it. We learn that, soon after the accession of Charles II, old Temple
Bar was marked for destruction. It was of wood, and, although "newly
paynted and hanged" for state occasions, it was felt that something more
worthy of the great city, to which it gave entrance, should be erected.
Inigo Jones was consulted and drew plans for a new gate, his idea being
the erection of a really triumphant arch; but, as he died soon after,
his plan was abandoned. Other architects with other plans came forward.
At length the King became interested in the project and promised money
toward its accomplishment; but Charles II was an easy promiser, and as
the money he promised belonged to someone else, nothing came of it.
While the project was being thus discussed, the plague broke out,
followed by the fire which destroyed so much of old London, and public
attention was so earnestly directed to the rebuilding of London itself
that the gate, for a time, was forgotten.
Temple Bar had escaped the flames, but the rebuilding of London
occasioned by the fire gave Christopher Wren his great opportunity. A
new St. Paul's with its "mighty mothering dome," a lasting monument to
his genius, was erected, and churches innumerable, the towers and spires
of which still point the way to heaven--instructions which, we may
suspect, are neglected when we see how deserted they are; but they
serve, at least, to add charm and interest to a ramble through the City.
Great confusion resulted from the fire, but London was quick to see that
order must be restored, and it is much to be regretted that Wren's
scheme for replanning the entire burned district was not carried out.
Fleet Street was less than twenty-four feet wide at Temple Bar--not from
curb to curb, for there was none, but from house to house. This was the
time to rebuild London; although something was done, much was neglected,
and Wren was finally commissioned to build a new gate of almost the
exact dimensions of the old one.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR IN DR. JOHNSON'S TIME]
The work was begun in 1670 and progressed slowly, for it was not
finished until two years later. What a fine interruption to traffic its
rebuilding must have occasioned! Constructed entirely of Portland
stone, the same material as St. Paul's, it consisted, like the old one,
of three arches--a large flattened centre arch, with small semicircular
arches on either side. Above the centre arch was a large window, which
gave light and air to a spacious chamber within; while on either side of
the window were niches, in which were placed statues of King James and
his Queen, Anne of Denmark, on the City side and of Charles I and
Charles II on the Westminster side.
The curious may wish to know that the mason was Joshua Marshall, whose
father had been master-mason to Charles I; that the sculptor of the
statues was John Bushnell, who died insane; and that the cost of the
whole, including the statues at four hundred and eighty pounds, was but
thirteen hundred and ninety-seven pounds, ten shillings.
The fog and soot and smoke of London soon give the newest building an
appearance of age, and mercifully bring it into harmony with its
surroundings. Almost before the new gate was completed, it had that
appearance; and before it had a chance to grow really old, there arose a
demand for its removal altogether. Petitions praying for its destruction
were circulated and signed. Verse, if not poetry, urging its retention
was written and printed.
If that Gate is pulled down, 'twixt the Court and the City,
You'll blend in one mass, prudent, worthless and witty.
If you league cit and lordling, as brother and brother,
You'll break order's chain and they'll war with each other.
Like the Great Wall of China, it keeps out the Tartars
From making irruptions, where industry barters,
Like Samson's Wild Foxes, they'll fire your houses,
And madden your spinsters, and cousin your spouses.
They'll destroy in one sweep, both the Mart and the Forum,
Which your fathers held dear, and their fathers before 'em.
But, attacked by strong city men and defended only by sentiment, Temple
Bar still continued to impede traffic and shut out light and air, while
the generations who fought for its removal passed to their rest. It
became the subject of jokes and conundrums. Why is Temple Bar like a
lady's veil? it was asked; the answer being that both must be raised
(razed) for busses. The distinction between a buss and a kiss, suggested
by Herrick, of whom the eighteenth-century City man never heard, would
have been lost; but we know that--
Kissing and bussing differ both in this,
We buss our wantons and our wives we kiss.
No account of Temple Bar would be complete without reference to the iron
spikes above the centre of the pediment, on which were placed
occasionally the heads of persons executed for high treason. This
ghastly custom continued down to the middle of the eighteenth century,
and gave rise to many stories, most of them legendary, but which go to
prove, were proof necessary, that squeamishness was not a common fault
in the days of the Georges.
To refer, however briefly, to the taverns which clustered east and west
of Temple Bar and to the authors who frequented them, would be to stop
the progress of this paper--and begin another. Dr. Johnson only voiced
public opinion when he said that a tavern chair is a throne of human
felicity. For more than three centuries within the shadow of Temple Bar
there was an uninterrupted flow of wine and wit and wisdom, with,
doubtless, some wickedness. From Ben Jonson, whose favorite resort was
The Devil, adjoining the Bar on the south side, down to Tennyson, who
frequented The Cock, on the north, came the same cry, for good talk and
good wine.
O plump head-waiter at the Cock,
To which I most resort,
How goes the time? 'Tis five o'clock--
Go fetch a pint of port.
This does not sound like the author of "Locksley Hall," but it is; and
while within the taverns, "the chief glory of England, its authors,"
were writing and talking themselves into immortality, just outside there
ebbed and flowed beneath the arches of Temple Bar, east in the morning
and west at night, the human stream which is one of the wonders of the
world.
[Illustration: CLIPPING FROM A NEWSPAPER PUBLISHED IN 1767]
Meanwhile the importance of Temple Bar as a city gate was lessening; "a
weak spot in our defenses," a wit calls it, and points out that the
enemy can dash around it through the barber's shop, one door of which
opens into the City, and the other into the "suburbs"; but down to the
last it continued to play a part in City functions. In 1851 it is lit
with twenty thousand lamps as the Queen goes to a state ball in
Guildhall. A few months later, it is draped in black as the remains of
the Iron Duke pause for a moment under its arches, on the way to their
final resting-place in St. Paul's Cathedral. In a few years we see it
draped with the colors of England and Prussia, when the Princess Royal,
as the bride of Frederick William, gets her "Farewell" and "God bless
you" from the City, on her departure for Berlin. Five years pass and the
young Prince of Wales and his beautiful bride, Alexandra, are received
with wild applause by the mob as their carriage halts at Temple Bar; and
once again when, in February, 1872, Queen Victoria, the Prince and
Princess of Wales, and their Court go to St. Paul's to return thanks for
the Prince's happy recovery from a dangerous illness.
With this event the history of Temple Bar in its old location
practically ceases. It continued a few years longer a "bone in the
throat of Fleet Street"; but at last its condition became positively
dangerous, its gates were removed because of their weight, and its
arches propped up with timbers. Finally, in 1877, its removal was
decided upon, by the Corporation of London, and Temple Bar, from time
immemorial one of London's most notable landmarks, disappears and the
Griffin on an "island" rises in its stead.
"The ancient site of Temple Bar has been disfigured by Boehm with
statues of the Queen and the Prince of Wales so stupidly modeled that
they look like statues out of Noah's Ark. It is bad enough that we
should have German princes foisted upon us, but German statues are
worse."
In this manner George Moore refers to the Memorial commonly called the
Griffin, which, shortly after the destruction of the old gate, was
erected on the exact spot where Temple Bar formerly stood.
It is not a handsome object; indeed, barring the Albert Memorial, it may
be said to represent Victorian taste at its worst. It is a high,
rectangular pedestal, running lengthwise with the street, placed on a
small island which serves as a refuge for pedestrians crossing the busy
thoroughfare. On either side are niches in which are placed the lifesize
marble figures described by Moore. But this is not all: there are bronze
tablets let into the masonry, showing in _basso-rilievo_ incidents in
the history of old Temple Bar, with portraits, medallions, and other
things. This base pedestal, if so it may be called, is surmounted by a
smaller pedestal on which is placed a heraldic dragon or griffin,--a
large monster in bronze,--which is supposed to guard the gold of the
City.
We do not look for beauty in Fleet Street, and we know that only in the
Victorian sense is this monument a work of art; but it has the same
interest for us as a picture by Frith--it is a human document. Memories
of the past more real than the actual present crowd upon us, and we
turn under an archway into the Temple Gardens, glad to forget the
artistic sins of Boehm and his compeers.
* * * * *
Ask the average Londoner what has become of old Temple Bar, and he will
look at you in blank amazement, and then, with an effort of memory, say,
"They've put it up somewhere in the north." And so it is.
On its removal the stones were carefully numbered, with a view to
reërection, and there was some discussion as to where the old gate
should be located. It is agreed now that it should have been placed in
the Temple Gardens; but for almost ten years the stones, about one
thousand in number, were stored on a piece of waste ground in the
Farrington Road. Finally, they were purchased by Sir Henry Meux, the
rich brewer, whose brewery, if out of sight, still indicates its
presence by the strong odor of malt, at the corner of Oxford Street and
Tottenham Court Road. Sir Henry Meux was the owner of a magnificent
country seat, Theobald's Park, near Waltham Cross, about twelve miles
north of London; and he determined to make Temple Bar the principal
entrance gate to this historic estate.
So to Theobald's Park, anciently Tibbals, I bent my steps one morning.
Being in a reminiscent mood, I had intended to follow in the footsteps
of Izaak Walton, from the site of his shop in Fleet Street just east of
Temple Bar, and having, in the words of the gentle angler, "stretched
my legs up Tottenham Hill," to take the high road into Hertfordshire;
but the English spring having opened with more than its customary
severity, I decided to go by rail. It was raining gently but firmly when
my train reached its destination, Waltham Cross, and I was deprived of
the pleasure I had promised myself of reaching Temple Bar on foot. An
antique fly, drawn by a superannuated horse, was secured at the railway
station, and after a short drive I was set down before old Temple Bar,
the gates of which were closed as securely against me as ever they had
been closed against an unruly mob in its old location.
Driving along a flat and monotonous country road, one comes on the old
gate almost suddenly, and experiences a feeling, not of disappointment
but of surprise. The gate does not span the road, but is set back a
little in a hedge on one side of it, and seems large for its setting.
One is prepared for a dark, grimy portal, whereas the soot and smoke of
London have been erased from it, and, instead, one sees an antique,
creamy-white structure tinted and toned with the green of the great
trees which overhang it.
Prowling about in the drenching rain, I looked in vain for some sign of
life. I shouted to King James, who looked down on me from his niche; and
receiving no reply, addressed his consort, inquiring how I was to secure
admittance.
A porter's lodge on one side, almost hidden in the trees, supplied an
answer to my question, and on my giving a lusty pull at the bell, the
door was opened and a slatternly woman appeared and inquired my
business. "To look over Temple Bar," I replied. "Hutterly himpossible,"
she said; and I saw at once that tact and a coin were required. I used
both. "Go up the drive to the great 'ouse and hask for the clerk
[pronounced clark] of the works, Mr. 'Arrison; 'e may let ye hover."
I did as I was told and had little difficulty with Mr. Harrison. The
house itself was undergoing extensive repairs and alterations. It has
recently passed, under the will of Lady Meux, to its present owner,
together with a fortune of five hundred thousand pounds in money.
Many years ago Henry Meux married the beautiful and charming Valerie
Langton, an actress,--a Gaiety girl, in fact,--but they had had no
children, and when he died in 1900, the title became extinct. Thereafter
Lady Meux, enormously wealthy, without relatives, led a retired life,
chiefly interested in breeding horses. A chance courtesy paid her by the
wife of Sir Hedworth Lambton, who had recently married, together with
the fact that he had established a reputation for ability and courage,
decided her in her thought to make him her heir.
Sir Hedworth, a younger son of the second Earl of Durham, had early
adopted the sea as his profession. He had distinguished himself in the
bombardment of Alexandria, and had done something wonderful at
Ladysmith. He was a hero, no longer a young man, without means--who
better fitted to succeed to her wealth and name? In 1911 Lady Meux died,
and this lovely country seat, originally a hunting-lodge of King James,
subsequently the favorite residence of Charles I, and with a long list
of royal or noble owners, became the property of the gallant sailor. All
that he had to do was to forget that the name of Meux suggested a
brewery and exchange his own for it, and the great property was his. It
reads like a chapter out of a romance. Thus it was that the house was
being thoroughly overhauled for its new owner at the time of my visit.
But I am wandering from Temple Bar. Armed with a letter from Mr.
Harrison, I returned to the gate. First, I ascertained that the span of
the centre arch, the arch through which for two centuries the traffic of
London had passed, was but twenty-one feet "in the clear," as an
architect would say; next, that the span of the small arches on either
side was only four feet six inches. No wonder that there was always
congestion at Temple Bar.
I was anxious also to see the room above, the room in which formerly
Messrs. Child, when it had adjoined their banking-house, had stored
their old ledgers and cash-books. Keys were sought and found, and I was
admitted. The room was bare except for a large table in the centre, on
which were quill pens and an inkstand in which the ink had dried up
years before. One other thing there was, a visitor's book, which, like a
new diary, had been started off bravely years before, but in which no
signature had recently been written. I glanced over it and noticed a few
well-known names--English names, not American, such as one usually
finds, for I was off the beaten track of the tourist. The roof was
leaking here and there, and little pools of water were forming on the
floor. It was as cold as a tomb. I wished that a tavern, the Cock, the
Devil, or any other, had been just outside, as in the old days when
Temple Bar stood in Fleet Street.
The slatternly woman clanked her keys; she too was cold. I had seen all
there was to see. The beauty of Temple Bar is in its exterior, and, most
of all, in its wealth of literary and historic associations. I could
muse elsewhere with less danger of pneumonia, so I said farewell to the
kings in their niches, who in this suburban retreat seemed like monarchs
retired from business, and returned to my cab.
The driver was asleep in the rain. I think the horse was, too. I roused
the man and he roused the beast, and we drove almost rapidly back to the
station; no, not to the station, but to a public house close by it,
where hot water and accompaniments were to be had.
"When is the next train up to London?" I asked an old man at the
station.
"In ten minutes, but you'll find it powerful slow."
I was not deceived; it took me over an hour to reach London.
As if to enable me to bring this story to a fitting close, I read in the
papers only a few days ago: "Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe was to-day
promoted to the rank of Admiral, and Sir Hedworth Meux, who until now
has been commander-in-chief at Portsmouth, was appointed Admiral of the
Home Fleet."[12]
Good luck be with him! Accepting the burdens which properly go with rank
and wealth, he is at this moment cruising somewhere in the cold North
Sea, in command of perhaps the greatest fleet ever assembled. Upon the
owner of Temple Bar, at this moment, devolves the duty of keeping watch
and ward over England.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR]
XI
A MACARONI PARSON
It will hardly be questioned that the influence of the priesthood is
waning. Why this is so, it is not within the province of a mere
book-collector to discuss; but the fact will, I think, be admitted. In
the past, however, every country and almost every generation has
produced a type of priest which seems to have been the special product
of its time. The soothsayer of old Rome, concealed, perhaps, in a hollow
wall, whispered his warning through the marble lips of a conveniently
placed statue, in return for a suitable present indirectly offered;
while to-day Billy Sunday, leaping and yelling like an Apache Indian,
shrieks his admonitions at us, and takes up a collection in a
clothes-basket. It is all very sad and, as Oscar Wilde would have said,
very tedious.
Priests, prophets, parsons, or preachers! They are all human, like the
rest of us. Too many of them are merely insurance agents soliciting us
to take out policies of insurance against fire everlasting, for a fee
commensurate, not with the risk, but with our means. It is a
well-established trade, in which the representatives of the old-line
companies, who have had the cream of the business, look with disapproval
upon new methods, as well they may, their own having worked so well for
centuries. The premiums collected have been enormous, and no evidence
has ever been produced that the insurer took any risk whatever.
And the profession has been, not only immensely lucrative, but highly
honorable. In times past priests have ranked with kings: sometimes
wearing robes of silk studded with jewels; on fortune's cap the topmost
button, exhibit Wolsey; sometimes appearing in sackcloth relieved by
ashes; every man in his humor. But it is not my purpose to inveigh
against any creed or sect; only I confess my bewilderment at the range
of human interest in questions of doctrine, while simple Christianity
stands neglected.
The subject of this paper, however, is not creeds in general or in
particular, but an eighteenth-century clergyman of the Church of
England. It will not, I think, be doubted by those who have given the
subject any attention that religious affairs in England in the
eighteenth century were at a very low ebb indeed. Carlyle, as was his
habit, called that century some hard names; but some of us are glad
occasionally to steal away from our cares and forget our present
"efficiency" in that century of leisure. Perhaps not for always, but
certainly for a time, it is a relief to
... live in that past Georgian day
When men were less inclined to say
That "Time is Gold," and overlay
And to quote Austin Dobson again, with a slight variation:--
Seventeen hundred and twenty-nine:--
That is the date of this tale of mine.
First great George was buried and gone;
George the Second was plodding on.
Whitefield preached to the colliers grim;
Bishops in lawn sleeves preached at him;
Walpole talked of "a man and his price";
Nobody's virtue was over-nice:--
certainly not that of the clergyman of whom I am about to speak.
And now, without further delay, I introduce William Dodd. Doctor Dodd,
he came to be called; subsequently, the "unfortunate Doctor Dodd," which
he certainly considered himself to be, and with good reason, as he was
finally hanged.
William Dodd was born in Lincolnshire, in 1729, and was himself the son
of a clergyman. He early became a good student, and entering Clare Hall,
Cambridge, at sixteen, attracted some attention by his close application
to his studies. But books alone did not occupy his time: he attained
some reputation as a dancer and was noted for being very fond of dress.
He must have had real ability, however, for he was graduated with
honors, and his name appears on the list of wranglers. Immediately after
receiving his Arts degree, he set out to make a career for himself in
London.
Young Dodd was quick and industrious: he had good manners and address,
made friends quickly, and was possessed of what, in those days, was
called "a lively imagination," which seems to have meant a fondness for
dissipation; with friends to help him, he soon knew his way about the
metropolis. Its many pitfalls he discovered by falling into them, and
the pitfalls for a gay young blade in London in the middle of the
eighteenth century were many and sundry.
But whatever his other failings, of idleness Dodd could not be accused.
He did not forget that he had come to London to make a career for
himself. He had already published verse; he now began a comedy, and the
death of the Prince of Wales afforded him a subject for an elegy. From
this time on he was prepared to write an ode or an elegy at the drop of
a hat. The question, should he become author or minister, perplexed him
for some time. For success in either direction perseverance and a patron
were necessary. Perseverance he had, but a patron was lacking.
While pondering these matters, Dodd seemed to have nipped his career in
the bud by a most improvident marriage. His wife was a Mary Perkins,
which means little to us. She may have been a servant, but more likely
she was the discarded mistress of a nobleman who was anxious to see her
provided with a husband. In any event, she was a handsome woman, and his
marriage was not his greatest misfortune.
Shortly after the wedding, we hear of them living in a small
establishment in Wardour Street, not then, as now, given over to
second-hand furniture shops, but rather a good quarter frequented by
literary men and artists. Who supplied the money for this venture we do
not know; it was probably borrowed from someone, and we may suspect that
Dodd already was headed the wrong way--or that, at least, his father
thought so; for we hear of his coming to London to persuade his son to
give up his life there and return to Cambridge to continue his studies.
Shortly after this time he published two small volumes of quotations
which he called "Beauties of Shakespeare." He was the first to make the
discovery that a book of quotations "digested under proper heads" would
have a ready sale. Shakespeare in the dead centre of the eighteenth
century was not the colossal figure that he is seen to be as we
celebrate the tercentenary of his death. I suspect that my friend Felix
Schelling, the great Elizabethan scholar, feels that anyone who would
make a book of quotations from Shakespeare deserves Dodd's end, namely,
hanging; indeed, I have heard him suggest as much; but we cannot all be
Schellings. The book was well received and has been reprinted right down
to our own time. In the introduction he refers to his attempt to present
a collection of the finest passages of the poet, "who was ever," he
says, "of all modern authors, my first and greatest favorite"; adding
that "it would have been no hard task to have multiplied notes and
parallel passages from Greek, Latin and English writers, and thus to
have made no small display of what is commonly called learning"; but
that he had no desire to perplex the reader. There is much good sense
in the introduction, which we must also think of as coming from a young
man little more than a year out of college.