Smithfield-market will soon be numbered with the things that "have

been;" the defenders of dirt must give way, and the foul and musty

corners of the City be purified. Should the present work turn up in "a

lot" some century hence, our description of Smithfield may be as great a

curiosity to the reader then, as Ned Ward's picture of a Lord Mayor's

show one hundred and fifty years ago was to us, when we chanced to

stumble upon the remains of the tattered old quarto volume in which it

has been so long preserved.

There is something about this busy market unlike any other that we have

ever seen in England--in the mixture of cunning costermongers, and

ruddy-faced countrymen; for in it buyers and sellers congregate from

every corner of our sea-girt shores, and you hear the language of the

provinces, and see costumes from the "nooks and corners" of England,

which call up sweet green far-away places, where innocence and

simplicity still reside, ignorant of the "fast" life we in this huge

city are compelled to live.

But we will begin with the eating-houses in and around Smithfield.

Nowhere beside in London will you see such immense fat joints as they

here cook, or behold such rich marrow puddings; for the eating-house

keepers seem to understand the palates of their customers. They know

that they have to feed men who put a pound upon their plates at a time;

that they have come many a hungry mile through the open and breezy

country, and brought ostrich-like stomachs, which are capable of

digesting every heavy and solid thing they devour.

But watch one of those drovers, after his cattle are safely penned, blow

off the foam from a full pot of porter and drink. You can fairly trace

the current outside his ruddy throat, as gulp after gulp goes down,

long, deep, and vast; you wonder how ever the fellow can hold his

breath. If he does not empty the whole pot at a draught, he will not

leave enough in the bottom to drown a fly. He brought in his throat the

dust of many a weary mile; and, when you recal the shouting and

hallooing which is so necessary in driving his cattle, you marvel not

that he feels as thirsty as a lime-burner. Nor does his dog lose a

moment before he visits the adjoining cab-stand, where he makes friends

with the waterman, and, like his master, quenches his thirst. No dogs

are more sagacious than those which have been well trained by a

Smithfield drover--a look or a motion is sufficient to direct them: they

need no telling to drive the sheep aside when a vehicle is passing; a

runaway needs no pointing out to them, they are up and over the backs of

the whole flock in a moment; and, having placed the deserter again in

marching order, the side of the master is once more their post. As they

look into his face, you might, from their actions, fancy that they read

his very thoughts, and foresaw his wishes. Many of these men love their

dogs as dearly as their children; and well do the faithful animals

return such affection. We have seen a drover asleep on the pavement in

summer, with his dog coiled up beside him, and ready to spring upon the

first assailant who could be found bold enough to disturb his owner's

slumber. The watchfulness of the dog and the attitude of the sleeper

would have delighted the eye of Landseer.

To our ears there is something in the lowing and bleating sounds that

fill Smithfield on a market-day that carries us away into the green

quietude of the country; and we cannot look upon the flocks and herds

without conjuring up the sloping hills and pastoral valleys from whence

they have been driven. They call up images of homesteads and thatched

granges, far off amid the dreamy murmur of open fields, where even the

smell of the smoke has a pleasant aroma, and the dust on the road-side a

clean look. Somehow, we seem to dislike seeing the little white lambs

imprisoned in those strong and crowded pens; there is a pitiable

plaintiveness about their bleat, which tells that they are not kindly

used--as if they felt it hard to be driven away from the young round

daisies which were just beginning to peep forth--that they missed their

merry gambols on the breezy upland, and pined for their range over the

wide and open fields. With an old or middle-aged sheep we have no such

sympathy--it has lived until it has grown into mutton, to become as

great an ornament to the table as it once was to the field. What a

beautiful expression may sometimes be found in the face of an heifer,

with its large mild eyes and finely-moulded head! Let any one walk down

the foot-way on a Monday, between the posts to which they are secured,

and he will be struck by the calm and patient countenances of many of

the cattle; for they are prisoners that awaken our pity. Nor is their

colour less admirable. What a rich glossiness do we find about the red

and black patches! while the white portions look clean and spotless as

untrodden snow.

In no city in the world can there be found such a splendid assemblage of

cattle as Smithfield produces on a full market-day. A foreigner wonders

no longer at the thews and sinews of Englishmen after he has seen the

substantial material on which they feed. A drover with his sharp

clasp-knife in his hand, and a mountain of beef before him, is no bad

emblem of one of John Bull's bulwarks.

We have often wondered if the inhabitants around Smithfield ever sleep

on a Sunday night; to us it has seemed impossible to close the eyes amid

such an uproar as is then heard. Babel was never shaken by a greater

confusion of sounds: the barking of a hundred dogs blend with the

hallooing of a hundred drovers; sheep, whose number is legion, join in

the chorus; then comes the deep bass of the bullocks, mingled with the

shrill squealing of swine--a sound which sets the very teeth on edge;

and this loud concert is kept up without ceasing until day opens its

broad eyes in the east. Should the unwilling listener--worn out--begin

to doze about the dawn, up comes the thunder of scores of butchers'

carts, making the old casements chatter again, and causing the houses to

jar to their very foundations. Night is not a season of rest in this

ancient neighbourhood.

Many of those Smithfield butchers can tell to a few pounds what a

bullock will weigh by only looking at it: you will see them walk once

leisurely round, muse for a few brief seconds, then make an offer;

should the salesman argue that it will weigh so much to the quarter,

they are ready in an instant to back their own judgment with a

five-pound note. They seem to carry their scales in their eyes, to lift

up the bullock and weigh him by only raising their eye-lids; as to sheep

and pigs, we believe some of them would be ready to bet that they

guessed the weight to a few ounces.

But Friday is the great day to see Smithfield, if a stranger wishes to

peep at a few of our real London characters. Such a motley group as is

there congregated can never be found together in any other spot in the

metropolis. There the costermonger shews the paces of his donkey, and

the dustman forces his broken-kneed jade into a trot, while the knacker

looks on with eye intent, selecting out such as he feels confident will

have to be carried home. What riding, and running, and trotting to and

fro, is there to be seen! You wonder what secret the men possess to get

such poor and broken-down horses to go at the speed they do. True, one

or two fall now and then; but that, of course, is always the fault of

the pavement, as they say. It puzzles you to see them dispose of animals

that possess so many excellent qualities. Only to listen, you might

fancy that the poor horse, which seems to stand with so much difficulty,

could draw St. Paul's if it were loose; that "Eclipse" was hardly to be

named beside it for speed; and as for eating (the most wonderful of

all), its keep costs less than nothing. Should the horse have swollen

legs, they assign a reason, and swear it is a proof of its great

strength; should the bones shew through the skin, it is tough and wiry;

if broken-winded, it has only caught a slight cold. In short, they have

a good for every evil, and would beat your practised horse-dealers

hollow--even if they came from Yorkshire.

One, whose hair peeps through his cap, has thrown an old bridle around

his neck, and this he recommends as better than new, because it has got

seasoned. A second, whose ragged suit would not fetch a crown, were he

to try all Petticoat-lane, has an old saddle to dispose of; you see the

hay it is stuffed with peeping out at a dozen openings. Another, having

got rid of his donkey, wants a purchaser for his cart, which you fancy,

from the look of the wheels, he must have brought thither on his head.

Some are trying to recommend their whips by the loud cracking they are

ever making within a few inches of your ear; while others gather in

little knots around a celebrated trotter, and listen with delight at the

distance he has "done" in his day. And over every bargain that is made,

the huge pewter pot is filled and emptied, or the fiery gin chucked down

at a single swallow.

Some we have seen--driven doubtless by hard necessity to sell--part with

their favourite animal, with a full heart and a tearful eye: and on one

occasion we saw a poor sweep kiss the forehead of his donkey, and when

it was led away he heaved such a sigh as would have caused Sterne to

have hugged his "innocent blackness."

We have often wondered into what sort of holes and corners these poor

over-worked and ill-fed horses are thrust by their owners. We have

peeped about into all kinds of strange places where we have seen the

carts of the costermongers standing; but, for the life of us, we have

never been able to discover their "whereabout" clearly. True, we have

occasionally seen them enter doors, and go into houses; but whether they

were occupiers of the ground-floor, or the ground in the back-yard, we

have only in a few cases arrived at a satisfactory conclusion. Once we

were bold enough to ask a rough-looking fellow, with a most awful

squint, what he did with his donkey when he got it inside, and he

answered, "Make a pillow of it, to be sure."

Besides its cattle, Smithfield has its hay-market; and we have many a

time wondered, while reading the names of the places on the carts and

wagons, at the great distance from which they have come. Sometimes,

overpowering every other poisonous smell, we have caught a sniff as if

from a hay-field, telling us a sad tale of some poor farmer who had been

compelled to bring the produce of his little field to market before the

smell of the sweet grasses had died away. Nor less melancholy is it to

witness some old countryman driving his cow and calf before him, and

looking around with astonishment, in the cold grey of the early morning,

on the high houses and the busy scene. Oh, how different from the calm

repose of his own humble cottage! You see care in his very countenance,

and know that there is some unwritten history of poverty and trouble

that compels him to make such a sacrifice.

It was once our lot to meet such a character in the open area of

Smithfield. Time had silvered his hair, but left a ruddy and youthful

bloom upon his patriarchal countenance. He had driven his beautiful cow

and calf into their allotted place, and stood with a short clean pipe in

his hand, as if wondering how he should obtain a light: no doubt his

morning pipe had long been to him a comfort. He glanced a moment at the

cigar we were smoking, but was too diffident to ask for a light; it was

not needed: an extra draw, the ash shaken off, and we offered him the

fiery end, which glowed like charcoal. He "louted not low," but made a

bow that would have done honour to a herald. It required but little

trouble to get him to enter into conversation: He had set out long

before midnight; had driven his cow and calf above twenty miles, from a

beautiful village in Surrey, and was about to sell them to purchase the

discharge of his son, who was a soldier at Chatham. We turned away with

a sad heart, for a tear gathered in the old man's eye as he ended his

simple narrative; and we thought that Smithfield still contained its

martyrs. Once also we saw a young Gipsy mother and her dusky child

standing silently beside her ass: she had brought it to market to sell,

to release her husband from the prison, into which he was committed for

poaching. But many a market in England is attended by such sufferers as

these, besides Smithfield.

This great market, like Bartholomew-fair, is doomed to be swept away,

and Smithfield to be shorn of its glory, and the old houses left to

mourn in silence. A horned and angry bullock is not the most fitting

object to rush through our crowded thoroughfares, to the terror of

pretty nursery-maids and little children. But, as the inimitable

Matthews said, "We cannot take a hackney-coach for it;" nor can such a

danger be got rid of without great injury to many of the old

inhabitants, whose very bread depends upon the market. It is a

[Illustration]

question of "pitch and toss," whether the few are to be tossed up, or

the many thrown down;--whether it is better for a few Joneses and Smiths

to be thrown occasionally over the battlements of Blackfriars-bridge, or

the eatinghouse-keepers and tavern-keepers about Smithfield to give up

boiling, baking, and brewing. It is fat joints, marrow puddings, and

everybody's entire, with no end of etceteras in the form of tollage,

against the lives and limbs of her gracious Majesty's liege subjects. As

the boys say, "If heads, I win; if tails, you lose." Whichever way it

ends, the poetry of old Smithfield will still remain.

Fat Ursula, who sold roasted pig, still lives in the pages of Rare Old

Ben; and while his works exist, the memory of Bartholomew-fair will

never be forgotten. Its old mummings, and masques, and mysteries, are

numbered amongst the things that were. The merry din of ancient days

will never resound again through the bars of Smithfield. The archers,

who made it their great mustering-ground, have ages ago shot their last

shaft. Death stept in and struck through the target, and they never

again appeared. What visions of the past float before us while wandering

around the old borders of Smithfield! What pictures have perished for

ever that once glowed in all the colours of life upon that wide-spread

canvass! Kings and heroes and martyrs; processions of solemn monks

hymning along as they moved beneath the archway that leads to

Bartholomew's ancient church; and figures of brutal and bearded men, who

fed the reddening fires--of shrieks and groans that pierced through the

star-paved floors of heaven--and curses that went deep and hollow into

the nethermost depths of dark perdition.

In the early morning have we traversed that solemn neighbourhood, when

neither the stir of trade nor traffic disturbed the silence. And at such

times the past has seemed again to open its silent doors, and the

phantoms of the departed dead to glide before us. Battle and banner have

again been displayed: pale and bleeding we have in fancy seen Wat Tyler

fall, struck down by the arm of the powerful Mayor of London. Then came

the shadow of the king, who had broken faith with the brave rebel,

flying before his murderers. The Bastard of Burgundy and Earl Rivers

next passed with their visors down, and paused on the spot where the

lists were erected, when all London rushed into the open square to gaze

upon the single combat they there fought. We saw pale faces upraised

amid the flames, lips silent, yet moving with inward prayer. The ancient

watch passed by half-buried in the smoke of the burning cressets. A dark

funeral swept slowly along under the dusky archway, and was lost in the

shadow of the old church. Then the morning sun fell upon a gay bridal

party: they entered the low porch, and the door that opened into the

gable-ended overhanging mansion was closed upon them for ever.

The high-piled City stands upon the dust of her millions of sons and

daughters, who have ages ago sunk into the earth from whence they

sprung. Even into the ancient church of Bartholomew itself we have now

to descend as we enter--the remains of the forgotten dead have risen

high above the antique floor; the youth and beauty of departed years are

but a portion of the dark mould which rises around the hoary edifice.

"They loved, but whom they loved the grave

Hath lost in its unconscious womb;

Oh! they were fair, but nought could save

Their beauty from the tomb."--_J. Montgomery._

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XI.

NEWGATE.

Around and within London lies a land chequered with lights and shadows,

close city courts, and stifling suburban alleys, in which the sunshine

only lingers for a few minutes during the day (where it seems imprisoned

and in a hurry to escape above the dusky chimneys); and in this vast

metropolis these scenes are contrasted with broad green, airy parks, and

long lines of palace-like streets, which stretch westward and dip into

the open and surrounding country. Its living crowds are ever in

motion--now to witness a royal procession; then cleaving a November fog,

or rolling eastward to gaze upon a "Lord Mayor's Show;" or, while

darkness still reigns over the solemn-looking streets, from its blind

alleys and secluded nooks--haunts of vice and infamy--the uneducated

heirs to crime and wretchedness grope their way towards Newgate, to see

the black and ominous stage erected, on which a real and living actor is

about to die, to glut the gaze of those who are assembled to witness

this legal tragedy. From the first hour after the deep-toned bell of St.

Paul's had struck the death-knell of the departed Sabbath, the crowd

began to congregate--only a few days ago--at the front of those

forbidding barriers, the doors of the neighbouring coffee-houses and

gin-shops were thrown open, and those who were not content to mingle

with the mob below, and witness the horrible exhibition gratis, began to

rush in, and bargain for their places. Then rang upon the ear the cries

of "Comfortable room!" "Excellent situation!" "Beautiful prospect!"

"Splendid view!" as each in turn recommended what may be termed the

box-places at the windows, or the open and airy gallery on the roofs;

for the pit lay dark and crowded below, and there the audience had free

entrance. From every avenue this human crowd rushed in; up narrow

courts, and the wide openings of the streets, they came in dusky groups,

that passed through light and shadow as they crossed over where the

glare of the gas-lamps fell--then merged into the dark mass of human

forms on which the gloomy shadow of Newgate settled down.

All night long were the workmen busily employed in erecting the gloomy

scaffold: the sound of their hammers and saws fell upon the ear at

intervals; these again were drowned by the loud jeers and coarse jests

which were ever and anon uttered and responded to by many in that brutal

mob. One after another the huge pieces of black wood were brought out

and fitted together, until high above the crowd rose the grim stage on

which the death-ending drama was to be represented. Even on the

countenances of those who erected the pile no expression of pity could

be traced; they hammered and sawed as if they were erecting a gay

mansion for the living, instead of a place on which the doomed victim

was a few moments to plant his feet, look around him, and--die! The

posts, which supported the planks on which so many trembling actors had

trod, were fitted into the same holes in the ground--foundations which

had been dug long years ago, and stood firmly, with all their load of

sorrow and crime, through scores of heart-aching executions: spots which

the thoughtful man never passes without heaving a sigh, and where the

brutal and the vicious only congregate to jest at degraded humanity.

Ranged along the lines of the barriers, like hounds that are ever in

foremost at the death, are seen those whom neither rain, snow, storm,

nor darkness ever prevented from attending an execution. Their

conversation is about their companions of former years--of those who

were long ago imprisoned, transported, or hanged; while they alone,

though often within the clutches of the law, are still at large, with

all their crimes. Some of these, whose hair age and guilt have whitened,

remember the days when men were hung up in a row--can tell who died

basely and who bravely; and on his memory who met death in sorrow and

repentance they cast reproach and shame; while he who plunged daringly

into the darkness of eternity, as if he gloried in his iniquity, they

hold up as an example to be followed. No rocking nor swaying of the

crowd from without can remove these old idolaters of the gallows: the

mass of human bodies behind may roll to and fro, like the waves of the

ocean--the motion affects them not; they are anchored like rocks at the

foot of the gloomy headland, which stands with its dark beam reared high

above the billowy multitude. Nearly every countenance along those

foremost ranks seems marked with the lines which witnessing such public

executions have imprinted there--as if the very cordage had

[Illustration]

left its twisted impress upon their visages, and the dark beam its

ominous line upon their furrowed brows, giving to them the very reflex

of the gallows itself, while watching its workings.

From the expression of such countenances we can see that the exhibition

they are awaiting has for them no terrors; that it is but calculated to

harden their hearts, by making them more familiar with the image of

death; and that, instead of repenting, they are more likely to go and

take away life; thus following the example which the law itself has set

before their eyes. Here and there, mingled among the crowd, are seen the

figures of women; some, whose countenances are marked with dissipation,

yet bearing faint traces of former beauty, as if Nature was still

reluctant to obliterate the fair image which she had first formed,

though every trace of the pure spirit, which had once given it such

light and animation, has long since perished. If they speak together in

tones of pity, it is the besotted sympathy of maudlin inebriety. There

is a rocking of the head, a swaying of the body, and a folding of the

arms, which tell how low they have sunk,--that the once clear intellect

is prostrated before the power of ardent spirits; while the crushed

bonnet, the dirty shawl, the gown fastened with a single hook upon the

back, and that slip-shod slovenliness of the feet, proclaim that all the

pride of the woman has vanished. Girls and youths, too, are there, on

whose countenances the impress of innocence is still stamped, though the

white purity of the flower is sullied with the trail of the slimy soil

in which it has grown. It makes the heart ache--while looking upon these

stained and drooping flowers, that are growing amid such a wilderness of

full-blown weeds--to reflect upon the deathly blight which must at last

settle down and destroy them, unless they are transplanted by some kind

and nurturing hand into a more favourable soil. Surely that law which

can take away life might throw its protecting power over such as these,

and a score or two of policemen be stationed to prevent them from

witnessing such a scene as an execution, which is only calculated to

brutalise their youthful minds. Pocket-picking, fighting, drunkenness,

and profanity in almost every form, are the only examples to be picked

up by these young frequenters of the gallows. No man can venture there

with a kind and feeling heart, unless impelled by such motives as would

lead him to plunge into a pest-house in the hope of restoring again to

health some of those whom the plague has stricken down. They think not

of the heart-broken relatives who have taken a last farewell as they

stood within the massy and low-vaulted corridors behind that forbidding

and impassable barrier of iron bars--nor of the condemned cell in which

the doomed prisoner has passed so many hours of bitter remorse, looking

with an inward eye of awe into that mysterious future into which he is

now to be suddenly launched.

Many a mechanic, who set out with his dinner in his basket and his tools

upon his back, on his way to his daily labour, is tempted by those he

there meets with to stay beyond his allotted hour--until finding that it

is too late to accomplish a full day's work, he returns to some

neighbouring tap-room, and so the time is passed in recounting and

listening to a long history of former executions, until night and

drunkenness overtake him, at the very hour when the faithful wife,

having prepared his evening meal, is sitting with pale cheek patiently

awaiting his return. Many an unfortunate man may date his ruin from the

day he first witnessed an execution--as the first hour that threw him

amid the group who haunt the foot of the gallows; and as human nature is

more prone to stoop to vice than to soar aloft to virtue, so from that

moment he sank never more to rise again, all his finer feelings blunted,

and he himself lowering all who were once endeared to him to his own

vicious standard. Such as the herds among have no pity for the dead;

they pick out every sentence uttered by the witnesses in favour of the

culprit who is about to suffer--they turn not to the widowed wife, the

weeping children, and the once happy home which the deed he has done has

left dark and desolate. They argue that drink or anger, temptation or

poverty, or a weariness of life, drove him to the act, and that, saving

the momentary pang which for ever ends his troubles, his last hours were

soothed by kindness and attention; and that, for their parts, they would

sooner prefer such an ending than to be left to die amid disease, want,

neglect, and wretchedness, with no human being near to breathe a word of

hope and comfort. Time after time they have witnessed the worst--have

seen the law armed, and in full power strike with all its might--and

turned aside without a feeling of terror. Life has been taken away

before their very eyes; they have seen a fellow-creature hanged "to make

an English holiday," and they have gone and again aroused the vengeance

of "Justice," have destroyed life as they have seen it destroyed, have

made that their own act and deed, which the law is more formally--for

lack of other merciful modes of punishment--again compelled to follow as

an example, taking life for life, and visiting evil with evil, not in a

spirit of hatred or revenge, but because custom has sanctioned the

necessity. Above the murmur and tumult of that noisy assembly, the

lowing and bleating of cattle, as they were driven into the stalls and

pens of Smithfield, fell with a strange and unnatural sound upon the

ear, calling up for a few moments the tranquillity of green hill-sides,

and broad, level pasture-lands, where the fever, and the fret, and the

crime from crowded cities never came. What a contrast to the scene that

stretched below, the cold grey dawn of the raw morning breaking upon the

dark and weather-stained front of the prison, and giving to those

iron-coloured and windowless walls an almost unearthly appearance. The

very stones seemed to shape themselves into the faces of the dead, as if

from the hard granite had started out the grey and eyeless faces of all

the children of crime who had suddenly stept from that gloomy scaffold

into the grave. Carts rolled by, bearing the produce of quiet fields and

tree-sheltered gardens, to the market; the rustic driver turned his head

for a moment; then, with eyes bent upon the ground, went musing along

his way. The coach moved slowly along, severing in its course the

closely-packed crowd; the warm-clad passengers glanced down the wide

thoroughfare, with its dark pavement of human heads, upon the black and

ominous beam that went spanning across, like the bridge of death, and

ever would the same vision rise up before them all day long. They would

see it in the arms of the trees which hung over the winding

country-roads: it would fall like a blot upon the leaden-coloured sky,

wherever a black and naked spray threw out its arm above the rounded

horizon. In the rolling of the river they would hear the murmuring of

the multitude; and the echo of the bridge over which they passed would

send out from the mouths of its wide-spanning arches curses that would

come floating deep and singly, as if from above the heads of that

dimly-remembered crowd.

Hush! the unceasing murmur of the mob now breaks into a loud deep

roar--a sound as if the ocean had suddenly broken through some ancient

boundary, against which its ever-restless billows had for ages battered;

the wide dark sea of heads is all at once in motion; each wave seems

trying to overleap the other, as they are drawn onwards towards this

outlet. Every link in that great human chain is shaken; along the whole

lengthened lines has the motion jarred, and each in turn sees, coiled up

on the floor of the scaffold, like a serpent, the hangman's rope! The

human hand that placed it there was only seen for a moment, as it lay,

white and ghastly, upon the black boards, and then again was as suddenly

withdrawn, as if ashamed of the deed it had done. The loud shout of the

multitude once more subsided, or only fell upon the abstracted ear like

the dreamy murmur of an ocean-shell. Then followed sounds more distinct

and audible, in which ginger-beer, pies, fried fish, sandwiches, and

fruit, were vended under the names of notorious murderers, highwaymen,

and criminals, famous in the annals of Newgate for the hardihood they

had displayed in the hour of execution, when they terminated their

career of crime at the gallows. Threading his way among these itinerant

venders, was seen the meek-faced deliverer of tracts--the man of good

intentions--now bonneted, now laughed at, the skirt of his seedy black

coat torn across; yet, though pulled right and left, or sent headlong

into the crowd by the swing of some brutal and muscular arm, never once

from that pale face passed away its benign and patient expression, but

ever the same form moved along in the fulfilment of his mission, in

spite of all persecution. Another fight followed the score which had

already taken place; this time two women were the combatants: blinded

with their long hair, they tore at each other like two furies; their

bonnets and caps were trodden under foot in the kennel, and lay

disregarded beside the body of the poor dog, which, while searching for

its master in the crowd, was an hour before kicked to death by the

savage and brutal mob.

Another deep roar, louder than any which had preceded it, broke from the

multitude. Then came the cry of "Hats off!" and "Down in front!" as at a

theatre. It was followed by the deep and solemn booming of the

death-bell from the church of St. Sepulchre--the iron knell that rang

upon the beating heart of the living man who was about to die; and, with

blanched cheek and sinking heart, we turned away from the scene.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XII.

FLEET-STREET, OLD ALSATIA, AND LONDON LODGING-HOUSES.

We have again reached the point from which we started at the

commencement of our work, leaving behind us undescribed many objects of

great interest to such as love to dwell upon the past, beside others of

importance belonging to the present, but possessing not those

picturesque features which we prefer dwelling upon. Here we shall pause

for a while, and, as there is but little around us in the shape of

"bricks and mortar" to arrest our attention, take a glance at the lights

and shadows of busy life. We have now arrived at Fleet-street, which,

with its ramifications to the right and left, is as jagged as a spray of

fern. Branching from this busy street you enter courts and alleys, such

as if a stranger to the neighbourhood once got entangled amongst, he

would scarcely find his way out of again, though he tried for a full

hour by the clock, unless he made many inquiries: courts which somehow

seem to have run into a knot--so ravelled that you can neither find

beginning nor end, so often are you stopped by a dead wall here, and

thrown into a whirlpool of alleys a little further on, as if they had

been run up by hundreds of builders from different points in the dark,

who, when daylight came, found themselves in all sorts of zigzag ways

endeavouring to brick up one another. And in these places you will

always find "Apartments to let." True, they are very close, but then

they are very central, for what part of London is there that the great

main artery of Fleet-street does not lead into? If you are struck by the

planet Venus, whatever astronomers may say to the contrary, there you

will find that she has her satellites that are ever moving round and

round. Should you happen to be overtaken by drink--a demon who ever lies

in wait in this neighbourhood--there you have station-houses and

policemen at hand; if in debt, there are sponging-houses with their

doors open to receive you. Should you even have the honour of being

hanged, you cannot well miss finding your way to Newgate.

Whitefriars, in Fleet-street, appears to have been one of the most

notorious places in London. We all remember Sir Walter Scott's

description of Alsatia (a name given to this locality about 1600) in the

_Fortunes of Nigel_; and from the same work we have so often quoted, we

are enabled to bring the spot once more before the "mind's eye" of our

readers, as it was in its decay. It first commences with Salisbury court

as follows:

"Every two or three steps we met some old figure or another which looked

as if the devil had robbed them of all their natural beauty * * * and

inspired (into them) his own infernal spirit; for nothing but devilism

could be read in every feature. Theft, homicide, and blasphemy peeped

out at every window of their souls; lying, perjury, fraud, impudence,

and misery were the only graces of their countenances.

"One with slip-shoes, without stockings, and dirty linen, visible

through a crape dress, was stepping from the ale-house to her lodgings

with a parcel of pipes in one hand and a gallon-pot in the other; yet

with her head dressed up to as much advantage as if the other members of

her body were sacrificed to keep her ill-looking face in a little

finery. Another, I suppose taken from the oyster-tub and put into

(similar) allurements, made a more cleanly appearance, but became her

ornaments as a cow would a curb-bridle or a sow a hunting-saddle. Then

every now and then would bolt out a fellow, and whip nimbly across the

way, being equally fearful, as I imagine, of both constable and

sergeant, and looking as if the dread of the gallows had drawn its

picture in his countenance. * * * *

"We soon departed hence, my friend conducting me to a place called

Whitefriars, which, he told me, was formerly of great service to the

honest traders of the city, who, if they could, by cant, flattery or

dissimulation, procure large credit amongst their zealous fraternity,

would slip in here with their effects, take sanctuary against the laws,

compound their debts for a small matter, and oftentimes get a better

estate by breaking than they could ever propose to do by trading. But

now a late Act [he must here allude to the Act passed about 1696,

William III.] of Parliament has taken away its privileges; and since

knaves can neither break with safety nor advantage, it is observed that

there are not a quarter so many shopkeepers play at bo-peep with their

creditors as when they were encouraged to be rogues by such cheating

conveniences. * * *

"We came into the main street of this neglected asylum, so _very_ thin

of people, the windows broken, and the houses untenanted, as if the

plague, or some like judgment from heaven, as well as execution on

earth, had made a great slaughter amongst the poor inhabitants."--_London

Spy_, 1699. Part 7.

It seems strange that such a lawless community should then have dwelt

almost within the very sanctuary of the law, for the author (Ned Ward)

just quoted tells us, that "he passed through the little wicket of a

great pair of gates into the Temple."

We must not pass without noticing St. Bride's Church, situated by the

office of our merry neighbour _Punch_, who does his "spiriting gently,"

and is as great a "terror to evil-doers" as the constables were in the

olden time to the sinners of Alsatia.

This is another of Wren's beautiful churches, and is enriched by stained

glass, copied from Rubens, the subject the Descent from the Cross. The

steeple was struck by lightning in 1764, and when repaired was reduced

in height, though it still towers a graceful and noble monument above

the surrounding houses, as it

"Points its silent finger to the sky,

And teaches grovelling man to look on high."

In the old church, destroyed in the Great Fire, was buried the famous

printer Wynkin de Worde, whose works are now worth their weight in gold,

and are almost as scarce as those which were issued from the press by

Caxton. Here also was buried the notorious Mary Frith, commonly called

Moll Cut-Purse. On her adventures Dekker and Middleton founded the play

entitled _The Roving Girl, or Moll Cut-Purse_. She died in the

seventy-fifth year of her age, at her house in Fleet-street, next the

Globe tavern, in 1659. In her will she left 20_l._ for the conduit to

run with wine at the Restoration of Charles II. It was Moll who robbed

General Fairfax on Hounslow Heath. Her life was published in 1662. She

was, says Granger, "a fortune-teller, a pickpocket, a thief, and a

receiver of stolen goods." She died of the dropsy, and her life is

supposed to have been prolonged through the large quantity of tobacco

which she smoked. Our great Milton at one time lodged in St. Bride's

churchyard. It would form a goodly catalogue of celebrated names to

enumerate all who have been buried in St. Bride's, or lived in the

adjoining neighbourhood.

Many of the houses, as in the time of Milton, in the back streets and

alleys are let out in lodgings; and we will now give, from our own

experience, a specimen of a downright London lodging-house--we mean, one

in which the landlord lives entirely by letting lodgings--for we allude

not to hotels, or respectable boarding-houses, but to places where you

are "taken in and done for."

An author, during his early career, is compelled to become acquainted

with the "ins and outs" and "ways and means" of London lodging-houses;

and as his occupation keeps him more within doors than those who hold

situations, or are otherwise engaged, he is, to use a more expressive

than elegant phrase, "Up to their moves and down to their dodges." We

have in our day known more than one gentleman who kept his own gridiron,

and brought home his rump-steak--taught by experience that half a pound

of his own cooking was equal to a pound after it had been entrusted to

the Cinderella or the Cerberus of the kitchen. We have known whisky in

such places (which overnight was above proof) become so weak in a single

day during our absence, as never to require water; and have seen a

shoulder of lamb, which, after our frugal dinner, was carried away with

a gap in it scarcely wide enough to admit of our two fingers, return at

supper-time with a hole in the middle big enough to shake hands through,

without touching any thing on either side except the knuckle, or the

edge of the bare blade-bone. It was wonderful how often the cat got to

our meat, and what trouble our landlady had been at, according to her

account, to cut off the portions puss had mangled, before it was again

fit to appear on the table. Cruel woman! she was always beating the cat

whenever we had a cold joint. As for our tea-caddy, we tried

half-a-dozen various kinds of locks; but they were picked with far more

ease than the clever American managed to pick Chubb's patent. When we

did at last get an unpickable lock, caddy and tea went altogether, and

Cinderella said her mistress had had a strange sweep, and that sweeps

were always sure to carry something or another away in the soot. The

next day we found a sixpenny tin tea-caddy in our cupboard, so took the

hint, and never sent out for more than two ounces at a time; and the

landlady seemed to settle down satisfied with little more than half of

it, so we had it "fresh and fresh" every day. We found that a twopenny

French roll went as far as a half-quartern loaf, as we were never

allowed to look a second time upon the remains of either. They charged

us for cream and gave us milk-and-water; but perhaps this was done out

of a tender regard for our health. How broth was made in these old model

lodging-houses, we never could clearly comprehend; but the landlady had

an herbalist book, and we believe made out her bill from the index,

beginning at agrimony and ending at yarrow-root. A bottle of wine when

decanted in the kitchen cost about eighteenpence a glass; walnuts, a

penny each; filberts came up so ripe that we found one in a cluster

where four or five had originally nestled together; lobsters always

lost their claws down-stairs, and very often came up with one side of

the shell empty. Bottled stout was always going off in the cellar, and

they shewed us the corks which had been blown out--indeed in these

matters they were rather particular. They were dreadfully troubled with

bluebottles in summer, and the largest joint would not keep beyond a

day.

The game you brought home yourself was never sweet; what the landlady

purchased for you was always good. Many cheap game-hawkers came to the

door; and sometimes the landlady was dining off a fine pheasant, while

your own was thrown into the dust-bin.

The whole household were troubled with bad memories, and were always

making mistakes. If you laid out a pair of trousers or a coat to be

repaired, you found sixpence or ninepence on the mantelpiece a morning

or two after, which was all the old clothesman would give for them. Then

they were very sorry, but that stupid girl was always making some

mistake or another, and the landlady would call on the tailor herself

another time. There were no queen's-heads in those days; and when we

sent the money to prepay a letter, they invariably forgot to stamp

"paid" on it at the post-office, though the girl knew to an inch where

she had put the money at the time, and could remember every thing that

was on the counter; and sometimes she said she had put the money in the

scales, and was sure it could not have rolled off and fallen on the

floor. Butter in these houses was very solid: it was wonderful what a

thin slice you had for half a pound, though the Cinderella of the

establishment swore that she saw it bump the scale down. Your linen wore

out very fast, and, after the buttons began to come off, they were never

fit to be sent to the laundress again. Your stockings stood darning

twice; pocket-handkerchiefs and light gloves the landlady was kind

enough to purchase for you every week. Your brushes, hair-brushes,

combs, &c. were, of course, common property. They sent you up the

newspaper about five minutes before the boy called for it, provided

every body below had done with it.

In some of these houses every thing about you is cold, hard, bright, and

uncomfortably clean, as if always ready to be let--"got up," as it were,

to strike every new comer. If you drop a crumb on the carpet it is

picked up before your face, by way of a gentle hint; a stain of ink on

the table-cover you would never hear the last of. Some mysterious kind

of white cabbage-network covers the back of the easy chair, and lies

grinning at you, full of holes, all over the sofa; you see nothing but

knots, and would as soon think of finding ease were you to lie down on a

stone floor strewn with bullets as on that hard white knotted cordage.

Everything in the room is for show, nothing for comfort. The

mantelpiece is covered with articles which are neither ornamental nor

useful: shells, four a shilling; a couple of white delf candlesticks;

two old hand-screens, picked up dirt-cheap at an auction; in the centre

three ugly-shaped earthenware articles, red, blue, and gilt tarnished,

holding about a dozen spills each, which are never used--you are sick of

seeing them reflected in the long mirror which was bought a bargain. If

you have a handful of fire in the cold glittering grate on a bitter

winter night, it makes you shiver to look at it: the poker looks so

bright and chilling, you are afraid to touch it; and if a piece of coal

falls out, they come in to see if you called, for they are always

listening. Sometimes you shove your boot toe into the fire in utter

desperation, or walk up and down the room, and storm heartily for

exercise. You feel as if you would like to kick the couple of cursed

carpet-covered hassocks about to warm you, and end by knocking down the

fire-irons, to break the homeless silence. Never, in such places, on any

account, begin to sharpen your razors near midnight, for the Evil One

seems ever to be lurking in the gloomy corners of such cheerless houses,

and there is no knowing what thoughts he might put into your head.

These are the class of houses in which you see neat bills in the

windows, announcing "Respectable Apartments for Single Gentlemen." They

never admit children into these old, keen, money-making lodging-houses:

the echoes of those houses are never broken by childish laughter, nor

these creaking floors shaken by merry romps; they like your shy, silent,

bashful man, who submits quietly to every imposition; for they care not

what he thinks, so long as he complains not openly.

In some streets you find lodging-houses inhabited by three distinct

classes, who are as much separated from each other as if they lived

fifty miles apart. The poor inhabitant in the attic may be dying while

the first-floor lodger is entertaining a party of friends; and although

they have both dwelt under the same roof for years, it is likely enough

that not a single word was ever exchanged between them.

The lodger who occupies the first floor seldom condescends to speak to

the "common people" who live in the garrets, for there is almost as much

difference in their habits as there is between the aristocracy and the

quiet plodding citizen. He who occupies the attic is very probably an

honest hard-handed mechanic, who comes home to his dinner regularly at

twelve o'clock, gives one loud single knock at the door, and is admitted

by his poor but clean-looking wife: he wipes his feet carefully before

going up stairs--first and second-floor doors never by any possible

chance opening in the mean time. Second-floor comes with a bold

double-knock, something between a bum-bailiff's, a postman's, and a

tax-gatherer's; he dines at one or two, and is on nodding terms with the

first-floor; he persevered for months trying on a "Fine morning, sir,"

and at last was made happy by a most surly "Very, sir." He progressed a

step farther one day by saying something unpleasant about the "common

people up-stairs." First-floor dines at three or four, if he is a clerk

or holds some slight situation under government, obtained, perhaps,

through his father selling his vote at a country election: he gives a

regular "ran-tan-tan-tirra-irra-tir-tir-tir," for he keeps a little

draggle-tailed, dirty, poor parish-child, and she answers the door--that

is "our servant." The ground-floor people--that is, generally, the

landlord and his family (if they do not live in the kitchen)--bow and

smile at the first-floor from the parlour window: he is such a

respectable "gent," and pays so regular; has a gallon of spirits sent in

at a time, and never disgraces the house by having in such beggarly

things as half-a-hundred of coals and two bundles of wood.

But the picture is not complete without the children. First-floor have

their hair plaited behind (if they are girls), and the ends of these

long tails are tied with either blue or pink ribbon; they also wear

little trousers, frilled about the ankles like little bantam-cocks, and

strut about before the door like the above-named bird. Second-floor

children are very tidy, as most of the washing is put out, and the

mother can spare time to look after them; they are taught to "toady" to

first-floor as soon as they have learned to talk; to call them "miss" or

"master," and their father and mother "pa" and "ma." Your heart aches

while you look on the canting little creatures, whose every motion is

watched by the eyes of the parents. Second-floor's children are always

to blame if any thing goes wrong, and the lick-spittle parents chide

their children for the faults of the others, to keep in with

first-floor. You have in those dear children a true picture of the

humbug and hollow-heartedness of the insincere portion of mankind.

Mean time, third-floor are sitting on the top landing, eating dry bread,

their hands and faces very dirty through playing with the coal-scuttle,

while their poor, pale, industrious mother is busy washing. But they

will be taken out for a walk somewhere on Sunday, and for one day in the

week be the happiest party under that roof. We are sorry that this

savage-looking picture is true to nature; but on scanning it narrowly,

there is not a single feature that we ought to soften down.

Happy are they who can find lodging-houses in London in which they can

feel "at home." That there are thousands of these comfortable places, we

entertain no doubt of; the worst of it is, young men are too fond of

shifting about, and have not patience to wait until they become

accustomed to the ways of these really respectable people. "Slow" has

become a bad word of late; and they are generally empty-headed,

think-much-of-themselves, "fast," frothy fellows, who use it. "Slow and

sure" was an old saying, often quoted by our wise forefathers.

Considering how cheerless and comfortless many of these lodging-houses

are, we cease to wonder at the number of taverns and coffee-houses which

abound in London, and should be glad to see a few more such admirable

institutions as the Whittington Club, for we here see at least one cause

why they are so much frequented. How lonely seems a place (except to a

man whose studious habits require solitude), on a long winter night,

where a young man has to sit five or six hours without having a living

soul to speak to. He lights his lucifer-match, and, as the faint blue

speck slowly bursts into flame, he looks round upon the voiceless

solitude, and sighs. He sets a light to the sticks and coal which the

char-woman or the dirty Cinderella placed in the grate, after they had

arranged his bedroom in the morning, and for a time the crackling of the

fire seems like pleasant companionship. Then the church-clock tolls

slowly and sadly, and he yawns while he thinks of the weary hours that

have yet to pass away before bedtime. He makes his own tea--or,

perchance, the little dirty servant, who has sixpence a week and her

"wittals," brings it up: when he has finished, he rings the bell, the

things are cleared away, and then he may hang himself if he pleases,

quite certain that the deed would never be discovered until the morrow.

Were he taken ill, and to ring the bell, the little servant would be

sent to fetch a doctor, if the lodger had the wherewithal to pay; if

not, they would advise him to go to one of the hospitals. If he required

attendance, some old woman (fond of gin), who had perhaps been

discharged from the hospitals for drunkenness, would be hired to nurse

him, grumbling every time she entered the room, and declaring that she

could not find a single thing she wanted in the house. Perhaps on the

first day of his illness he would receive notice to quit the apartments

at the end of the week: we have witnessed such conduct in a keen

money-making London lodging-house in our day, and had much ado to

prevent ourselves from throwing the mercenary wretch down-stairs who had

given the helpless lodger warning to leave. In such houses as these

there are always apartments to let, for very few stay a day longer than

they are compelled.

We have here described the worst class of London lodging-houses, such as

are kept by unprincipled persons who have no other means of living

except what they make by their apartments and by robbing their lodgers.

A stranger cannot wholly avoid these man-traps; but, if he take our

advice, he will stay at some decent coffee-house or tavern until he gets

settled, and not venture into apartments, unless those who have them to

let can be recommended by such acquaintance as he is pretty sure to meet

with when he has once found employment. Poor people do not rob each

other in this manner; it is that hungry class which "apes

gentility"--who "smile, and rob while they do smile."

There are thousands of places to be found in London where it is their

study to make a lodger feel "at home;" where a man may sit and sun

himself in the smiles of a warm domestic hearth, and, though a stranger,

never know what it is to feel lonely. But these are not houses in which

people live alone by letting lodgings, neither will you find more than

one or two lodgers under such a roof. Changes, such as they foresaw not,

compel them to add a few shillings a week to their income--for they have

lived so many years in the same house that it would make them miserable

to leave it. A son is in a situation, or a daughter has got married, and

they have no longer any use for the rooms they occupied; or the landlord

cannot do so much work as he formerly did. These, and a hundred other

causes, open the door to the most comfortable of all London lodgings,

and fortunate is the stranger who finds a home under such a roof. Such

people would scorn to take away the value of a pin that was not their

own; and the only discomfort you feel is in the fear that they do not

charge enough to remunerate them for their kindness and attention.

Young men and "fast men!" if you are fortunate enough to dwell in such a

home, where their circumstances will not allow them to keep a servant,

but where a modest daughter honours you by her attendance, respect her

as you would a sister. Remember, also, that it is poverty which compels

the servant to wait upon you, and that it is your duty to respect her

for those services. Remember that

"He prayeth best who loveth best

All things both great and small;

For the dear God who loveth us,

He made and loveth all."

COLERIDGE'S _Ancient Mariner_.

Although the old "memories" that float about Fleet-street would fill a

volume, we must not pass on without glancing at St. Dunstan's Church,

though it is a new building, and the figures, so often gazed on in

"wonderment" by the gaping crowds of other days, no longer step out in

their wonted place to strike the hours. For the origin of these wooden

"puppets," see Douglas Jerrold's _St. James's and St. Giles's_, in which

he reads as severe a lecture to hard-hearted overseers as the old ballad

of _The Babes in the Wood_ does to "wicked uncles." Before the statue of

Queen Elizabeth, which stands over the doorway fronting Fleet-street, a

poor simple-hearted Irishwoman was one morning, not long ago, observed

kneeling, and repeating her prayers: she mistook it for the figure of

the Virgin. This statue is supposed to be the only relic preserved when

Ludgate (one of the city-gates that stood on Ludgate-hill,) was taken

down in 1760. It ornamented the old church of St. Dunstan, as it now

does the present one.

Nor must we omit a word or two before we pass through Temple-Bar about

the Cock Tavern, to which our living poet laureate Alfred Tennyson does

"most resort," according to his own confession, in "Will Waterproof's

lyrical monologue made at the Cock," in an old box

"larded with the steam

Of thirty thousand dinners."

Many of the old taverns in Fleet-street--Dr. Johnson's favourite "Mitre"

for example--have rich recollections of the wit and wisdom of the wits

and sages of former days. With many of these our readers are doubtless

familiar, but they perhaps never heard of the "Cock" before reading

Tennyson's poems. Nevertheless there is a fact in the history of this

old tavern worth knowing. The bird that gives name to this "haunt of

hungry sinners" was, according to our laureate,

"Of a larger egg

Than modern poultry drop,

Stepped forward on a firmer leg,

And crammed a plumper crop."

He was, indeed, a regal fowl, for he not only coined copper money, but

stamped it with his own effigy and circulated it amongst his customers

in the form of tokens. If a man who had newly dined required change out

of the money for his dinner, he received it, not in pence, but in copper

cocks, which were afterwards duly honoured by the worthy landlord, who

gave to their bearer full value in generous food and liquor. This

currency was so extensive that when, during the ravages of the Great

Plague in London, the door of the Cock was closed, "when the plump head

waiter" and all other subordinates were dismissed, and the landlord had

fled to the country to escape the scourge, public notice was given of

the time when the house would be again opened, and that the copper

tokens would be duly honoured. One of these is still carefully preserved

as "a relic of the olden time."

The Temple alone would occupy a long chapter, and detain us in this

locality far beyond the limits that our pages allow, so we shall without

further apology pass through Temple Bar and enter the Strand.

CHAPTER XIII.

THE STRAND, ADELPHI, AND COVENT-GARDEN MARKET.

We have now quitted the City and entered the Strand; before us stands

the Church of St. Clement Danes, on the right of which an archway opens

into Clement's Inn; beyond that is the old Angel Inn, from which Bishop

Hooper was taken before he suffered martyrdom at Gloucester three

centuries ago. Justice Shallow says: "I was once of Clement's Inn, where

I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet;" and no sooner is his back

turned than Falstaff says: "I do remember him at Clement's Inn, like a

man made after supper of a cheese-paring;" * * * "he was for all the

world like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it

with a knife."

Of the early church that occupied the site of the present one but little

is really known. Stowe tells us that it was "so called, because Harold,

a Danish king, and other Danes, were buried there." There is a doubt

whether Harold, who ascended the throne after Canute, was in any way

related to the latter; his pretended mother, Algigiva, was never married

to Canute, and it is recorded that she never had a child, but that

Harold, who passed for her son, had no higher origin than a poor cobbler

for his father. Harold was buried at Westminster; but when Hardicanute

(the legitimate son of Canute) came to England, he ordered the body of

Harold to be disinterred, decapitated, and thrown into the Thames. The

body was taken out of the river by some Danish fishermen, and again

interred in a cemetery in London, where only the Danes buried their

dead. We have not entered into the reign of Harold at all; these few

facts are all that history records of the origin of St. Clement Danes.

The present church was built by Pierce under the guidance of Wren. The

old church was pulled down in 1660. Dr. Johnson had a sitting in the

present church. The interior is heavily decorated with festoons and

drops, and contains two tolerable statues of Moses and Aaron. Facing

this church stands the office of the far-famed _Illustrated London

News_, in the columns of which paper the greater portion of these

sketches originally appeared.

You still hear a few of the old London cries in the by-streets that

branch out of this busy neighbourhood, though many, which the "oldest

inhabitants" can just remember, are heard no more.

The cry of "green boughs" to deck the summer parlours, and "green

rushes" to strew upon the floors, has long since ceased. The fire-place

is no more adorned with bunches of the blossoming hawthorn, branches of

sweetbrier, and huge pots filled with the fragrant and trailing

honeysuckle: art, with its paper ornaments, has driven away these

beautiful products of nature, and the less healthy carpet has carried

off the meadow-like smell of the rushes. "Cherry ripe" we occasionally

hear, sung out as clear and silvery as when Herrick composed his

inimitable little song, though Ben Jonson, by the way, wrote one long

before Herrick, on the same subject. "Watercresses," though no longer

borne by a nymph, who paused every now and then to throw aside the long

hair which fell over her nut-brown and weather-stained cheeks, is a cry

we still hear; but the figure that conjured up Sabrina and the "glassy

cool translucent wave" has long since departed. Lemons and oranges are

cried by the wandering race, whose dark-haired mothers, in ancient days,

poured forth their songs in the land of Israel. The primroses and

violets of spring are still sold in these streets, but the cry of "Come

buy my pretty bow-pots" is now rarely heard. The apple-stall, with its

roasted chestnuts, the oyster-stall (a simple trestle), and the pieman

who is ever ready to try his luck at pitch-and-toss, still haunt the

corners of a few of our obscure streets, as they did in bygone days. The

grinder and the tinker, and those who yet follow many a primitive old

calling, and who set up their workshops in every open street where they

can find a job, have been driven, with their quaint cries, into the

suburbs, and the men themselves are but shadows of the jolly tinkers and

merry pedlars who figure in our ancient ballad lore. The rattle, and

roll, and thunder of our modern vehicles have drowned their

old-fashioned cries in the great thoroughfares of Fleet-street and the

Strand.

But though many of these old cries are heard no more, there is still

many a poetical association thrown around this busy neighbourhood.

Who has not heard of the May-pole that stood in the Strand, how it was

removed by command of the stern protector Cromwell, and how, at the

restoration of Charles, a new one was erected, amid the beating of

drums and loud-sounding music, and the cheers of assembled thousands,

who were weary of the puritanic gloom which had so long hung over merry

England? What a buzzing there would be in that neighbourhood on the

occasion, while May-garlands hung across the streets, as we have often

seen them in our day, in a few out-of-the-way old fashioned towns, where

the manners and customs of the people have undergone but little change

during the last two centuries.

In an old volume printed before the Great Fire of London, entitled, _The

Citie's Loyalty displayed_, we find the following account of the

May-pole that stood in the Strand.

"This tree was a most choice and remarkable piece (134 feet high): it

was made below bridge, and brought in two parts up to Scotland-yard, and

from thence it was conveyed, April 14th, to the Strand to be erected. It

was brought with a streamer flourishing before it, drums beating all the

way, and other sorts of music. It was supposed to be so long, that

landsmen could not possibly raise it. Prince James, the Duke of York,

Lord High Admiral of England, commanded twelve seamen off aboard to come

and officiate the business; whereupon they came, and brought their

cables, pullies, and other tacklins, with six great anchors. The

May-pole then being joined together, and hooped about with bands of

iron, the crown and vane, with the king's arms richly gilded, was placed

on the head of it, [and] a large top like a balcony was about the middle

of it; this being done, the trumpets did sound, and in four hours space

it was advanced upright." [Four hours to draw up a May-pole! a slow age,

my masters; they could not have built Hungerford Suspension-Bridge in

those days, which is a toy compared to that now stretched across the

Menai Straits. But to proceed with our extract.] "After which, being

established fast in the ground, six drums did beat, and the trumpets did

sound: again great shouts and acclamation the people gave, that it did

ring throughout all the Strand. * * * * It is placed as near at hand as

they could guess in the very same pit where the former stood, but far

more glorious, bigger, and higher than ever any one that stood before

it. * * * Little children did much rejoice, and ancient people did clap

their hands, saying, 'Golden days begin to appear.'" This was in 1661.

Whether a May-pole was erected after the one given to Sir Isaac Newton,

it "being old and decayed," we have not discovered. The one given to

Newton was afterwards used for raising a telescope at Wansted in Essex.

Cleveland, the bold cavalier colonel under Charles I., has a few

spirited lines on the May-pole, but which are scarcely quotable, so

hard does he hit the puritanical Tabithas and Obadiahs; we quote a few

lines:

"Whether it be a pole painted, or wrought

Far otherwise than from the wood 'twas brought,

Whose head the idol-maker's hand doth crop,

Where a profane bird, towering on the top,

Looks like the calf in Horeb, at whose root

The unyoked youth doth exercise his foot:

* * * * *

How canst thou chuse, but, seeing it, complain

That Baal's worshipp'd in his groves again?"

The last line might have been uttered by some crop-eared holder-forth,

who fought as well as preached under Cromwell. The church of St.

Mary-le-Strand stands on the spot where the May-pole was formerly

erected. It was built by Gibbs (1717), whose portico of St.

Martin's-in-the-Fields remains unrivalled for its beauty. The old church

stood nearer the river, and was pulled down by the Duke of Somerset,

1549, who used the materials for building Somerset-place, but was

beheaded before he had completed it. We forget in what old work we found

a long account attempting to prove that he lost his head through

destroying the church of St. Mary and the Innocents, as the old church

was called.

[Illustration: SOMERSET HOUSE.]

Passing the present Somerset House (which is now used as Government

offices, and of which we merely give an engraving) and Waterloo Bridge,

both of which are deserving of a separate article, we will turn down to

the left and glance at the old church of St. Mary-le-Savoy, which is all

that now remains of the once famous Savoy Palace, first built above six

hundred years ago, but destroyed by Wat Tyler and his rebels; after

which it lay in ruins for above a century and a half. The present

chapel, as it is called, was built in 1505. Our engravings represent the

exterior and a portion of the interior. It contains several old

monuments and crosses.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. MARY-LE-SAVOY.]

We now reach the Adelphi, a mass of large dwelling-houses and

warehouses, built by the brothers Adam about 1770, on such a labyrinth

of arches as startle a stranger who enters them for the first time.

Those noble streets which open into the Strand, now known as the

Adelphi, are built above the ground formerly occupied by Durham House

and its princely gardens, from whence Lady Jane Grey, the "nine days'

queen" (as our old chroniclers call her), was led, with loud acclaim, to

the Tower, and then--in tears, to the scaffold. The ground itself on

which she walked, and meditated, and saw her garden-flowers blow, is at

noonday overhung with midnight darkness, excepting where, here and

there, a gaslight throws its dim rays, and feebly illumines the

cavernous gloom: where her youth and beauty once threw their sunshine a

melancholy blackness now reigns. To us this dark land is filled with sad

associations; and, though the grave hath long since closed over those

who placed the crown upon her head, and then left her to bleed upon the

block, we never walk through these sounding arches without thinking of

their treachery.

[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE SAVOY CHURCH.]

Thousands who pass along the Strand never dream of the shadowy region

which lies between them and the river--the black-browed arches that span

right and left, before and behind, covering many a rood of ground on

which the rain never beats nor the sunbeam rests, and at the entrance of

which the wind only seems to howl and whine, as if afraid of venturing

farther into the darkness. Many of our readers will no doubt conclude

that such a dreary place as this must be deserted and tenantless: such

is not the case. Here many of those strong horses which the countryman

who visits London looks upon with wonder and envy, are stabled--huge,

broad-chested steeds, such as may be seen dragging the heavily-laden

coal-wagons up those steep passages which lead into the Strand, and

which seem "to the manner born."

Cows are also kept here, which, rumour says, never saw any other light

beyond that of the gas which gleams through their prison-bars, or, by

way of change, the cheering rays from a lantern, when they are milked or

fed: that here many of them were calved, and have lived on, giving milk

to a good old age--buried like the main-pipe that supplies us with

water, and finding its way into our houses, without our once inquiring

how. We have often pitied the London cows, which we have seen driven up

one street and down another, and have fancied that what little milk they

had must have been churned into indifferent butter, as they ran on, to

escape the stones thrown after them by boys, while mongrels were ever

sallying out, and either biting or barking at their heels; but we had

not then seen those which are doomed to dwell in the unbroken darkness

of the Adelphi arches, without ever breathing any other than the

sepulchral air which stagnates in this murky purgatory. Assuredly, they

ought to be taken out for a little fresh air now and then, and be led by

the horns to

"Fresh fields and pastures new;"

for we can readily conceive how pleased and patiently they would go

"blinking" along compared to those horned blackguards who come with a

butt and a "a boo" at us as they return from Smithfield, and, before we

have time to say "Now, stupid!" pitch us over the battlements of one of

the bridges, and leave us to sink or swim.

The Adelphi arches form a little subterranean city; there is nothing

like it in London: in some places you catch a glimpse of the river; a

small loop-hole then lets in the light like the end of a railway-tunnel,

yet seeming to diminish more than these tunnels, on account of the steep

descent, until one of the steamers, in passing, appears to fill up the

opening like a half-closed door. Beside these arches, there are narrow

passages which go dipping down to the water-side, where on either hand

houses stand looking at one another in the openings between the

darkness. There is a dismal and solitary look about these tall

imprisoned houses; you cannot conceive how they are entered, for there

appears to be no way to them, and you conclude that they are empty. Or,

if they are inhabited, you wonder if the people ever look out of these

dim, dirt-ditched windows at the dead-looking walls opposite. We have

turned back, and hunted up and down looking from below, but nowhere

could we obtain a view of the entrance to those murderous-looking

houses. We once saw a butterfly which had lost its way, and got into the

little light which had stolen out to look at the entrance of these

arches: it went up and down, and hither and thither, seeming to become

feebler every moment, as if it had given up all hope of ever swinging

with folded wings, like a peabloom, on the flowers again, and we doubted

not but that it found a grave amid the green decay of some rotten

water-butt.

There was a time when the great thoroughfare between Westminster and

Temple Bar was all but impassable, when a petition was presented for the

repairing of the highway, in which the petitioners complained that the

foot-road was so overgrown with thickets and bushes that the wayfarer

had difficulty to get along. Besides the brambly and thorny footpath,

there were three old bridges to cross between Temple Bar and the village

of Charing, which spanned the sweet streams that came tinkling all the

way from Highgate-hill, passing along and edging the velvet green of

many a pleasant meadow, like braids of silver, before they sent their

sailing foam-bells into the bosom of the Thames. Ivy Bridge-lane and

Strand Bridge-lane still mark the sites of two of these old bridges. The

third was only discovered a few years ago; and, as it was but eleven

feet long, every ancient stone might have been preserved and built up

again over the Lee or some narrow water-course, so that we might have

had another relic of bygone days to have looked upon, a bridge over

which conqueror and captive had passed--tears and triumphs--from the

Tower to Westminster, and from thence to the Tower again. Bolingbroke

weeping--the hero of Agincourt--what a chapter could we have written on

that old bridge, which was discovered while making a sewer near the

church of St. Clement the Dane! It had been buried so long that not an

antiquary mentions it--nowhere is it recorded by our old historians.

When it was discovered, it was broken up, removed, and no one seems to

know what became of the fragments. Perhaps Alfred himself might have

crossed that ancient bridge when he pursued the daring Sea-King

Haestings; perhaps---- But it is gone; and we should like to know the

name of the surveyor who allowed it to be destroyed; in these pages he

should have a "local habitation and a name" such as he deserves.

There are still standing in Holywell and Wych-street a few houses which

bring before the eye the old London our forefathers inhabited--when

Bluff Hal beheaded a wife before he breakfasted; and Queen Elizabeth

measured not her words to her ministers if they offended her, and

thought nothing of striking a nobleman, as she did the Earl of Essex,

when not in a loving mood. In her endearing moments, we often picture

her like a grim lioness at play with the king of the forest. We often

wonder where Shakspeare was during the Sunday Essex broke out, and

locked up the queen's officers. We dare wager a silver groat, that he

looked on that stormy scene in the Strand, and that, were he here to

answer, we could point our pen to passages in his works which were

suggested by what he either saw or heard on that memorable day.

How the warlike old barons would stare in wonderment, if it were

possible that they could again "revisit the glimpses of the moon," and

see the rent-roll produced from the ground on which their towered and

loop-holed palaces stood; could peep at the productions exhibited at the

Society of Arts, in the Adelphi, and look back again upon the days when

a flexible gauntlet, that could guard the hand yet give freedom to the

grasp, or a visor through which they could see yet with the bars so

tempered as to resist the point of a lance, were considered as the

greatest wonders of art! How they would rub their dim old eyes at the

sight of an express-train; stare at a steamer, and think what a smash

and crash a couple would have made, to have run into each other at their

water-quintains! Then, to send a message from Tilbury Fort to Kenilworth

by the electric telegraph, where the amorous old queen was coquetting

with Leicester, and she ignorant of such an invention, to tell her that

the Spanish Armada was coming, would have consigned the messenger who

came from the station to something like the Spanish inquisition, if not

a stake at Smithfield. Oh, that we had a photographic portrait of the

dear old lady, with all those nicely marked shadows, to which she had so

great an objection, down to the "cunning wrinkles round her eyes!"

But we will cross over the way, and visit Covent-Garden Market, the

ever-open flower-show of London. Here, when "the wind and rain beat dark

December," the costly chrysanthemum may be purchased, with which beauty

decks her waving ringlets, as she shoots the arrows of love from her

eyes, regardless on whom they may alight. In spring, summer, autumn, or

winter, the choicest treasures of the floral world are here collected;

from the conservatory and the humble cottage-garden, flowers of all hues

are gathered to grace the Covent-Garden colonnades. Few places surprise

a stranger more than when he emerges suddenly from that great, crowded,

and noisy thoroughfare, the Strand, and finds himself all at once in

this little world of flowers. In this spot are to be found the first

offerings of spring; the snow-drop that comes "like an unbidden guest,"

violets and primroses which have been gathered in many a far-off dell

and sunny dingle, come to tell us the progress that Nature is making in

the green and out-of-door world. Many a sad and many a pleasing thought

must have been awakened in the bosoms of thousands who have long been

in-dwellers in this mighty city, by walking through the ranks of flowers

which are here placed. They must have recalled the image of some old

home far away, and probably never again to be visited by them--the

porch, over which the woodbine or jasmine trailed, and the garden-fence,

along which the clustering moss-roses hung. Many a flower is thus borne

away and treasured for the old memories it awakens, for the tender

recollections it recals--feelings to which the heart had long been a

stranger. For Byron has shewn how small a key can open the human

heart--how slight a chord may be struck, and some slumbering affection

be in a moment aroused:

"It may but be a sound--

A tone of music--summer's eve--or spring--

A flower--striking the electric chain."

Here are purchased the cut flowers that decorate the banquet and

ball-room--the posy which the blushing bride bears with downcast look in

her hand--the bouquet which is rained down at the feet of our favourite

actresses; and here also affection comes for its last tribute to place

beside the pale face of the beloved dead, or plant around the grave in

the cemetery. The house of mirth and the house of mourning are both

supplied from the same common store. Pride, love, interest, fame, and

death come here to select their garlands.

Here the young lover purchases for his fair one the blue forget-me-not;

the graceful acacia, emblem of elegance; the myrtle, the old Grecian

symbol of love; pansies--"that's for thoughts;" the red-streaked

woodbine, which denotes devoted affection; the lily, that ancient

representative of purity of heart; the rose, the queen of beauty, and

for the earliest of which five or ten shillings is no unusual sum to

pay; with every flower that makes up the great alphabet of love.

The epicure may here feast his eyes with delight; and, if he is wealthy

enough, purchase the natural produce of April or May while the snows of

February are whitening the ground; for so has science triumphed over

nature, by the aid of heat and manures, that there is scarcely any thing

too difficult for your forcing-gardeners to accomplish. New potatoes,

peas, and fruit of almost every description, are here to be found, fresh

gathered, before spring has hung out a single leaf upon the oak. Green

April is made to produce green gooseberries; and marrow-fats come in

with the blossoms of May. Here conservatories are also formed over the

colonnades; and the choicest and most delicate flowers that ever

bloomed in kingly gardens may be found as healthy and beautiful amid

London smoke as if flourishing a hundred miles away in the country.

Those itinerant dealers who make the streets of London ring with the

pleasant spring-cry of "All a-blowing, all a-growing!" as they move

along with barrow, basket, and cart, are generally supplied from this

market; and few would credit the many hundreds of pounds expended in the

metropolis for the purchase of flower-roots, to be re-planted in the

little back-yards called gardens, which are a peculiar feature in most

of the London streets beyond the city boundaries. Places which, to pass

in front, a stranger would think no green thing had ever grown for years

near such a neighbourhood; yet in the rear they contain choice

wall-flowers, sweet-williams, carnations, Canterbury-bells, hollyhocks,

sun-flowers, and fancy dahlias, which have been grown within a mile or

so of the bridges, and have been sent forth to "dispute the prize" at a

flower-show. Many a poor man has often expended his shilling when he

could ill spare it, to purchase a choice tulip or dahlia, which he

treasured as the pride of his garden; and this is one amongst other

pleasing sights to witness in this market. The artisan here finds

enjoyment as well as the wealthy citizen, or the aristocratic lady, who

treads with "mincing gait" through the arcade, attended by John the

page, and all his "eruption of buttons." Fine specimens of English

beauty are often met with here--faces that look not unlike our own

island roses; the fine blue-eyed Saxon cast of countenance, and the long

fair hair, such as centuries ago drooped about the brow of Rowena, and

were the cause of King Vortigern losing his kingdom and his life.

In contrast to these are our Covent-Garden portresses--sturdy daughters

of Erin, clad in almost manly attire, and, with scarcely an exception,

every soul a smoker and drinker of neat gin. Wonderful are the loads

which these "juvenile antiques" carry; they would make the neck of a

strong man, unused to bearing such burdens, ache again, were he only to

carry one a moderate distance. Their faithfulness and honesty are

deserving of the highest praise: no matter how valuable the load may be

that you purchase, or how great the distance it has to be borne into the

suburbs, you have but to pay the trifle agreed upon, furnish the right

address, and when you return home, there you will find every bud and

blossom uninjured, for Biddy may be trusted with uncounted gold. They

are all a sturdy, short-necked race; moving caryatides, strong enough to

support a temple, although such forms never mingled with the dreams of

our ancient sculptors. Beside a good-natured, it requires a strong-armed

man to help to replace the load upon their heads when they have rested;

and few gentlemen, we hope, resist the appeal of "Will your honour plase

to lend a lift to the basket?"

At a very early hour in the morning, and while the rest of

London--excepting in the markets--seem wrapt in sleep, the whole of the

streets which open into Covent Garden are thronged with vehicles, and

buyers and sellers; for either the greengrocer or his man must be here

early, if our dinner-table is to be supplied with first-rate vegetables;

and from the most remote street of the suburbs the greengrocers are

compelled to come either to the Borough, to Farringdon, or Covent-Garden

markets, for their stock; for these, with the exception of Spitalfields,

which is celebrated for potatoes, are the only garden-markets. From one

or other of these places have all those tempting shows of flowers,

fruit, and vegetables, which give such a country-look to the

greengrocers' shops, been brought at an early hour.

Here an imaginative lover of good living may feed his fancy, and feast

his eyes with the first rhubarb-pie of the season--conjure up the roast

shoulder of lamb that is to accompany the asparagus--match the new

potatoes with the brown veal cutlet--see a couple of ducks lying

prostrate beside a dish of green peas--run streaks of fanciful pastry

between the rich lines of raspberries--thrust bundles of sage and onions

inside some stubble-fed goose, or call up the plump leg of mutton that

is to be boiled along with those lily-white turnips; while cauliflowers,

spinach, brocoli, and greens of every description may be found to match

with the finest joints that either Leadenhall or Newgate markets can

produce; for here they are to be seen "thick as leaves that strew the

Vale of Vallambrosa."

The poet may also ramble here, and call up visions of the Garden of

Eden, where our first mother stood "half-spied, so thick the blushing

roses round about her blowed;" or the golden fields of Enna and

Proserpina, and her nymphs; and the wheels of that gloomy chariot, which

ploughed up the waving flowers,--of Cupid and Psyche; and the beautiful

vale of Arcady, and Venus mourning over her beloved Adonis, from whose

blood there sprang a rich array of peerless blossoms.

But, independent of these associations, Covent Garden has an interest of

its own. Above six hundred years ago it bore the name of Convent Garden,

and originally belonged to Westminster Abbey. A pleasant walk must it

have been, a few centuries ago, from that grave and venerable pile to

the garden, before even the village of Charing existed, and when

probably the whole line of road from the Abbey consisted of avenues of

trees and open fields, where the daisies blowed and the skylark built

and sang. We can picture those early fathers of the Church, with the

rich missals in their hands, wiling away the hours in pleasant

meditation, as they sauntered leisurely along between the Abbey and the

Covent Garden, "in cope and stole arrayed." Within the last three

hundred years it was walled round, and covered with trees, whose

blossoms waved white and beautiful in the breezes of spring, and in

summer displayed a rich array of trembling green; while half a dozen

thatched cottages and a convent were the only habitations that then

heaved up in this small neighbourhood. A few noblemen's mansions were

all that at this time stood beside the river from Temple Bar to the

Abbey; and these, with their beautiful gardens, sloped down by the edge

of the water. Only a few years ago Covent Garden consisted of a mass of

unsightly wooden sheds and open standing-places, inferior to the market

of many a common country town; and it was not until about 1828 that this

mass of rubbish began to be swept away, and the present market to be

built. The foundations of the old convent, from which no doubt this

place takes its name, are not yet wholly swept away, a considerable

portion being at present enclosed within the house occupied by Mr. Bohn,

the bookseller, in York-street. Here two or three bulky piles of

masonry, no doubt containing the remains of the early fathers, who

wandered about this ancient neighbourhood, while, with the exception of

the convent, it was all one garden-ground, may still be seen. This

convent, if we remember rightly, has escaped the notice of several of

the London historians, who, because it was built on land belonging to

the Abbey, seem to have lost sight of it as a separate structure.

It was not until the time of Charles I. that any material improvement

commenced in this neighbourhood. The name of Inigo Jones is connected

with the first advances architecture made in this direction, through the

spirited exertions of the fourth Earl of Bedford. A few of the princely

mansions which rise up in the neighbourhood of Lincoln's Inn are fine

specimens of the buildings which were erected about this period.

What an uncomfortable place must the old City have been, with its little

poking market in Honey-lane, now covered by the City of London School

and the Stocks Market, long since removed, and with only one bridge

leading into this large London, which was then rapidly bursting its

ancient barriers and shooting out far beyond its weather-beaten walls,

while all propositions for improvement were considered as death-blows

aimed at its old and barbarous privileges. Our forefathers never knew,

nor needed, such places as the present Covent Garden Market.

We read, in old plays, of the apple-woman at the corner of the street,

and the vendor of herbs who passed through those ancient thoroughfares;

but of the greengrocers, like those of our own day, we find no mention,

for they had no predecessors; and, excepting the cabbage and the

parsnip, peas and beans, and the radish mentioned by Izaak Walton, there

seems but to have been a scanty supply of vegetables. The potato is of

comparatively modern introduction, while fruit-trees appear to have been

grown in England from time immemorial; even as far back as the days of

the Saxons, we find the vine cultivated in the gardens of the

monasteries, and that the monks made their own wine. Their vegetable

diet was very limited; and we need no further proof than the quantity of

cattle slaughtered for the winter consumption, and salted for the sole

purpose of saving the food they would require. Indeed, with the

exception of beans, peas, wheat, barley, and a kind of cabbage called

kale, we scarcely find any other mention of the vegetables used by our

Saxon ancestors. Even in the time of Elizabeth, according to old Tusser,

a supper of bacon broth was not to be despised, and a breakfast off the

same substance cold, with the addition of a piece of cabbage in its cold

state, and a lump of barley-bread, formed the chief diet of the English

farmer, washed down, no doubt, by a draught of beer.

Still the Londoners seem always to have been a flower-loving people, and

although the stern Puritans banished their May-poles and Whitsuntide

games, they were revived again at the Restoration, and continued, but

with little alteration, until the middle of the last century. Even

chatty old Pepys allowed his wife to go down into the neighbourhood of

Greenwich, so that she might rise early and wash her face in May-dew;

and bluff Hal, attended by his queen and nobles, went out to "do

observance to the May" at Shooter's Hill. We cannot help marvelling,

while such a love for the beauties of nature prevailed, that no such

thing as a regular flower-market should exist. It is true the dramatists

mention the smell that pervaded Bucklersbury; and no doubt a few

centuries back this was the chief spot where the country-people

assembled and sold the flowers and fruits they brought from the country.

That thitherward they came, streaming from the wild woods of Hampstead

and Highgate, or from the wilder wastes on which Norwood now stands,

each bearing their burden into "Bucklersbury at simple-time," when only

one bridge spanned across the Thames.

Yet it must have been a merry London when, to quote the words of an old

chronicler, "the king himself rose early in the morning to fetch May or

green boughs--he fresh and richly appareled; and all his knights,

squires, and gentlemen clothed in white satin; his guards and yeomen of

the crown in white sarsenet. And so went every man with his bow and

arrows, shooting to the wood; and so repaired again to the court, every

man with a green bough in his cap." This was the time when, although

London was without its Covent Garden Market, in May, according to

Herrick's description:

"Each field became a street--each street a park,

Made green, and trimm'd with trees.

Devotion gave each house a bough, a branch;

Each porch and door

With white-thorn neatly was inwove,

As if they were the cooler shades of love."

In the first volume of the _Illustrated London News_ we find the

following description of the church of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

"When Francis Duke of Bedford, in the reign of the first Charles,

proposed to erect a place of worship for his tenantry in the then thinly

populated locality of the Covent Garden, he called to his councils the

celebrated Inigo Jones, suggesting, as we find it recorded, that 'any

thing--a barn would do;' an expression sounding more of the prudence

than of the piety of the said Francis. The architect took the hint; and

thence arose, in 1640, the Palladian structure of which we now behold a

duplicate; the original building having been destroyed in 1795, through

the carelessness of some workmen engaged in its repair. The

contemplation of this edifice has given rise to a shrewd suspicion in

our mind, that the above venerable anecdote relating to its origin may

have been the after-thought of some architectural critic, whose

admiration for the designer of Whitehall was stronger than his respect

for the memory of the duke. Be that as it may, the structure, for

several years, was merely known as the Chapel of Ease to St.

Martin's-in-the-Fields, until 1645, when it was erected into a separate

living, and, in the year of the Restoration (1660), the patronage was

vested in the Duke of Bedford; the whilom chapelry becoming known as the

church and parish of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

"St. Paul's, Covent Garden, has some peculiarities in its structure. The

Tuscan portico, with its _prazzi_, being placed in the _rear_ instead of

the _front_ of the edifice, which latter stands in the quiet by-way of

Belford-street. Hence the _back_ of the altar is (to use a palpable

Hibernicism) the _front_, the lantern and principal entrance being at

the western extremity of the church. Popularly speaking it is right; for

this is the elevation which has looked down on the many glorious rows,

cracked crowns, and mêlées consequent upon each recurrence of a

Westminster election, the hustings-hammering high bailiff of that

ancient borough and city having made this spot memorable as 'the field

of a thousand fights,' by here fixing the polling-place for the return

of members to represent it in Parliament. Here, then, were the tag-rag

and bob-tail of this ancient and radical borough wont to disport

themselves in fighting, roaring, drinking, and swearing, during the

fourteen days saturnalia of each contested election. But these scenes

are no more; the Reform bill, by dividing the constituencies and the

erection of district polling-booths, has destroyed the glorious anarchy,

the rude liberty of the Westminster canaille; and we may look with equal

success for the May-pole in the Strand or the Standard on Cornhill, as

for an election-mob, such as in the days of Fox, Burdett, Hobhouse,

Maxwell, or Sheridan, crowded the front of St. Paul's, Covent Garden.

But if the history of the hustings of Covent Garden would be the history

of political party for the last hundred years, not less would the

history of the hotels and coffee-houses, which occupy two sides of the

quadrangle, comprise the anecdotal annals of the last century, and the

earlier portion of the present. The early companions of George IV. here

revelled; and a host of buried talent, senatorial, literary, forensic,

and dramatic, has the 'venue' of its brightest witticisms and most

brilliant sallies laid in the hotels of 'the Garden'--in the Bedford,

the Russell, the Piazza, Offley's, Mother Butler's, and the rest.

"All around the subject of our article has experienced its full share of

change. There is a painting by Hogarth, from which an etching has been

published, representing Covent Garden in 1745. There stands the

predecessor of the present church, alike in every respect (except the

illuminated clock in the pediment); but here the resemblance ceases. The

area now occupied by the handsome market, with its granite columns,

plate-glass windows, covered arcades and conservatories, is in Hogarth's

picture an uneven space divided by posts and chains, with a pump in its

centre. Here and there a market-woman, with looped-up petticoats and

exposed neck, presides over heaps of vegetables scattered on the ground,

while among mounds of turnips, carrots, and cabbages, strut several

formal figures in the uncouth head-dresses, pinched stomachers, and

stiff diamond-quilted skirts of a century ago, accompanied by

puppy-dogs, and beaux as precise and quaint in attire as themselves. But

to return. The design both of church and piazza of the present building

is said to have been borrowed from a place built by Cosmo de Medicis at

Leghorn. The bold projecting cornice outside, and the eight Corinthian

columns of the altar-piece within, have found many admirers among the

cognoscenti. In conclusion, we must add, that the inimitable author of

_Hudibras_ is also buried here, and no less a humorist than Dr. Walcot,

the well-known 'Peter Pindar:' their monuments ought to be preserved."

CHAPTER XIV.

WESTMINSTER ABBEY AND THE PARKS.

What a crowd of solemn associations gather around the mind of the

intellectual visitor on first entering these ancient walls! the very

silence which reigns around the vast edifice is startling, and the sound

of a falling footstep seems to awaken a thousand sleeping echoes that

were mute and voiceless as the surrounding tombs. We feel that we are in

the presence of the mighty dead; and, as we gaze around, the deeds which

throw a grandeur and a gloom over the pages of English history pass in

vivid succession before the eye of the mind. The very pavement seems

strewn with the ruins of crowns, sceptres, helmets, and swords, mitres

and croziers, bent, crushed, dented, and broken; while, amid the dim

gold and the rusted steel, the green laurels of the poet alone remain

unchanged. What moving scenes have broken the lengthened shadows which

those high-piled pillars throw over aisle and choir! the christenings,

coronations, marriages, and funerals of departed monarchs, who have

returned to the dust from whence they came. Light and darkness, summer

and winter, have brightened and deepened thousands of times over the

shadowy crypts in which their ashes repose--every thing grand and

imposing is swept away excepting the mighty monuments, which scarcely

seem the work of human hands; they rise like images of eternity, ever

bending and keeping watch above their silent graves.

Here, in the Pix-office, we are surrounded by Saxon architecture. How

massive, plain, solid, and majestic, is this portion of the venerable

pile! As it stands now, so it stood before the shores of England were

startled by the sound of Norman trumpets--a monument worthy of the

descendant of Alfred the Great! The beautiful Mosaic pavement that lies

before the altar in the choir, was brought from Rome by the good old

Abbot Ware, about the close of the reign of the third Henry--a king to

whose liberality we are indebted for a great portion of the erection of

the Abbey: for the completion of the whole was the work of many eventful

years; and before its towers rose, as they do now, pointing to the sky,

many a crowned head sunk in succession into the dark quietude of the

tomb. Suns rose and set, and the mighty work grew up; and amid the trump

and thunder of a thousand battles, it has stood unshaken: it is too

strong for the destroying hand of man; and Time, as if in reverence, has

trod lightly as he stepped over it.

[Illustration: WESTMINSTER ABBEY.]

Amid such an assemblage of architectural grandeur as the Abbey presents,

the mind is filled with a rich confusion of imagery, as if incapable of

grappling with the whole. It seems like the sunlight that flames in

through the deep-dyed windows; we stand amid a dazzle of blaze and

brightness that appears to have neither beginning nor end; here

flashing like gold, there stealing into the dim purple twilight, and

gilding as it passes a shrine or a stony shroud; then settling down amid

the vaulted shadows of the tombs, or just lighting faintly in its

passage the uplifted hands of the recumbent image, that have been

clasped for centuries in the attitude of silent prayer. We know not

whether to start from the shrine of Edward the Confessor, or the

coronation-chair, to count our footsteps through the long chapters of

history; for the forms of the actors themselves come crowding around us;

gazing upon the one, then seating themselves in the other--a rapid

succession of phantoms, each dazzling the eye for a moment by its

splendour, then sinking down again into the cold stony image that is

doomed to hold its hands in the mute, meek penance of unceasing prayer,

as it has done through the grey old years of departed centuries. How

beautiful is the figure which graces the tomb of Queen Eleanor! Gaze on

the calm loveliness of that matchless countenance, and you will fancy

that a sweet sleep has stolen over it--that it has but laid down to rest

awhile, and while dreaming, its beauty burst forth and dispelled every

shade of sorrow, as if Time himself had kept watch over it, and

sheltered it from dust and ruin with his wings, and guarded it with his

scythe, allowing no mortal finger to touch the hallowed shrine over

which he has long kept jealous watch. Death seems never to have entered

that cold grey marble palace of beauty. Here lie the remains of Richard

II. and his Queen; and while we gaze upon his monument, and recal his

"sad, eventful history," we think of the undying poetry in which

Shakspeare has enshrined him, and feel as if we could sit for hours upon

the pavement and tell "sad stories about the death of kings."

Bolingbroke ought to have been buried by his side; and for the sake of

Shakspeare there would be no feeling outraged, nor no disrespect shewn

to the dead, if his remains were exhumed and placed side by side of the

monarch he dethroned. How rich and magnificent is Henry the Fifth's

monument, every way worthy of the hero of Agincourt! Strange that even

amid the solemnity of death, the eye of an Englishman kindles while he

recals the splendid achievements of this brave king, that neither the

horrors of war, nor the blood shed at that victorious banquet, throw a

sickening sensation over the heart while we gaze upon the tomb of the

conqueror. The far past seems to deaden these sympathies; and we look

upon the actors as we do upon the words on a time-worn monument, which

tell how those who sleep below once lived and were famous in their day,

that they died, and were buried: and we read and pass on with a feeling

of pride, respect, or sorrow; and the next moment finds us gazing with

similar thoughts and sympathies upon the grave of another. Above hangs

the helmet which the warrior king wore in battle, shewing by the deep

dents which are imprinted upon it, that it was borne into the very

thickest of the strife, and had its share of blows dealt heavily, when

men lived but to "conquer or to die."

There is a strange want of harmony between the ancient and modern

monuments. Our ancestors understood the "keeping" of their subjects

within the pale of style, beauty, and order better than we do or have

done. They made their ornaments and furniture to correspond with the

venerable and costly edifice which their taste and piety had reared; and

in the fulfilment of their solemn ceremonies, allowed no meddling

undertaker to disfigure the hallowed mansion with his grave mockery. A

glance at the tombs of our old kings is the proof--they have become a

portion of Westminster Abbey, while the additions made during the last

two centuries are, with a few exceptions, sadly misplaced. We look

around, and feel as if, while in the midst of some impressive ceremony,

a group of strange maskers had suddenly broken in, snapped the train of

our thoughts, and by their antics diverted both mind and eye from the

imposing subjects with which they were before so earnestly engrossed.

Statues or monuments, that would look well in open squares or spacious

halls, startle us by their very nakedness, when they step out between

the shadowy and solemn crypts, where death itself is roofed over and

vaulted in at the foot of the mighty mound whose very majesty is

overwhelming. It is as if the eye, while contemplating the grandeur of

Parnassus, was disturbed by the white butterflies that are ever crossing

each other at its base. Mere inscriptions on some Gothic tablet would be

better than these abortions: a list of names would not offend, like many

of these pale, inexpressive countenances, that "fright" the aisle "from

its propriety" in marble. The name alone in such a place would strike

the right chord, while the ... but we are standing amongst the mighty

dead.

The beautiful screen erected by Blore is a splendid exception to the

mass of modern innovations. Turn to the monument of Sir Francis Vere, in

the eastern aisle of the transept, and there you see what true genius

can produce.

We will now glance at the Poets' Corner, a spot haunted by sad and sweet

associations. Here stands the massy and solemn-looking tomb of Chaucer,

that "morning star" of poetry which first dawned through the long night

of Egyptian darkness. He, the earliest child of English song, was the

first bard interred within this great national mausoleum; and it now

appears that the monument was erected soon after his death: there is an

antique look about it which would leave a stranger to conclude that the

tomb was almost as old as the Abbey itself. Gentle Spenser, author of

the immortal "Faëry Queen," was the next heir to undying fame interred

in this beautiful sanctuary; and Shakspeare and Jonson were no doubt

mourners at that great funeral. Beaumont and Drayton were the next

successors who sank into this silent city of the dead. "Rare Ben Jonson"

soon followed; but he was buried in the northern aisle of the nave--it

is supposed, very near to Killigrew's monument. Cowley, Dryden, Gay,

Prior, and Addison, although the latter was buried in another part of

the Abbey, may be numbered among the illustrious dead who sleep their

long sleep within those ancient walls. Many other monuments stand here

erected to the memory of our celebrated poets, whose remains lie far and

wide apart--some in the beautiful churches of London, others in the

quiet seclusion of the country. The author of the "Pleasures of Hope,"

whose mortal part we followed to the shallow grave which was opened near

the front of Chaucer's tomb, was the last true poet consigned to his

"narrow cell" in this great graveyard of genius. Grand and solemn were

the tones which the mighty organ poured out amid that listening

silence--sounds which seemed more allied to heaven than earth; echoes

that rolled on, then died away amid the shadowy crypts and pillared

recesses, sounding as if the voices of the shrouded dead had found

utterance, and were welcoming home another immortal spirit. Never was

the funeral service more beautifully or feelingly read than on that

occasion, by a brother poet. And that old Jerusalem Chamber in which we

assembled, with its ancient tapestry, is itself a history. Here the

great have, after death, lain in state; and the "props and pillars" of

the nation have here assembled to make war or peace; and here also,

stretched upon a pallet before the fire, Henry IV. died: the portrait of

the ill-starred Richard II. hangs in this very chamber where Bolingbroke

expired.

If one portion of the splendid Abbey more than another calls up the

scriptural image of "a temple not made with hands," it is Henry the

Seventh's Chapel. The opening of those beautiful gates which lead

therein seems to reveal such a glimpse of heaven as we sometimes see in

our sweetest dreams. The very roof appears buoyed up by the air, as if a

thing so light and beautiful needed no more support than its own

graceful interlacings, censers held up by invisible hands; a fretwork of

innumerable wings, netted and open like those which the gaudy dragon-fly

displays, seem as if they were frozen while fluttering over an endless

succession of flowers. On each side hang the banners of the Knights of

the Bath, drooping without motion over the monuments of the dead, above

the head of the once haughty Queen Elizabeth, who sleeps beside her

sister Mary in the northern aisle. The brass screen which encloses the

tomb of Henry VII. is of exquisite workmanship, and speaks much for the

advance of art in this department. In this chapel, the stern Protector,

Cromwell, was interred; but his body was afterwards dragged out of its

grave by the consent of Charles II., drawn on a hurdle to Tyburn, hanged

upon the gallows until sunset, then taken down and beheaded, and

afterwards thrown into a pit at the foot of Tyburn-tree, where, "after

life's fitful fever, he sleeps well," awaiting the same blast of the

last trumpet that will arouse his headless victim and heartless

persecutor.

[Illustration: HORSE-GUARDS.]

Those who wish to witness the out-of-door pomp and pride of mighty

London must enter by the Horse-Guards and visit the parks; for there all

the array of rank and fashion and aristocratic beauty congregate, under

the open eye of heaven: mounted on splendid horses, or seated in richly

ornamented chariots, and arrayed in the most approved costumes, they

confer a mutual pleasure upon all, by issuing forth to see and to be

seen. Here, from the humble pedestrian--the nursery-maid, with her

children, walking within the Enclosure--the man-about-town, fashionably

dressed, and who may either be taken for a member of the swell mob or a

marquis,--the ranks ascend to celebrated statesmen, soldiers of renown,

and lords and ladies, whose titles have figured for centuries in the

pages of history, and who all appear to have no other object than that

of inhaling the fresh air, and enjoying the beauty of the scenery. For

in these places the leaves wave, and the flowers blow, and the waters

run, as green, and sweetly, and freshly, as if the huge city, with its

millions of murmuring voices, had been removed miles away. Yet, all is

London; only a wider space in that great unbroken chain of streets and

houses, whose squares are but the openings in the links that are locked

together, in and out, and under and over, to the very ending.

St. James's Park, in the reign of Henry VIII., appears to have been

nothing more than a wide space of open fields, formerly occupied by an

hospital; on the site of which bluff Hal erected a palace, and formed a

park, which he enclosed with brick walls. To this park he added a chase,

which he threw out like a wide open noose, from his palace at

Westminster, and where the line fell it formed the circle which ran from

St. Giles's-in-the-Fields, up by Islington, round Highgate and Hornsey,

Hampstead Heath, and back again to St. Giles and Westminster; and all

subjects of every degree were forbidden either to hawk or hunt within

these boundaries. Only three centuries have passed away since this

proclamation was issued. Old Death himself, with dart in hand, hunted

down Henry soon after he had taken possession of his new chase; and,

after the leading hart of the herd had fallen, the whole chase was soon

disafforested. Edward VI. possessed not his father's organs of

destructiveness; but, instead of forming parks, founded hospitals; one

of which will cause the name of the Boy-King to be reverenced throughout

all time. But few features of that old park now remain, although there

are spots about it in which the spectator may stand in such a situation

as to shut out every other object, excepting the grey old Abbey of

Westminster, against which the trees seem to rest, half burying it, as

they no doubt did three hundred years ago.

There are many "pretty bits" about St. James's Park, as you look up

towards where the pale marble arch formerly stood, on which the royal

banner of England, that threw out its golden lions upon the breeze, used

to float; when, seen through the opening green of the foliage, it seemed

to carry back the imagination into the land of old romance and chivalry.

Nor is the Palace itself less pleasing; for although in many points

deficient of architectural beauty, it throws the old black-bricked,

gloomy pile of St. James's altogether into the shade. But the most

beautiful walks lie beside the canal, or sheet of ornamental water,

which is fairly alive with water-fowl, brought from almost every corner

of the globe. Around this part there are many fine trees, which throw

their green shadows into the water, broken at times by a hundred tiny

ripples, which have been raised by the paddles of some strange-looking

duck, or thrown up by the silver-breasted swans. We have seen little

morsels mirrored in these "cool translucent waves" of the richest colour

and beauty--the drooping gold of the laburnum, and the pearly white of

the hawthorn, dangled amid moving shadows of green; while deep down, the

blue sky lay sleeping, like another heaven, motionless, and without a

cloud. This is the favourite haunt of children and nursery-maids; and

few fowls are better fed in summer-time than those which skim about the

water in the Park, for the handfuls of bread and biscuit which are

thrown in by the "little dears" for the little ducks, and often gobbled

up by the larger ones, would almost feed a workhouse. It has been a

celebrated spot for love-making ever since the days of Charles II., and

is frequently mentioned in the works of the dramatists who wrote at that

period. In this it has not degenerated up to the present day, for many a

"Corydon and Phillis" may yet be seen breathing out gentle vows in the

most secluded retreats, some of the maidens with countenances as

beautiful as ever figured in that gallery of graceless Graces which

formed the seraglio of the Merry Monarch. In this park King Charles

often amused himself by playing with his dogs, or feeding the ducks; or

sometimes he stole away to have a gossip with Nell Gwynn, the Duchess of

Cleveland, or Lady Castlemain, all of whom resided in the neighbourhood.

Here he also played at "pall-mall," for so is that game called by

garrulous old Pepys. Horace Walpole makes mention of the Mall, and also

tells us that pretty ladies were sometimes mobbed in the Park.

The Green Park possesses but little to interest us, beyond a walk beside

the gardens which run up in a line with James-street, although far

behind it. But those who know the locality will not pass without pausing

to gaze at one house, conspicuous by its large bow-windows, the upper

one of which is encircled by a gilt palisade. This is the residence of

Samuel Rogers the poet. Within that house every distinguished literary

man of the last half-century has been a guest. Here Scott, Byron,

Shelley, Coleridge, and Campbell have many a time discoursed with the

venerable poet. What a rich volume would that be, were it possible to

write it, that contained all the good sayings which have been uttered

beneath that roof! Here we first sat a guest, roaring with laughter at

the wit of the late Sydney Smith; and here also we have listened with

"bated breath" to the music murmured by the lips of Moore. Within those

walls we first saw that true poetess and injured lady, Mrs. Norton; and

from the host himself, in our early career as an author, received that

encouragement and kindness, without which we might have "fallen on the

way." A description of this celebrated house, all it contains, and the

guests it has received, would require the hand of another Walpole to

illustrate. The name of Samuel Rogers would alone save the Green Park

from oblivion, and give it a popularity which it would never, but for

him, have possessed.