Transcriber's Note:
Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.
Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.
The quote starting with "The piety and order" on page 95 should
perhaps start on the previous page with "My first recollection of
him."
On page 263, "February 1661-2" is perhaps a typo for "February 1662."
On page 131, "vill a" is probably a typo.
[Illustration: LONDON, FROM SOUTHWARK, BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE.]
THE TOWN
ITS MEMORABLE CHARACTERS AND EVENTS
BY LEIGH HUNT
_WITH FORTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS_
A NEW EDITION
LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1889
ADVERTISEMENT.
In this volume entitled "THE TOWN," the reader will find an account of
London, partly topographical and historical, but chiefly recalling the
memories of remarkable characters and events associated with its
streets between St. Paul's and St. James's; being that part of the
great metropolis which may be said to have constituted "THE TOWN" when
that term was commonly used to designate London.
The present edition comprises the entire contents, unabridged, with
the Illustrations.
CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION.
Different Impressions of London on different Passengers and
Minds -- Extendibility of its Interest to all -- London before
the Deluge! -- Its Origin according to the fabulous Writers and
Poets -- First historical Mention of it -- Its Names --
British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman London -- General Progress of
the City and of Civilization -- Range of the Metropolis as it
existed in the Time of Shakspeare and Bacon -- Growth of the
Streets and Suburbs during the later Reigns -- "Merry London"
and "Merry England" -- Curious Assertion respecting Trees in
the City 1
CHAPTER I.
ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
The Roman Temple of Diana: the first Christian Church -- Old
St. Paul's -- Inigo Jones's Portico -- Strange Usages of former
Times -- Encroachments on the Fabric of the Cathedral -- Paul's
Walkers -- Dining with Duke Humphrey -- Catholic Customs -- The
Boy-Bishop The Children of the Revels -- Strange Ceremony on
the Festivals of the Commemoration and Conversion of St. Paul
-- Ancient Tombs in the Cathedral -- Scene between John of
Gaunt and the Anti-Wickliffites -- Paul's Cross -- The Folkmote
-- The Sermons -- Jane Shore -- See-Saw of Popery and
Protestantism -- London House -- The Charnel -- The Lollards'
Tower -- St. Paul's School -- Desecration of the Cathedral
during the Commonwealth -- The present Cathedral -- Sir
Christopher Wren -- Statue of Queen Anne 23
CHAPTER II.
ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
The Church of St. Faith -- Booksellers of the Churchyard -- Mr.
Johnson's -- Mr. Newberry's -- Children's Books -- Clerical
Names of Streets near St. Paul's -- Swift at the top of the
Cathedral -- Dr Johnson at St. Paul's -- Paternoster Row --
Panyer's Alley -- Stationers' Hall -- Almanacks --
Knight-Riders' Street -- Armed Assemblies of the Citizens --
Doctor's Commons -- The Heralds' College -- Coats of Arms --
Ludgate -- Story of Sir Stephen Forster -- Prison of Ludgate --
Wyatt's Rebellion -- The Belle Sauvage Inn -- Blackfriars --
Shakspeare's Theatre -- Accident at Blackfriars in 1623 --
Printing House Square -- The Times -- Baynard's Castle -- Story
of the Baron Fitzwalter -- Richard III. and Buckingham --
Diana's Chamber -- The Royal Wardrobe -- Marriages in the Fleet
-- Fleet Ditch -- The Dunciad 52
CHAPTER III.
FLEET STREET.
Burning of the Pope -- St. Bride's Steeple -- Milton --
Illuminated Clock -- Melancholy End of Lovelace the Cavalier --
Chatterton -- Generosity of Hardham, of Snuff Celebrity --
Theatre in Dorset Garden -- Richardson, his Habits and
Character -- Whitefriars, or Alsatia -- The Temple -- Its
Monuments, Garden, &c. -- Eminent names connected with it --
Goldsmith dies there -- Boswell's first Visit there to Johnson
-- Johnson and Madame de Boufflers -- Bernard Lintot -- Ben
Jonson's Devil Tavern -- Other Coffee-houses and Shops --
Goldsmith and Temple-bar -- Shire Lane, Bickerstaff, and the
Deputation from the Country -- The Kit-Kat Club -- Mrs. Salmon
-- Isaac Walton -- Cowley -- Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford, and
Ben Jonson -- Serjeant's Inn -- Clifford's Inn -- The Rolls --
Sir Joseph Jekyll -- Church of St. Dunstan in the West --
Dryden's House in Fetter Lane -- Johnson, the Genius Loci of
Fleet Street -- His Way of Life -- His Residence in Gough
Square, Johnson's Court, and Bolt Court -- Various Anecdotes of
him connected with Fleet Street, and with his favourite Tavern,
the Mitre 84
CHAPTER IV.
THE STRAND.
Ancient State of the Strand -- Butcher Row -- Death of Lee, the
dramatic Poet -- Johnson at an Eating-House -- Essex Street --
House and History of the favourite Earl of Essex -- Spenser's
Visit there -- Essex, General of the Parliament -- Essex Head
Club -- Devereux Court -- Grecian Coffee-House -- Twining, the
accomplished Scholar -- St. Clement Danes -- Clement's Inn --
Falstaff and Shallow -- Norfolk, Arundel, Surrey, and Howard
Streets -- Norfolk House -- Essex's Ring and the Countess of
Nottingham -- William Penn -- Birch -- Dr. Brocklesby --
Congreve, and his Will -- Voltaire's Visit to him -- Mrs.
Bracegirdle -- Tragical End of Mountford the Player -- Ancient
Cross -- Maypole -- New Church of St. Mary-le-Strand -- Old
Somerset House -- Henrietta Maria and her French Household --
Waller's Mishap at Somerset Stairs -- New Somerset House --
Royal Society, Antiquarian Society, and Royal Academy -- Death
of Dr. King -- Exeter Street -- Johnson's first Lodging in
London -- Art of living in London -- Catherine Street --
Unfortunate Women -- Wimbledon House -- Lyceum and Beef-steak
Club -- Exeter Change -- Bed and Baltimore -- The Savoy --
Anecdotes of the Duchess of Albemarle -- Beaufort Buildings --
Lillie, the Perfumer -- Aaron Hill -- Fielding -- Southampton
Street -- Cecil and Salisbury Streets -- Durham House --
Raleigh -- Pennant on the Word Place or Palace -- New Exchange
-- Don Pantaleon Sa -- The White Milliner -- Adelphi -- Garrick
and his Wife -- Beauclerc -- Society of Arts, and Mr. Barry --
Bedford Street -- George, Villiers, and Buckingham Streets --
York House and Buildings -- Squabble between the Spanish and
French Ambassadors -- Hungerford Market -- Craven Street --
Franklin -- Northumberland House -- Duplicity of Henry, Earl of
Northampton -- Violence of Lord Herbert of Cherbury -- Percy,
Bishop of Dromore -- Pleasant mistake of Goldsmith 131
CHAPTER V.
LINCOLN'S INN AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
Lincoln's Inn -- Ben Jonson's Bricklaying -- Enactments against
Beards -- Oliver Cromwell, More, Hale, and other eminent
Students of Lincoln's Inn -- Lincoln's Inn Fields, or Square --
Houses there built by Inigo Jones -- Pepys's Admiration of the
Comforts of Mr. Povey -- Surgeons' College -- Sir Richard and
Lady Fanshawe, and Lord Sandwich -- Execution of the patriotic
Lord Russell, with an Account of the Circumstances that led to
and accompanied it, and some Remarks on his Character --
Affecting Passages from the Letters of his Widow -- Ludicrous
Story connected with Newcastle House 192
CHAPTER VI.
Great Queen Street -- Former fashionable Houses there -- Lewis
and Miss Pope, the Comedians -- Martin Folkes -- Sir Godfrey
Kneller and his Vanity -- Dr. Radcliffe -- Lord Herbert of
Cherbury -- Nuisance of Whetstone Park -- The Three Dukes and
the Beadle -- Rogues and Vagabonds in the Time of Charles II --
Former Theatres in Vere Street and Portugal Street -- First
appearance of Actresses -- Infamous deception of one of them by
the Earl of Oxford -- Appearance of an avowed Impostor on the
Stage -- Anecdotes of the Wits and fine Ladies of the Time of
Charles, connected with the Theatre in this Quarter --
Kynaston, Betterton, Nokes, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Mountford, and
other Performers -- Rich -- Joe Miller -- Carey Street and Mrs.
Chapone -- Clare Market -- History, and Specimens, of Orator
Henley -- Duke Street and Little Wild Street -- Anecdotes of
Dr. Franklin's Residence in those Streets while a Journeyman
Printer 225
CHAPTER VII.
DRURY LANE, AND THE TWO THEATRES IN DRURY LANE AND COVENT
GARDEN.
Craven House -- Donne and his vision -- Lord Craven and the
Queen of Bohemia -- Nell Gwynn -- Drury Lane Theatre -- Its
antiquity, different eras, and rebuildings -- The principal
theatre of Dryden, Wycherley, Farquhar, Steele, Garrick, and
Sheridan -- Old Drury in the time of Charles II. -- A visit to
it -- Pepys and his theatrical gossip, with notes -- Hart and
Mohun -- Goodman -- Nell Gwynn -- Dramatic taste of that age --
Booth -- Artificial tragedy -- Wilks and Cibber -- Bullock and
Penkethman -- A Colonel enamoured of Cibber's wig -- Mrs.
Oldfield -- Her singular position in society -- Not the Flavia
of the Tatler -- Pope's account of her last words probably not
true -- Declamatory acting -- Lively account of Garrick and
Quin by Mr. Cumberland -- Improvement of stage costume -- King
-- Mrs. Pritchard -- Mrs. Clive -- Mrs. Woffington -- Covent
Garden -- Barry -- Contradictory characters of him by Davies
and Churchill -- Macklin -- Woodward -- Pantomime -- English
taste in music -- Cooke -- Rise of actors and actresses in
social rank -- Improvement of the audience -- Dr. Johnston at
the theatre -- Churchill a great pit critic -- His Rosciad --
His picture of Mossop -- Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Suett -- Early
recollections of a play-goer 257
CHAPTER VIII.
COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE.
Bow Street once the Bond Street of London -- Fashions at that
time -- Infamous frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and others --
Wycherly and the Countess of Drogheda -- Tonson the Bookseller
-- Fielding -- Russell Street -- Dryden beaten by hired
ruffians in Rose Street -- His Presidency at Will's
Coffee-House -- Character of that Place -- Addison and Button's
Coffee-House -- Pope, Philips, and Garth -- Armstrong --
Boswell's introduction to Johnson -- The Hummums -- Ghost Story
there -- Covent Garden -- The Church -- Car, Earl of Somerset
-- Butler, Southern, Eastcourt, Sir Robert Strange -- Macklin
-- Curious Dialogue with him when past a century -- Dr. Walcot
-- Covent Garden Market -- Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and
Miss Ray -- Henrietta Street -- Mrs. Clive -- James Street --
Partridge, the almanack-maker -- Mysterious lady -- King Street
-- Arne and his Father -- The four Indian Kings -- Southampton
Row -- Maiden Lane -- Voltaire -- Long Acre and its Mug-Houses
-- Prior's resort there -- Newport Street -- St. Martin's Lane,
and Leicester Square -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- Hogarth -- Sir
Isaac Newton 306
CHAPTER IX.
CHARING CROSS AND WHITEHALL.
Old Charing Cross, and New St. Martin's Church -- Statue of
Charles I. -- Execution of Regicides -- Ben Jonson --
Wallingford House, now the Admiralty -- Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham; Sir Walter Scott's Account of him --
Misrepresentation of Pope respecting his Death -- Charles's
Horse a Satirist -- Locket's Ordinary -- Sir George Etherege --
Prior and his Uncle's Tavern -- Thomson -- Spring Gardens --
Mrs. Centlivre -- Dorset Place, and Whitcombe Street, &c.,
formerly Hedge Lane -- The Wits and the Bailiffs -- Suffolk
Street -- Swift and Miss Vanhomrigh -- Calves' Head Club, and
the Riot it occasioned -- Scotland Yard -- Pleasant
Advertisement -- Beau Fielding, and his Eccentricities --
Vanbrugh -- Desperate Adventure of Lord Herbert of Cherbury 355
CHAPTER X.
WOLSEY AND WHITEHALL.
Regal Character of Whitehall -- York Place -- Personal and
Moral Character of Wolsey -- Comparison of him with his Master,
Henry -- His Pomp and Popularity -- Humorous Account of his
Flatterers by Sir Thomas More -- Importance of his Hat --
Cavendish's Account of his household State, his goings forth in
Public, and his entertainments of the King 382
CHAPTER XI.
Henry the Eighth -- His Person and Character -- Modern
Qualifications of it considered -- Passages respecting him from
Lingard, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others -- His additions to
Whitehall -- A Retrospect at Elizabeth -- Court of James
resumed -- Its gross Habits -- Letter of Sir John Harrington
respecting them -- James's Drunkenness -- Testimonies of
Welldon, Sully, and Roger Coke -- Curious Omission in the
Invective of Churchill the Poet -- Welldon's Portrait of James
-- Buckingham, the Favourite -- Frightful Story of Somerset --
Masques -- Banqueting House -- Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson --
Court of Charles the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second --
James the Second 395
CHAPTER XII.
St. James's Park and its Associations -- Unhealthiness of the
Place and Neighbourhood -- Leper Hospital of St. James -- Henry
the Eighth builds St. James's Palace and the Tilt-Yard --
Original State and Progressive Character of the Park -- Charles
the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second; his Walks,
Amusements, and Mistresses -- The Mulberry Gardens -- Swift,
Prior, Richardson, Beau Tibbs, Soldiers, and Syllabubs --
Character of the Park at present -- St. James's Palace during
the Reigns of the Stuarts and two first Georges -- Anecdotes of
Lord Craven and Prince George of Denmark -- Characters of Queen
Anne and of George the First and Second -- George the First and
his Carp -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Sack of Wheat --
Horace Walpole's Portrait of George the First -- The Mistresses
of that King and of his Son -- Mistake of Lord Chesterfield --
Queen Caroline's Ladies in Waiting -- Miss Bellenden and the
Guineas -- George the Second's Rupture with his Father and with
his Son -- Character of that Son -- Buckingham House --
Sheffield and his Duchess -- Character of Queen Charlotte --
Advantages of Queen Victoria over her Predecessors 431
ILLUSTRATIONS.
ENGRAVED BY C. THURSTON THOMPSON, FROM DRAWINGS BY J. W. ARCHER AND C.
T. THOMPSON.
PAGE
London from Southwark, before the Great Fire. From a
Print by Hollar (_Frontispiece_)
West Front of Old St. Paul's, with Inigo Jones's Portico 26
"Paul's Cross and Preaching there" 51
Ludgate 69
Baynard's Castle, from the River, 1640 78
Stone in Panyer Alley, marking the highest Ground in the City 83
Interior of the Round Part of the Temple Church, previous
to the recent Restorations 101
House in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, the last Residence of
Dr. Johnson, 1810 125
Old Somerset House, from the River 167
The Savoy Palace, from the River 172
Inigo Jones's Water Gate, York Stairs 183
Old Northumberland House, from the River. Temp. Charles I. 186
Exeter Change as it appeared just before it was pulled down 192
Newcastle House, N. W. corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1796 222
Old Palace of Whitehall, from the River. Temp. Charles I.,
from a Print of the Period 225
Old Houses in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
1817 226
The Theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1810 236
Printing Press at which Franklin worked 256
Craven House, Drury Lane, 1800 258
Entrance Front of Old Drury Lane Theatre in Brydges
Street, erected by Garrick 266
Entrance to old Covent Garden Theatre, 1794 305
Inigo Jones's Church and Covent Garden. Temp. James II.
From a Print of the Period 325
House in St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square, formerly the
Residence of Sir Isaac Newton, 1810 354
The Village of Charing. From Aggas's Map, 1578 356
Scotland Yard, as it appeared in 1750. From a Print after
Paul Sandby 374
Old Gate of Whitehall Palace, designed by Holbein. From
a Print by Hollar 401
The Banqueting House, Whitehall 419
St. James's Palace, 1650, from a Print by Hollar 435
The Initial Letters and Tail-pieces designed by J. W. ARCHER
and C. T. THOMPSON. (The Initial Letter to Chapter XII.
represents the Conduit at St. James's.)
THE TOWN.
INTRODUCTION.
Different impressions of London on different passengers and
minds -- Extendibility of its interest to all -- London before
the Deluge! -- Its origin according to the fabulous writers and
poets -- First historical mention of it -- Its names --
British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman London -- General progress of
the city and of civilisation -- Range of the Metropolis as it
existed in the time of Shakspeare and Bacon -- Growth of the
streets and suburbs during the later reigns -- "Merry London"
and "Merry England" -- Curious assertion respecting trees in
the city.
In one of those children's books which contain reading fit for the
manliest, and which we have known to interest very grave and even
great men, there is a pleasant chapter entitled _Eyes and no Eyes, or
the Art of Seeing_.[1] The two heroes of it come home successively
from a walk in the same road, one of them having seen only a heath and
a hill, and the meadows by the water-side, and therefore having seen
nothing; the other expatiating on his delightful ramble, because the
heath presented him with curious birds, and the hill with the remains
of a camp, and the meadows with reeds, and rats, and herons, and
kingfishers, and sea-shells, and a man catching eels, and a glorious
sunset.
In like manner people may walk through a crowded city, and see nothing
but the crowd. A man may go from Bond Street to Blackwall, and unless
he has the luck to witness an accident, or get a knock from a porter's
burden, may be conscious, when he has returned, of nothing but the
names of those two places, and of the mud through which he has
passed. Nor is this to be attributed to dullness. He may, indeed, be
dull. The eyes of his understanding may be like bad spectacles, which
no brightening would enable to see much. But he may be only
inattentive. Circumstances may have induced a want of curiosity, to
which imagination itself shall contribute, if it has not been taught
to use its eyes. This is particularly observable in childhood, when
the love of novelty is strongest. A boy at the Charter House, or
Christ Hospital, probably cares nothing for his neighbourhood, though
stocked with a great deal that might entertain him. He has been too
much accustomed to identify it with his schoolroom. We remember the
time ourselves when the only thought we had in going through the
metropolis was how to get out of it; how to arrive, with our best
speed, at the beautiful vista of home and a pudding, which awaited us
in the distance. And long after this we saw nothing in London, but the
book-shops which have taught us better.
"I have often," says Boswell, with the inspiration of his great
London-loving friend upon him, "amused myself with thinking how
different a place London is to different people. They whose
narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one
particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A
politician thinks of it merely as the seat of government in its
different departments; a grazier as a vast market for cattle; a
mercantile man as a place where a prodigious deal of business
is done upon 'Change; a dramatic enthusiast as the grand scene
of theatrical entertainments; a man of pleasure as an
assemblage of taverns, &c. &c.; but the intellectual man is
struck with it as comprehending the whole of human life in all
its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible."
It does not follow that the other persons whom Boswell speaks of are
not, by nature, intelligent. The want of curiosity, in some, may be
owing even to their affections and anxiety. They may think themselves
bound to be occupied solely in what they are about. They have not been
taught how to invigorate as well as to divert the mind, by taking a
reasonable interest in the varieties of this astonishing world, of
which the most artificial portions are still works of nature as well
as art, and evidences of the hand of Him that made the soul and its
endeavours. Boswell himself, with all his friend's assistance, and
that of the tavern to boot, probably saw nothing in London of the
times gone by--of all that rich aggregate of the past, which is one of
the great treasures of knowledge; and yet, by the same principle on
which Boswell admired Dr. Johnson, he might have delighted in calling
to mind the metropolis of the wits of Queen Anne's time, and of the
poets of Elizabeth; might have longed to sit over their canary in
Cornhill with Beaumont and Ben Jonson, and have thought that Surrey
Street and Shire Lane had their merits, as well as the illustrious
obscurity of Bolt Court. In Surrey Street lived Congreve; and Shire
Lane, though nobody would think so to see it now, is eminent for the
origin of the Kit-Kat Club (a host of wits and statesmen,) and for the
recreations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Tatler celebrity, at his
_contubernium_, the Trumpet.
It may be said that the past is not in our possession; that we are
sure only of what we can realise, and that the present and future
afford enough contemplation for any man. But those who argue thus,
argue against their better instinct. We take an interest in all that
we understand; and in proportion as we enlarge our knowledge, enlarge,
_ad infinitum_, the sphere of our sympathies. Tell the grazier, whom
Boswell mentions, of a great grazier who lived before him--of
Bakewell, who had an animal that produced him in one season the sum of
eight hundred guineas; or Fowler, whose horned cattle sold for a value
equal to that of the fee-simple of his farm; or Elwes, the miser, who,
after spending thousands at the gaming table, would haggle for a
shilling at Smithfield; and he will be curious to hear as much as you
have to relate. Tell the mercantile man, in like manner, of Gresham,
or Crisp, or the foundation of the Charter House by a merchant, and he
will be equally attentive. And tell the man, _par excellence_, of
anything that concerns humanity, and he will be pleased to hear of
Bakewell, or Crisp, or Boswell, or Boswell's ancestor. Bakewell
himself was a man of this sort. Boswell was proud of his ancestors,
like most men that know who they were, whether their ancestors were
persons to be proud of or not. The mere length of line flatters the
brevity of existence. We must take care how we are proud of those who
may not be fit to render us so; but we may be allowed to be anxious to
live as long as we can, whether in prospect or retrospect. Besides,
the human mind, being a thing infinitely greater than the
circumstances which confine and cabin it in its present mode of
existence, seeks to extend itself on all sides, past, present, and to
come. If it puts on wings angelical, and pitches itself into the grand
obscurity of the future, it runs back also on the more visible line of
the past. Even the present, which is the great business of life, is
chiefly great, inasmuch as it regards the interests of the many who
are to come, and is built up of the experiences of those who have gone
by. The past is the heir-loom of the world.
Now in no shape is any part of this treasure more visible to us, or
more striking, than in that of a great metropolis. The present is
nowhere so present: we see the latest marks of its hand. The past is
nowhere so traceable: we discover, step by step, the successive abodes
of its generations. The links that are wanting are supplied by
history; nor perhaps is there a single spot in London in which the
past is not visibly present to us, either in the shape of some old
buildings or at least in the names of the streets; or in which the
absence of more tangible memorials may not be supplied by the
antiquary. In some parts of it we may go back through the whole
English history, perhaps through the history of man, as we shall see
presently when we speak of St. Paul's Churchyard, a place in which you
may get the last new novel, and find remains of the ancient Britons
and of the sea. There, also in the cathedral, lie painters, patriots,
humanists, the greatest warriors and some of the best men; and there,
in St. Paul's School, was educated England's epic poet, who hoped that
his native country would never forget her privilege of "teaching the
nations how to live." Surely a man is more of a man, and does more
justice to the faculties of which he is composed, whether for
knowledge or entertainment, who thinks of all these things in crossing
St. Paul's Churchyard, than if he saw nothing but the church itself,
or the clock, or confined his admiration to the abundance of Brentford
stages.
Milton, who began a history of England, very properly touches upon the
fabulous part of it; not, as Dr. Johnson thought (who did not take the
trouble of reading the second page), because he confounded it with the
true, but, as he himself states, for the benefit of those who would
know how to make use of it--the poets. In the same passage he alludes
to those traces of a deluge of which we have just spoken, and to the
enormous bones occasionally dug up, which, with the natural
inclination of a poet, he was willing to look upon as relics of a
gigantic race of men. Both of these evidences of a remote period have
been discovered in London earth, and might be turned to grand account
by a writer like himself. It is curious to see the grounds on which
truth and fiction so often meet, without knowing one another. The
Oriental writers have an account of a race of pre-Adamite kings, not
entirely human. It is supposed by some geologists, that there was a
period before the creation of man, when creatures vaster than any now
on dry land trampled the earth at will; perhaps had faculties no
longer to be found in connection with brute forms, and effaced,
together with themselves, for a nobler experiment. We may indulge our
fancy with supposing that, in those times, light itself, and the
revolution of the seasons, may not have been exactly what they are
now; that some unknown monster, mammoth or behemoth, howled in the
twilight over the ocean solitude now called London; or (not to fancy
him monstrous in nature as in form, for the hugest creatures of the
geologist appear to have been mild and graminivorous), that the site
of our metropolis was occupied with the gigantic herd of some more
gigantic spirit, all good of their kind, but not capable of enough
ultimate good to be permitted to last. However, we only glance at
these speculative matters, and leave them. Neither shall we say
anything of the more modern elephant, who may have recreated himself
some thousands of years ago on the site of the Chapter Coffee House;
or of the crocodile, who may have snapped at some remote ancestor of a
fishmonger in the valley of Dowgate.
By the fabulous writers, London was called Troynovant or New Troy, and
was said to have been founded by Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, from
whom the country was called Brutain, or Britain.
For noble Britons sprong from Trojans bold,
And Troynovant was built of old Troye's ashes cold.
(This is one of Spenser's fine old lingering lines, in which he seems
to dwell on a fable till he believes it.) Brutus, having the
misfortune to kill his father, fled from his native country into
Greece, where he set free a multitude of Trojans, captives to King
Pandrasus, whose daughter he espoused. He left Greece with a numerous
flotilla, and came to an island called Legrecia, where there was a
temple of Diana. To Diana he offered sacrifice, and prayed her to
direct his course. The prayer, and the goddess's reply, as told in
Latin by Gildas, have received a lustre from the hand of Milton. He
gives us the following translation of them in his historical
fragment:--
"Diva potens nemorum:"
"Goddess of Shades, and Huntress, who at will
Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep,
On thy third reign, the earth, look now; and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou bidst me seek;
What certain seat, where I may worship thee,
For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires."
"To whom, sleeping before the altar," says the poet, "Diana in a
vision that night, thus answered:--
"Brute, sub occasum solis:"
"Brutus, far to the west, in th' ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old:
Now void, it fits thy people. Thither bend
Thy course: there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded reign
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold."[2]
According to Spenser, Brutus did not find England cleared of the
giants. He had to conquer them. But we shall speak of those personages
when we come before their illustrious representatives in Guildhall.
This fiction of Troynovant, or new Troy, appears to have arisen from
the word Trinobantes in Cæsar, a name given by the historian to the
inhabitants of a district which included the London banks of the
Thames. The oldest mention of the metropolis is supposed to be found
in that writer, under the appellation of _Civitas Trinobantum_, the
city of the Trinobantes; though some are of opinion that by _civitas_
he only meant their government or community. Be this as it may, a city
of the Britons, in Cæsar's time, was nothing either for truth or
fiction to boast of, having been, as he describes it, a mere spot
hollowed out of the woods, and defended by a ditch and a rampart.
We have no reason to believe that the first germ of London was
anything greater than this. Milton supposes that so many traditions of
old British kings could not have been handed down without a foundation
in truth; and the classical origin of London, though rejected by
himself, was not only firmly believed by people in general as late as
the reign of Henry the Sixth (to whom it was quoted in a public
document), but was maintained by professed antiquaries,--Leland among
them.[3] It is probable enough that, before Cæsar's time, the affairs
of the country may have been in a better situation than he found them;
and it is possible that something may have once stood on the site of
London, which stood there no longer. But this may be said of every
other place on the globe; and as there is nothing authentic to show
for it, we must be content to take our ancestors as we find them. In
truth, nothing is known with certainty of the origin of London, not
even of its name. The first time we hear either of the city or its
appellation is in Tacitus, who calls it Londinium. The following list,
taken principally from Camden, comprises, we believe, all the names by
which it has been called. We dwell somewhat on this point, because we
conclude the reader will be pleased to see by how many _aliases_ his
old acquaintance has been known.
Troja Nova, Troynovant, or New Troy.
Tre-novant, or the New City, (a mixture of Latin and Cornish).
Dian Belin, or the City of Diana.
Caer Ludd, or the City of Ludd.--These are the names given by the
fabulous writers, chiefly Welsh.
Londinium.--_Tacitus, Ptolemy, Antoninus._
Lundiniuin.--_Ammianus Marcellinus._
Longidinium.
Lindonium, (Λιδονόνιον).--_Stephanus_ in his Dictionary.
Lundonia.--_Bede._
Augusta.--The complimentary title granted to it under Valentinian, as
was customary with flourishing foreign establishments.
Lundenbyrig.
Lundenberig.
Lundenberk.
Lundenburg.
Lundenwic, or wyc.
Lundenceastre (that is, London-_castrum_ or camp).
Lundunes.
Lundene, or Lundenne.
Lundone.--Saxon names. Lundenceastre is Alfred the Great's translation
of the Lundonia of Bede.
Luddestun.
Ludstoune.--Saxon translations of the Caer Ludd of the Welsh.
Londres.--French.
Londra.--Italian. The letter _r_ in these words is curious. It seems
to represent the _berig_ or _burgh_ of the Saxons; _quasi_ Londrig,
from Londonberig; in which case _Londres_ would mean London-borough.
The disputes upon the derivation of the word London have been
numerous. In the present day, the question seems to be, whether it
originated in Celtic British, that is, in Welsh, and signified "a city
on a lake," or in Belgic British (old German), and meant "a city in a
grove." The latest author who has handled the subject inclines to the
latter opinion.[4] Mr. Pennant being a Celt, was for the "city on a
lake," the Thames in the early periods of British history having
formed a considerable expanse of water near the site of the present
metropolis. _Llyn-Din_ is Lake-City, and _Lun-Den_ Grove-City.
Erasmus, on the strength of those affinities between Greek and Welsh,
which can be found between most languages, fetched the word from
_Lindus_, a city of Rhodes; Somner, the antiquary, derived it from
_Llawn_, full, and _Dyn_, man, implying a great concourse of people;
another antiquary, from _Lugdus_, a Celtic prince; Maitland from
_Lon_, a plain, and _Dun_ or _Don_, a hill; another, we know not who,
referred to by the same author, from a word signifying a ship and a
hill[5]; Camden from _Llong-Dinas_, a City of Ships; and Selden,
"seeing conjecture is free,"[6] was for deriving it from _Llan-Dien_,
or the temple of Diana, for reasons which will appear presently.
Pennant thinks that London might have been called Lake-City first, and
Ship-City afterwards. The opinion of the editor of the _Picture of
London_ seems most plausible--that Lun-Den, or Grove-City was the
name, because it is compounded of Belgic British, which, according to
Cæsar, must have been the language of the district; and he adds, that
the name is still common in Scandinavia.[7] It may be argued, that
London might have existed as a fortress on a lake before the arrival
of settlers from Belgium; and that Grove-City could not have been so
distinguishing a characteristic of the place as Lake-City, because
wood was a great deal more abundant than water. On the other hand, all
the rivers at that time were probably more or less given to
overflowing. Grove-City might have been the final name, though
Lake-City was the first; and the propensity to name places from trees,
is still evident in our numerous Woot-tons, or Wood-towns, Wood-fords,
Woodlands, &c. But of all disputes, those upon etymology appear the
most hopeless. Perhaps the word itself was not originally what we take
it to be. Who would suspect the word _wig_ to come from _peruke_;
_jour_ from _dies_; _uncle_ from _avus_; or that _Kensington_ should
have been corrupted by the despairing organs of a foreigner, into
_Inhimthorp_?[8]
Whether London commenced with a spot cleared out in the woods by
settlers from Holland, (Gallic Belgium,) as conjecture might imply
from Cæsar, or whether the germ of it arose with the aboriginal
inhabitants, we may conclude safely enough with Pennant, that it
existed in some shape or other in Cæsar's time.
"It stood," says he, "in such a situation as the Britains would
select, according to the rule they established. An immense
forest originally extended to the river side, and even as late
as the reign of Henry II. covered the northern neighbourhood of
the city, and was filled with various species of beasts of
chase. It was defended naturally by fosses, one formed by the
creek which ran along Fleet Ditch; the other, afterwards known
by that of Walbrook. The south side was guarded by the Thames;
the north they might think sufficiently protected by the
adjacent forest."[9]
In this place, then, seated on their hill, (probably that on which St.
Paul's Cathedral stands, as it is the highest in London,) and
gradually exchanging their burrows in the ground for huts of wicker
and clay, we are to picture to ourselves our metropolitan ancestors,
half-naked, rude in their manners, ignorant, violent, vindictive,
subject to all the half-reasoning impulses--their bodies tattooed like
South Sea Islanders--but brave, hospitable, patriotic, anxious for
esteem--in short, like other semi-barbarians, exhibiting energies
which they did not yet know how turn to account, but possessing, like
all human beings, the germs of the noblest capabilities. The accounts
given of them by Cæsar and other ancient writers appear to be
inconsistent, perhaps because we do not enough consider the
inconsistencies of our own manners. According to their statements, the
Britons had found out the art of making chariots of war, and yet had
not learnt how to convert grain into flour, or to make a solid
substance of milk. They rode, as it were, in their coaches, and yet
had not arrived at the dignity of bread and cheese. Probably their
chariots were magnified both in number and construction. The scythes
which modern fancy has turned into proper haymaking sabres, and which
some antiquaries have found so convenient for cutting through "a woody
country" (a strange way of keeping them sharp), may have been nothing
but spikes. We know not so easily what to say to the bread and cheese,
except that in more knowing times people are not always found very
ready to improve upon old habits, even with reasons staring them in
the face; though, on the other hand, lest habits should be thought
older than they are, and reformers be too impatient, it is worth while
to consider, not how _long_, but how _short_, a period has elapsed
(considering what a little thing a few centuries are in the progress
of time) since in the very spot where a Briton sat half-naked and
savage, unpossessed of a loaf or a piece of cheese, are to be found
gathered together all the luxuries of the globe. Fancy the soul of an
ancient Briton visiting his old ground in St. Paul's Churchyard, and
hardly staring more at the church and houses, than at the bread in the
baker's window, and the magic leaves in that of the bookseller. In one
respect, an ancient City-Briton differed _toto coelo_ with a modern.
He would not eat goose! He had a superstition against it.
London, in Cæsar's time, was most probably a City of Ships; that is to
say it traded with Gaul, and had a number of boats on its marshy
river. Cæsar's pretence for invading England, was, that it was too
good a provider for Gaul, and rendered his conquest of that country
difficult. But it is doubtful whether he ever beheld or even alludes
to the infant metropolis. His countrymen are supposed to have first
taken possession of it about a hundred years afterwards, in the reign
of Claudius. They had heard of a pearl-fishery, says Gibbon. At all
events they found oysters; for Sandwich (Rutupium) became famous with
them for that luxury.
It is not our design, in this Introduction, to give anything more
than a sketch of the rise and growth of the metropolis; we shall leave
the rest to be gathered as we proceed. Our intention is to go through
London, quarter by quarter, and to notice the memorials as they arise;
a plan, which, compared with others (at least if we are to judge of
the effect which it has had on ourselves), seems to possess something
of the superiority of sight over hearsay. When we read of events in
their ordinary train, we pitch ourselves with difficulty into the
scenes of action--sometimes wholly omit to do so; and there is a want
of life and presence in them accordingly. When we are placed in the
scenes themselves, and told to look about us--such and such a thing
having happened in _that_ house--_this_ street being one in which
another famous adventure took place, and _that_ old mansion having
been the dwelling of wit or beauty, we find ourselves comparatively at
home, and enjoy the probability and the spectacle twice as much. We
feel (especially if we are personally conversant with the spot) as if
Shakspeare and Milton, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, the club at the
Mermaid, and the beauties at the court of White-Hall, were our
next-door neighbours.
We shall take the reader, then, as speedily as possible among the
quarters alluded to, and trouble him very little beforehand with dry
abstracts and chronologies, or with races of men almost as
uninteresting. The most patriotic reader of our history feels that he
cares very little for his ancestors the Britons; of whom almost all he
knows is, that they painted their skins, and made war in chariots. Nor
do the Romans in England interest us more. They are men in helmets and
short skirts, who have left us no memorial but a road or two, and an
iron name. That is all that we know of them, and we care accordingly.
Perhaps the Saxons, after having destroyed the Roman architecture as
much as possible, and repented of it, took their own from what had
survived. The greatest relic of Cæsar's countrymen in the metropolis
was the piece of wall which ran lately south of Moorfields, in a
street still designated as London Wall. The Romans had a vast material
genius, not so intellectual as that of the Greeks, nor so calculated
to move the world ultimately, but highly fitted to prepare the way for
better impressions, by showing what the hand could perform; and as
they built their wall in their usual giant style of solidity, it
remained a long while to testify their magnificence. Small relics of
it are yet to be seen in Little Bridge Street, behind Ludgate Hill; on
the north of Bull-and-Mouth Street, between that street and St.
Botolph's Churchyard; and on the south side of the Churchyard of
Cripplegate. There was another in the garden of Stationer's Hall, but
it has been blocked up.
ANCIENT BRITISH LONDON was a mere space in the woods, open towards the
river, and presenting circular cottages on the hill and slope, and a
few boats on the water. As it increased, the cottages grew more
numerous, and commerce increased the number of sails.
ROMAN LONDON was British London, interspersed with the better
dwellings of the conquerors, and surrounded by a wall. It extended
from Ludgate to the Tower, and from the river to the back of
Cheapside.
SAXON LONDON was Roman London, despoiled, but retaining the wall, and
ultimately growing civilized with Christianity, and richer in
commerce. The first humble cathedral church then arose, where the
present one now stands.
NORMAN LONDON was Saxon and Roman London, greatly improved, thickened
with many houses, adorned with palaces of princes and princely
bishops, sounding with minstrelsy, and glittering with the gorgeous
pastimes of knighthood. This was its state through the Anglo-Norman
and Plantagenet reigns. The friar then walked the streets in his cowl
(Chaucer is said to have beaten one in Fleet Street), and the knights
rode with trumpets in gaudy colours to their tournaments in
Smithfield.
In the time of Edward the First, houses were still built of wood, and
roofed with straw, sometimes even with reeds, which gave rise to
numerous fires. The fires brought the brooks in request; and an
importance which has since been swallowed up in the advancement of
science, was then given to the _River of Wells_ (Bagnigge, Sadler's,
and Clerkenwell), to the _Old Bourne_ (the origin of the name of
Holborn,) to the little river Fleet, the Wall-brook, and the brook
Langbourne, which last still gives its name to a ward. The conduits,
which were large leaden cisterns, twenty in number, were under the
special care of the lord mayor and aldermen, who, after visiting them
on horseback on the eighteenth of September, "hunted a hare before
dinner, and a fox _after_ it, in the _Fields near St. Giles's._"[10]
Hours, and after-dinner pursuits, must have altered marvellously since
those days, and the _body_ of aldermen with them.
It was not till the reign of Henry the Fifth, that the city was
_lighted at night_. The illumination was with lanterns, slung over the
street with wisps of rope or hay. Under Edward the Fourth we first
hear of _brick houses_; and in Henry the Eighth's time of _pavement in
the middle of the streets_. The general aspect of London then
experienced a remarkable change, in consequence of the dissolution of
religious houses; the city, from the great number of them, having
hitherto had the appearance "of a monastic, rather than a commercial
metropolis."[11] The monk then ceased to walk, and the gallant London
apprentice became more riotous. London, however, was still in a
wretched condition, compared with what it is now. The streets, which
had been impassable from mud, were often rendered so with filth and
offal; and its homeliest wants being neglected, and the houses almost
meeting at top, with heavy signs lumbering and filling up the inferior
spaces, the metropolis was subject to _plagues_ as well as fires. Nor
was the interior of the houses better regarded. The people seemed to
cultivate the plague. "The floors," says Erasmus, "are commonly of
clay, strewed with rushes, which are occasionally renewed; but
underneath lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease,
fragments of fish, &c., &c., and everything that is nasty."[12] The
modern Englishman piques himself on his cleanliness, but he should do
it modestly, considering what his ancestors could do; and he should do
it not half so much as he does, considering what he still leaves
undone. It is the disgrace of the city of London in particular, that
it still continues to be uncleanly, except in externals, and even to
resist the efforts of the benevolent to purify it. But time and
circumstance ultimately force people to improve. It was plague and
fire that first taught the Londoners to build their city better. We
hope the authorities will reflect upon this; and not wait for cholera
to complete the lesson.
Erasmus wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, when the civil wars had
terminated in a voluptuous security, and when the pride of the court
and nobility was at its height. Knighthood was becoming rather a show
than a substance; and the changes in religion, the dissolution of the
monasteries, and above all, the permission to read the Bible, set men
thinking, and identified history in future with the progress of the
general mind. Opinion, accidentally set free by a tyrant, was never to
be put down, though tyranny tried never so hard. Poetry revived in the
person of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; and, by a maturity natural to
the first unsophisticated efforts of imagination, it came to its
height in the next age with Shakspeare. The monasteries being
dissolved, London was become entirely the commercial city it has
remained ever since, though it still abounded with noblemen's
mansions, and did so till a much later period. There were some in the
time of Charles the Second. The manners of the citizens under Henry
the Eighth were still rude and riotous, but cheerful; and manly
exercises were much cultivated. Henry was so pleased with one of the
city archers, that he mock-heroically created him Duke of Shoreditch;
upon which there arose a whole suburb peerage of Marquisses of Hogsdon
and Islington, Pancras, &c.
In Elizabeth's time the London houses were still mostly of wood. We
see remains of them in the Strand and Fleet Street, and in various
parts of the city. They are like houses built of cards, one story
projecting over the other; but unless there is something in the art of
building, which may in future dispense with solidity, the modern
houses will hardly be as lasting. People in the old ones could at
least dance and make merry. Builders in former times did not spare
their materials, nor introduce clauses in their leases against a jig.
We fancy Elizabeth hearing of a builder who should introduce such a
proviso against the health and merriment of her buxom subjects, and
sending to him, with a good round oath, to take a little less care of
his purse, and more of his own neck.
In this age, ever worthy of honour and gratitude, the illustrious
Bacon set free the hands of knowledge, which Aristotle had chained up,
and put into them the touchstone of experiment, the mighty mover of
the ages to come. This was the great age, also, of English poetry and
the drama. Former manners and opinions now began to be seen only on
the stage; intellect silently gave a man a rank in society he never
enjoyed before; and nobles and men of letters mixed together in clubs.
People now also began to speculate on government, as well as religion;
and the first evidences of that unsatisfied argumentative spirit
appeared, which produced the downfall of the succeeding dynasty, and
ultimately the Revolution, and all that we now enjoy.
The governments of Elizabeth and James, fearing that the greater the
concourse the worse would be the consequences of sickness, and
secretly apprehensive, no doubt, of the growth of large and
intellectual bodies of men near their head-quarters, did all in their
power to confine the metropolis to its then limits, but in vain.
Despotism itself, even in its mildest shape, cannot prevail against
the spirit of an age; and Bacon was at that minute foreseeing the
knowledge that was to quicken, increase, and elevate human
intercourse, by means of the growth of commerce. Houses and streets
grew then as they do now, not so quickly indeed, but equally to the
astonishment of their inhabitants; and the latter had reason to
congratulate themselves on a pavement to walk upon; a luxury for which
a lively Parisian, not half a century ago, is said to have gone down
on his knees, when he came into England, thanking God that there was a
country "in which some regard was shown to foot passengers." In
Charles the First's reign the suburbs of Westminster and Spitalfields
were greatly enlarged, and the foundation of Covent Garden was
commenced, as it now stands. Symptoms of a future neighbourhood
appeared also in Leicester Fields, though the place continued to be
what the name imports, as late as the beginning of the last century.
The progress of building received a check from the Civil Wars, but
only to revive with new spirit; and the great Fire--which was a great
blessing--swallowed up at once both the deformity and the disease of
old times, by widening the streets, and putting an end to the
liability to pestilence. London has not had a "_plague_" since, unless
it be indigestion; which, however, is the great disease of modern
sedentary times, and will never be got rid of, till we grow mental
enough to have more respect for our bodies.
Towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second the metropolis
began to increase in the direction of Holborn; Hatton Garden, Brook,
and Greville Streets were built; and Ormond Street ran towards the
fields. In this and the following reigns the mansion-houses of the
nobility on the river side began to give way to the private houses and
streets, still retaining the name of the Strand. Pall Mall and St.
James's increased also; and Soho Square, on its first building,
received the name of the Duke of Monmouth. But particulars of that
nature will be better noticed in the body of our work. The nobility,
gentry, and the wits, were now mixed up together. City taverns were
still frequented by them; and city marriages began to be sought after,
to mend the fortunes of the debauched cavaliers. Elizabeth's
successor, James, was the first king who entered into anything like
domestic familiarity with the monied men of the city. Charles the
Second took "t'other bottle" with them (see the _Spectator_); and Lord
Rochester played the buffoon on Tower Hill, as a quack doctor.
The streets about St. Martin's-in-the-fields and St.
Giles's-in-the-fields, those of Clerkenwell, the neighbourhood of Old
Street and Shoreditch, Marlborough Street, Soho, &c., successively
arose in the time of Queen Anne, as well as a good portion of Holborn,
beginning from Brook Street and including the neighbourhood of Bedford
Street and Red Lion Square. St. Paul's, too, was completed as it now
stands. This, and the succeeding times of the Hanover succession, were
the times of Whig and Tory, of the principal wit-poets, of writers
upon domestic manners, and of what may be called an ambition of good
sense and reason,--"sense" being the favourite term in books, as "wit"
had been in the age of Charles. Clubs were multiplied _ad infinitum_
by the more harmless civil wars between Whig and Tory; and ale and
beer brought the middle classes together, as wine did the rich.
_Mug-house_ clubs abounded in Long Acre, Cheapside, &c.; "where
gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen used to meet in a great room, seldom
under a hundred," if we are to believe the _Journey through England_,
in the year 1724.
At the commencement of the last century the village of St.
Mary-le-bone was almost a mile distant from any part of London; the
nearest street being Old Bond Street, which scarcely extended to the
present Clifford Street. Soon after the accession of George the First,
New Bond Street arose, with others in the immediate neighbourhood, and
the houses in Berkeley Square and its vicinity. Hanover Square and
Cavendish Square were open fields in the year 1716. They were built
about the beginning of the reign of George the Second, at which time
the houses arose on the north side of Oxford Street, which then first
took the name. The neighbourhood of Cavendish Square, and Oxford
Market, Holles Street, Margaret Street, Vere Street, &c., are of the
same date; and the grounds for Harley, Wigmore, and Mortimer Streets
were laid out; the village and church of Mary-le-bone being still
separated from them all by fields. At the same period the legislature
ordered the erection of the three parishes of St. George's Bloomsbury,
St. Anne's Limehouse, and St. Paul's Deptford, London having, at that
time, extended further in the last quarter than any other, by reason
of the trade on the river.
So late, nevertheless, as this period, Fleet Ditch was a sluggish,
foul stream, open as far as Holborn Bridge, and admitting small
vessels for trade, coal barges, &c. It had become such a nuisance,
that it was now arched over, and the late Fleet Market soon appeared
on the covering. About the year 1737, the west end of the town was
improved by the addition of Grosvenor Square and its neighbourhood.
The increase of the metropolis on all sides was in proportion to the
length of the reign of George the Third. The space between
Mary-le-bone was filled in; Southwark became a mass of houses united
with Westminster; and new towns rather than suburbs, appeared in all
quarters; some with the names of towns, as Camden and Somers Town; to
which have been added, since the death of that prince, Portland Town;
a good half of Paddington, now joined with Kilburn; a world of new
streets between Paddington and Notting Hill; Notting Hill itself
including Shepherd's Bush; another new world of streets, called
Belgravia, between Knightsbridge and Pimlico; others out by Peckham
and Camberwell, including Clapham and Norwood; and others again on the
east, reaching as far as the skirts of Epping Forest! Indeed, every
village which was in the immediate and even the remote neighbourhood
of London, and was quite distinct from one another at the beginning of
the reign of George the Third, is now almost, if not quite, joined
with it, including Highgate and Hampstead themselves on the north,
Norwood on the south, Turnham Green and Parson's Green on the west,
and Laytonstone on the east. The whole of this enormous mass of houses
now presents us, more or less, in all quarters, with handsome streets,
and even with squares; and the two sides of the river are united by a
series of noble bridges. New churches also have risen in every
direction; and though the architecture is none of the best, they
contribute to a general air of neatness and freshness, which the
increase of education and politeness promises to keep up. There is an
old prophecy that Hampstead is to be in the middle of London; a
phenomenon that London would really seem inclined to bring about. But
a metropolis must stop somewhere; and the very causes of its growth
(we mean the facilities of carriage, &c.) will ultimately, perhaps
sooner than is looked for, prevent it. Railways now allow numbers to
reside at a distance, who a few years ago would have remained in
London.
Ancient British London is conjectured to have been about a mile long,
and half a mile wide. Modern London occupies an area of above eighteen
square miles; and all this space, deducting not quite two miles for
the river, is filled up with houses and public buildings, with a
population of perhaps two million of souls, and with riches from all
parts of the globe. In this respect London may justly be said to be
the "metropolis of the world;" though Paris has the advance of it in
some others.
During the reign of George the Third, the whole mind of Europe was
shaken up more vehemently than ever by the French Revolution; and, as
the consequence is after such tempestuous innovations, men began to
look about them, to see what had stood the test of it, and how they
might improve their condition still farther. After a great many
disputes, natural on all sides, and a singular proof of the
omnipotence of public opinion over the most extraordinary military
power, it may be safely asserted, that the essence of that opinion, or
the intellectual part of it is secretly acknowledged as the great
regulator of society, even by those who appear to regulate it
themselves; and who never show their sense to more advantage, than
when they lead where they must have followed. This is the most
remarkable era, perhaps, in the history of mankind; and experiment,
and promise, are of a piece with it. Everybody is now more or less
educated; the extension of the graces of life does away with
sordidness, and teaches people that men do not live by "bread alone;"
there is a reading public, let the jealousies of secluded scholarship
say what they will; the mighty hands which Bacon set free are in full
action; the Press reports and assists them, and utters a thousand
voices daily, not to be put an end to by anything short of a
convulsion of the globe. Time and space themselves are comparatively
annihilated by the inventions of the steam-carriage and the electric
telegraph. The corn-laws have gone, opening still wider the prospects
of mankind; and improvements may be looked for in society, so much to
the benefit of all classes, that the most reasonable observer will
decline stating the amount of his expectations, lest they should be
thought as extravagant, as old times would have thought the telegraph
just mentioned, or the publication of those thousands of volumes a day
called Newspapers.[13]
A word or two more on health, and our modes of living. London was once
called "Merry London," the metropolis of "Merry England." The word did
not imply exclusively what it does now. Chaucer talks of the "merry
organ at the mass." But it appears to have had a signification still
more desirable--to have meant the best condition in which anything
could be found, with cheerfulness for the result. Gallant soldiers
were "merry men." Favourable weather was "merry." And London was
"merry," because its inhabitants were not only rich, but healthy and
robust. They had sports infinite, up to the time of the
Commonwealth--races and wrestlings, archery, quoits, tennis,
foot-ball, hurling, &c. Their May-day was worthy of the burst of the
season; not a man was left behind out of the fields, if he could help
it; their apprentices piqued themselves on their stout arms, and not
on their milliners' faces; their nobility shook off the gout in tilts
and tournaments; their Christmas closed the year with a joviality
which brought the very trees in-doors to crown their cups with, and
which promised admirably for the year that was to come. In everything
they did, there was a reference to Nature and her works, as if nothing
should make them forget her; and a gallant recognition of the duties
of health and strength, as the foundation of their very right to be
fathers.
We are aware of the drawbacks that accompanied this physical wisdom;
of the comparative ignorance of the people, and the abuses they
suffered accordingly; of slaveries, and star-chambers; of plagues,
fires, and civil wars; of the burnings in Smithfield; of the
murderings of wretched old women, supposed to be witches; and of other
domestic superstitions, of which we are, perhaps, now-a-days unable to
calculate the mischief. Surely we desire to see no more of them; and
we are heartily willing that the same progress of thought which has
swept them away, should have done us _a disservice meanwhile_, which
_more thinking_ shall put an end to. Far are we from desiring to go
back. But we would hasten the time when reflection shall recover the
good for us, without bringing back the evil. And this surely it may.
This it must--for real knowledge could not make its progress without
it. The labour would not end in the reward. It has been supposed, that
the poorer orders cannot have their enjoyments again--cannot have
their old Christmas, for example, unless the rich supply them with the
means of enjoyment, and so renew their charter of dependence. But this
is to suppose that times are not changing in other respects, and that
knowledge is not spreading. Riches and poverty themselves are modified
by the progress of society; means are increased, however, to their
apparent detriment at first, among the poor; and the knowledge of
enjoyment becomes no longer confined to the rich, any more than the
enjoyment of knowledge. Men may surely learn how to stouten their
legs, as well as to improve their stockings. Now of all pleasures,
those are the cheapest which are bought of nature--such as air and
exercise, and manly sports; and though we allow that the poor, in
order to relish them, must be free from the melancholier states of
poverty, it is desirable _meanwhile_ that the dispensers of knowledge
should assist in hastening more cheerful times by preparing for them,
and that all classes should be told how much the cultivation of their
bodily health increases the ability, both of rich and poor, to get out
of their troubles. You may steep a _gipsey_ in trouble, and he shall
issue out of it laughing. It would not be easy to do this with an
epicurean, or a fund-holder, or with one of the parish poor; but
neither need any one despair; for neither can the might of mechanical
inventions, nor the greater might of opinion, be put down, whether in
their first awful issuing forth, or in their final beneficence. And he
that shall keep this oftenest in his mind, and be among the first to
prepare for their enjoyment, by administering what helps he can to the
encouragement of manly exercises among us, will assist in reviving the
good old epithets of "merry England," and "merry London," _in a sense
they never have had yet_. The progress of society has put an end to
the melancholy absurdity of inquisitions, and star-chambers, and civil
wars. The ground, therefore, is more clear for us to make England
merrier in all respects than she was before. These things, we are
aware, must result from other changes; but the changes themselves are
in the reasonable and inevitable course of events.
As a link of a very pleasing description between old times and new not
unconnected with what we have been speaking of, we shall conclude our
introduction by observing, that there is scarcely a street in the
_city_ of London, perhaps not one, nor many out of the pale of it,
from some part of which the passenger may not discern a _tree_. Most
persons to whom this has been mentioned have doubted the accuracy of
our information, nor do we profess hitherto to have ascertained it;
though since we heard the assertion, we have made a point of
endeavouring to do so whenever we could, and have not been
disappointed. The mention of the circumstance generally creates a
laughing astonishment, and a cry of "impossible!" Two persons, who
successively heard of it the other day, not only thought it incredible
as a general fact, but doubted whether half a dozen streets could be
found with a twig in them; and they triumphantly instanced
"Cheapside," as a place in which it was "out of the question." Yet in
Cheapside is an actual, visible, and even ostentatiously visible tree,
to all who have eyes to look about them. It stands at the corner of
Wood Street, and occupies the space of a house. There was a solitary
one the other day in St. Paul's Churchyard, which has now got a
multitude of young companions. A little child was shown us a few years
back, who was said never to have beheld a tree but that single one in
St. Paul's Churchyard. Whenever a tree was mentioned, she thought it
was that and no other. She had no conception even of the remote tree
in Cheapside! This appears incredible; but there would seem to be no
bounds, either to imagination or to the want of it. We were told the
other day, on good authority, of a man who had resided six-and-thirty
years in the square of St. Peter's at Rome, and then for the first
time went inside the Cathedral.
There is a little garden in _Watling Street_! It lies completely open
to the eye, being divided from the footway by a railing only.
In the body of our work will be found notices of other trees and green
spots, that surprise the observer in the thick of the noise and smoke.
Many of them are in churchyards. Others have disappeared during the
progress of building. Many courts and passages are named from trees
that once stood in them, as Vine and Elm Court, Fig-tree Court,
Green-arbour Court, &c. It is not surprising that _garden-houses_, as
they were called, should have formerly abounded in Holborn, in
Bunhill Row, and other (at that time) suburban places. We notice the
fact, in order to observe how fond the poets were of occupying houses
of this description. Milton seems to have made a point of having one.
The only London residence of Chapman which is known, was in Old Street
Road; doubtless at that time a rural suburb. Beaumont and Fletcher's
house, on the Surrey side of the Thames (for they lived as well as
wrote together), most probably had a garden: and Dryden's house in
Gerard Street looked into the garden of the mansion built by the Earls
of Leicester. A tree, or even a flower, put in a window in the streets
of a great city (and the London citizens, to their credit, are fond of
flowers,) affects the eye something in the same way as the
hand-organs, which bring unexpected music to the ear. They refresh the
common-places of life, shed a harmony through the busy discord, and
appeal to those first sources of emotion, which are associated with
the remembrance of all that is young and innocent. They seem also to
present to us a portion of the tranquillity we think we are labouring
for, and the desire of which is felt as an earnest that we shall
realise it somewhere, either in this world or in the next. Above all,
they render us more cheerful for the performance of present duties;
and the smallest seed of this kind, dropt into the heart of man, is
worth more, and may terminate in better fruits, than anybody but a
great poet could tell us.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] See Evenings at Home, by Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld.
[2] History of England, 4to. 1670, p. 11.
[3] We learn this from Selden's notes to the Polyolbion of Drayton.
[4] Picture of London, 1824, p. 3.
[5] These etymologies are to be found in Maitland's History and Survey
of London. Fol. 1756. Vol. i. Book i.
[6] In the notes to Drayton's Polyolbion, Song viii.
[7] There is a Lunden in Sweden, mentioned by Maitland, vol. i. _ubi
sup._ It is the capital of the province of Schonen. Another town of
the name is in Danish Holstein.
[8] "We have one word," says Dr. Pegge, "which has not a single letter
of its original, for of the French _peruke_, we got _periwig_, now
abbreviated to _wig_. _Earwig_ comes from _eruca_, as Dr. Wallis
observes, _Anonymiana_, p. 56. The French word _jour_ (day) comes from
_dies_, through _diurnus_, _diurno_, _giorno_; so _giornale_, journal.
_Uncle_ is from _avus_, through _avunculus_. For _Inhimthorpe_, and
other impossibilities, see Cosmo the Third's Travels through England,
in the reign of Charles II."
[9] Pennant's London, third edition, 4to., p. 3.
[10] Picture of London, p. 12.
[11] Picture of London, p. 14. For a larger account of this and other
matters briefly touched upon in the present introduction, see
Brayley's London and Middlesex, vol. i. The spirit of them, however,
will appear in our work, together with particulars hitherto unnoticed.
[12] Id. p. 13.
[13] Since this paragraph was written, the wonderful events have taken
place in France, which have so agitated the whole of Europe, and which
promise to open a new epoch in human history. May all benefit from
them, as we believe all may, without real injury to any one!
CHAPTER I.
ST. PAUL'S, AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.
The Roman Temple of Diana -- The first Christian Church -- Old
St. Paul's -- Inigo Jones's Portico -- Strange Usages of Former
Times -- Encroachments on the Fabric of the Cathedral -- Paul's
Walkers -- Dining with Duke Humphrey -- Catholic Customs -- The
Boy-Bishop -- The Children of the Revels -- Strange Ceremony on
the Festivals of the Commemoration and Conversion of St. Paul
-- Ancient Tombs in the Cathedral -- Scene between John of Gaunt
and the Anti-Wickliffites -- Paul's Cross -- The Folkmote -- The
Sermons -- Jane Shore -- See-saw of Popery and Protestantism
-- London House -- The Charnel -- The Lollards' Tower -- St. Paul's
School -- Desecration of the Cathedral during the Commonwealth
-- The present Cathedral -- Sir Christopher Wren -- Statue of
Queen Anne.
As St. Paul's Churchyard is probably the oldest ground built upon in
London, we begin our perambulations in that quarter. The cross which
formerly stood north of the cathedral, and of which Stowe could not
tell the antiquity, is supposed by some to have originated in one of
those sacred stones which the Druids made use of in worship; but at
least it is more than probable that here was a burial-ground of the
ancient Britons; because when Sir Christopher Wren dug for a
foundation to his cathedral, he discovered abundance of ivory and
wooden pins, apparently of box, which are supposed to have fastened
their winding sheets. The graves of the Saxons lay above them, lined
with chalk-stones, or consisting of stones hollowed out: and in the
same row with the pins, but deeper, lay Roman horns, lamps,
lachrymatories, and all the elegancies of classic sculpture. Sir
Christoper dug till he came to sand, and sea-shells, and to the London
clay, which has since become famous in geology; so that the single
history of St. Paul's Churchyard carries us back to the remotest
periods of tradition; and we commence our book in the proper style of
the old Chroniclers, who were not content, unless they began with the
history of the world.
The Romans were thought to have built a Temple to Diana on the site of
the modern cathedral, by reason of a number of relics of horned
animals reported to have been dug up there. Sir Christopher Wren
asserts that there was no ground for the supposition. There was a
similar story of a temple of Apollo at Westminster, built on the site
of the present abbey, and said to have been destroyed by an
earthquake. "Earthquakes," observed Sir Christopher, "break not stones
to pieces; nor would the Picts be at that pains; but I imagine that
the monks, finding the Londoners pretending to a Temple of Diana,
where now St. Paul's stands (horns of stags and tusks of boars having
been dug up in former times, and it is said also in later years),
would not be behindhand in antiquity; but I must assert, that having
changed all the foundations of old St. Paul's, and upon that occasion
rummaged all the ground thereabouts, and being very desirous to find
some footsteps of such a temple, I could not discover any, and
therefore can give no more credit to Diana than to Apollo."[14]
Woodward, on the other hand, insisted on the Temple of Diana. He
asserted, that a variety of the relics alluded to, in his own
possession, were actually dug up on the spot, together with
sacrificing vessels sculptured with beasts of chase, and with figures
of Diana. In digging between the Deanery and Blackfriars a small brass
figure of the goddess had also been found.[15]
Woodward was an enthusiast, eager to find what he fancied. Wren was
willing to find also, but with cooler eyes. It is at the same time
worth observing, that though Sir Christopher appears to have rejected
the Pagan story with reason, he could not find it in his heart to
refuse credit to the gratuitous traditions of old writers in favour of
a Christian church "planted here by the Apostles themselves."[16] He
calls the traditions "authentic testimony."
It is barely possible that the relics mentioned by Woodward might have
been all dug up by the time Sir Christopher set about his inquiry; but
let them have been what they might, they would have proved nothing in
favour of a Roman Temple, because the Romans never buried under their
temples; neither did their legions remain long enough in this country
to see the character of the place altered. It was sufficiently
remarkable, that proofs had been discovered even of their burying
there at all; for, at Rome, none but very extraordinary persons were
suffered to be buried within the walls; and the Roman cemeteries in
England are proved to have been without them. It can only be accounted
for on the supposition that, as no great men are so great as the great
men of colonies, the Prefects and their officers at London decreed
themselves an honour, which was to be attained at Rome by nothing
short of the merits of a Fabricius or a Publicola.
The first authentic account of the existence of a Christian church on
this spot is that of Bede, who attributes the erection of it to King
Ethelbert, about the year 610, soon after his conversion by St.
Augustine. The building, which was probably of wood, was burned down
in 961, but was restored the same year--a proof that, notwithstanding
the lofty terms in which it is spoken of by the old historian, it
could not have been of any great extent. This second church lasted
till the time of William the Conqueror, when it, too, was destroyed by
a conflagration, which burned the greater part of the city. Bishop
Maurice, who had just been appointed to the see, now resolved to
rebuild the cathedral on a much grander scale than before, at his own
expense. To assist him in accomplishing this object, the King granted
him the stones of an old castle, called the Palatine Tower, which
stood at the mouth of the Fleet River, and which had been reduced to
ruins in the same conflagration. The Bishop's design was looked upon
as so vast, that "men at that time," says Stowe, "judged it wold never
have bin finished; it was then so wonderfull for length and
breadth."[17] This was in the year 1087; and the people had some
reason for their astonishment, for the building was not completed till
the year 1240, in the reign of Henry the Third. Some even extend the
date to 1315, which is two hundred and twenty-eight years after its
foundation; but this was owing rather to repairs and additions than to
anything wanting in the original edifice. The cathedral thus patched,
altered, and added to, over and over again, with different orders and
no orders of architecture, and partially burned, oftener than once,
remained till the Great Fire of London, when it was luckily rendered
incapable of further deformity, and gave way to the present.
It was, indeed, a singular structure, and used for singular purposes.
"The _exterior_ of the building," says an intelligent writer,
himself an architect, "presented a curious medley of the
architectural style of different ages. At the western front
Inigo Jones had erected a portico of the Corinthian order; thus
displaying a singular example of that bigotry of taste, which,
only admitting one mode of beauty, is insensible to the
superior claims of congruity. This portico, however, singly
considered, was a grand and beautiful composition, and not
inferior to any thing of the kind which modern times have
produced: fourteen columns, each rising to the lofty height of
forty-six feet, were so disposed, that eight, with two
pilasters placed in front, and three on each flank, formed a
square (oblong) peristyle, and supported an entablature and
balustrade, which was crowned with statues of kings,
predecessors of Charles the First, who claimed the honour of
this fabric. Had the whole front been accommodated to Roman
architecture, it might have deserved praise as a detached
composition; but though cased with rustic work, and decorated
with regular cornices, the pediment retained the original
Gothic character in its equilateral proportions, and it was
flanked by barbarous obelisks and ill-designed turrets."
[Illustration: WEST FRONT OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.]
"The whole of the exterior body of the church had been cased
and reformed in a similar manner, through which every detail of
antiquity was obliterated, and the general forms and
proportions only left. The buttresses were converted into
regular piers, and a complete cornice crowned the whole: of the
windows, some were barely ornamented apertures, whilst others
were decorated in a heavy Italian manner, with architrave
dressings, brackets, and cherubic heads. The transepts
presented fronts of the same incongruous style as the western
elevation, and without any of its beauties."[18]
In its original state, however, old St. Paul's must have been an
imposing building. Its extent at least was very great. The entire mass
measured 690 feet in length, by 130 in breadth, and it was surmounted
by a spire 520 feet high. The spire was of timber. It bore upon its
summit not only a ball and cross, but a large gilded eagle, which
served as a weathercock. But the church having been nearly burned to
the ground in June, 1561, owing to the carelessness of a plumber who
left a pan of coals burning near some wood-work while he went to
dinner, it was hastily restored without the lofty spire; so that in
Hollar's engraving, given by Dugdale, of the building as it appeared
in 1656, it stands curtailed of this ornament. Only the square tower,
from which the spire sprang up, remains. "The old cathedral," says Mr.
Malcolm, on the authority of a note with which he was furnished by the
Rev. Mr. Watts, of Sion College, "did not stand in the same direction
with the new, the latter inclining rather to the south-west and
north-east; and the west front of the Old Church came much farther
towards Ludgate than the present."[19]
It is of the Cathedral, as thus renovated, that Sir John Denham speaks
in the following passage of his Cooper's Hill:--
"That sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether it's a part of earth or sky,
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud;
Paul's, the late name of such a muse whose flight
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal, more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserv'd from ruin by the best of kings."
"The best of poets" is his brother courtier Waller, who had some time
before written his verses "Upon his Majesty's repairing of St.
Paul's," in which he compares King Charles, for his regeneration of
the Cathedral, to Amphion and other "antique minstrels," who were said
to have achieved architectural feats by the power of music, and who,
he says,
"Sure were Charles-like kings,
Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings;
On which with so divine a hand they strook,
Consent of motion from their breath they took."
Jones's first labour, the removal of the various foreign encumbrances
that had so long oppressed and deformed the venerable edifice, Waller
commemorates by a pair of references to St. Paul's history, not
unhappily applied: he says the whole nation had combined with his
Majesty
"to grace
The Gentiles' great Apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain
Seem'd to confine and fetter him again;
Which the glad Saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand."
Denham's prediction did no credit to the prophetic reputation of
poetry. Of the fabric which was to be unassailable by zeal or fire the
poet himself lived to see the ruin, begun by the one and completed by
the other; and he himself, curiously enough, a short time before his
death, was engaged as the King's surveyor-general in (nominally at
least) presiding over the erection of the new Cathedral--the successor
of the "sacred pile," of which he had thus sung the immortality.
When Jones began the repairs and additions of which his portico formed
a part, in 1633, the rubbish that was removed was carried, Mr. Malcolm
informs us, to Clerkenwell fields, where, he suggests, "some curious
fragments of antiquity may still remain."[20] The very beauty of this
portico, surmounted with its strange pediment and figures, and
dragging at its back that heap of deformity, completed the monstrous
look of the whole building, like a human countenance backed by some
horned lump. But this was nothing to the moral deformities of the
interior. Old St. Paul's, throughout almost the whole period of its
existence, at least from the reign of Henry the Third, was a
thoroughfare, and a "den of thieves." The thoroughfare was occasioned
probably by the great circuit which people had been compelled to make
by the extent of the wall of the old churchyard--a circumference a
great deal larger than it is at present. There is a principle of
familiarity in the Catholic worship which, while it excites the
devotional tenderness of more refined believers, is apt to produce the
consequence, though not the feelings, of contempt among the vulgar.
Fear hinders contempt; but when license is mixed with it, and the fear
is not in action, the liberties taken are apt to be in proportion. We
have seen, in a Catholic chapel in London, a milk-maid come into the
passage, dash down her pails, and having crossed herself, and applied
the holy water with reverence, depart with the same air with which she
came in. The next thing to setting down the pails, under the
circumstances above mentioned, would have been to creep with them
through the church. Porters and loiterers would follow; and by degrees
the place of worship would become a place of lounging and marketing,
and intrigue, and all sorts of disorder. In the reign of Edward the
Third, the King complains to the Bishop that the "eating-room of the
canons" had "become the office and work-place of artisans, and the
resort of shameless women." The complaint turned out to be of no
avail; nor had the mandate of the Bishop a better result in the time
of Richard the Third, though it was accompanied with the penalty of
excommunication. An Act was passed to as little purpose in the reign
of Philip and Mary; and in the time of Elizabeth the new opinions in
religion seem to have left the place fairly in possession of its
chaos, as if in derision of the old. The toleration of the abuse thus
became a matter of habit and indifference; and a young theologian,
afterwards one of the witty prelates of Charles the Second (Bishop
Earle), did not scruple to make it the subject of what we should now
call a "pleasant article."
"It must appear strange," says a note in Brayley's _London and
Middlesex_ (vol. ii. p. 219), "to those who are acquainted with
the decent order and propriety of regulation now observed in
our cathedral churches, and other places of divine worship,
that ever such an extended catalogue of improper customs and
disgusting usages as are noticed in various works, should have
been formerly admitted to be practised in St. Paul's church,
and more especially that they should have been so long
habitually exercised as to be defended on the plea of
prescription.
"These nuisances had become so great, that in the time of
Philip and Mary the Common Council found it necessary to pass
an act, subjecting all future offenders to pains and penalties.
From that act, the church seems to have been not only made a
common passage-way for all--beer, bread, fish, flesh, fardels
of stuffs, &c., but also for mules, horses, and other beasts.
This statute, however, must have proved only a temporary
restraint (excepting, probably, as to the leading of animals
through the church); for in the reign of Elizabeth, we learn
from _Londinium Redivivum_ (vol. iii. p. 71), that idlers and
drunkards were indulged in lying and sleeping on the benches at
the choir door; and that other usages, too nauseous for
description, were also frequent."
Among the curious notices relating to the irreverent practices pursued
in this church in the time of Elizabeth, collected by Mr. Malcolm
from the manuscript presentments on visitations preserved at St.
Paul's, are the following:--
"In the upper quier wher the comon [communion] table dothe
stande, there is much unreverente people, _walking_ with _their
hatts on their heddes_, comonly all the service tyme, no man
reproving them for yt."
"Yt is a greate disorder in the churche, that porters,
butchers, and water-bearers, and who not, be suffered (in
special tyme of service) to carrye and recarrye whatsoever, no
man withstandinge them, or gainsaying them," &c.
"The notices of encroachments on St. Paul's, in the same reign,
are equally curious. The chantry and other chapels were
completely diverted from their ancient purposes; some were used
as receptacles for stores and lumber; another was a school,
another a glazier's shop; and the windows of all were, in
general, broken. Part of the vaults beneath the church was
occupied by a carpenter, the remainder was held by the bishop,
the dean and chapter, and the minor canons. One vault, thought
to have been used for a burial-place, was converted into a
wine-cellar, and a way had been cut into it through the wall of
the building itself. (This practice of converting church vaults
into wine-cellars, it may be remarked, is not yet worn out.
Some of the vaults of Winchester Cathedral are now, or were
lately, used for that purpose.) The shrowds and cloisters under
the convocation house, 'where not long since the sermons in
foul weather were wont to be preached,' were made 'a common
lay-stall for boardes, trunks, and chests, being lett oute unto
trunk-makers, where, by meanes of their daily knocking and
noyse, the church is greatly disturbed.' More than twenty
houses also had been built against the outer walls of the
cathedral; and part of the very foundations was cut away to
make offices. One of those houses had literally a closet dug in
the wall; from another was a way through a window into a
wareroom in the steeple; a third, partly formed by St. Paul's,
was lately used as a _play-house_; and the owner of the fourth
baked his _bread_ and _pies_ in an _oven_ excavated within a
buttress."[21]
The middle of St. Paul's was also the Bond Street of that period, and
remained so till the time of the Commonwealth. The loungers were
called Paul's Walkers.
"The young gallants from the inns of court, the western and the
northern parts of the metropolis, and those that had spirit
enough," says our author, "to detach themselves from the
counting-houses in the east, used to meet at the central point,
St. Paul's; and from this circumstance obtained the
appellations of _Paul's Walkers_, as we now say, _Bond-street
Loungers_. However strange it may seem, tradition says that the
great Lord Bacon used in his youth to cry, _Eastward ho!_ and
was literally a Paul's Walker."[22]
Lord Bacon had a taste for display, which was afterwards exhibited in
a magnificent manner, worthy of the grandeur of his philosophy; but
this, when he was young, might probably enough have been vented in
the shape of an exuberance, which did not yet know what to do with
itself. Who would think that the late Mr. Fox ever wore red-heeled
shoes, and was a "buck about town?"
But to conclude with these curious passages:--
"The Walkers in Paul's," continues our author, "during this and
the following reigns, were composed of a motley assemblage of
the gay, the vain, the dissolute, the idle, the knavish, and
the lewd; and various notices of this fashionable resort may be
found in the old plays and other writings of the time. Ben
Jonson, in his _Every man out of his Humour_, has given a
series of scenes in the interior of St. Paul's, and an
assemblage of a great variety of characters; in the course of
which the curious piece of information occurs, that it was
common to affix _bills_, in the form of advertisements, upon
the columns in the aisles of the church, in a similar manner to
what is now done in the Royal Exchange: those bills he
ridicules in two affected specimens, the satire of which is
admirable. Shakspeare also makes Falstaff say, in speaking of
Bardolph, 'I bought him in _Paul's_, and he'll buy me a horse
in Smithfield: if I could get me but a wife in the stews, I
were mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.'"
To complete these urbanities, the church was the resort of
pickpockets. Bishop Corbet, a poetical wit of the time of Charles the
First, sums up its character, as the "walke
"Where all our Brittaine sinners sweare and talk."[23]
Only one reformation had taken place in it since the complaint made by
Edward the Third: no woman, at the time of Earle's writing, was to be
found there; at least not in the crowd. "The visitants," he says, "are
all men without exception."[24] A commonwealth writer insinuates
otherwise; but the visitation was not public. The practice of "walking
and talking" in St. Paul's appears to have revived under James the
Second, probably in connection with Catholic wishes; for there was an
Act of William and Mary, by which transgressors forfeited twenty
pounds for every offence; and, what is remarkable, the Bishop
threatened to enforce this Act so late as the year 1725; "the custom,"
says Mr. Malcolm, "had become so very prevalent."[25]
A proverb of "dining with Duke Humphrey," has survived to the present
day, owing to a supposed tomb of Humphrey, the good Duke of
Gloucester, which was popular with the poorer frequenters of the
place. They had a custom of strewing herbs before it, and sprinkling
it with water. The tomb, according to Stow, was not Humphrey's, but
that of Sir John Beauchamp, one of the house of Warwick. Men who
strolled about for want of a dinner, were familiar enough with this
tomb; and were therefore said to dine with Duke Humphrey.
While some of the extraordinary operations above-mentioned were going
on (the intriguing, picking of pockets, &c.), the sermon was very
likely proceeding. It is but fair, however, to conclude, that in the
Catholic times, during the elevation of the host, there was a show of
respect. We have heard a gentleman say, who visited Spain in his
childhood, that he remembered being at the theatre during a fandango,
when a loud voice cried out "_Dios_" (God); and all the people in the
house, including the dancers, fell on their knees. A profound silence
ensued. After a pause of a few seconds, the people rose, and the
fandango went on as before. The little boy could not think what had
happened, but was told that the host had gone by. The Deity (for so it
was thought) had been sent for to the house of a sick man; and it was
to honour him in passing, that the theatre had gone down on their
knees. Catholics reform as well as other people, with the growth of
knowledge, especially when restrictions no longer make their
prejudices appear a matter of duty. We know not how it is in Spain at
this moment, with regard to the devout interval of the fandango; but
we know what would be thought of it by thousands of the offspring of
those who witnessed it on this occasion; and certainly in no Catholic
church now-a-days can be seen the abominations of old St. Paul's.
The passenger who now goes by the cathedral, and associates the idea
of the inside with that of respectful silence and the simplicity of
Protestant worship, little thinks what a noise has been in that spot,
and what gorgeous processions have issued out of it.
Old St. Paul's was famous for the splendour of its shrine, and for its
priestly wealth. The list of its copes, vestments, jewels, gold and
silver cups, candlesticks, &c., occupies thirteen folio pages of the
_Monasticon_. The side aisles were filled with chapels to different
saints and the Virgin; that is to say, with nooks partitioned off one
from another, and enriched with separate altars; and it is calculated,
that, taking the whole establishment, there could hardly be fewer than
two hundred priests. On certain holidays, this sacred multitude, in
their richest copes, together with the lord mayor, aldermen, and city
companies, and all the other parish priests of London, who carried a
rich silver cross for every church, issued forth from the cathedral
door in procession, singing a hymn, and so went through Cheapside and
Cornhill to Leadenhall, and back again. The last of these spectacles
was for the peace of Guisnes, in 1546; shortly after which Henry the
Eighth swept into his treasury the whole glories of Catholic
worship--copes, crosses, jewels, church-plate, &c.--himself being the
most bloated enormity that had ever misused them.
Among other retainers to the establishment, Henry suppressed a
singular little personage, entitled the Boy-Bishop. The Boy-Bishop
(_Episcopus Puerorum_) was a chorister annually elected by his fellows
to imitate the state and attire of a bishop, which he assumed on St.
Nicholas's day, the sixth of December, and retained till that of the
Innocents, December the twenty-eighth.
"This was done," says Brayley, "in commemoration of St.
Nicholas, who, according to the Romish Church, was so piously
fashioned, that even when a babe in his cradle he would fast
both on Wednesdays and Fridays, and at those times was 'well
pleased' to suck but once a-day. However ridiculous it may now
seem, the Boy-Bishop is stated to have possessed episcopal
authority during the above term; and the other children were
his prebendaries. He was not permitted to celebrate mass, but
he had full liberty to preach; and however puerile his
discourse might have been, we find they were regarded with so
much attention, that the learned Dean Colet, in his statutes
for St. Paul's school, expressly ordained that the scholars
shall, on 'every _Childermas_ daye, come to Paule's Churche,
and hear the Chylde Bishop's sermon, and after be at the hygh
masse, and each of them offer a penny to the Chylde Bishop; and
with them the maisters and surveyors of the scole.' Probably,"
continues Mr. Brayley, "these orations, though affectedly
childish, were composed by the more aged members of the church.
If the Boy-Bishop died within the time of his prelacy, he was
interred _in pontificalibus_, with the same ceremonies as the
real diocesan; and the tomb of a child-bishop in Salisbury
Cathedral may be referred to as an instance of such
interment."[26]
"From a printed church-book," says Mr. Hone, "containing the
service of the boy-bishops set to music, we learn that, on the
eve of Innocents'-day, the Boy-Bishop, and his youthful clergy,
in their copes, and with burning tapers in their hands, went in
solemn procession, chanting and singing versicles, as they
walked into the choir by the west door, in such order that the
dean and canons went foremost, the chaplains next, and the
Boy-Bishop with his priests in the last and highest place. He
then took his seat, and the rest of the children disposed
themselves on each side of the choir, upon the uppermost
ascent, the canons resident bearing the incense and the book,
and the petit-canons the tapers, according to the rubrick.
Afterwards he proceeded to the altars of the Holy Trinity and
All Saints, which he first censed, and next the image of the
Holy Trinity, his priests all the while singing. Then they all
chanted a service with prayers and responses, and, in the like
manner taking his seat, the Boy-Bishop repeated salutations,
prayers, and versicles; and in conclusion gave his benediction
to the people, the chorus answering _Deo Gratias_."[27]
The origin of customs is often as obscure as that of words, and may be
traced with probability to many sources. Perhaps the boy-bishop had a
reference, not only to St. Nicholas, but to Christ preaching when a
boy among the doctors, and to the divine wisdom of his recommendations
of a childlike simplicity. The school afterwards founded by Dean Colet
was in honour of "the child Jesus." There was a school attached to the
cathedral, of which Colet's was, perhaps, a revival, as far as
scholarship was concerned. The boys in the older school were not only
taught singing but acting, and for a long period were the most popular
performers of stage-plays. In the time of Richard the Second, these
Boy-Actors petitioned the King to prohibit certain ignorant and
"inexpert people from presenting the History of the Old Testament."
They began with sacred plays, but afterwards acted profane; so that
St. Paul's singing-school was numbered among the play-houses. This
custom, as well as that of the boy-bishop, appears to have been common
wherever there were choir-boys; and it doubtless originated, partly in
the theatrical nature of the catholic ceremonies at which they
assisted, and partly in the delight which the more scholarly of their
masters took in teaching the plays of Terence and Seneca. The annual
performance of a play of Terence, still kept up at Westminster school,
is supposed by Warton to be a remnant of it. The choristers of
Westminster Abbey, and of the chapel of Queen Elizabeth, (who took
great pleasure in their performances), were celebrated as actors,
though not so much so at those of St. Paul's. A set of them were
incorporated under the title of Children of the Revels, among whom are
to be found names that have since become celebrated as the
fellow-actors of Shakspeare--Field, Underwood, and others. It was the
same with Hart, Mohun, and others, who were players in the time of
Cibber. It appears that children with good voices were sometimes
_kidnapped_ for a supply.[28] Tusser, who wrote the Five Hundred
Points of Good Husbandry, is thought to have been thus pressed into
the service; and a relic of the custom is supposed to have existed in
that of pressing drummers for the army, which survived so late as the
accession of Charles the First. The exercise of the right of might
over children, and by people who wanted singers--an effeminate
press-gang--would seem an intolerable nuisance; but the children were
probably glad enough to be complimented by the violence, and to go to
sing and play before a court.
Ben Jonson has some pretty verses on one of these juvenile actors:
Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry.
'Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.
Years he numbered, scarce thirteen,
When fates turned cruel;
Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;
And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,
He played so truly.
Till, by error of his fate,
They all consented;
But viewing him since (alas! too late)
They have repented;
And have sought (to give new birth)
In baths to steep him!
But being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.
This child, we see, was celebrated for acting old men. It is well
known that, up to the Restoration, and sometimes afterwards, boys
performed the parts of women. Kynaston, when a boy, used to be taken
out by the ladies an airing, in his female dress after the play. This
custom of males appearing as females gave rise, in Shakspeare's time,
to the frequent introduction of female characters disguised; thus
presenting a singular anomaly, and a specimen of the gratuitous
imaginations of the spectators in those days; who, besides being
contented with taking the bare stage for a wood, a rock, or a garden,
as it happened, were to suppose a boy on the stage _to pretend to be
himself_.
One of the strangest of the old ceremonies, in which the clergy of the
cathedral used to figure, was that which was performed twice a year,
namely, on the day of the Commemoration and on that of the Conversion
of St. Paul. On the former of these festivals, a fat doe, and on the
latter, a fat buck, was presented to the Church by the family of Baud,
in consideration of some land which they held of the Dean and Chapter
at West Lee in Essex. The original agreement made with Sir William Le
Baud, in 1274, was, that he himself should attend in person with the
animals; but some years afterwards it was arranged that the
presentation should be made by a servant, accompanied by a deputation
of part of the family. The priests, however, continued to perform
their part in the show. When the deer was brought to the foot of the
steps leading to the choir, the reverend brethren appeared in a body
to receive it, dressed in their full pontifical robes, and having
their heads decorated with garlands of flowers. From thence they
accompanied it as the servant led it forward to the high altar, where
having been solemnly offered and slain, it was divided among the
residentiaries. The horns were then fastened to the top of a spear,
and carried in procession by the whole company around the inside of
the church, a noisy concert of horns regulating their march. This
ridiculous exhibition, which looks like a parody on the pagan
ceremonies of their predecessors the priests of Diana, was continued
by the cathedral clergy down to the time of Elizabeth.
The modern passenger through St. Paul's Churchyard has not only the
last home of Nelson and others to venerate, as he goes by. In the
ground of the old church were buried, and here, therefore, remains
whatever dust may survive them, the gallant Sir Philip Sydney (the
_beau ideal_ of the age of Elizabeth), and Vandyke, who immortalised
the youth and beauty of the court of Charles the First. One of
Elizabeth's great statesmen also lay there--Walsingham--who died so
poor, that he was buried by stealth, to prevent his body from being
arrested. Another, Sir Christopher Hatton, who is supposed to have
danced himself into the office of her Majesty's Chancellor,[29] had a
tomb which his contemporaries thought too magnificent, and which was
accused of "shouldering" the altar. There was an absurd epitaph upon
it, by which he would seem to have been a _dandy_ to the last.
Stay and behold the mirror of a dead man's house,
Whose lively person would have made thee stay and wonder.
* * * * *
When Nature moulded him, her thoughts were most on Mars;
And all the heavens to make him goodly were agreeing;
Thence he was valiant, active, strong, and passing comely;
And God did grace his mind and spirit with gifts excelling.
Nature commends her workmanship to Fortune's charge,
Fortune presents him to the court and queen,
Queen Eliz. (O God's dear handmayd) his most miracle.
_Now hearken, reader, raritie not heard or seen_;
This blessed Queen, mirror of all that Albion rul'd,
Gave favour to his faith, and precepts to his hopeful time;
First trained him in the stately band of pensioners;
* * * * *
And for her safety made him Captain of the Guard.
Now doth she prune this vine, and from her sacred breast
Lessons his life, makes wise his heart for her great councells,
And so, _Vice-Chamberlain_, where foreign princes eyes
Might well admire her choyce, wherein she most excels.
He then aspires, says the writer, to "the highest subject's seat," and
becomes
Lord Chancelour (measure and conscience of a holy king:)
_Robe_, _Collar_, _Garter_, dead figures of great honour,
Alms-deeds with faith, honest in word, frank in dispence,
The poor's friend, not popular, the church's pillar.
This tombe sheweth one, the heaven's shrine the other.[30]
The first line in italics, and the poetry throughout, are only to be
equalled by a passage in an epitaph we have met with on a Lady of the
name of Greenwood, of whom her husband says:--
"Her graces and her qualities were such
That she might have married a bishop or a judge;
But so extreme was her condescension and humility,
That she married _me_, a poor doctor of divinity;
_By which heroic deed_, she stands confest,
Of all other women, the phoenix of her sex."
Sir Christopher is said to have died of a broken heart, because his
once loving mistress exacted a debt of him which he found it difficult
to pay. It was common to talk of courtiers dying of broken hearts at
that time; which gives one an equal notion of the Queen's power, and
the servility of those gentlemen. Fletcher, Bishop of London, father
of the great poet, was another who had a tomb in the old church, and
is said to have undergone the same fate. It was he that did a thing
very unlike a poet's father. He attended the execution of Mary Queen
of Scots, and said aloud, when her head was held up by the
executioner, "So perish all Queen Elizabeth's enemies!" He was then
Dean of Peterborough. The Queen made him a bishop, but suspended him
for marrying a second wife, which so preyed upon his feelings, that it
is thought, by the help of an immoderate love of smoking, to have
hastened his end--a catastrophe worthy of a mean courtier. He was
well, sick, and dead, says Fuller, in a quarter of an hour. Most
probably he died of apoplexy, the tobacco giving him the _coup de
grace_.[31]
Dr. Donne, the head of the metaphysical poets, so well criticised by
Johnson, was Dean of St. Paul's, and had a grave here, of which he has
left an extraordinary memorial. It is a wooden image of himself, made
to his order, and representing him as he was to appear in his shroud.
This, for some time before he died, he kept by his bed-side in an open
coffin, thus endeavouring to reconcile an uneasy imagination to the
fate he could not avoid. It is still preserved in the vaults under the
church, and is to be seen with the other curiosities of the cathedral.
We will not do a great man such a disservice as to dig him up for a
spectacle. A man should be judged of at the time when he is most
himself, and not when he is about to consign his weak body to its
elements.
Of the events that have taken place connected with St. Paul's, one of
the most curious was a scene that passed in the old cathedral between
John of Gaunt and the Anti-Wickliffites. It made him very unpopular at
the time. Probably, if he had died just after it, his coffin would
have been torn to pieces; but subsequently he had a magnificent tomb
in the church, on which hung his crest and cap of state, together with
his lance and target. Perhaps the merits of the friend of Wickliff and
Chaucer are now as much overvalued. The scene is taken as follows, by
Mr. Brayley, out of Fox's Acts and Monuments.
"One of the most remarkable occurrences that ever took place
within the old cathedral was the attempt made, in 1376, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, under the
command of Pope Gregory the Eleventh, to compel Wickliff, the
father of the English Reformation, to subscribe to the
condemnation of some of his own tenets, which had been recently
promulgated in the eight articles that have been termed the
Lollards' Creed. The Pope had ordered the above prelates to
apprehend and examine Wickliff; but they thought it most
expedient to summon him to St. Paul's, as he was openly
protected by the famous John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and
that nobleman accompanied him to the examination, together with
the Lord Percy, Marshall of England. The proceedings were soon
interrupted by a dispute as to whether Wickliff should sit or
stand; and the following curious dialogue arose on the Lord
Percy desiring him to be seated:--
"_Bishop of London._--'If I could have guessed, Lord Percy,
that you would have played the master here, I would have
prevented your coming.'
"_Duke of Lancaster._--'Yes, he shall play the master here for
all you.'
"_Lord Percy._--'Wickliff, sit down! You have need of a seat,
for you have many things to say.'
"_Bishop of London._--'It is unreasonable that a clergyman,
cited before his ordinary, should sit during his answer. He
shall stand!'
"_Duke of Lancaster._--'My Lord Percy, you are in the right!
And for you, my Lord Bishop, you are grown so proud and
arrogant, I will take care to humble your pride; and not only
yours, my lord, but that of all the prelates in England. Thou
dependest upon the credit of thy relations; but so far from
being able to help thee, they shall have enough to do to
support themselves.'
"_Bishop of London._--'I place no confidence in my relations,
but in God alone, who will give me the boldness to speak the
truth.'
"_Duke of Lancaster_ (_speaking softly to Lord
Percy_).--'Rather than take this at the Bishop's hands, I will
drag him by the hair of the head out of the court!'"[32]
Old St. Paul's was much larger than now, and the churchyard was of
proportionate dimensions. The wall by which it was bounded ran along
by the present streets of Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row, Old Change,
Carter Lane, and Creed Lane; and therefore included a large space and
many buildings which are not now considered to be within the precincts
of the cathedral. This spacious area had grass inside, and contained a
variety of appendages to the establishment. One of these was the cross
which we have alluded to at the beginning of this chapter, and of
which Stow did not know the antiquity. It was called PAUL'S CROSS, and
stood on the north side of the church, a little to the east of the
entrance of Cannon Alley. It was around Paul's Cross, or rather in the
space to the east of it that the citizens were wont anciently to
assemble in Folkmote, or general convention--not only to elect their
magistrates and to deliberate on public affairs, but also, as it would
appear, to try offenders and award punishments. We read of meetings of
the Folkmote in the thirteenth century; but the custom was
discontinued, as the increasing number of the inhabitants, and the
mixture of strangers, were found to lead to confusion and tumult. In
after times the cross appears to have been used chiefly for
proclamations, and other public proceedings, civil as well as
ecclesiastical; such as the swearing of the citizens to allegiance,
the emission of papal bulls, the exposing of penitents, &c., "and for
the defaming of those," says Pennant, "who had incurred the
displeasure of crowned heads." A pulpit was attached to it, it was not
known when, in which sermons were preached, called Paul's Cross
Sermons, a name by which they continued to be known when they ceased
in the open air. Many benefactors contributed to support these
sermons. In Stow's time the pulpit was an hexagonal piece of wood,
"covered with lead, elevated upon a flight of stone steps, and
surmounted by a large cross." During rainy weather the poorer part of
the audience retreated to a covered place, called the shrowds, which
are supposed to have abutted on the church wall. The rest, including
the lord mayor and aldermen, most probably had shelter at all times;
and the King and his train (for they attended also) had covered
galleries.[33] Popular preachers were invited to hold forth in this
pulpit, but the Bishop was the inviter. In the reign of James the
First, the lord mayor and aldermen ordered, that every one who should
preach there, "considering the journies some of them might take from
the universities, or elsewhere, should at his pleasure be freely
entertained for five days' space, with sweet and convenient lodging,
fire, candle, and all other necessaries, viz., from Thursday before
their day of preaching, to Thursday morning following."[34] "This good
custom," says Maitland, "continued for some time. And the Bishop of
London, or his chaplain, when he sent to any one to preach, did
actually signify the place where he might repair at his coming up, and
be entertained freely." In earlier times a kind of inn seems to have
been kept for the entertainment of the preachers at Paul's Cross,
which went by the name of the _Shunamites' House_.
"Before the cross," says Pennant, "was brought, divested of all
splendour, Jane Shore, the charitable, the merry concubine of
Edward the Fourth, and, after his death, of his favourite, the
unfortunate Lord Hastings. After the loss of her protectors,
she fell a victim to the malice of crooked-backed _Richard_. He
was disappointed (by her excellent defence) of convicting her
of witchcraft, and confederating with her lover to destroy him.
He then attacked her on the weak side of frailty. This was
undeniable. He consigned her to the severity of the church: she
was carried to the Bishop's palace, clothed in a white sheet,
with a taper in her hand, and from thence conducted to the
cathedral and the cross, before which she made a confession of
her only fault. Every other virtue bloomed in this ill-fated
fair with the fullest vigour. She could not resist the
solicitations of a youthful monarch, the handsomest man of his
time. On his death she was reduced to necessity, scorned by the
world, and cast off by her husband, with whom she was paired in
her childish years, and forced to fling herself into the arms
of Hastings."
"In her penance she went," says Holinshed, "in countenance and
pace demure, so womanlie, that albeit she were out of all
araie, save her kertle onlie, yet went she so faire and
lovelie, namelie, while the wondering of the people cast a
comlie rud in her cheeks (of which she before had most misse),
that hir great shame wan hir much praise among those that were
more amorous of hir bodie, than curious of hir soule. And manie
good folks that hated her living (and glad were to see sin
corrected), yet pitied they more hir penance, than rejoiced
therein, when they considered that the Protector procured it
more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous affection."
"Rowe," continues Pennant, "has flung this part of her sad
story into the following poetical dress; but it is far from
possessing the moving simplicity of the old historian."[35]
Submissive, sad, and lonely was her look;
A burning taper in her hand she bore;
And on her shoulders, carelessly confused,
With loose neglect her lovely tresses hung;
Upon her cheek a faintish flush was spread;
Feeble she seemed, and sorely smit with pain;
While, barefoot as she trod the flinty pavement,
Her footsteps all along were marked with blood.
Yet silent still she passed, and unrepining;
Her streaming eyes bent ever on the earth,
Except when, in some bitter pang of sorrow,
To heaven she seemed, in fervent zeal, to raise,
And beg that mercy man denied her here.
"The poet has adopted the fable of her being denied all
sustenance, and of her perishing with hunger, but that was not
a fact. She lived to a great age, but in great distress and
miserable poverty; deserted even by those to whom she had,
during prosperity, done the most essential services. She
dragged a wretched life even to the time of Sir Thomas More,
who introduces her story in his Life of Richard the Third. The
beauty of her person is spoken of in high terms; 'Proper she
was, and faire; nothing in her body that you would have
changed, but if you would have wished her somewhat higher. Thus
sai they that knew hir in hir youth. Albeit, some that now see
hir, for she yet liveth, deem hir never to have been well
visaged. Now is she old, leane, withered, and dried up: nothing
left but shrivelled skin and hard bone; and yet, being even
such, whoso well advise her visage, might gesse and devise,
which parts how filled, would make it a faire face.'"[36]
To these pictures, which are all drawn with spirit, may be added a
portrait in the notes to Drayton's _Heroical Epistles_, referring to
the one by Sir Thomas More.
"Her stature," says the comment, "was mean; her hair of a dark
yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony
being betwixt each part's proportion, and each proportion's
colour; her body fat, white, and smooth; her countenance
cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have
seen of her, was such as she rose out of her bed in the
morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle, cast under her
arm, over her shoulder, and sitting in a chair on which her
naked arm did lie. What her father's name was, or where she was
born, is not certainly known; but Shore, a young man of right
goodly person, wealth, and behaviour, abandoned her bed, after
the King had made her his concubine."[37]
Richard, in the extreme consciousness of his being in the wrong, made
a sad bungling business of his first attempts on the throne. The
penance of Jane Shore was followed by Dr. Shawe's sermon at the same
cross, in which the servile preacher attempted to bastardise the
children of Edward, and to recommend the "legitimate" Richard, as the
express image of his father. Richard made his appearance, only to
witness the sullen silence of the spectators; and the doctor, arguing
more weakness than wickedness, took to his house, and soon after
died.[38]
In the reign of the Tudors, Paul's Cross was the scene of a very
remarkable series of contradictions. The government, under Henry the
Eighth, preached for and against the same doctrines in religion. Mary
furiously attempted to revive them; and they were finally denounced by
Elizabeth. Wolsey began, in 1521, with fulminating, by command of the
Pope, against "one Martin Eleutherius" (Luther). The denouncement was
made by Fisher (afterwards beheaded for denying the King's supremacy);
but Wolsey sate by, in his usual state, censed and canopied, with the
pope's ambassador on one side of him, and the emperor's on the other.
During the sermon a collection of Luther's books was burnt in the
churchyard; "which ended, my Lord Cardinal went home to dinner with
all the other prelates."[39] About ten years afterwards the preachers
at Paul's Cross received an order from the King to "teach and declare
to the people, that neither the pope, nor any of his predecessors,
were anything more than the simple Bishops of Rome." On the accession
of Mary, the discourses were ordered to veer directly round, which
produced two attempts to assassinate the preachers in sermon-time; and
the moment Elizabeth came to the throne, the divines began
recommending the very opposite tenets, and the pope was finally
rejected. At this Cross Elizabeth afterwards attended to hear a
thanksgiving sermon for the defeat of the Invincible Armada; on which
occasion a coach was first seen in England--the one she came in. The
last sermon attended there by the sovereign was during the reign of
her successor; but discourses continued to be delivered up to the time
of the Civil Wars, when, after being turned to account by the Puritans
for about a year, the pulpit was demolished by order of Parliament.
The "willing instrument" of the overthrow was Pennington, the
lord-mayor. The inhabitants who look out of their windows now-a-days
on the northern side of St. Paul's may thus have a succession of
pictures before their mind's eye, as curious and inconsistent as those
of a dream--princes, queens, lord-mayors, and aldermen,
A court of cobblers, and a mob of kings,
Jane's penance, Richard's chagrin, Wolsey's exaltation, clergymen
preaching for and against the pope; a coach coming as a wonder, where
coaches now throng at every one's service; and finally, a puritanical
lord-mayor, who "blasphemed custard," laying the axe to the tree, and
cutting down the pulpit and all its works.
The next appendage to the old church, in point of importance, was the
Bishop's or London House, the name of which survives in that of London
House Yard. This, with other buildings, perished in the Great Fire;
and on the site of it were built the houses now standing between the
yard just mentioned and the present Chapter House. The latter was
built by Wren. The old one stood on the other side of the cathedral,
where the modern deanery is to be found, only more eastward. The
bishop's house was often used for the reception of princes. Edward the
Third and his queen were entertained there after a great tournament in
Smithfield; and there poor little Edward the Fifth was lodged,
previously to his appointed coronation. To the east of the bishop's
house, stretching towards Cheapside, was a chapel, erected by the
father of Thomas Becket, called Pardon-Church-Haugh, which was
surrounded by a cloister, presenting a painting of the Dance of Death
on the walls, a subject rendered famous by Holbein.[40]
Another chapel called the Charnel, a proper neighbour to this
_fresco_, stood at the back of the two buildings just mentioned. It
received its name from the quantity of human bones collected from St.
Paul's Churchyard, and deposited in a vault beneath. The Charnel was
taken down by the Protector Somerset about 1549, and the stones were
employed in the building of the new palace of Somerset House. On this
occasion it is stated that more than a thousand cart-loads of bones
were removed to Finsbury Fields where they formed a large mount, on
which three windmills were erected. From these Windmill Street in that
neighbourhood derives its name. The ground on which the chapel stood
was afterwards built over with dwellings and warehouses, having sheds
before them for the use of stationers. Immediately to the north of St.
Paul's School, and towards the spot where the churchyard looks into
Cheapside, was a campanile, or bell-house; that is to say, a belfry,
forming a distinct building from the cathedral, such as it is
accustomed to be in Italy. It was by the ringing of this bell that the
people were anciently called together to the general assemblage,
called the Folkmote. The campanile was very high, and was won at dice
from King Henry the Eighth by Sir Miles Partridge, who took it down
and sold the materials. On the side of the cathedral directly the
reverse of this (the south-west), and forming a part of the great pile
of building, was the parish church of St. Gregory, over which was the
Lollards' Tower, or prison, infamous, like its namesake at Lambeth,
for the ill-treatment of heretics.
"This," says Brayley, on the authority of Fox's Martyrology,
"was the scene of at least one 'foul and midnight murder,'
perpetrated in 1514, on a respectable citizen, named Richard
Hunne, by Dr. Horsey, chancellor of the diocese, with the
assistance of a bell-ringer, and afterwards defended by the
Bishop Fitz-James and the whole body of prelates, who protected
the murderers from punishment, lest the clergy should become
amenable to civil jurisdiction. Though the villains, through
this interference, escaped without corporal suffering, the King
ordered them to pay 1,500_l._ to the children of the deceased,
in restitution of what he himself styles the 'cruel
murder.'"[41]
The clergy, with almost incredible audacity, afterwards commenced a
process against the dead body of Hunne for heresy; and, having
obtained its condemnation, they actually burned it in Smithfield. The
Lollards' Tower continued to be used as a prison for heretics for some
time after the Reformation. Stow tells us that he recollected one
Peter Burchet, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, being committed to
this prison, on suspicion of holding certain erroneous opinions, in
1573. This, however, is, we believe, the last case of the kind that is
recorded.
It remains to say a word of St. Paul's School, founded, as we have
already mentioned, by Dean Colet, and destined to become the most
illustrious of all the buildings on the spot, in giving education to
Milton. We have dwelt more upon the localities of St. Paul's
Churchyard than it is our intention to do on others. The dignity of
the birth-place of the metropolis beguiled us; and the events recorded
to have taken place in it are of real interest. Milton was not the
only person of celebrity educated at this school. Bentley, his critic,
was probably induced by the like circumstance to turn his unfortunate
attention to the poet's epic in after life, and make those gratuitous
massacres of the text, which give a profound scholar the air of the
most presumptuous of coxcombs. Here also Camden received part of his
education; and here were brought up, Leland, his brother antiquary,
the Gales (Charles, Roger, and Samuel), all celebrated antiquaries;
Sir Anthony Denny, the only man who had the courage and honesty to
tell Henry the Eighth that he was dying; Halley, the astronomer;
Bishop Cumberland, the great grandfather of the dramatist; Pepys, who
has lately obtained so curious a celebrity, as an annalist of the
court of Charles the Second; and last, not least, one in whom a
learned education would be as little looked for as in Pepys, if we are
to trust the stories of the times, to wit, John Duke of Marlborough.
Barnes was laughed at for dedicating his _Anacreon_ to the duke, as
one to whom Greek was unheard of; and it has been related as a slur on
the great general (though assuredly it is not so), that having alluded
on some occasion to a passage in history, and being asked where he
found it, he confessed that his authority was the only historian he
was acquainted with, namely, William Shakspeare.
Less is known of Milton during the time he passed at St. Paul's
School, than of any other period of his life. It is ascertained,
however, that he cultivated the writing of Greek verses, and was a
great favourite with the usher, afterwards master, Alexander Gill,
himself a Latin poet of celebrity. At the back of the old church was
an enormous rose-window, which we may imagine the young poet to have
contemplated with delight, in his fondness for ornaments of that cast;
and the whole building was calculated to impress a mind, more
disposed, at that time of life, to admire as a poet, than to quarrel
as a critic or a sectary. Gill, unluckily for himself, was not so
catholic. Some say he was suspended from his mastership for severity;
a quality which he must have carried to a great pitch, for that age to
find fault with it; but from an answer written by Ben Johnson to a
fragment of a satire of Gill's, it is more likely he got into trouble
for libels against the court. Aubrey says, that the old doctor, his
father, was once obliged to go on his knees to get the young doctor
pardoned, and that the offence consisted in his having written a
letter, in which he designated King James and his son, as the "old
foole and the young one." There are letters written in early life from
Milton to Gill, full of regard and esteem; nor is it likely that the
regard was diminished by Gill's petulance against the Court. In one of
the letters, it is pleasant to hear the poet saying, "Farewell, and on
Tuesday next expect me in London, among the booksellers."[42]
The parliamentary soldiers annoyed the inhabitants of the churchyard,
by playing at nine-pins at unseasonable hours--a strange misdemeanour
for that "church militant." They hastened also the destruction of the
cathedral. Some scaffolding, set up for repairs, had been given them
for arrears of pay. They dug pits in the body of the church to saw the
timber in; and they removed the scaffolding with so little caution,
that great part of the vaulting fell in, and lay a heap of ruins. The
east end only, and a part of the choir continued to be used for public
worship, a brick wall being raised to separate this portion from the
rest of the building, and the congregation entering and getting out
through one of the north windows. Another part of the church was
converted into barracks and stables for the dragoons. As for Inigo
Jones's lofty and beautiful portico, it was turned into "shops," says
Maitland, "for milliners and others, with rooms over them for the
convenience of lodging; at the erection of which the magnificent
columns were piteously mangled, being obliged to make way for the ends
of beams, which penetrated their centres."[43] The statues on the top
were thrown down and broken to pieces.
We have noticed the lucky necessity for a new church, occasioned by
the Great Fire. An attempt was at first made to repair the old
building--the work, as we have already mentioned, being committed to
the charge of Sir John Denham (the poet), his Majesty's
surveyor-general. But it was eventually found necessary to commence a
new edifice from the foundation. Sir Christopher Wren, who
accomplished this task, had been before employed in superintending the
repairs, and was appointed head surveyor of the works in 1669, on the
demise of Denham. Unfortunately, he had great and ungenerous trouble
given him in the erection of the new structure; and, after all, he did
not build it as he wished. His taste was not understood, either by
court or clergy; he was envied (and towards the close of his life
ousted) by inferior workmen; was forced to make use of two orders
instead of one, that is to say, to divide the sides and front into two
separate elevations, instead of running them up and dignifying them
with pillars of the whole height; and during the whole work, which
occupied a great many years, and took up a considerable and anxious
portion of his time, not unattended with personal hazard, all the pay
which he was then, or ever to expect, was a pittance of two hundred
a-year. A moiety of this driblet was for some time actually suspended,
till the building should be finished; and for the arrears of it he was
forced to petition the government of Queen Anne, and then only
obtained them under circumstances of the most unhandsome delay. Wren,
however, was a philosopher and a patriot; and if he underwent the
mortification attendent on philosophers and patriots, for offending
the self-love of the shallow, he knew how to act up to the spirit of
those venerable names, in the interior of a mind as elevated and
well-composed as his own architecture. Some pangs he felt, because he
was a man of humanity, and could not disdain his fellow-creatures; but
he was more troubled for the losses of the art than his own. He is
said actually to have shed tears when compelled to deform his
cathedral with the side aisles--some say in compliance with the will
of the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, who anticipated the
use of them for the restoration of the old Catholic chapels. Money he
despised, except for the demands of his family, consenting to receive
a hundred a-year for rebuilding such of the city churches (a
considerable number) as were destroyed by the fire! And when finally
ousted from his office of surveyor-general, he said with the ancient
sage, "Well, I must philosophise a little sooner than I intended."
(_Nunc me jubet fortuna expeditius philosophari_). The Duchess of
Marlborough, in resisting the claims of one of her Blenheim surveyors,
said, "that Sir C. Wren was content to be dragged up in a basket three
times a-week to the top of St. Paul's, at a great hazard, for 200_l._
a-year." But, as a writer of his life has remarked, she was perhaps
"little capable of drawing any nice distinction between the feelings
of the hired surveyor of Blenheim, and those of our architect, in the
contemplation of the rising of the fabric which his vast genius was
calling into existence: her notions led her to estimate the matter by
the simple process of the rule of three direct; and on this principle
she had good reason to complain of the surveyor."[44] The same writer
tells us, that Wren's principal enjoyment during the remainder of his
life, consisted in his being "carried once a year to see his great
work;" "the beginning and completion of which," observes Walpole, "was
an event which, one could not wonder, left such an impression of
content on the mind of the good old man, that it seemed to recall a
memory almost deadened to every other use." The epitaph upon him by
his son, which Mr. Mylne, the architect of Blackfriars' bridge, caused
to be rescued from the vaults underneath the church, where it was
ludicrously inapplicable, and placed in gold letters over the choir,
has a real sublimity in it, though defaced by one of those plays upon
words, which were the taste of the times in the architect's youth, and
which his family perhaps had learnt to admire.
Subtus _conditur_
Hujus ecclesiæ et urbis _conditor_
Ch. Wren,
Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta,
Non sibi sed bono publico.
Lector, si monumentum requiris,
Circumspice.
We cannot preserve the pun in English, unless, perhaps, by some such
rendering as, "Here found a grave the founder of this church;" or
"Underneath is founded the tomb," &c. The rest is admirable:
"Who lived to the age of upwards of ninety years,
Not for himself, but for the public good.
Reader, if thou seekest his monument,
Look around."
The reader _does_ look around, and the whole interior of the
cathedral, which is finer than the outside, seems like a magnificent
vault over his single body. The effect is very grand, especially if
the organ is playing. A similar one, as far as the music is concerned,
is observable when we contemplate the statues of Nelson and others.
The grand repose of the church, in the first instance, gives them a
mortal dignity, which the organ seems to waken up and revive, as if in
the midst of the
"Pomp and threatening harmony,"[45]
their spirits almost looked out of their stony and sightless eyeballs.
Johnson's ponderous figure looks down upon us with something of
sourness in the expression; and in the presence of Howard we feel as
if pomp itself were in attendance on humanity. It is a pity that the
sculpture of the monuments in general is not worthy of these emotions,
and tends to undo them.
A poor statue of Queen Anne, in whose reign the church was finished,
stands in the middle of the front area, with the figures of Britain,
France, Ireland, and America, round the base. Garth, who was a Whig,
and angry with the councils which had dismissed his hero Marlborough,
wrote some bitter lines upon it, which must have had double effect,
coming from so good-natured a man.
Near the vast bulk of that stupendous frame,
Known by the Gentiles' great apostle's name,
With grace divine great Anna's seen to rise,
An awful form that glads a nation's eyes:
Beneath her feet four mighty realms appear,
And with due reverence pay their homage there.
Britain and Ireland seem to own her grace,
And e'en wild India wears a smiling face.
But France alone with downcast eyes is seen,
The sad attendant on so good a queen.
Ungrateful country! to forget so soon
All that great Anna for thy sake has done,
When sworn the kind defender of thy cause,
Spite of her dear religion, spite of laws,
For thee she sheath'd the terrors of her sword,
For thee she broke her gen'ral--and her word:
For thee her mind in doubtful terms she told,
And learn'd to speak like oracles of old:
For thee, for thee alone, what could she more?
She lost the honour she had gain'd before;
Lost all the trophies which her arms had won,
(Such Cæsar never knew, nor Philip's son;)
Resign'd the glories of a ten years' reign,
And such as none but Marlborough's arm could gain:
For thee in annals she's content to shine,
Like other monarchs of the Stuart line.
Many irreverent remarks were also made by the coarser wits of the day,
in reference to the position of her Majesty, with her back to the
church and her face to a brandy shop, which was then kept in that part
of the churchyard. The calumny was worthy of the coarseness. Anne, who
was not a very clever woman, had a difficult task to perform; and
though we differ with her politics, we cannot, even at this distance
of time, help expressing our disgust at personalities like these,
especially against a female.
[Illustration: PAUL'S CROSS.]
FOOTNOTES:
[14] Parentalia, p. 290, quoted in the work next mentioned.
[15] Brayley's London and Middlesex, vol. i. p. 87.
[16] Parentalia, p. 27.
[17] Survey of London, p. 262. First edition.
[18] Fine Arts of the English School, quoted in Brayley, vol. ii. p.
217.
[19] Londinium Redivivum, iii., p. 134.
[20] Londinium Redivivum, iii., p. 81.
[21] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iii., pp. 71, 73.
[22] Moser, in the European Magazine, July, 1807.
[23] Poems. Gilchrist's edition, 1807, p. 5.
[24] Microcosmographie, quoted in Pennant.
[25] Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the
Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 281.
[26] London and Middlesex, vol. ii., p. 229.
[27] Ancient Mysteries described, &c., 1823, p. 195.
[28] _Purvey'd_ is the word of Mr. Chalmers; who says, however, that
he knows not on what principle the right of "purveying such children"
was justified, "except by the maxim that the king had a right to the
services of all his subjects." See Johnson and Steeven's Shakspeare,
Prolegomena, vol. ii., p. 516.
[29]
"His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat, and satin doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's queen,
Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."--GRAY.
[30] Maitland's History of London, vol. ii., p. 1170.
[31] The Bishop's second wife was a Lady Baker, who is said, by Mr.
Brayley, to have been young as well as beautiful, and probably did not
add to the prelate's repose.
[32] London and Middlesex, vol. ii., p. 231.
[33] The active habits of our ancestors enabled them to bear these
out-of-door sermons better than their posterity could; yet, as times
grew less hardy, they began to have consequences which Bishop Latimer
attributed to another cause. "The citizens of Raim," said he, in a
sermon preached in Lincolnshire, in the year 1552, "had their
burying-place without the city, which, no doubt, is a laudable thing;
and I do marvel that London, being so great a city, hath not a
burial-place without, for no doubt it is an unwholesome thing to bury
within the city, especially at such a time when there be great
sickness, and many die together. I think, verily, that many a man
taketh his death in Paul's Churchyard, and this I speak of experience;
for I myself, when I have been there on some mornings to hear the
sermons, have felt such an ill-savoured unwholesome savour, that I was
the worse for it a great while after; and I think no less, but it is
the occasion of great sickness and disease."--Brayley, vol. ii., p.
315. After all, the Bishop may have been right in attributing the
sickness to the cemetery. We have seen frightful probabilities of the
same kind in our own time; and nothing can be more sensible than what
he says of burial-grounds in cities.
[34] Maitland, vol. ii., p. 949.
[35] The reader, perhaps, will agree with us in thinking, that the
last three lines of this poetry are unworthy of the rest, and put Jane
in a theatrical attitude which she would not have effected.
[36] Some account of London, third edition, p. 394.
[37] Chalmers's British Poets, vol. iv., p. 91.
[38] "After which, once ended," says Stow, "the preacher gat him home,
and never after durst look out for shame, but kept him out of sight
like an owle; and when he once asked one that had been his olde
friende, what the people talked of him, all were it that his own
conscience well shewed him that they talked no good, yet when the
other answered him, that there was in every man's mouth spoken of him
much shame, it so strake him to the hart, that in a few daies after,
he withered, and consumed away."--Brayley, vol. i., p. 312.
[39] From a MS. in the British Museum, quoted by Brayley, vol. ii., p.
312.
[40] A Dance of Death (for the subject was often repeated) is a
procession of the various ranks of life, from the pope to the peasant,
each led by a skeleton for his partner. Holbein enlarged it by the
addition of a series of visits privately paid by Death to the
individuals. The figurantes, in his work, by no means go down the
dance "with an air of despondency." The human beings are unconscious
of their partners (which is fine); and the Deaths are as jolly as
skeletons well can be.
[41] Brayley, vol. ii., p. 320.
[42] See Todd's Milton, vol. vii.; Aubrey's Letters and Lives; and Ben
Jonson's Poems. Gill's specimen of a satire is very bad, and the great
laureate's answer is not much better. The first couplet of the latter,
however, is to the purpose:--
"Shall the prosperity of a pardon still
Secure thy railing rhymes, infamous Gill?"
[43] History of London, vol. ii., p. 1166.
[44] Life of Sir Christopher Wren, in the Library of Useful Knowledge,
No. 24, p. 27.
[45] Wordsworth.