pulled down, but before we leave Fleet Street let us go into the church
where Sunday after Sunday he worshipped. You know St. Clement Danes?
Here it is, standing in the middle of the road near to the Temple—one
of the seventeenth-century churches built after the Fire.”
They entered, and Betty followed her Godmother up into the gallery
where a tablet on a certain pew near the pulpit, marked Dr. Johnson’s
seat.
“It’s interesting to know just where he sat,” Betty said, as they left
the church. “Is the next place we’re going to, hidden away like Gough
Square, Godmother?”
“Far from it. I’m going to take you now to the Adelphi, to which
business people who have offices there, go every day.”
“The Adelphi? That’s a turning out of the Strand, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Have you ever asked what the name means?”
Betty shook her head.
“Does it sound to you like an English name?”
“_Adelphi_,” Betty repeated. “No, it doesn’t. What language is it?”
“Greek. It’s the Greek word for _brothers_.”
By this time the car had turned up a street near Charing Cross Station,
and was moving slowly past lines of houses which Betty recognized as
belonging to the eighteenth century.
“Look at the name of that street,” said Godmother, pointing to it.
“Durham House Street,” Betty read.
“Well now, remember the Strand as we saw it by magic about the time
of Elizabeth, when stately houses surrounded by gardens, stood facing
the river. Just here, where we are driving through these streets of
eighteenth-century houses, stood Durham House, where Lady Jane Grey was
born. We saw it, if you remember, when we were in Queen Elizabeth’s
reign. That accounts for the name _Durham House Street_ which you’ve
just seen. But it doesn’t account for names like Adam Street, and James
Street, does it?” As she spoke, Godmother was pointing to them as they
appeared written up on the walls of corner houses. “I’ll explain about
that in a minute, when you’ve looked at this beautiful place we’re
coming to, called Adelphi Terrace.”
They had turned into a broad road, open on one side to the river, and
lined on the other side by a row of stately houses with delicately
ornamented flat pillars, against the walls.
“The _Adelphi_, as you see,” she went on, “is really a whole district
laid out in streets of eighteenth-century houses, built over the ground
where Durham House once stood. About a hundred and fifty years ago,
when Dr. Johnson and Goldsmith were living, there was a Scotch family
of four brothers in London. Their names were John, James, Robert
and William Adam. They were all architects, and also designers of a
beautiful kind of furniture which has ever since been called _Adam_
furniture, and is now very valuable. These brothers built this little
part of London which was not only called the Adelphi—that is ‘the
Brothers’—in honour of them, but each brother gave his Christian name
to a street, while yet another street bears the surname of the family.
So we have Adam, James, John and Robert Streets. There used to be a
William’s Street, but that has been changed to Durham House Street
within the last few years.”
“Poor William!” said Betty. “He’s gone out of the family! Still,
the new name _does_ remind us of Durham House and Lady Jane Grey,
doesn’t it? Oh! _two_ of the brothers, Robert and James, lived here,
Godmother!” she went on, pointing to a tablet on one of the houses in
the terrace. “And here’s another tablet next door. It says that David
Garrick lived in this house. Who was David Garrick?”
“A famous actor of the eighteenth century and one of Dr. Johnson’s
friends. He acted at Drury Lane Theatre where, eighty years or so
before his time, Pepys, you remember, used to go to see the pretty
actress, Nell Gwynne. But you will read about these eighteenth-century
people when you are older, and perhaps feel as I do, that you know them
all very well. Take a last look at this Adelphi, because it’s a good
example of the sort of architecture that belongs to the time of George
the Second and Third. There are many other eighteenth-century streets
and nooks and corners scattered about London among the forest of new
buildings that has sprung up since the reign of George the Second.
But I shall leave you to find them for yourself. It will make a nice
occupation for you when you go for a walk! Now we must rush home if we
want any lunch to-day.”
“But you won’t forget the ‘magic,’ will you?” urged Betty anxiously.
* * * * *
In the white parlour, an hour or two later, she sat full of
expectation, watching Godmother as she took a volume from the enchanted
cabinet.
[Illustration: A SEDAN CHAIR]
“Here is the book that will take us back to-day,” she said. “It’s
called _Boswell’s Life of Johnson_, and it’s almost as good for news
of the eighteenth century, as _Pepys’ Diary_ is, for news of the
seventeenth. Shut your eyes, hold the book in the magic way, and
say, as Johnson used to say to his friend Boswell, ‘_Sir, let us walk
down Fleet Street._’”
* * * * *
In a flash they were there, and at first sight Betty could scarcely
believe it was the same Fleet Street she had left only a few hours
previously. In a minute or two, however, she recognized it, in spite of
the changes, for she stood close to the entrance to the Temple, and not
far from it rose the church of St. Clement Danes. But the great pile
of the new Law Courts had vanished, and so had the monument with the
Griffin upon it in the middle of the road. Where that had stood an hour
or two previously there stretched a fine stone gateway, and a line of
little shops took the place of the Law Courts.
“That’s Temple Bar,” said Godmother, pointing to the gate. “If you
had lived forty years ago, you would have seen it without the help of
magic, for it had not then been pulled down.”
“What are those long spikes for on the top?” asked Betty, gazing up at
the gate.
“For a horrible purpose. On them were fixed the heads of men who had
been executed as traitors. Johnson and Goldsmith saw the heads of
certain rebels on those spikes, only a hundred and seventy years ago.”
“I’m glad they’re not there now,” said Betty, shuddering. “Does Temple
Bar belong to the time before the Fire?”
“No. The old one was burnt, and this took its place. But some sort of
chain or bar or gate has been on this spot for eight hundred years to
mark the place where the part of London called Westminster ends, and
the City begins. Even now, in our time, though there’s no gate left,
when the King pays a state visit to the City, he stops here and asks
the Lord Mayor who comes to meet him for permission to pass Temple Bar!”
“Except that it’s newer, St. Clement Danes church, where Dr. Johnson
goes, looks the same,” remarked Betty, searching for buildings with
which she was familiar.
“Yes, it’s one of the many churches rebuilt after the Fire by Sir
Christopher Wren.”
“‘Oranges and Lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s!’”
Betty quoted. “That’s a nursery rhyme about that very church, isn’t it?
It goes on to tell what all the other church bells say too!” she added.
“We’ll read it when we slip back into our own day,” Godmother answered.
“Now look up and down the street.”
Glancing first at the road, Betty saw that instead of the smooth wood
pavement with motor omnibuses running quickly over it, Fleet Street was
now paved with round cobblestones which extended right up to the shops
on either hand, and only a row of posts divided the foot passengers
from the traffic.
Big lumbering coaches, with powdered footmen standing up behind them,
rolled clattering over the stones. Wagons piled with vegetables jolted
along, the horses led by carters in smock frocks, cracking their
whips. Every now and then a sedan chair slung on poles and carried by
men-servants, passed by, giving her a glimpse of a lady within, dressed
in flowered silk, her hair piled high and powdered thickly.
Instead of gabled houses with the latticed windows of earlier times,
she saw taller, plainer houses, like those in the streets of the
Adelphi, built of small bricks, with sash windows level with their
walls, and each story exactly over the one beneath it. There were no
top windows now from which opposite neighbours shook hands across the
street. At every shop door, a sign hung out, some painted on wood,
others made of gilded metal.
“It’s all much cleaner and lighter since the Fire!” Betty exclaimed.
“And how pretty the sign-boards make the street. And, oh, Godmother,
how pretty the dresses are.”
Even the more plainly-dressed business men, she thought, looked nice in
their knee-breeches, brown stockings and ruffled shirts. But every now
and then, beautifully-dressed young men passed her, wearing flowered
waistcoats, white or coloured satin coats and silk stockings with
knee-breeches. Their swords were fastened with broad sashes round the
waist. Dainty lace ruffles fell over their hands. Under their arms they
carried three-cornered hats, trimmed with gold lace, and their hair,
rather long and powdered, was tied with a black ribbon. Nearly all of
them carried gold snuff-boxes, and long gold-handled canes.
“The men are quite, if not more elegant, than the women, you see—in
this reign of George the Second,” said Godmother. “Here comes one,
however, who is by no means well-dressed,” she added, smiling.
[Illustration]
Betty looked in the direction to which she pointed, and saw two figures
approaching. One was a neat dapper gentleman, but the other was the
oddest-looking individual! He wore shabby buckled shoes, black worsted
stockings, all wrinkled, knee-breeches, a long coat of a rusty brown,
and a wig much too small for him; old and unpowdered. He was stout, and
clumsily made, moved very awkwardly, and had a large heavy face.
“It’s Dr. Johnson!” cried Betty. “And that’s Mr. Boswell with him, I
suppose?”
“Yes, listening intently to every word he utters. He will rush home
presently and write down every syllable of Dr. Johnson’s conversation,
and later on, publish it in that wonderful Life of his friend.
Well, now that we’ve had a glimpse of Fleet Street as it was in the
eighteenth century, I’m going to whisk you off to look at the river.
Shut your eyes and wish yourself standing on the Embankment somewhere
close to Westminster Bridge.” ...
“Why, there’s no Embankment, and there’s no Westminster Bridge!” Betty
exclaimed when she found herself standing at the edge of the river
which washed right up to the houses on its banks. Remembering the many
bridges to be seen from Westminster in our day, she looked right and
left, but not one was visible.
“London Bridge, out of sight because of the winding of the river,
is still the only bridge over the Thames, you will notice!” said
Godmother. “They’re just beginning to build one here, where our
Westminster Bridge now stands. But it isn’t finished yet, and one must
still row from bank to bank.”
“And it’s still country on the other side,” Betty remarked, looking
across the water at farms and clusters of cottages where now, immense
buildings line the banks on the other side of the present Westminster
Bridge. “And oh, Godmother, how strange not to see the Houses of
Parliament of _our_ time! They haven’t been built yet, of course? And
that’s part of the Old Palace of Westminster that stands where our
Houses of Parliament is now, I suppose?”
“Yes, and St. Stephen’s Chapel, where the House of Commons met, was
standing there, just as you see it now, ninety years ago, in my
father’s lifetime. He saw it burning, and watched the building of the
new Parliament Houses familiar to _you_.
“Let us go down these steps, and take the boat that waterman is just
pushing off. We’ll first go down the river a little way, and then up
towards Chelsea.”
“The Strand begins to look like the Strand of our time, doesn’t it?”
Betty said. “Nearly all the beautiful old palaces have gone, and what
were country lanes between them are now _streets_,” she sighed. “What
a pity! And there are no streams now running across the countrified
Strand and emptying themselves into the river.”
“No. But they still run underground, beneath the houses and roads,”
Godmother said. “Under Fleet Street, for instance, flows the stream
called Fleet. But instead of dancing along in the sunlight, it runs
through iron pipes and is a sewer! A sad fate for the poor little
river, isn’t it?”
“There’s quite a lot of building going on,” said Betty presently.
“What’s that big place just begun, where the workmen are now?”
“Don’t you recognize it? It’s going to be the Adelphi you saw this
morning.”
Betty was silent a moment. “And once it was Durham House, and Lady Jane
Grey lived there, when it was all country round her,” she said rather
sadly at last. “How London changes, doesn’t it, Godmother?” ...
Presently the boat turned, and they rowed westward up the river.
“We are going in the direction of Chelsea—_your_ home,” said
Godmother. “You will find it a village among fields and woods.
Kensington is also a country village, and the lanes and roads are
terribly unsafe at night. Highwaymen often lie in wait for coaches that
may be passing, and ‘_Your money or your life!_’ is what they say when
they put a pistol at the heads of travellers.”
“It _is_ funny to think of the King’s Road in Chelsea, full of
omnibuses and taxis now, being a country lane!” Betty said, for the
boat had moved with all the swiftness to which she was accustomed in
these visits into the Past, and they were passing Chelsea Church. “But
at least I know the church! _That_ must have been there for hundreds
of years, because Sir Thomas More’s tomb is in it.”
[Illustration]
“And do you see the remains of a house near the church?” Godmother
asked, pointing to all that was left of a beautiful mansion which
workmen were even then pulling down. “That’s where Sir Thomas More
lived for many years. You see it being destroyed before your eyes in
the reign of George the Second. So it seems they were no more careful
to preserve beautiful or interesting buildings in the eighteenth
century than we are who live in the twentieth! Every time you walk down
Beaufort Street, Chelsea, you may remember that you are on the site of
that old house and its gardens.”
One other building besides the church, Betty had recognized. Like the
church, it stood surrounded by fields and gardens, instead of by the
houses and streets of modern days. This was the Chelsea Hospital which,
as she already knew, had been built by Charles the Second as a home
for the old soldiers of _his_ day and was still the home for the old
soldiers of our own times. She knew well by sight the old men in their
scarlet coats, and almost every day she walked through the gardens
belonging to the Hospital. But the gardens she now saw from the boat
looked much larger, and had an altogether different appearance.
“What’s that great round thing among the trees, Godmother?” she asked.
“That’s the Rotunda of Ranelagh.”
“But what is it? It’s not there now in our time!”
“No, but in this reign it’s a very celebrated place of amusement for
all the gay world of London. The two fashionable pleasure gardens are
Vauxhall and this _Ranelagh_, close to Chelsea Hospital. Do you know
Doulton’s big factory on the opposite side of the river?”
“Yes, the place with the tall terra-cotta chimney, you mean?”
“Well, just about where the factory stands in our day, stretches a
garden laid out with winding walks and avenues of trees. You can just
see it from this point. That is the famous Vauxhall. Eighteenth-century
novels are full of mention of Ranelagh and Vauxhall, and Boswell tells
us how fond Dr. Johnson was of both of them.”
“Oh, can’t we land, and see one of them?” Betty implored.
“You shall have a glimpse of _Ranelagh_ by night. We needn’t land
either, for our magic is all powerful, you know. Just shut your eyes a
moment and wish yourself in Ranelagh at ten o’clock in the evening....
Now open them and look.”
For a moment Betty was dazzled by glittering lights, but as she looked
round her she drew a long breath of delight.
“Oh, how pretty!” she exclaimed. “It’s like fairy-land.”
[Illustration]
The “round thing” of which she had caught sight between trees, she
now saw to be a sort of dome, beneath which was a circle of gilded
and painted recesses, something like the boxes in a theatre. From a
pavilion in the middle of the covered part of the gardens, came the
sound of music, and in every recess ladies and gentlemen were seated
before little tables with glasses and cups upon them. With the dome,
or _Rotunda_, as Godmother called it, as a centre, long alleys of
trees stretched in every direction, like the spokes of a wheel, and
were lighted by lamps hanging from the trees. The whole place indeed
sparkled with lights, and in their radiance walked charming figures.
Pretty ladies in gowns of brocade with powdered hair and little black
patches on their faces, were escorted by gentlemen no less charming
in their satin coats, flowered waistcoats and three-cornered hats.
They walked up and down the leafy alleys, sometimes stopping before
platforms where people were singing or acting, sometimes greeting other
parties of friends with low curtsies from the ladies and deep bows from
the gentlemen.
Betty was entranced by the charming scene.
“It’s very pretty, isn’t it?” said Godmother. “No wonder Dr. Johnson
said, ‘_When I first entered Ranelagh it gave me an expansion and gay
sensation in my mind such as I never experienced anywhere else_.’”
“I wonder if he’s here to-night?” Betty replied.
“Very likely. I see many well-known people. There’s Oliver Goldsmith in
the claret-coloured velvet coat. He’s much tidier and better dressed
than usual! And do you notice that little man, rather deformed, in
black satin, with ruffles of lace? That’s Mr. Pope, the poet. He is
very witty. You see how he is surrounded by laughing men and women? But
they’re all rather afraid of him, for he’s quite likely to make fun of
them in his next poem.”
“Oh, I should like to live in these times,” sighed Betty, “and go to
parties in a sedan chair, and be dressed like these ladies when I grow
up....”
Godmother laughed at her face of amazement when she found herself
finishing the sentence in the white parlour at Westminster.
“There are advantages and disadvantages about every age,” she said.
“I don’t think you’d care at all for the way most little girls of the
eighteenth century were brought up. You wouldn’t have the freedom you
enjoy now, I can assure you!”
Betty sighed again, but this time because she remembered with a pang
that this was her last visit for a long time to the little house from
which she had taken so many magic journeys. Godmother was going abroad
again, and for many months her house would be closed. Before she could
speak, however, the old lady went on: “Now mind you go soon to the
London Museum to refresh your memory about to-day’s glimpse of the
eighteenth century in this wonderful city of ours. Go into the Costume
rooms, and look at the dresses. You will find there the very velvet
coat we saw dear old Oliver Goldsmith wearing at Ranelagh. You will see
the sedan chairs in which the fine ladies were carried, and a thousand
other things belonging to eighteenth-century London which you must find
for yourself.”
“I can go on Monday,” Betty said, “because holidays are beginning.”
“Do. And on your way home, try to imagine how all the changes in the
streets since the eighteenth century would strike Dr. Johnson, for
instance.
“You will go back by Tube, which is to you a familiar way of getting
about. But think of Dr. Johnson’s face if he could suddenly walk into a
lift and be lowered into the depths of the earth, and then shot through
a narrow tunnel from the Bank to Marble Arch, or farther!”
Betty laughed. “And he wouldn’t recognize Marble Arch when he got
there, would he?”
“Not a bit. He would expect to see a more or less country road where
Oxford Street now runs, and close to the place where the Marble Arch
stands to-day he would look for the gallows called Tyburn Tree, where
in his time people were hanged. Think how amazed he would be to behold
motor vehicles instead of coaches and sedan chairs in the streets.”
“Or to see trains, and telephones, and electric lights, and telegrams
and aeroplanes,” put in Betty. “They would all be strange to him. After
all, aeroplanes are still a _little_ strange to us!” she added.
“You’ll pass several Post Offices on your way to Chelsea,” Godmother
went on, “and to _you_, to drop a letter this afternoon through a
slit outside the office, and expect it to reach Newcastle or Exeter
to-morrow morning seems quite natural. To Dr. Johnson it would appear
marvellous, for in _his_ day, letters had to be carried by men on
horseback from one town to another. These are only a few examples of
the changes which have taken place since the eighteenth century, which
in some ways seems so near us and in other respects so far away.” ...
“Oh, Godmother, do come back soon!” Betty said, when the sad moment
for saying good-bye had come. “There are hundreds and hundreds more
things I want to see in London!”
“Then you don’t hate it quite so much as you did some weeks ago?” asked
the old lady slyly.
“Oh, I love it! But I never should have loved it without you and the
magic journeys. And now there won’t be any more magic for ages.”
“That will be your own fault then,” returned Godmother briskly. “With
certain books, some of which you know already, as guides, and a certain
exercise of imagination which will grow stronger if you practise it,
the Present will melt into the Past, and you will be able to call it up
at your pleasure. But never forget, Betty, that the Past has made the
Present, and when you are grown up, try to make other people reverence
the Past of London, and be unwilling, except for very pressing reasons,
to destroy what is old and full of memories. London is changing before
our eyes, and too much that is beautiful and interesting is being swept
away, often through carelessness and indifference. I hope you’ll be one
of the small group of people who help to guard the Past, and use their
influence to prevent unnecessary destruction in our wonderful city. And
remember that you’ve only just begun to know a tiny fraction of its
history. There is enough yet left to learn to last you your lifetime.”
“I know,” said Betty. “Godmother,” she added after a moment, “you said
you would read me the rhyme about London bells.”
Godmother went to the cabinet, out of which so many charms had been
drawn, and took out a book which she put into Betty’s hand.
“You’ll find it in this book, which I’m going to give you in memory of
our journeys, magic and otherwise. It’s called _London in Song_, and I
hope it will remind you of many things we’ve seen together. The Nursery
Rhyme about the bells was written by some unknown lover of London who
lived in the eighteenth century, and some of it at least you’ve often
sung at parties when you played ‘Oranges and Lemons.’”
* * * * *
So in the Tube on her way home to Chelsea, which she could now picture
as it was before it had become just a part of London instead of a
country village, Betty read the rhyme of the bells, and amused herself
by counting up how many of the churches mentioned in it she knew.
“Gay go up and gay go down
To ring the bells of London Town.
Oranges and lemons,
Say the bells of St. Clement’s.
Bull’s eyes and targets,
Say the bells of St. Marg’ret’s.
Brickbats and tiles,
Say the bells of St. Giles’.
Halfpence and farthings,
Say the bells of St. Martin’s.
Pancakes and fritters,
Say the bells of St. Peter’s.
Two sticks and an apple,
Say the bells of Whitechapel.
Pokers and tongs,
Say the bells of St. John’s.
Kettles and pans,
Say the bells of St. Ann’s.
Old Father Baldpate,
Say the slow bells of Aldgate.
You owe me ten shillings,
Say the bells of St. Helen’s.
When will you pay me?
Say the bells of Old Bailey.
When I grow rich,
Say the bells of Shoreditch.
Pray when will that be?
Say the bells of Stepney.
I do not know,
Says the great bell of Bow.
Gay go up and gay go down
To ring the bells of London Town.”
Never again could Betty think of London as a dull, dreary place, for
though she continued to forget how she actually got back into the Past,
she kept a picture in her mind of London through the ages.