old time [as then the custom was in every parish] to be set up in the
summer, as a May-pole. The ladder served [serving?] for the decking of
the May-pole and roof of the hall."--_Stowe._
Surely this crypt ought to be spared for the sake of Stowe, and Gerard
the giant, and the May-pole--the compass of which the honest old
historian measured. What a picture it would make--Stowe, the host, and
the ostler, with the old building and the broken ladder! what rich
material for a chapter in an historical romance! If we live, we will do
it some day. Of course the old hall was swept away in the Great Fire,
and Gerard the giant (which we have here engraved) grew up after the
flames had died out; though they went roaring and reddening above the
ancient crypt, over which the generations of six centuries have
trampled. The vaults are of great antiquity--at least as old as the
building mentioned by Stowe--the date of which he does not give,
although he mentions John Gisors, Mayor of London, as a resident there
in 1245, that is, more than 600 years ago.
In Little Trinity-street we have Painter-Stainers' Hall, well worth a
visit, although it is so badly lighted, that it is difficult to see the
portraits. The principal pictures it contains are, Camden, Charles II.
and his queen, William of Orange, by Kneller, and Queen Anne. The
company also possesses a curious cup left by the celebrated antiquary
Camden, and which is still used at their anniversary dinners. The church
of the Holy Trinity was destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt: a
small chapel, of which we know nothing, stands on the site of the old
church.
[Illustration: GERARD'S HALL CRYPT.]
The church of St. Michael, Queenhithe, is remarkable for nothing except
some carving at the east end, and the vane, which resembles a ship, and
is said to be large enough to hold a bushel of corn.
The dues derived from the quay of Queenhithe belonged to the queens of
England from a very early period, probably ever since the Norman
conquest. Mention is made of Eleanor, so famous in our old ballad lore
as the rival and poisoner of Fair Rosamond, as possessing all the dues
obtained from this royal landing-place. Raising the old drawbridge of
London Bridge every time a ship went under, with all the trouble and
stoppage of vehicles, when this was the only bridge leading into London,
did, no doubt, as much for increasing the traffic of Billingsgate as if
a law had been passed to make it a royal quay.
At the foot of Southwark Bridge stands Vintners' Hall. We can readily
imagine that the old company of Vintners have ever been "right royal,"
and great advocates for processions; that, when the City conduits ran
wine, a great portion of the cost found its way into their coffers.
Pepys tells us that, when Charles II. rode through the City the day
before his coronation, "Wadlow the vintner, at the sign of the Devil, in
Fleet-street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men,
in white doublets;" and we now find in the hall portraits of Charles
II., James II., and others. That prince of rough wits, Tom Brown, in a
bantering letter "from a vintner in the City to a young vintner in
Covent Garden," says, "You desire to know whether a vintner may take an
advantage of people when they are in their cups, and reckon more than
they have had? To which I answer in the affirmative, that you may,
provided it be done in the way of trade, and not for any sinister end.
This case has been so adjudged, many years ago, in Vintners' Hall, and
you may depend upon it."
Bow-lane is the only place to obtain a good view of the beautiful tower
of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, one of the finest, in our opinion, in the
City. This is another of Wren's edifices, erected after the Fire. It is
said to be a model of the former building, and that the great architect
was compelled to adopt the style through the conditions of a bequest,
according to Malcolm's statement, of "Henry Rogers, Esq., who,
influenced by sincere motives of piety, and affected with the almost
irreparable loss of religious buildings, left the sum of 5000_l._ to
rebuild a church in the City of London." He died before the building was
commenced, and left his lady executrix of his will; and so the present
church was erected after the model of the one built by Henry Kebles, it
is said, who died at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Stowe
says it was called Aldermary, because it was the oldest church in the
City dedicated to St. Mary. It is said that the crypt of the old church
still remains under two of the houses now standing in Bow-lane. The
tower, as seen from Bow-lane, is splendid, but little of the church is
visible from Watling-street; nor have we any thing further to notice in
this old Roman highway, for such, no doubt, it formerly was, saving the
church of St. Anthony, or Antholin, rebuilt by Wren, the dome of which
is supported by columns. The early prayers at St. Antholin's are alluded
to by our old dramatists. Here we have only to turn up a court, a little
farther on, and we are at once in Bow Churchyard, and under the very
shadow of the tower in which swing the far-famed bells. Our engraving is
a view of Bow Church as seen from Cheapside, one of the busiest
thoroughfares in the whole City of London. Old Bow Church would of
itself form a history, but, as we have not even described old St.
Paul's, and as we wish to make our readers acquainted with the London of
to-day as well as the old City, which never arose again from its ruins,
we shall glance briefly at the present neighbourhood, and pass on our
way eastward.
[Illustration: BOW CHURCH, CHEAPSIDE.]
Bow-bells have become a by-word, more probably through those who were
born within the sound of their peal being called true cockneys, than for
the superior quality of their music. The steeple is very beautiful; from
the ground to the nave there is a harmony about it, and a lightness in
the pillars, which seem as if they only required the air to rest upon.
The form of the galleries is by some considered a beauty, by others a
blot, as destroying the effect of the interior. The present church is
built on a fine old crypt, perhaps as ancient as any remains to be found
in the City, as the original Bow Church seems to have been the first
that was built on stone arches. It is mentioned as far back as the time
of William the Conqueror, and from it the Court of Arches takes its
name. The old church suffered from tempest, fire, and siege. Murder was
at last committed in it, and then it was pronounced unholy, and its
doors and windows were filled with thorns, for
"Something ail'd it then,--
The place was curst."
In former times it contained a balcony, from which the royal processions
and civic parades were viewed, though, in comparatively modern times,
these processions were seen from the houses opposite Bow Church. 1681:
"Soon after twelve, their majesties arrived at a house in Cheapside,
opposite Bow Church, and were there diverted by the pageant," or Lord
Mayor's show. So, again, with King William and Mary, in 1689. Queen Anne
also witnessed the procession in 1702; and in 1761, George III. and the
royal family, "from the house of Mr. Barclay, opposite Bow Church."
Before the Fire, these old City splendours were witnessed from a stone
building called a "seldam, or shed;" which Stowe says, stood "without
the north side of Bow Church, and greatly darkened the windows and
doors."
About the meeting of the dragon on Bow Church steeple, and the
grasshopper on the Royal Exchange, there are many quaint old-world
prophecies in existence, which would be of but little interest to our
readers. Here we must close this section of our work, having now reached
Queen-street, Cheapside, and the cast-iron bridge of Southwark, and
described all that lies within the compass of the heading to the present
chapter.
CHAPTER III.
CHEAPSIDE AND LOMBARD STREET.
We have often wondered what effect Cheapside produces upon a countryman
when he first visits London. The whole street is alive with cabs, carts,
chariots, omnibuses, drays, wagons, and trucks, the latter of which are
often drawn by boys, and we marvel that they are not flattened up amid
the crowded ranks of vehicles, which form one continuous chain as far as
the eye can penetrate.
The splendid shops must strike a stranger with amazement, although far
inferior to many which have lately been built at "the West End:" at
every two or three strides we take along the frontage, we pass houses
for which two or three hundred a year rent is paid; half-a-dozen houses
produce yearly nearly double the income of numbers of the foreign
nobles, and many an old lady and gentleman live retired in the quiet
suburbs on the rent derived from a single house which stands in this
costly thoroughfare. Nearly every floor is a separate department of
commerce. Up every flight of stairs which you climb there are attendants
in waiting to receive you. Temptation follows temptation--each door but
opens into richer scenes; each room is hung with costlier articles; and
you stand bewildered, as if entangled amid the mazes of those splendid
palaces which figure in the dreams of oriental romance. Silks from
almost every land in the sunny south, shawls woven in the rainbow looms
of India, are mingled with the products of flowery Cashmere, and blended
with the gaudy plumage of birds of paradise; and vases, emblazoned with
the dazzling dyes of China, that glitter amid piles of purple and green
and crimson velvets hemmed with silver and gold, and hangings which
might have swept their costly fringes upon the cedar floors of Haroun al
Raschid, while the weight of gold and silver seems heavy enough to bow
down the windows.
Let the uninitiated be careful how they stand, whilst loitering and
looking in through those costly plate-glass windows upon such gorgeous
productions, for upward and downward, all day long, the rapid current of
human life is ever rolling in living eddies, from east to west, and
jostling, in its mighty strength, every idle object it meets with on its
way; and, in this ever-moving ocean, each human wave has its allotted
mission, each tiny ripple "its destined end and aim."
How different from the London of the present day--from the splendid
streets and shops which stretch from Temple-Bar to Whitechapel, and
westward from those ancient City gates to a land of theatres, squares,
and palace-like buildings--were the old narrow streets, with their high
houses and overhanging gables, that rose tier above tier, their huge
projecting signs, even at noon-day making a dim dreamy kind of twilight;
while the cry of "What do you lack?" drawled forth by either master or
apprentice, as they paced to and fro before their open-fronted and
booth-like shops, gave a drowsy kind of murmur to the close ancient
neighbourhood of the old City. How different from what we now see!
To the quays, stations, halls, houses of business, and courts of
justice, which abound in this mighty city, are thousands by unforeseen
circumstances yearly driven; and those who have never seen each other
since the days of their youth, are sometimes jostled together
unexpectedly in this great human tide. The old citizen is suddenly
summoned from the suburban retreat, where he had resolved quietly to
spend the remainder of his days, and never again to "smell the smoke of
London;" for his house has been broken into, the property is discovered,
the thief is in custody, and the old man once more elbows his way
through the crowd of London, in wonderment at the many changes which
have taken place since he first retired from business. Another hears
that he has not been fairly dealt with, and has come many a long mile
that he may with his own eyes examine the will which is deposited in the
Court of Doctors' Commons. The invalid loiters with feeble step, halting
every now and then to peep into the attractive windows, before he
embarks in the vessel which lies in waiting to carry him to a more
congenial climate. You see the ruddy-faced, top-booted countryman, who
is either attending a committee, or summoned as a witness upon a trial,
waiting patiently to cross the street, and marvelling in his own mind
what strange procession it can be that is made up of such a long train
of all varieties of vehicles! You can at a glance detect the man of
business from the man of pleasure, by the hurried and earnest manner of
the one, and the idle and easy gait of the other. The down-looking thief
is dragged along by the policeman almost unheeded, except by the lazy
rabble of boys who follow their heels, with the poor woman on whose
features crime and anguish have placed their stamp, and who exchanges a
few low words with the culprit as he is hurried onward to prison. The
undertaker rushes past, wrapt up in calculating the profits he shall
derive from the funeral he has just received the order "to perform;" he
sees not the sweet face of the intended bride, who, leaning upon her
lover's arm, is gazing with smiling looks upon the richly-decorated
window, and making choice of her wedding jewels. The porter, with his
load, runs against the "exquisite" in full-dress, and disarranges either
his carefully-twirled ringlets or jauntily-set hat; a curse or a growl
is exchanged on both sides, and they again pass on. The dandy goes by
brandishing his light cane, followed by the stout and sturdy citizen,
the very tapping of whose stick denotes him to be a man of substance;
while the broad-built country bumpkin, with a fair cousin on each arm,
occupies the whole breadth of the foot-way, and seems astonished at the
rudeness of the "Lunnuners," who jeer him as they pass. So rolls on this
mighty river, with its six currents, bearing onwards those who pass and
re-pass on each side of its shorelike pavement, and the rapid vehicles
which glide swift as full-sailed vessels through its mid-channel.
All at once there is a stoppage; some heavily-laden wagon has broken
down, and the long line of carriages of every description is suddenly
brought to a stand-still--all are motionless. You see the old
thorough-bred London cabman--who has promised to take his fare either
east or west, as the case may be, in a given number of minutes--dodge in
and out for a few seconds, through such narrow openings as no one except
a real Jehu born on the stand would ever venture to move in, until he
comes to the entrance of some narrow street, the ins and outs of which
are only known to a few like himself, when, crack, bang! and he has
vanished, giving one of his own peculiar leers at parting at the long
line he has left stationary.
Now there is a slow movement, and the procession proceeds at a funeral
pace. The donkey-cart laden with firewood heralds the way, and is
followed by the beautiful carriage with its armorial bearings. Behind
comes the heavy dray with its load of beer-barrels; the snail-paced
omnibus follows; the high-piled wagon that rocks and reels beneath its
heavy load next succeeds, and you marvel that it does not topple over,
extinguish some dozen or so of foot-passengers, and smash in the
gorgeous shop-front. The wreck which left the street so silent for a few
minutes is now drawn aside, and all is again noise and motion. The
police-van rolls on with its freight of crime, and is followed by the
magistrate's cabriolet, as he hurries off to a West-end dinner;
"And all goes merry as a marriage-bell."
Queen-street is in a direct line with Guildhall and Southwark Bridge,
and is remarkable for the loftiness of many of the warehouses at the
Thames-street end. It was formerly called Soper-lane, and is frequently
mentioned in the old processions; for, facing the end of Guildhall, no
doubt some of the finest arches were erected there when royalty paraded
the City. In an old pamphlet, printed by Richard Tothill about 1558,
entitled "The Passage of our most drad Soveraigne Ladye Queene Elyzabeth
through the Citie of London to Westminster, the Day before her
Coronation," we have the following allusion to Soper-lane, now
Queen-street: "At Soper-lane end was another pageant of three open
gates; above the centre of which, on three stages, sat eight children,
explained by this inscription:
The eight Beatitudes, expressed in the V. chapter of the Gospel of
Saint Mathew applyed to our Soveraigne Ladye Queen Elyzabeth.
The Three Cranes in the Vintry was formerly a celebrated tavern in this
street; and near to where the bridge now stands were the old watering
stairs, from whence the Lord Mayor embarked on his way to Westminster
Hall. The old burying-ground of St. Thomas the Apostle is in this
street; but the church was not rebuilt after the Fire.
Southwark Bridge here spans the river. It consists of three cast-iron
arches, the centre one wide enough for the Monument to float through
cross-ways, and then leave a space of more than thirty feet. The weight
of iron employed in its construction was nearly 6000 tons. To look up at
the arches from the river, when underneath, recals the chambers built by
the old enchanters; so many gloomy cells branch out and run into each
other, that they appear marvellous, and compel you to respect the
inventive genius of John Rennie, the architect of this wonderful
structure, which was erected when railroads were unknown, and a tubular
bridge across the Menai Straits undreamed of. These things ought to be
borne in mind while looking at the cast-iron bridge of Southwark.
College-hill appears to have derived its name from a college founded on
it by the famous Whittington, who lived in the time of Chaucer, and who
was so many times Lord Mayor of London. The last Duke of Buckingham
resided on this hill, but at what period we have not been able to
discover. There does not appear to us the remains of any house
sufficiently imposing enough to have been his residence, nor any thing
extant beyond a court-yard, which is said to have belonged to his
princely mansion. Strype says he resided here "upon a particular
humour;" and we cannot contradict him, though to us it seems very
strange, knowing that the City had at this time ceased, with but few
exceptions, to be occupied by the nobility. We know that he sold his
house in the Strand in 1672, and it is just probable that he may have
resided here about this time; if so, it must then have been a new house,
for the Great Fire occurred in 1666; and how such a mansion came to be
taken down, and when and for what purpose, we cannot explain.
Here we have the Mercers' School, which formerly stood beside the hall
and chapel of this ancient company in Cheapside. It is said to be one of
the oldest endowed schools in London, and to occupy the ground on which
formerly stood "God's Hospital," founded by Whittington, now removed to
Highgate, a great improvement on the original situation, considering
that there is no longer any "flower-show" in Bucklesbury, and that the
old Stocks Market has been removed to make room for the present Mansion
House. St. Michael's, College-hill, was rebuilt by Wren; it contains an
altar-piece by Hilton, and is remarkable for nothing save that it was
made a collegiate church by Whittington's executors, and that the
far-famed Lord Mayor is buried here--not forgetting an old poet
(Cleveland), of whom we have in another work made honourable mention,
for he was the first who called the bee "Nature's confectioner." His
description of the ruins of "Old St. Paul's" after the Fire ought to be
better known. His hatred of the Roundheads was "right royal."
Facing St. Pancras-lane, and running into Cheapside or the Poultry, is
Bucklesbury, alluded to by Shakspeare, who makes Falstaff compare the
dandies of his day to "lisping hawthorn buds, that come like women in
men's apparel, and smell like Bucklesbury in simple time." It seems to
have been principally inhabited by apothecaries in former times; and, as
we know the faith our forefathers had in herbs, which they distilled and
took in all kinds of forms as medicine, we can readily imagine what an
aroma there was about the shops of these ancient herbalists.
Walbrook is so called from a brook which formerly flowed from the City
wall into the Thames, but in Stowe's time was built over and "hidden
under ground, and thereby hardly known." We have here the beautiful
church of St. Stephen's, Walbrook. "This church," says Mr. Godwin in his
work entitled _The Churches of London_, "is
[Illustration: ST. STEPHEN'S, WALBROOK.]
certainly more worthy of admiration in respect to its general
arrangement, which displays great skill, than of the details, for they
are in many respects faulty. The body of the church, which is nearly a
parallelogram, is divided into five unequal aisles (the centre being the
largest, and those next the walls on either side the smallest,) by four
rows of Corinthian columns. Within one intercolumniation from the east
end, two columns from each of the two centre rows are omitted, and the
area thus formed is covered by an enriched cupola supported on eight
arches which rise from the entablature of the columns. By the
distribution of the columns and their entablature (as may be observed in
the engraving) a cruciform arrangement is given to this part of the
church, and an effect of great elegance is produced, although marred in
some degree by the want of connexion which exists between the _square_
area formed by the columns and their entablature, and the cupola which
covers it. The columns are raised on plinths of the same height as the
pewing. The spandrils of the arches bearing the cupola present panels
containing shields and foliage of uncertain and unmeaning form,
perfectly French in style; and of the same character are the brackets
against the side walls, in the shape of enriched capitals introduced to
receive the ends of the entablature in the place of pilasters. At the
chancel end pilasters are introduced, and serve to shew more plainly the
impropriety of omitting them elsewhere. The enrichments of the
entablature--itself meagre and imperfect--are clumsily executed. Above
it is a clerestory, containing windows of mean form and construction.
The cupola, around which runs a circular dentil cornice, just above the
arches, is divided into panels ornamented with palm-branches and roses,
and is terminated at the apex by a circular lantern light: the whole is
elegant in outline, and is much more in design than are other portions
of the church just now alluded to." St. Stephen's, Walbrook, is
considered, in spite of Mr. Godwin's architectural criticism, one of the
most beautiful of all Wren's churches, and for a comparatively modern
building, is the gem of the City. Outside there is nothing to admire;
but within it wears, in our eyes, a sweet cathedral-like look, so
gracefully does the light stream down, so artistically do the shadows
slumber. When the great architect planned this building, he must have
been blessed with one of those happy thoughts which sometimes come upon
a poet unaware, and for which he can no more account than he can for the
fragrance that floats upon the summer breeze. The grace of those
pillars, the beauty of that airy dome, haunt the memory long after they
have been seen; and when far away, come upon the mind like pleasant
recollections. The altar-piece by West finds many admirers; but the
greatest charm is the eloquence of the rector, the Rev. Dr. Croly, whose
literary works stand "second to none" of the many highly-gifted poets of
the day; for the author of _Salathiel_ has won himself a name which will
never be forgotten while the language in which he clothed the "Angel of
the World" is uttered.
Nearly bordering upon the ancient crypt in Basing-lane, at the depth of
12 feet 6 inches below the surface, some workmen recently came upon a
Roman tesselated pavement, a space of which comprising about 27 feet was
exposed. This pavement, which is composed of the common red tesseræ,
without pattern, is embedded in a thin layer of cement and pounded
brick, underneath which is a thick
[Illustration:
1. Amphora, or wine vessel.
2. Black cinerary urn.
3, 4. Vessels of stone-coloured ware.
5. Mortaria, studded with quartz, with potter's name.
6. Black urn, diamond patter.
7. Small Samian vessel.
8. Earthen lamp.
9. Small vessel, used probably for balsams or other funeral offerings.
ROMAN VESSELS FOUND IN CANNON STREET.]
stratum of coarse sand cement. A cutting contiguous to the site of the
pavement exhibits a section of chalk foundation, with layers of Roman
tile, over which, supporting part of a brick building now in course of
demolition, are the remains of a strong chalk wall, about 10 feet high
and 4 feet in thickness. About 18 feet from the Roman pavement is a
circular shaft, similar to that discovered near Billingsgate in
connexion with Roman pavements and other remains on the site of the
present Coal Exchange. This shaft is composed of chalk, and lined with
hard stone. A chalk-built vault had been demolished by the workmen
before it could be properly examined. Fragments of the fine red pottery
called Samian ware, some of them bearing an elegant pattern, were found
at a depth of nearly 20 feet; of these we give engravings. In other
parts of the excavation, and in the face of the cutting, about 4 feet
below the pavement, were picked out bits of the same kind of pottery,
and fragments from a large mass of carbonised wood imbedded in the clay,
and seemingly one of the piles which had served to support the Roman
edifice formerly occupying the spot, in like manner with those
discovered near Billingsgate. It is worthy of remark that the site of
these discoveries is, as nearly as can be ascertained, that formerly
occupied by the fortress of Tower Royal, being just about the same
distance east of Queen-street as the line once known as Tower
Royal-street, so designated to mark the locality of the ancient royal
fortress; and it seems not improbable that the chalk superstructure
above described may have appertained to the walls of this edifice. Tower
Royal stood in the parish of St. Thomas the Apostle, in Watling-street,
and came down to the Thames with its gardens, stables, &c.
[Illustration: THE LONDON STONE.]
In Cannon-street, beside the church of St. Swithin, the old saint who,
in the country, is still believed to have a good deal to do with fair or
rainy weather, stands the far-famed London Stone, of which we give an
engraving: it is "let into" the wall of this church. The stone appears
to have stood on the opposite side of Cannon-street in Stowe's time, and
to have been "fixed in the ground very deep, and fastened with bars of
iron so strongly set, that if the carts do run against it through
negligence, the wheels be broken, and the stone itself
[Illustration: JEWEL.]
unshaken." The cause why this stone was set there, the time when, or
other memory hereof, is none." Camden believes it to have been one of
the old Roman milestones; but this, we think, is doubtful, as others
would have been found in some of the old towns which the Romans
inhabited. Every reader of Shakspeare will remember Jack Cade sitting
upon this stone and proclaiming himself lord of London. The Mansion
House was built about the year 1753: before this period, the Lord Mayor
was compelled to reside in his own house, or to give his entertainment
in some of the City halls. In the Egyptian Hall, the Lord Mayor
entertains his guests in such a style as few cities saving London can
afford, for the plate used on these occasions is alone valued at
20,000_l._ Few princes live in greater state than the Lord Mayor of
London; for he has his sword-bearer, his chaplain, mace-bearer,
sergeant-at-arms, carver, esquires, bailiffs, and we know not who
beside. To support this dignity, he is allowed 8000_l._ a year during
his mayoralty, which sum, if he is liberal, finds him comparatively in
little more than salt and servants; for the good citizens soon begin to
cry out if he does not "cook" pretty often, and invite them to the
banquet.