The celebrated Quack, Dr Graham--His Temple of Health in the
Adelphi--Satirised by Colman and Bannister--"Vestina, the Rosy Goddess
of Health"--Emma Lyon, Lady Hamilton--Osborn's Hotel--The King and
Queen of the Sandwich Islands--Their Death in the Adelphi--Isaac
D'Israeli--The Earl of Beaconsfield--Thomas Hill, the Original of
Paul Pry--Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens--_David Copperfield_ and
_Pickwick_--Ivy Lane--The Fox-under-the-Hill--The Adelphi "Dark
Arches."
THE Adelphi has had its share of quacks, the most impudent of them
all being Dr Graham, a Scotchman, who flourished here from the summer
of 1780 until the May following, when he migrated to Pall Mall. He
occupied the middle house in Adelphi Terrace, and in this place Emma
Lyon--afterwards Lady Hamilton--posed as the Goddess of Health. James
Graham was then approaching the end of his extraordinary career, for,
born in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1745, he died in 1794.
Although he studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh, it is not
certain that he took his degree, for, so late as 1783, he is described
as "the person calling himself Dr Graham." He passed his earlier life
in Pontrefact, being married there in 1770. Subsequently, he travelled
in America, as an oculist and aurist. Returning to England in 1774, he
practised at Bristol and Bath, and, a year later, established himself
in Pall Mall, nearly opposite St James's Palace. At Bath, in 1777, he
met Catherine Macaulay, who, a few months later, married his younger
brother, William. Through his treatment of her, he declared, he made
his first real start in life. Be this as it may, he gained the ear of
the public about this time, although he was denounced as a quack by the
medical profession. After a visit to the continent, during which he
received many testimonials from people in the first rank of society, he
came to the Adelphi in 1779. His house and apparatus, it was stated,
cost him £10,000. The entrance hall was adorned with crutches which
had been discarded by his "patients," and, in the rooms above, were
large, gaudily-decorated electrical machines, glass globes, marble
statues, and figures of dragons; the windows were of stained glass, and
the air was laden with the perfume of incense. The door was guarded by
huge footmen. One apartment was devoted to Apollo, and contained "a
magnificent temple, sacred to health." He lectured at enormous prices
and obtained fabulous sums for his quack remedies. For a night in the
"celestial bed," which ensured a beautiful progeny, his fee was £100;
his "elixir of life" brought him a fee of one thousand pounds, but his
"earth-bath" was only a modest guinea, while a magneto-electric bed
could be slept in for £50 a night.
In August, 1780, Horace Walpole visited "The Temple of Health" in the
Adelphi, and pronounced it "the most impudent puppet-show of imposition
I ever saw, and the mountebank himself the dullest of his profession,
except that he makes spectators pay a crown apiece for admission only."
The place acquired notoriety so rapidly that, on September 2, George
Colman, the elder, produced at the Haymarket Theatre a skit entitled
_The Genius of Nonsense_, in which John Bannister, in the character
of the Emperor of Quacks, mimicked Graham. "His satin sofas on glass
legs, his celestial bed, his two porters in long, tawdry greatcoats and
immense gold-laced cocked hats, distributing handbills at the door,
while his goddess of health was dying of a sore throat from squalling
songs at the top of the staircase, were all hit off by a speaking
harlequin, who also caricatured the doctor's sliding walk and bobbing
bows."[41] The impostor was prevented from buying the "bill of the
play," a burlesque on his own handbill, so that he could not bring an
action for libel.
The following is an exact copy of one of Graham's advertisements:--
TEMPLE OF HEALTH, Adelphi.
To their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors,
To the Nobility, Gentry and to Persons
of Learning and Taste,
This Evening exactly at Eight o'Clock,
The Celestial Brilliancy of the
Medico-electrical Apparatus, in all the
Apartments of the
TEMPLE,
Will be exhibited by Dr Graham himself,
Who will have the honour of explaining the true Nature and effects of
Electricity, Air, Music, and Magnetism, when applied to the human body.
In the introductory Oration, the whole art of enjoying health and
vigour, of body and of mind, and of preserving and exalting personal
Beauty and Loveliness; or, in other words, of living with health,
honour, and happiness in this world, for at least a hundred years, is
pointed out and warmly inculcated.
Previous to the display of the electrical Fire, the Doctor will
delicately touch upon the Celestial Beds, which are soon to be opened
in the Temple of Hymen, in Pall-mall, for the propagation of Beings
rational, and far stronger and more beautiful in mental as well as in
bodily endowments--than the present puny, feeble, and nonsensical race
of probationary immortals, which crawl and fret, and politely play
at cutting one another's throats for nothing at all, on most parts of
this terraqueous globe.
This apparatus, which visibly displays, as it were, the various
faculties of the material soul of universal and eternal Nature, is
acknowledged by all who have seen it, to be by far the largest, most
useful, and most magnificent that now is, or that ever was, in the
world; and it may be inspected every day, from Ten o'clock in the
Morning till four in the Afternoon. Admittance at night, 5s.; in the
day, 2s. 6d.
In another announcement he stated that "Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of
Health, presides at the _evening lectures_ at the Temple of Health,
Adelphi, assisting at the display of the Celestial Meteors, and of that
sacred Vital _Fire_ over which she watches, and whose application in
the _Cure of Diseases_ she daily has the honour of directing." Graham's
"Rosy Goddess of Health" was Emma Lyon, who, in the winter of 1780,
when she posed in the Adelphi, was barely twenty years of age. Young
as she was, she had lived a strange life, even then. The daughter of
a Cheshire blacksmith, she was quite a child when, in the capacity of
nurse-maid, she entered the service of Mrs Thomas, wife of a surgeon
practising at Hawarden; and she can hardly have been more than
fifteen or sixteen years of age when she first came to London. "Here,
for a short time, she is said to have been in service: first, with
Mrs Linley, of Drury Lane Theatre; secondly, with Dr Budd, one of the
physicians of St Bartholomew's Hospital; and finally at a fruiterer's
in St James's Market. One of the customers at this shop, 'a lady of
fashion,' attracted by the girl's manner, her beautiful face, and her
wonderful auburn hair, engaged her in the capacity of companion. But,
fortunate as the change at this time may have appeared to her, it
speedily put an end to her opportunities of earning an honest living.
No long time after, we hear of her as living for a time with Captain
(afterwards Admiral) John Willett Payne, who is by some surmised to
be the father of a girl to whom she gave birth about the end of 1779
or the beginning of 1780. However this may be, it is certain that,
before she had completed her seventeenth year, she did give birth to a
child, and that, as soon as possible, it was transferred to the care
of her old grandmother at Hawarden."[42] Her poverty drove her to
the quack doctor of the Adelphi. Soon after her appearance here, she
"kept house," in extravagant fashion, for Sir Harry Fetherstonshaugh,
"a dissolute baronet," at Up Park, Sussex, and became "a daring and
accomplished horse-woman." At this time she called herself Emma Hart,
but on her marriage, in 1791, to Sir William Hamilton, she signed the
register as Amy Lyon. The subsequent career of Nelson's Lady Hamilton
is too well known for repetition.
[Illustration:
_Hollar._ 1630.
SUFFOLK (SUBSEQUENTLY NORTHUMBERLAND) HOUSE.]
In the spring of 1781, Graham removed from the comparative quiet of
the Adelphi to more aristocratic quarters in Schomberg House--part of
the existing War Office--in Pall Mall. His charges were slightly lower
than in the Adelphi, the use of his "celestial bed" costing but fifty
pounds. In November, 1782, his property was seized for debt, and was
advertised for sale on December 20, and the following days. He made
his misfortunes an opportunity for advertisement, bought in most of
his goods, and threatened one publication with an action for libel for
having published "an incorrect, mutilated, and nonsensical farrago,
which they impudently and falsely call Dr Graham's celebrated lecture
on generation." In March, 1783, he announced that the "High Priestess
of his Temple delivered lectures to ladies, and that the rosy,
athletic, and truly Gigantic Goddess of Health and of Hymen, on the
Celestial Throne," took part in the lectures. Graham's London career
practically ceased in 1783. Ten years later he described himself, in a
book on earth-bathing, as "formerly sole institutor, proprietor, and
director of the Temple of Health in the Adelphi and in Pall Mall." His
earth-bathing consisted of remaining without clothing in the earth six
hours at a time, for eight days in succession, and for twelve hours
on the ninth day. In 1791, Graham and a young woman, at Newcastle,
"stripped into their first suits," and "were each interred up to the
chin, their heads beautifully dressed and powdered, appearing not
unlike two fine full-grown cauliflowers."
Graham subsequently became a religious enthusiast, took to opium, and
was confined in his own house in Edinburgh as a lunatic. A few months
before his death, he made an affidavit, in which he stated that from
the last day of December 1792, to January 15, 1793, he neither ate,
drank, nor took anything but cold water, sustaining life by wearing
cut-up turfs against his naked body, and by rubbing his limbs with his
own nervous æthereal balsam. He died suddenly at his house, opposite
the Archers' Hall, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1794. Graham, though a quack,
and possibly a madman, was not without some knowledge. He was against
flesh-eating and excess in alcohol, and believed in cold bathing, open
windows, sleeping on mattresses, and other points of severe hygiene;
at one time, he stated, he never ate more than the worth of four or
six pence a day. He asserted that all diseases were caused by wearing
too much clothing, and he wore no woollen clothes. Southey saw this
"half knave, half enthusiast" thrice, once in his mud-bath. He says
that latterly Graham "would madden himself with opium, rush into the
streets, and strip himself to clothe the first beggar he met."[43]
At Osborn's Hotel, which still exists, under the name of the Adelphi
Hotel, at the corner of John and Adam Streets, the King and Queen of
the Sandwich Islands died, from small-pox, in 1824. Rhio-Rhio was
the son and successor of the first king, Tamehameha, who placed the
Islands under British protection. The Queen died on July 8. "The
King," said a contemporary print, "in the midst of this deep sorrow
manifests a firmness of mind which has penetrated everybody about him
with a feeling of respect. Though very anxious to express his grief in
the manner of his country, and to show the marks of deference which
are usually paid to the dead there, he submits, with good sense and
patience, to every suggestion which our habits dictate." The King died,
at the same place, on September 14. The visit of King Tamehameha and
his consort to England gave rise to the popular song, "The King of
the Cannibal Islands." This hotel was originally called "The Adelphi
New Tavern and Coffee-House," and was opened in October, 1777, "being
completely fitted up in the most elegant and convenient manner for
the entertainment of noblemen and gentlemen." Gibbon, writing to
Lord Sheffield on August 8, 1787, from the Adelphi Hotel, imparts a
piece of "Intelligence extraordinary. This day (August the seventh)
the celebrated E.G. arrived with a numerous retinue (one servant).
We hear that he has brought over from Lausanne the remainder of his
_History_ for immediate publication." In 1813, George Crabbe, the
poet, and his wife stayed in the Adelphi during a visit to London. Dr
Thomas Munro, Turner's patron, resided here, and on April 22, 1827,
Thomas Rowlandson, the famous caricaturist, died here. Isaac D'Israeli,
the author of _Curiosities of Literature_, and father of the Earl of
Beaconsfield, stayed at Osborn's Hotel after his wedding tour, in 1802.
It is generally supposed that Benjamin Disraeli was born in the
Adelphi. The authority for this statement is Lord Barrington, who,
during the Earl of Beaconsfield's last illness, questioned him on the
point. "I was born in the Adelphi," was the reply, "and I may say in
a library. My father was not rich when he married. He took a suite
of apartments in the Adelphi, and he possessed a large collection of
books; all the rooms were covered with them, including that in which I
was born." Mr Wheatley, however, says that "careful investigation has
left little doubt that this was not the case, as Isaac D'Israeli had
left the Adelphi"--where he had a lease of the first floor of No. 2
James Street--"for King's Road (now Theobald's Road) before the birth
of Benjamin."
In James Street, on the second floor of No. 1, there lived and died a
celebrated character, Thomas Hill (1760-1840), the book-collector and
patron of Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the fussy, good-natured
Hull of Theodore Hook's novel, _Gilbert Gurney_ (1836). More notable
still, he was the original of Paul Pry, in Poole's comedy (1825).
Paul Pry is an idle, inquisitive, meddle-some fellow who, without any
occupation of his own, is for ever thrusting himself upon other people
with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude." John Liston (1776-1846)
was the first stage representative of the character, and the part was
frequently acted by the late John Lawrence Toole. "Tommy" Hill, as he
was familiarly called, always boasted that he had whatever was wanted:
"Cards, sir? Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! thousands of packs in the house."
Planché says of him: "His _spécialité_ was the accurate information he
could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his
friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number
of pots of preserve in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins
in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages,
the amounts of their tradesmen's bills, and whether paid weekly or
quarterly. He had been on the press, and was connected with the
_Morning Chronicle_. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out
his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information in
some paper."
[Illustration:
1752.
THE STRAND FRONT OF NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.]
Two of the most celebrated literary names connected with the Adelphi
are Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens. Hood, soon after his marriage in
1824, lived in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, his acquaintanceship
at that time including Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey. His
association with the Adelphi continued until the end of his career, for
his _Magazine_, established in 1844--the year before his death--was
published from No. 1 Adam Street. Dickens knew the Adelphi well. As
a boy he frequented its underground passages, and, later on, he used
Osborn's Hotel (the Adelphi Hotel) for a scene in _Pickwick_.[44] He
is recording his own experiences when, in _David Copperfield_, he says:
"I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious
place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from
some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river,
with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to
look at whom, I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought
of me!" This was also the scene of the meeting of the Micawbers and
Copperfield prior to the departure of the impecunious Wilkins for
Australia: "The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty,
tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs,
and where protruding wooden rooms over-hung the river. The family, as
emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford,
attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their
room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing
underneath.... I went down again next morning to see that they were
away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a
wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although
my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden
stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now
that they were gone."[45]
This "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" of Dickens was the
"Fox-under-the-Hill." It stood at the bottom of Ivy Lane. The
ram-shackle building disappeared with the formation of the Victoria
Embankment and Gardens, but the passage in question still remains,
and, although it is not noticed by the thousands of people who walk by
it daily, Ivy Lane is one of the most interesting bits of old London.
Stow, in his _Survey_, alludes to it thus: "Ivy Bridge, in the High
Street, which had a way under it leading to the Thames, the like
as sometime had the Strand Bridge, is now taken down, but the lane
remaineth as afore; or better, and parteth the liberty of the Duchy
(of Lancaster) and the city of Westminster on that south-side." Strype
adds that the lane was "very bad and almost impassable." As it was
very narrow, and the descent was steep, its inconvenience is easily
understood. The passage is still here, but, at the river end, it is
enclosed by gates. Ivy Bridge, or Pier, was the landing-place for the
halfpenny steamboats which plied between the Strand and London Bridge.
Here a lamentable explosion, by which many people were killed, occurred
in August, 1847, on the _Cricket_, and, soon afterwards, the "Fox"
landing-stage was disused.
From the "Fox-under-the-Hill" it is an easy transition to the
"dark arches" which made such an impression on the mind of Charles
Dickens. They form a small town in themselves, and although tenanted
by wine-merchants, and other law-abiding people, they are still
"mysterious" enough to strike one with wonderment that such a dreary
spot can exist within hail of the busy Strand. "The Adelphi arches,
many of which are used for cellars and coal-wharves," wrote John Timbs,
half a century ago, "remind us, in their grim vastness, of the Etruscan
cloaca of ancient Rome. Beneath the 'dark arches,' as they were (and
are) called, the most abandoned characters used to lurk; outcasts and
vagrants came there to sleep; and many a street-thief escaped from his
pursuers, before the introduction of gas-lights and a vigilant police.
Even now tramps prowl in a ghastly manner down the dim-lit passages."
The condition of things has not changed much during these fifty years,
and a stranger would be well-advised in not venturing on a voyage of
discovery through this strange region, alone. Augustus Egg placed the
scene of one of his most tragic pictures on the banks of the river by
the Adelphi arches. In these caverns a battery of guns was held in
readiness in connection with the great Chartist meeting, on Kennington
Common, on April 10, 1848. The piers on which the arches rest having
shown signs of insecurity, the entire structure was underpinned, and
strengthened in other ways, in the years 1872-4.
The Adelphi arches were a source of wonderment to Londoners in the
middle of the last century. Thomas Miller, the poet and novelist,
writing in 1850, gives a vivid description of them: "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 sleeps, and at the entrance of which the
wind only seems to howl and whine, as if afraid of venturing further
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--strong,
broad-chested steeds, such as may be seen dragging the heavily-laden
coal-waggons 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 finds its way into our houses without our once enquiring
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 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 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 '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 England: in some places you catch a glimpse of the river,
a small loop-hole that 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 those
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 pea-bloom, on the flowers again, and we
doubted not but that it found a grave amid the green decay of some
rotten water-butt." The cows have disappeared, and the muddy wharves
have been replaced by pleasant gardens and the busy hum of workshops,
but the "subterranean city" is likely to exist in its present form for
many years to come. The embankment, the construction of which involved
the abolition of the Adelphi wharves, was opened in 1870 by the Prince
of Wales (Edward VII.), as the representative of Queen Victoria. This
magnificent example of engineering was begun in 1862, and the cost was
about £2,000,000.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 41: _Haunted London_, p. 103.]
[Footnote 42: _Some Famous Women of Wit and Beauty_, John Fyvie, p. 40.]
[Footnote 43: _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxii., p. 323.]
[Footnote 44: After the release of Mr Pickwick, Mr Wardle and his
family had apartments in the Adelphi Hotel. There Dickens laid the
scene of one of his best chapters: "Driving to the George and Vulture,
they found that Arabella and her maid had sent for a hackney-coach
immediately on the receipt of a short note from Emily announcing her
arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to the Adelphi. As Wardle
had business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the
fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he and Mr Pickwick
would return together to dinner at five o'clock.
* * * * *
"Now, whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together,
instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a
quantity of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of
ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved
unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the
stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room
without previously knocking at the door, and so beheld a gentleman with
his arm clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by
her side on a sofa, while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to
be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room.
At sight of which phenomenon the fat boy uttered an interjection, the
ladies a scream, and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously.
"'Wretched creature! what do you want here?' said the gentleman, who,
it is needless to say, was Mr Snodgrass.
"To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded,
'Missis.'
"'What do you want me for?' inquired Emily, turning her head aside;
'you stupid creature.'
"'Master and Mr Pickwick is going to dine here at five,' replied the
fat boy.
"'Leave the room!' said Mr Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth.
"'No, no, no!' added Emily, hastily. 'Bella, dear, advise me.'
"Upon this, Emily and Mr Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into
a corner and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during
which the fat boy dozed.
* * * * *
"There was so much to say upstairs, and there were so many plans
to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle
continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour to dinner when
Mr Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily's bedroom
to dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. He
had scarcely got outside the door when he heard Wardle's voice talking
loudly; and looking over the banisters, beheld him, followed by some
other gentlemen, coming straight upstairs. Knowing nothing of the
house, Mr Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room
he had just quitted, and passing from thence into an inner apartment
(Mr Wardle's bed-chamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons
he had caught a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These were Mr
Wardle and Mr Pickwick, Mr Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr Benjamin Allen,
whom he had no difficulty in recognising by their voices.
* * * * *
"The wine came, and Perker came upstairs at the same moment. Mr
Snodgrass had dinner at a side-table, and, when he had dispatched it,
drew his chair next Emily, without the smallest opposition on the old
gentleman's part.
"The evening was excellent. Little Mr Perker came out wonderfully,
told various comic stories, and sang a serious song, which was almost
as funny as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr Wardle very
jovial, Mr Pickwick very harmonious, Mr Ben Allen very uproarious, the
lovers very silent, Mr Winkle very talkative, and all of them very
happy."--_The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club_, chap. liv.]
[Footnote 45: _David Copperfield_, chap. lvii.]