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.
We remember, in our boyhood, a romantic story of a church that stood
under St. Paul's. We conceived of it, as of a real good-sized church
actually standing under the other; but how it came there nobody could
imagine. It was some ghostly edification of providence, not lightly to
be inquired into; but as its name was St. Faith's, we conjectured that
the mystery had something to do with religious belief. The mysteries
of art do not remain with us for life, like those of Nature. Our
phenomenon amounted to this:
"The church of St. Faith," says Brayley, "was originally a
distinct building, standing near the east end of St. Paul's;
but when the old cathedral was enlarged, between the years 1256
and 1312, it was taken down, and an extensive part of the
vaults was appropriated to the use of the parishioners of St.
Faith's, in lieu of the demolished fabric. This was afterwards
called the church of St. Faith in the Crypts (_Ecclesia Sanctæ
Fidei in Cryptis_) and, according to a representation made to
the Dean and Chapter, in the year 1735, it measured 180 feet in
length, and 80 in breadth. After the fire of London, the parish
of St. Faith was joined to that of St. Augustine; and on the
rebuilding of the cathedral, a portion of the churchyard
belonging to the former was taken to enlarge the avenue round
the east end of St. Paul's, and the remainder was inclosed
within the cathedral railing."[46]
The parishioners of St. Faith have still liberty to bury their dead in
certain parts of the churchyard and the Crypts. Other portions of the
latter have been used as storehouses for wine, stationery, &c. The
stationers and booksellers of London, during the fire, thought they
had secured a great quantity of their stock in this place; but on the
air being admitted when they went to take them out, the goods had been
so heated by the conflagration of the church overhead, that they took
fire at last, and the whole property was destroyed. Clarendon says it
amounted to the value of two hundred thousand pounds.[47]
One of the houses on the site of the old episcopal mansion, now
converted into premises occupied by Mr. Hitchcock the linendraper, was
Mr. Johnson's the bookseller--a man who deserves mention for his
liberality to Cowper, and for the remarkable circumstance of his never
having seen the poet, though his intercourse with him was long and
cordial. Mr. Johnson was in connection with a circle of men of
letters, some of whom were in the habit of dining with him once a
week, and who comprised the leading polite writers of the
generation--Cowper, Darwin, Hayley, Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld, Godwin,
&c. Fuseli must not be omitted, who was at least as good a writer as a
painter. Here Bonnycastle hung his long face over his plate, as glad
to escape from arithmetic into his jokes and his social dinner as a
great boy; and here Wordsworth, and we believe Coleridge, published
their earliest performances. At all events they both visited at the
house.
But the most illustrious of all booksellers in our boyish days, not
for his great names, not for his dinners, not for his riches that we
know of, nor for any other full-grown celebrity, but for certain
little penny books, radiant with gold and rich with bad pictures, was
Mr. Newberry, the famous children's bookseller, "at the corner of St.
Paul's churchyard," next Ludgate Street. The house is still occupied
by a successor, and children may have books there as formerly--but not
the same. The gilding, we confess, we regret: gold, somehow, never
looked so well as in adorning literature. The pictures also--may we
own that we preferred the uncouth coats, the staring blotted eyes, and
round pieces of rope for hats, of our very badly drawn contemporaries,
to all the proprieties of modern embellishment? We own the superiority
of the latter, and would have it proceed and prosper; but a boy of our
own time was much, though his coat looked like his grandfather's. The
engravings probably were of that date. Enormous, however, is the
improvement upon the morals of these little books; and there we give
them up, and with unmitigated delight. The good little boy, the hero
of the infant literature in those days, stood, it must be
acknowledged, the chance of being a very selfish man. His virtue
consisted in being different from some other little boy, perhaps his
brother; and his reward was having a fine coach to ride in, and being
a King Pepin. Now-a-days, since the world has had a great moral
earthquake that set it thinking, the little boy promises to be much
more of a man; thinks of others, as well as works for himself; and
looks for his reward to a character for good sense and beneficence. In
no respect is the progress of the age more visible, or more
importantly so, than in this apparently trifling matter. The most
bigoted opponents of a rational education are obliged to adopt a
portion of its spirit, in order to retain a hold which their own
teaching must accordingly undo: and if the times were not full of
hopes in other respects, we should point to this evidence of their
advancement, and be content with it.
One of the most pernicious mistakes of the old children's books, was
the inculcation of a spirit of revenge and cruelty in the tragic
examples which were intended to deter their readers from idleness and
disobedience. One, if he did not behave himself, was to be
shipwrecked, and eaten by lions; another to become a criminal, who was
not to be taught better, but rendered a mere wicked contrast to the
luckier virtue; and, above all, none were to be poor but the vicious,
and none to ride in their coaches but little Sir Charles Grandisons,
and all-perfect Sheriffs. We need not say how contrary this was to the
real spirit of Christianity, which, at the same time, they so much
insisted on. The perplexity in after life, when reading of poor
philosophers and rich vicious men, was in proportion; or rather virtue
and mere worldly success became confounded. In the present day, the
profitableness of good conduct is still inculcated, but in a sounder
spirit. Charity makes the proper allowance for all; and none are
excluded from the hope of being wiser and happier. Men, in short are
not taught to love and labour for themselves alone or for their little
dark corners of egotism; but to take the world along with them into a
brighter sky of improvement; and to discern the want of success in
success itself, if not accompanied by a liberal knowledge.
The _Seven Champions of Christendom_, _Valentine and Orson_, and other
books of the fictitious class, which have survived their more rational
brethren (as the latter thought themselves), are of a much better
order, and, indeed, survive by a natural instinct in society to that
effect. With many absurdities, they have a general tone of manly and
social virtue, which may be safely left to itself. The absurdities
wear out and the good remains. Nobody in these times will think of
meeting giants and dragons; of giving blows that confound an army, or
tearing the hearts out of two lions on each side of him, as easily as
if he were dipping his hands into a lottery. But there are still
giants and wild beasts to encounter, of another sort, the conquest of
which requires the old enthusiasm and disinterestedness; arms and war
are to be checked in their career, and have been so, by that new might
of opinion to which every body may contribute much in his single
voice; and wild men, or those who would become so, are tamed, by
education and brotherly kindness, into ornaments of civil life.
The neighbourhood of St. Paul's retains a variety of appellations
indicative of its former connection with the church. There is Creed
Lane, Ave-Maria Lane, Sermon Lane[48], Canon Alley, Pater-Noster Row,
Holiday Court, Amen Corner, &c. Members of the Cathedral establishment
still have abodes in some of these places, particularly in Amen
Corner, which is enclosed with gates, and appropriated to the houses
of prebendaries and canons. Close to Sermon Lane is Do-little Lane; a
vicinity which must have furnished jokes to the Puritans. Addle Street
is an ungrateful corruption of Athelstan Street, so called from one of
the most respectable of the Saxon kings, who had a palace in it.
We have omitted to notice a curious passage in Swift, in which he
abuses himself for going to the top of St. Paul's. "To-day," says he,
writing to Stella, "I was all about St. Paul's, and up at the top like
a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountain, and two more; and spent seven
shillings for my dinner, like a puppy." "This," adds the doctor, "is
the second time he has served me so: but I will never do it again,
though all mankind should persuade me--unconsidering puppies!"[49] The
being forced by richer people than one's self to spend money at a
tavern might reasonably be lamented; but from the top of St. Paul's
Swift beheld a spectacle, which surely was not unworthy of his
attention; perhaps it affected him too much. The author of Gulliver
might have taken from it his notions of little bustling humankind.
Dr. Johnson frequently attended public worship in St. Paul's. Very
different must his look have been, in turning into the chancel, from
the threatening and trampling aspect they have given him in his
statue. We do not quarrel with his aspect; there is a great deal of
character in it. But the contrast, considering the place, is curious.
A little before his death, when bodily decay made him less patient
than ever of contradiction, he instituted a club at the Queen's Arms,
in St. Paul's Churchyard. "He told Mr. Hook," says Boswell, "That he
wished to have a _City Club_, and asked him to collect one; but, said
he, don't let them be patriots."[50] (This was an allusion to the
friends of his acquaintance Wilkes.) Boswell accompanied him one day
to the club, and found the members "very sensible well-behaved men:"
that is to say Hook had collected a body of decent listeners. This,
however, is melancholy. In the next chapter we shall see Johnson in
all his glory.
St. Paul's Churchyard appears as if it were only a great commercial
thoroughfare; but if all the clergy could be seen at once, who have
abodes in the neighbourhood, they would be found to constitute a
numerous body. If to the sable coats of these gentlemen be added those
of the practisers of the civil law, who were formerly allied to them,
and who live in Doctors' Commons, the churchyard increases the clerkly
part of its aspect. It resumes, to the imagination, something of the
learned and collegiate look it had of old. Paternoster Row is said to
have been so called on account of the number of Stationers or
Text-writers that dwelt there, who dealt much in religious books, and
sold horn-books, or A B C's, with the Paternoster, Ave-Maria, Creed,
Graces, &c. And so of the other places above-named. But it is more
likely that this particular street (as indeed we are told) was named
from the rosary or paternoster-makers; for so they were called, as
appears by a record of "one Robert Nikke, a paternoster-maker and
citizen, in the reign of Henry the Fourth."
It is curious to reflect what a change has taken place in this
celebrated _book-street_, since nothing was sold there but rosaries.
It is but rarely the word Paternoster-Row strikes us as having a
reference to the Latin Prayer. We think of booksellers' shops, and of
all the learning and knowledge they have sent forth. The books of
Luther, which Henry the Eighth burnt in the neighbouring churchyard,
were turned into millions of volumes, partly by reason of that
burning.
Paternoster-Row, however, has not been exclusively in possession of
the booksellers, since it lost its original tenants, the
rosary-makers. Indeed it would appear to have been only in
comparatively recent times that the booksellers fixed themselves
there. They had for a long while been established in St. Paul's
Churchyard, but scarcely in the Row, till after the commencement of
the last century.
"This street," says Maitland, writing in 1720, "before the fire
of London, was taken up by eminent mercers, silkmen, and
lacemen; and their shops were so resorted unto by the nobility
and gentry in their coaches, that ofttimes the street was so
stopped up, that there was no passage for foot passengers. But
since the said fire, those eminent tradesmen have settled
themselves in several other parts; especially in Ludgate
Street, and in Bedford Street, Henrietta Street, and King
Street, Covent Garden. And the inhabitants in this street are
now a mixture of tradespeople, such as tire-women, or
milliners, for the sale of top-knots, and the like dressings
for the females."
In a subsequent edition of his history, published in 1755, it is
added, "There are now many shops of mercers, silkmen, eminent
printers, booksellers, and publishers."[51] The most easterly of the
narrow and partly covered passages between Newgate Street and
Paternoster Row is that called Panyer's Alley, remarkable for a stone
built into the wall of one of the houses on the east side, supporting
the figures of a pannier or wicker basket, surmounted by a boy, and
exhibiting the following inscription:--
"When you have sought the city round,
Yet still this is the highest ground."
We cannot say if absolute faith is to be put in this asseveration; but
it is possible. It has been said that the top of St. Paul's is on a
level with that of Hampstead.
We look back a moment between Paternoster Row and the churchyard, to
observe, that the only memorial remaining of the residence of the
Bishop of London is a tablet in London-House Yard, let into the wall
of the public house called the Goose and Gridiron. The Goose and
Gridiron is said by tradition to have been what was called in the last
century a "music house;" that is to say, a place of entertainment with
music. When it ceased to be musical, a landlord, in ridicule of its
former pretensions, chose for his sign "a goose stroking the bars of a
gridiron with his foot," and called it the Swan and Harp.[52]
Between Amen Corner and Ludgate Street, at the end of a passage from
Ave-Maria Lane, "stood a great house of stone and wood, belonging in
old time to John, Duke of Bretagne, and Earl of Richmond, cotemporary
with Edward II. and III. After him it was possessed by the Earls of
Pembroke, in the time of Richard II. and Henry IV., and was called
Pembroke's Inn, near Ludgate. It then fell into the possession of the
title of Abergavenny, and was called Burgavenny House, under which
circumstances it remained in the time of Elizabeth. To finish the
anti-climax," says Pennant, "it was finally possessed by the Company
of Stationers, who rebuilt it of wood, and made it their Hall. It was
destroyed by the Great Fire, and was succeeded by the present plain
building."[53] Of the once-powerful possessors of the old mansion
nothing now is remembered, or cared for; but in the interior of the
modern building are to be seen, looking almost as if they were alive,
and as if we knew them personally, the immortal faces of Steele and
Richardson, Prior in his cap, and Dr. Hoadley, a liberal bishop. There
is also Mrs. Richardson, the wife of the novelist, looking as prim and
particular as if she had been just chucked under the chin; and Robert
Nelson, Esq., supposed author of the Whole Duty of Man, and prototype
of Sir Charles Grandison, as regular and passionless in his face as if
he had been made only to wear his wig. The same is not to be said of
the face of Steele, with his black eyes and social aspect; and still
less of Richardson, who, instead of being the smooth, satisfied-looking
personage he is represented in some engravings of him (which makes his
heartrending romance appear unaccountable and cruel), has a face as
uneasy as can well be conceived--flushed and shattered with emotion.
We recognise the sensitive, enduring man, such as he really was--a
heap of bad nerves. It is worth anybody's while to go to Stationers'
Hall, on purpose to see these portraits. They are not of the first
order as portraits, but evident likenesses. Hoadley looks at once
jovial and decided, like a good-natured controversialist. Prior is not
so pleasant as in his prints; his nose is a little aquiline, instead
of turned up; and his features, though delicate, not so liberal. But
if he has not the best look of his poetry, he has the worst. He seems
as if he had been sitting up all night; his eyelids droop: and his
whole face is used with rakery.
It is impossible to see Prior and Steele together, without regretting
that they quarrelled: but as they did quarrel, it was fit that Prior
should be in the wrong. From a Whig he had become a Tory, and showed
that his change was not quite what it ought to have been, by avoiding
the men with whom he had associated, and writing contemptuously of his
fellow wits. All the men of letters, whose portraits are in this hall,
were, doubtless, intimate with the premises, and partakers of
Stationers' dinners. Richardson was Master of the Company. Morphew, a
bookseller in the neighbourhood, was one of the publishers of the
_Tatler_; and concerts as well as festive dinners used to take place
in the great room, of both of which entertainments Steele was fond. It
was here, if we mistake not, that one of the inferior officers of the
Company, a humourist on sufferance, came in, one day, on his knees, at
an anniversary dinner when Bishop Hoadley was present, in order to
drink to the "Glorious Memory."[54] The company, Steele included, were
pretty far gone; Hoadley had remained as long as he well could; and
the genuflector was drunk. Steele, seeing the Bishop a little
disconcerted, whispered him, "Do laugh, my lord; pray laugh:--'tis
_humanity_ to laugh." The good-natured prelate acquiesced. Next day,
Steele sent him a penitential letter, with the following couplet:--
Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits,
All faults he pardons, though he none commits.
The most illustrious musical performance that ever took place in the
hall was that of Dryden's Ode. A society for the annual commemoration
of St. Cecilia, the patroness of music, was instituted in the year
1680, not without an eye perhaps to the religious opinions of the heir
presumptive who was shortly to ascend the throne as James the Second.
An ode was written every year for the occasion, and set to music by
some eminent composer; and the performance of it was followed by a
grand dinner. In 1687, Dryden contributed his first ode, entitled, "A
Song for Saint Cecilia's Day," in which there are finer things than in
any part of the other, though as a whole it is not so striking. Ten
years afterwards it was followed by "Alexander's Feast," the dinner,
perhaps, being a part of the inspiration. Poor Jeremiah Clarke, who
shot himself for love, was the composer.[55] This is the ode with the
composition of which Bolingbroke is said to have found Dryden in a
state of emotion one morning, the whole night having been passed,
_agitante deo_, under the fever of inspiration.
From Stationers' Hall once issued all the almanacks that were
published, with all the trash and superstition they kept alive.
Francis Moore is still among their "living dead men." Francis must now
be a posthumous old gentleman, of at least one hundred and fifty years
of age. The first blunder the writers of these books committed, in
their cunning, was the having to do with the state of the weather;
their next was to think that the grandmothers of the last century were
as immortal as their title-pages, and that nobody was getting wiser
than themselves. The mysterious solemnity of their hieroglyphics,
bringing heaven and earth together, like a vision in the Apocalypse,
was imposing to the nurse and the child; and the bashfulness of their
bodily sympathies no less attractive. We remember the astonishment of
a worthy seaman, some years ago, at the claim which they put into the
mouth of the sign Virgo. The monopoly is now gone; almanacks have been
forced into improvement by emulation; and the Stationers (naturally
enough at the moment) are angry about it. This fit of ill humour will
pass; and a body of men, interested by their very trade in the
progress of liberal knowledge, will by and by join the laugh at the
tenderness they evinced in behalf of old wives' fables. It is
observable, that their friend Bickerstaff (Steele's assumed name in
the _Tatler_) was the first to begin the joke against them.
Knight-Riders' Street (Great and Little), on the south side of St.
Paul's Churchyard, is said to have been named from the processions of
Knights from the Tower to their place of tournament in Smithfield. It
must have been a round-about way. Probably the name originated in
nothing more than a sign, or from some reference to the Heralds'
College in the neighbourhood. The open space, we may here notice,
around the western extremity of the Cathedral, was anciently used by
the citizens for assembling together "to make shew of their arms," or
to hold what was called among the Scotch "a _weapon shaw_." A
complaint was made by the Lord Mayor and the Ward, in the reign of
Edward I., against the Dean and Chapter for having inclosed this
ground, which they insisted was "the soil and lay-fee of our lord the
King," by a mud wall, and covered part of it with buildings.[56] The
houses immediately to the west of Creed Lane and Ave-Maria Lane
probably occupy part of the space in question.
Behind Great Knight-Riders' Street is Doctors' Commons, so called from
the Doctors of Civil Law who dined together four days in each term.
The Court of Admiralty is also there. The Admiralty judge is preceded
by an officer with a silver oar. There is something pleasing in the
parade of a civil officer, thus announced by a symbol representing the
regulation of the most turbulent of elements.
The civil and ecclesiastical lawyers, who connect the law with the
church, had formerly much more to do than they have at present. The
proctors (or attorneys) are said to have been so numerous and so noisy
in the time of Henry VII., that the judge sometimes could not be heard
for them. They thrust themselves into causes without the parties'
consent, and shouldered the advocates out of their business. The
diminution of their body was owing to Cranmer. Doctors' Commons are of
painful celebrity in the annals of domestic trouble. We have hardly
perhaps among us a remnant of greater barbarism than "an action for
damages,"[57] whether considered with a view to recompense or
prevention. Doctors' Commons bind as well as set loose. "Hence
originates," says the facetious Mr. Malcolm, "the awful scrap of
parchment, bearing the talismanic mark of _John Cantuar_ (the
Archbishop of Canterbury), which constitutes thousands of Benedicts
the happiest or most miserable of married men: in short, it is the
grand lottery of life, in which, fortunately, there are far more
prizes than blanks."[58] The community ought to be thankful to Mr.
Malcolm for this last piece of information, as there is a splenetic
notion among them to the contrary.
A history deeply interesting to human nature might be drawn up from
the documents preserved in this place; for besides cases of personal
infidelity, here are to be found others of _infidelity religious_, of
blasphemy, simony, &c., together with romantic questions relative to
kindred and succession; and here are deposited those last specimens of
human strength or weakness--last wills and testaments, together with
cases in which they have been contested. It was these records that
furnished us with accounts of the latest days of Milton; and that set
the readers of Shakspeare speculating why he should make no mention of
his wife, except to leave her his "second best bed;"--a question most
unexpectedly as well as happily cleared up by Mr. Charles Knight, who
shows that the bequest was to the lady's honour. Of the practisers in
the civil courts, we can call to mind nothing more worthy of
recollection than the strange name of one of them, "Sir Julius Cæsar,"
and the ruinous volatility of poor Dr. King, the Tory wit, who is
conjectured to have been the only civilian that ever went to reside in
Ireland, "after having experienced the emoluments of a settlement in
Doctors' Commons." The doctor unfortunately practised too much with
the bottle, which hindered him from adhering long to anything.
Behind Little Knight-Riders' Street, to the east of Doctors' Commons,
is the Heralds' College. A gorgeous idea of colours falls on the mind
in passing it, as from a cathedral window,
"And shielded scutcheons blush with blood of queens and kings."
_Keats._
The passenger, if he is a reader conversant with old times, thinks of
bannered halls, of processions of chivalry, and of the fields of
Cressy and Poictiers, with their vizored knights, distinguished by
their coats and crests; for a coat of arms is nothing but a
representation of the knight himself, from whom the bearer is
descended. The shield supposes his body; there is the helmet for his
head, with the crest upon it; the flourish is his mantle; and he
stands upon the ground of his motto, or moral pretension. The
supporters, if he is noble, or of a particular class of knighthood,
are thought to be the pages that waited upon him, designated by the
fantastic dresses of bear, lion, &c., which they sometimes wore.
Heraldry is full of colour and imagery, and attracts the fancy like a
"book of pictures." The Kings at Arms are romantic personages, really
crowned, and have as mystic appellations as the kings of an old
tale--Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy. Norroy is King of the North,
and Clarencieux (a title of Norman origin) of the South. The heralds,
Lancaster, Somerset, &c., have simpler names, indicative of the
counties over which they preside; but are only less gorgeously dressed
than the kings, in emblazonment and satin; and then there are the four
pursuivants, Rouge Croix, Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, and Blue Mantle,
with hues as lively, and appellations as quaint, as the attendants on
a fairy court. For gorgeousness of attire, mysteriousness of origin,
and in fact for similarity of origin (a knave being a squire), a knave
of cards is not unlike a herald. A story is told of an Irish King at
Arms,[59] who, waiting upon the Bishop of Killaloe to summon him to
Parliament, and being dressed, as the ceremony required, in his
heraldic attire, so mystified the bishop's servant with his
appearance, that not knowing what to make of it, and carrying off but
a confused notion of his title, he announced him thus: "My lord, here
is the King of Trumps."
Mr. Pennant says, that the Heralds' College "is a foundation of great
antiquity, in which the records are kept of all the old blood in the
kingdom." But this is a mistake. Heralds, indeed, are of great
antiquity, in the sense of messengers of peace and war; but in the
modern sense, they are no older than the reign of Edward III., and
were not incorporated before that of the usurper Richard. The house
which they formerly occupied was a mansion of the Earls of Derby. It
was burnt in the Great Fire, and succeeded by the present building,
part of which was raised at the expense of some of their officers. As
to their keeping records of "all the old blood in the kingdom," they
may keep them, or not, as they have the luck to find them; but the
blood was old, before they had anything to do with it. Men bore arms
and crests when there were no officers to register them. This, as a
writer in the _Censura Literaria_ observes, justly diminishes the
pretension they set up, that no arms are of authority which have not
been registered among their archives.
"If this doctrine," says he, "were just, the consequence would
be, that arms of comparatively modern invention are of better
authority than those which a man and his ancestors have borne
from times before the existence of the College of Arms, and for
time immemorial, supported by the evidence of ancient seals,
funeral monuments, and other authentic documents. Surely this
is grossly absurd; and the more absurd, if we consider that the
heralds seem originally not to have been instituted for the
manufacturing of armorial ensigns, but for the recording those
ensigns which had been borne by men of honourable lineage, and
which might, therefore, be borne by their posterity. Perhaps it
would not be too much to presume, that it will be found on
inquiry, that there are no grants of arms by the English
Heralds of any very high antiquity; and that the most ancient
which can be produced, either in the original or in
well-authenticated copies, are of a date when the general use
of seals of arms, circumscribed with the names and titles of
the bearers, was wearing away."[60]
We learn from the same writer, that the value of "a painted shield of
parchment" is fifty pounds. Of the spirit in which these things have
been done, the reader may judge from a letter written by an applicant
to one of the most respectable names in the college list. His object
was to get the illegitimate coat of a female friend changed to one by
which it was to appear she was not illegitimate. He offers five pounds
for it; and adds, that there is another friend of his, "an alderman's
son, in Chester, whose great-grandfather was baseborn, whom I have
bine treating with severall tymes about the alteration of his coat,
telling him for 10li and not under, it may be accomplished; five he
is willing to give, but not above; if you please to accept of that
sume, you may writt me a line or two. I desire that you will send the
scroll down again, as soon as you can."[61]
The truth is, that, except as far as their records go, and as they
can be turned to account in questions of kindred and inheritance, the
heralds are of no importance in modern times. Nor have they anything
to do with the spirit and first principles of the devices, of which
they assume the direction. We think this is worth notice, because
heraldry itself, or at least the discussion of coats of arms, of which
most people are observed to be fonder than they choose to confess,
might be reconciled to the progress of knowledge, or made, at any
rate, the ground of a pleasing and not ungraceful novelty. To a coat
of arms no man, literally speaking, has pretensions, who is not the
representative of somebody that bore arms in the old English wars; but
when the necessity for military virtue decreased, arms gave way to the
gown; and _shields_ had honourable, but fantastic augmentations, for
the peaceful triumphs of lawyers and statesmen. Meanwhile commerce was
on the increase, and there came up a new power in the shape of pounds,
shillings, and pence, which was to be represented also by its coat of
_arms_; how absurdly, need not be added: though the individuals who
got their lions and their shields behind the counter, were often
excellent men, who might have cut as great a figure in battle as the
best, had they lived in other times. At length, not to have a military
coat was to be no gentleman; and then the heralds fairly sold
achievements at so much the head. They received their fees, put on
their spectacles, turned over their books like astrologers, and found
that you were deserving of a bear's paw, or might clap three puppies
on your coach. "Congreve," says Swift, in one of his letters to
Stella, "gave me a Tatler he had written out, as blind as he is, for
little Harrison. 'Tis about a scoundrel that was grown rich, and went
and bought a coat of arms at the heralds', and a set of ancestors at
Fleet Ditch." And this is the case at present. Numbers of persons do
not, however, stand on this ceremony with the heralds. Many are
content to receive their exploits, at half-a-guinea the set, from
pretenders who undertake to "procure arms;" and many more assume the
arms nearest to their name and family, or invent them at once;
naturally enough concluding, that they might as well achieve their own
glories, as buy them of an old gentleman or a pedlar.
Now arms were not originally given; they were assumed. Men in battle,
when armies fought pell-mell, and bodily prowess was more in request
than it is now, wished to have their persons distinguished; and
accordingly they put a device on their shield, or some towering symbol
on their helmet. This at once served to mark out the bearer, and to
express the particular sentiment or alliance upon which he was to be
understood as priding himself. The real spirit of heraldry consisted,
therefore, and must always consist, in distinguishing one person from
another, and in expressing his individual sentiments; and as the
adoption of some device is both an elegant exercise of the fancy, and
acts as a kind of memento to the conscience, tending to keep us to
what we profess, people who have no certain arms of their own, or who
do not care for them if they have, might not ungracefully or even
uselessly entertain themselves with doing, in their own persons, what
the old assumers of arms did in theirs; that is to say, invent their
own distinctions. The emblazonment might amuse their fancies, and be
put in books, or elsewhere, like other coats of arms; and a little
difference in the mode of it could easily set aside the interference
of the heralds. People might thus express their views in life, or
their particular tastes and opinions; and the "science of heraldry,"
which has been so much laughed at, not always with justice, be made to
accord with the progress of knowledge--or, at all events, with the
entertaining part of it.
As to coats of arms really ancient, or connected with old virtue, or
with modern, we have already shown that we are far from pretending to
despise anything which indulges the natural desire of mortality to
extend or to elevate its sense of existence. We have no respect for
shields of no meaning, or for bearers of better shields that disgrace
them; but we do not profess to look without interest on very old
shields, if only for the sake of their antiquity, much less when they
are associated with names,
Familiar in our mouths as household words.
The lions and stags, &c., of the Howards and Herberts, of the
Cavendishes, Russells, and Spencers, affect us more than those of
Cuvier himself, especially when we recollect they were borne by great
writers as well as warriors, men who advanced not only themselves but
their species in dignity. The most interesting coats of arms, next to
those which unite antiquity with ability (that is to say, duration
backward with duration and utility in prospect), are such as become
ennobled by genius, or present us with some pleasing device. Such is
the spear of Shakspeare, whose ancestors are thought to have won it
in Bosworth field;[62] the spread eagle of Milton--a proper epic
device; the flower given to Linnæus for a device when he was ennobled;
the philosophical motto of the great Bacon, _Mediocria firma_
(Mediocre things firm--the Golden Mean); the modest, yet
self-respecting one, first used, we believe, by Sir Philip Sydney,
_Vix ea nostra voco_ (I scarcely call these things one's own); and
those other mottoes, taken from favourite classics, which argue more
taste than antiquity. We are not sorry, however, for mere antiquity's
sake, to recognise the ship of the Campbells; the crowned heart (a
beautiful device) of Douglas; and even the checquers of the
unfortunate family of the Stuarts. They tell us of names and
connections, and call to mind striking events in history. Indeed, all
ancient names naturally become associated with history and poetry. The
most interesting coat in Scottish heraldry, if we are to believe
tradition, is that of Hay, Earl of Errol; whose ancestors, a couple of
peasants, with their father, rallied an army of their countrymen in a
narrow pass, and led them back victoriously against the Danes. Two
peasants are the supporters of the shield. But unquestionably the most
interesting sight in the whole circle of heraldry, British or foreign,
if we consider the rational popularity of its origin, and the immense
advance it records in the progress of what is truly noble, is that of
the plain English motto assumed by Lord Erskine, _Trial by Jury_. The
devices of the Nelsons and Wellingtons, illustrious as they are, are
nothing to this; for the world might relapse into barbarism, as it has
formerly done, notwithstanding the exploits of the greatest warriors;
but words like these are trophies of the experience of ages, and the
world could not pass them, and go back again, for very shame. It is
the fashion now-a-days to have painted windows; and a very beautiful
fashion it is, and extremely worthy of encouragement in this climate,
where the general absence of colours renders it desirable that they
should be collected wherever they can, so as to increase a feeling of
cheerfulness and warmth. When the sun strikes through a painted
window, it seems as if Heaven itself were recommending to us the
brilliance with which it has painted its flowers and its skies. It is
a pity we have no devices invented for themselves by the great men of
past times, otherwise what an illustrious window would they make! We
should like to have presented the reader with such of the escutcheons
above mentioned as have been created or modified in some respect by
their ennoblers; and to have shown him how different the old parts now
appear, with which the individuals had nothing to do, compared with
those of their own achievement, or adoption, even when nothing better
than a motto. Sir Philip's motto almost rejects his coat.[63] If all
persons, ambitious of good conduct and opinions, were to adopt our
suggestion, and assume a device of their own, windows of this kind
might abound among friends; and many of them would become as
interesting to posterity, as _such_ "coats of arms" would, above all
others, deserve to be.
The most eminent names in the Heralds' College are Camden, the great
antiquary; Dugdale (whose merits, however, are questionable); King, a
writer on political arithmetic; and Vanbrugh, the comic writer, who
wore a tabard for a short time, as Clarencieux. Gibbon had an
ancestor, a herald, who took great interest in the profession. He had
another progenitor, who, about the reign of James the First, changed
the scallop shells of the historian's coat "into three ogresses or
female cannibals, with a design of stigmatising three ladies, his
kinswomen, who had provoked him by an unjust lawsuit."[64] A good
account of heraldry, its antiquities and its freaks, is a desideratum,
and would make a very amusing book.
[Illustration: LUDGATE.]
We move westward from St. Paul's, because, though the metropolis
abounds with interest in every part of it, yet the course this way is
the most generally known; and readers may choose to hear of the most
popular thoroughfares first. The origin of the word Ludgate is not
known. The old opinion respecting King Lud has been rejected, and some
think it is the same word as Flud or Fludgate, meaning the Gate on the
Fleet, Floet, or Flood, F being dropt, as in _leer_ for Fleer, Lloyd
for Floyd or Fluyd, &c. It may be so; but it is not easy to see, in
that case, why Fleet Street should not have been called Lud Street.
Perhaps the old tradition is right, and some ancient Lud, or Lloyd,
was the builder of an "old original" gate, whether king or not. Its
successor (which formerly crossed the street by St. Martin's church),
was no older than the reign of King John. It was rebuilt in 1586, and
finally removed in 1760. Pennant says, he remembered it "a wretched
prison for debtors." The old chroniclers tell us a romantic story of a
lord-mayor, Sir Stephen Forster, who enlarged this prison, and added a
chapel to it. He had been confined in it himself, and, begging at the
grate, was asked by a rich widow what sum would purchase his liberty.
He said, twenty pounds. She paid it, took him into her service, and
afterwards became his wife. One of our old dramatists (Rowley), in
laying a scene in this prison, has made use of the name of Stephen
Forster in a different manner; and probably his story had a
foundation in truth. According to him, Stephen, who had been a
profligate fellow, was relieved by the son of his brother, with whom
he was at variance. Stephen afterwards becomes rich in his turn, and
seeing his brother become poor and thrust into the same prison,
forbids his nephew Robert, whom he had adopted on that condition, to
relieve his father. The nephew disobeys, and has the misfortune to
incur the hatred of both uncle and parent, for his connection with
either party, but ultimately finds his virtue acknowledged. The
following scene is one of those in which these old writers, in their
honest confidence in nature, go direct to the heart. The reader will
see the style of begging in those days. Robert Forster, who has been
cursed by his father, comes to Ludgate, and stands concealed outside
the prison, while his father appears above at the grate, "a box
hanging down."
_Forster._ Bread, bread, one penny to buy a loaf of bread, for
the tender mercy.
_Rob._ O me! my shame! I know that voice full well;
I'll help thy wants, although thou curse me still.
[_He stands where he is unseen by his father._
_Fors._ Bread, bread, some Christian man send back
Your charity to a number of poor prisoners.
One penny for the tender mercy-- [_Robert puts in money._
The hand of Heaven reward you, gentle sir!
Never may you want, never feel misery;
Let blessings in unnumbered measure grow,
And fall upon your head, where'er you go.
_Rob._ Oh, happy comfort! curses to the ground
First struck me; now with blessings I am crowned.
_Fors._ Bread, bread, for the tender mercy; one penny for a
loaf of bread.
_Rob._ I'll buy more blessings: take thou all my store:
I'll keep no coin and see my father poor.
_Fors._ Good angels guard you, sir; my prayers shall be,
That Heaven may bless you for this charity.
_Rob._ If he knew me sure he would not say so:
Yet I have comfort, if by any means
I get a blessing from my father's hands.[65]
The prison of Ludgate was anciently considered to be not so much a
place of confinement as a place of refuge, into which debtors threw
themselves to escape from their creditors--"a keep, not so much of the
wicked as of the wretched"--("non sceleratorum carcer, sed miserorum
custodia"), as it is expressed in a Latin speech which was addressed
by the inmates to King Philip of Spain, when he passed through the
city, in 1554, and which the celebrated Roger Ascham was employed to
compose. As it does not appear, however, that the persons who took up
their abode here were allowed to come out again until they had
discharged their debts, the distinction attempted to be drawn seems to
be a somewhat shadowy one. A writer, nevertheless, quoted by Maitland,
who in 1659 published a description of the house in which he had
himself been for a long time a resident, expresses great indignation
against the authorities for having "basely and injuriously caused to
be taken down" the old inscription, affixed by Sir Stephen Forster, of
_Free Water and Lodging_, "and set up another over the outward street
door with only these words engraven: _This is the_ PRISON _of_
LUDGATE."[66] The prison of Ludgate stood on the south side of the
street, and extended back till it almost joined a portion of the old
London Wall, which ran nearly parallel to Ludgate Hill. About the year
1764 this wall is described as being eight feet and a half thick.[67]
Bits of it (as before noticed) still remain in this neighbourhood.
At this gate a stop was put to the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt
against Queen Mary, at the time when her marriage with Philip was in
contemplation. Sir Thomas was son of the poet who had been a friend of
the Earl of Surrey, and a warm partisan of Anne Bullen. He led his
forces up the Strand and Fleet Street in no very hopeful condition,
after suffering a loss in his rear; and on arriving at Ludgate, found
it shut against him, and strongly manned. The disappointment is said
to have affected him so strongly, that he threw himself on a bench
opposite the Bell-Savage Inn, and mourned the rashness of his hopes.
He retired, only to find his retreat cut off at Temple Bar; and being
summoned by a herald to submit, requested it might be to a gentleman;
upon which his sword was received by a person of his own rank. He was
beheaded. It is worth observing, that Mary, alarmed at this
insurrection, had pretended, in a speech at Guildhall, that she would
give up the marriage, provided it were seriously and properly objected
to: she only called upon the citizens to stand by her against rebels.
When the rebels, however, were put down, the marriage, though
notoriously unpopular, was concluded.
The Bell-Savage is an inn of old standing. The name is now learnedly
written over the front--Belle Sauvage. The old sign was a bell with a
savage by it. Stow derived the name from Isabella Savage, who had
given the house to the company of Cutlers; and most likely this was
its origin; but as the inn was formerly one of those in which plays
were acted, and as the players had dealings with romance, and sign
painters varied their hieroglyphics according to the whim of the
moment, Pennant might have reasonably found one derivation in the
_Spectator_, without objecting to the other. A sight of the passage to
which he refers will leave the immediate derivation beyond all doubt.
"As for the Bell-Savage," says Addison (for the paper is his), "which
is the sign of a Savage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly very
much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the
reading of an old romance translated out of the French; which gives an
account of a very beautiful woman who was in a wilderness, and is
called in the French _la belle Sauvage_; and is everywhere translated
by our countrymen the Bell-Savage."[68] This was one of the inns at
which the famous Tarlton used to perform. London has a modern look to
the inhabitants; but persons who come from the country find as odd and
remote-looking things in it as the Londoners do in York or Chester;
and among these are a variety of old inns, with corridors running
round the yard. They are well worth a glance from anybody who has a
respect for old times. The play used to be got up in the yard, and the
richer part of the spectators occupied "the galleries."[69]
The wall in which Lud-gate stood was the occasion of the hill's
having two names, which is still the case, the upper part, between the
Bell-Savage and St. Paul's Churchyard, being called Ludgate Street,
and only the rest Ludgate Hill. This latter portion went anciently by
the name of Bowyers' Row, no doubt from its being principally
inhabited by persons of that trade. On Ludgate Hill lived the cobbler
whom Steele mentions as a curious instance of pride.[70] He had a
wooden figure of a beau, who stood before him in a bending posture,
humbly presenting him with his awl, or bristle, or whatever else his
employer chose to put in his hand, after the manner of an obsequious
servant. Steele seems to have thought the man mad; otherwise the
conceit would have been an agreeable one. Ludgate Street, as if to
keep up and augment the didactic reputation of the neighbourhood, was
not long since the head-quarters of the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, at least as far as regarded their publications. And,
curiously enough, the house was next door to old "Newberry's."
Between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, in the district more properly
retaining the name, was the monastery of the Black Friars, an order of
Dominicans, in which parliaments were sometimes held. The Emperor
Charles V. was lodged in it when he visited Henry VIII., in 1522; and
in a hall of the same building, seven years after, the cause was tried
between Henry and his queen, Catherine. Shakspeare has given us the
opening scene. In Elizabeth's time, the desecrated tenements and
neighbourhood of Blackfriars became the resort of the world of
fashion--a court end of the city; and close at hand, on the site
retaining the name of Play-house Yard, was the famous Theatre in
Blackfriars, where Shakspeare's, Ben Jonson's, and Beaumont and
Fletcher's plays were performed, and where many of them came out. It
was what they called at that time a "private" theatre, the peculiarity
of which is not exactly understood. All that is known of it is, that
it was smaller than the public ones; but it was open to public
admission. Perhaps a private theatre meant a theatre more select than
the others, and frequented by politer company; for such, at any rate,
the present one appears to have been. It is conjectured also to have
been a winter theatre, and its performances took place by candlelight.
The gallants and ladies of the courts of Elizabeth and James took
their dinner at noon, and after riding or lute-playing till evening,
went to their snug little theatre in the neighbourhood, to laugh or
weep over the divine fancies of Shakspeare. Shakspeare himself must
often have been on the spot; a certainty which an intellectual
inhabitant will be glad to possess. The theatre, at one time, was
partly his property.
A part of the monastery of the Blackfriars was, in 1623, the scene of
a frightful accident, which made a great noise at the time. Mr.
Malcolm has enumerated several of the publications recording it; and
from these it appears that on Sunday, the 5th of November in that
year, a congregation of about three hundred individuals had assembled
in a small gallery over the gateway of the lodgings of the French
Ambassador in this building, in order to hear a sermon from a Jesuit,
named Father Drury, who enjoyed considerable reputation as a preacher.
Under the floor of the chamber where they were assembled was an empty
apartment, and under that another, making together a height of
twenty-two feet from the ground; and the floor itself, as it
afterwards turned out, was mainly supported by a single beam, which in
the centre was not more than three inches thick. The people had been
in their seats for about half-an-hour, when this beam suddenly gave
way, and the whole of them were instantly precipitated, mixed with the
timber, plaster, and rubbish of the floors, into the vacant depth
below. Drury, and another priest, named Redgate, were both killed, as
were also a Lady Webbe, and the daughter of a Lady Blackstone,
together with, it is supposed, between ninety and a hundred persons.
Many more were seriously injured. "Several people," says Mr. Malcolm,
"escaped in a very extraordinary manner, particularly Mrs. Lucy
Penruddock, who was preserved by a chair falling hollow over her; and
a young man, who lay on the floor, overwhelmed by people and rubbish,
yet untouched by them, through the resting of fragments on each other,
and thus leaving a space round him. In this horrible situation he had
the presence of mind to force his way through a piece of the ceiling,
and he shortly after had the indescribable happiness of assisting in
the liberation of others."[71] There were many persons, it would
appear, foolish and wicked enough to represent this calamity as a
token of the displeasure of heaven against the Roman Catholic faith.
The pamphlets noticed by Mr. Malcolm are some of those that were
published by the parties in a violent controversy which raged for
some time on the subject. The day on which this accident happened was
long remembered under the name of the Fatal Vespers; and the
circumstance that it was the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot was not
forgotten by the judgment-mongers. Most of the bodies of those who
were killed on this occasion were buried without either the ceremony
of a funeral service, or the decency of a coffin or winding-sheet, in
two large pits or trenches, dug, the one in the court before, and the
other in the garden behind the house, in which the accident had taken
place.
Printing-house Square, close to Playhouse-yard, marks out the site of
the ancient King's Printing-House, whence bibles, prayer-books, and
proclamations were issued. It was rebuilt in the middle of the last
century, and became, according to Maitland, "the completest
printing-house in the world." The king's printer now lives elsewhere;
but in the same spot is a house, which may be called the world's
printing-house, seeing the enormous multitude of newspapers which the
mighty giant of steam daily throws forth out of his iron lap, full of
interest to all quarters of the globe. We need not say that we allude
to the _Times_ newspaper. There is knowing, in this and other
instances, what bounds to put to human expectation, when mechanical
and intellectual force are thus joined in a common object.
On the other side of the way, in Bridge Street, stood, and stands now,
though hidden by the new houses, and much altered, the former palace
of Bridewell, now known as a house of industry and correction. In
ancient times the King used frequently to reside here; and when such
was the case, the courts of law sometimes attended him. The building,
having fallen into decay, was restored about the year 1522, by Henry
VIII.; and here the attendants of the Emperor Charles V. were lodged
while the emperor himself occupied the Blackfriars, a communication
being formed between the two palaces by a gallery carried over the
Fleet Ditch, and through the old city wall. Both Henry and Catherine,
also, were lodged here, while the cause between them was proceeding at
Blackfriars. In 1553 Edward VI. granted the palace, on the
solicitation of Bishop Ridley, for the purposes to which it has been
since applied; an act of benevolence which was recorded, with more
precision than elegance, in the following lines under a portrait of
his majesty, that used to hang near the pulpit in the old chapel:--
"This Edward of fair memory the sixth.
In whom with greatness, goodness was commixt,
Gave this Bridewell, a Palace in old times,
For a chastising house of vagrant crimes."
Bridewell having been burnt down in the Great Fire was rebuilt
immediately after that calamity, and it has since been frequently
repaired, and partially renovated. Henry the Eighth ("sturdy rogue!")
would have been a fit personage to lodge in it still, though under
somewhat different circumstances.
One of the steep and gloomy descents from Thames Street still
preserves the name of Castle Street; and immediately to the west of
this stood in ancient times, on the banks of the river, a large
building called Baynard's Castle. Baynard, by whom it was originally
erected in the eleventh century, was one of the Conqueror s Norman
followers. His descendant, William Baynard, however, soon after the
commencement of the next century, forfeited his inheritance to the
crown, by which it was bestowed upon the family of Clare. The
representative of this family, and the possessor of Baynard's Castle,
in the reign of King John, was the Baron Robert Fitzwalter, a portion
of whose history, as related by some of our old chroniclers, gives an
interest to the spot. Among the beauties of the time, one of the
fairest was Matilda, the daughter of Fitzwalter. The licentious
monarch, who may have seen her at some high festival held in this very
castle, was smitten, after his fashion, by her charms; but his suit
was rejected with indignation, both by herself and her father. His
"love" now turned into hatred and thirst of revenge; he soon after
resorted to open force, and having first driven Fitzwalter to seek
refuge in France, easily got the unhappy girl into his custody, and,
if we are to believe the story, despatched her by poison. He at the
same time ordered Castle Baynard to be demolished. The next year the
armies of the English and French Kings lay encamped during a truce on
the opposite sides of a river in France, when an English knight,
impatient, as it would seem, of the bloodless inactivity that
prevailed, thought fit to challenge any one of the enemy who chose to
come forth and break a lance with him. It was not long before a
champion appeared making his way across the water, who, unattended as
he was, had no sooner reached the land, than he mounted a horse and
rode up to meet his challenger. The duel took place in the sight of
King John and his troops, but it did not last long: for both the
English knight and his horse were thrown to the ground by the first
thrust of his antagonist's spear, which was also broken to shivers in
the shock. "By God's troth," exclaimed John, as he beheld this heroic
exploit, "he were a king indeed who had such a knight." The words were
caught by some of the bystanders, who had observed more narrowly than
the monarch the figure of the unknown victor, and who suspected him to
be no other than their old acquaintance, the Baron Fitzwalter. It was,
in fact, no other. The next day, the praise which the King had
bestowed upon his prowess being reported to him, he returned to the
English camp, and throwing himself at the feet of his sovereign, was
re-admitted to favour, and restored to all his former possessions and
honours. We may observe, however, that this narrative is scarcely
detailed with sufficient precision to entitle it to be received as a
piece of authentic history, and that especially it does not seem to be
very easy to reconcile some parts of it, as commonly given, with the
ascertained dates and course of the events of King John's reign. This
Robert Fitzwalter is placed by Matthew Paris at the head of his list
of the Barons, who, in 1215, came armed in a body to the King, at the
Temple, and made those demands which led to the concession of the
Great Charter at Runnymede. Indeed, in the short military contest
which preceded the King's submission, Fitzwalter was appointed by his
brother barons the commander-in-chief of their forces, and dignified
in that capacity with the title of Marshal of the Army of God and of
Holy Church. On his return to England, he is said to have rebuilt or
repaired his castle in London which the King had thrown down, and the
edifice continued for a long time to be the principal fortress within
the city. The family of Fitzwalter, in consequence of their possession
of Baynard's Castle, held the office of Chastilians and Bannerets, or
Banner-bearers of London; and the reader who is curious upon such
matters may consult Stow, or those who have copied him, for an account
of the rights, services, and ceremonial customs appertaining to that
dignity. The punishment of a person found guilty of treason within the
banneret's jurisdiction is worth noticing: he was to be tied to a post
in the Thames, at one of the wharfs, and left there for two ebbings
and two flowings of the tide. After this, there was certainly little
chance of his committing more treason.
[Illustration: BAYNARD'S CASTLE.]
It is not known how Baynard's Castle, and the privileges belonging to
the lordship, got out of the hands of this family; but in 1428, in the
reign of Henry the Sixth, the building, having been burned down, is
stated to have been restored by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. After
the duke's death it came once more into the possession of the crown;
and here it was that the great council assembled in the beginning of
March, 1461, which proclaimed the Earl of March King, by the title of
Edward IV. It was here also, twenty-two years after, that the solemn
farce was enacted in which Richard III. assumed the royal dignity on
the invitation of Buckingham, and in obedience to the pretended wishes
of the citizens. Shakspeare has given this scene with an exact
conformity, in all the matters of fact, to the narratives of the old
chroniclers; the crafty Protector, it will be remembered, being made
to present himself in the gallery above, supported by a bishop on each
side, while Buckingham, the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the
citizens, occupy the court of the castle below. Baynard's Castle was
once more rebuilt in 1487, by Henry VII., with a view to its answering
better the purpose of a royal palace; and the King occasionally lodged
there. Some time after this we find the place in possession of the
Earls of Pembroke, who made it their common residence; and it was here
that the Earl of that name, on the 19th of July, 1553, about a
fortnight after the death of Edward VI., assembled the council of the
nobility and clergy, at which the determination was taken, on the
motion of Lord Arundel, to abandon the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and to
proclaim Queen Mary, which, accordingly, was instantly done in
different parts of the city. This is supposed to have been the
building which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It is
represented in an old print of London as a square pile surrounding a
court, and surmounted with numerous towers. A large gateway in the
middle of the south side led to the river by a bridge of two arches
and stairs. This ancient fortress was never rebuilt after the fire;
and its site has been since occupied by wharfs, timber-yards,
workshops, and common dwelling-houses. The ward, however, in which it
was situated, and which embraces also St. Paul's Churchyard, and
nearly all the localities we have as yet noticed, still retains the
name of the Ward of Baynard's Castle.
Upon Paul's Wharf Hill, to the north-east of Baynard's Castle, were a
number of houses within a great gate, which are said by Maitland to
have been designated, in the leases granted by the dean and chapter,
as the _Camera Dianæ_, or Diana's Chamber, and to have been so
denominated from a spacious building in the form of a labyrinth,
constructed here by Henry II. for the concealment of the fair Rosamond
Clifford. We need scarcely say that this tradition has all the air of
a fable. The author we have just named, however, assures us that "for
a long time there remained some evident testifications of tedious
turnings and windings, as also of a passage under ground from his
house to Castle Baynard; which was no doubt the King's way from thence
to the _Camera Dianæ_,"[72] or the chamber of his "brightest Diana."
What the testifications may in question really have amounted to, we
cannot pretend to say; but Diana, not being a family name, as in the
case of another royal favourite, Diana of Poitiers, seems a strange
one to have been given to the lady already christened by so poetical
an appellation as Rosamond, and so different in her reputation from
the chaste goddess. We should, for our parts, rather suppose that the
dean and chapter had been moved to call the place Diana's chamber by
some tradition, or a conceit of their own, connecting it with the
temple of that goddess, said to have formerly stood on the site of the
neighbouring cathedral; or if the name was really a very ancient one,
and in popular use, it may perhaps be taken as lending some slight
confirmation to the notion of the actual existence of that heathen
edifice, and may "help," as Iago phrases it, "to thicken other proofs
that also demonstrate thinly." Diana's Chamber, however, may have been
so called from its being hung with painted tapestry, representing some
story of the goddess. Inigo Jones, by the way, is said by Lord Orford
to be buried in the church of St. Bennet, Paul's Wharf, which stands
immediately to the south of the spot where we now are, at the corner
formed by the meeting of Thames Street and St. Bennet's Hill.
Another building which formerly existed in this neighbourhood was the
Royal Wardrobe. It occupied the site of the present Wardrobe Court,
immediately to the north of the church of St. Andrew's and gave to the
parish the name of St. Andrew's Wardrobe, by which it is still known.
This building was erected about the middle of the fourteenth century,
by Sir John Beauchamp, Knight of the Garter, a son of Guido, Earl of
Warwick, by whose heirs it was sold to Edward III. Mr. Malcolm has
printed some extracts from the Manuscript Account Book, since
preserved in the Harleian collection, of a keeper of this Wardrobe,
from the middle of April to Michaelmas 1481, (towards the close of the
reign of Edward IV.), which are interesting and valuable as memorials,
both of the prices and of the fashions of that time. During the
period, of less than six months, over which the accounts extend, the
sum of 1,174_l._ 5_s._ 2_d._ appears to have been received by the
keeper, for the use of his office. Of this the most considerable
portion seems to have been expended in the purchase of velvet and
silks from Montpellier. The velvets cost from 8_s._ to 16_s._ per
yard; black cloths of gold, 40_s._; what is called velvet upon velvet,
the same; damask, 8_s._; satins, 6_s._ 10_s._ and 12_s._, camlets,
30_s._ a-piece; and sarcenets for 4_s._ to 4_s._ 2_d._ Feather beds,
with bolsters, "for our sovereign lord the King," are charged 16_s._
8_d._ each. A pair of shoes, of Spanish leather, double soled, and not
lined, cost 1_s._ 4_d._; a pair of black leather boots, 6_s._ 8_d._;
hats 1_s._ a-piece; and ostrich feathers, each 10_s._ The keeper's
salary appears to have been 100_l._ per annum--that of his clerk 1_s._
a-day; and the wages of the tailors 6_d._ a-day each. The King
sometimes lodged at the Wardrobe; on one of which occasions the
washings of the sheets which had been used is charged at the rate of
3_d._ a pair. Candles cost 1_d._ a pound. All the money disbursed by
the keeper of the wardrobe, however, was not expended in decorating
the persons of his Majesty and the royal household. Among other items
we find 20_s._ paid to Piers Bauduyn (or Peter Baldwin, as we should
now call him), stationer, "for binding, gilding, and dressing of a
book called Titus Livius;" for performing the same offices to a Bible,
a Froisard, a Holy Trinity, and the Government of Kings and Princes,
16_s._ each; for three small French books, 6_s._ 8_d._; for the
Fortress of Faith, and Josephus 3_s._ 4_d._; and for what is
designated "the Bible Historical," 20_s._ So that in those days, we
see the binding a book was conceived to be a putting of it into
breeches, and the artist employed for that purpose looked upon as a
sort of literary tailor.
How impossible it would now be in a neighbourhood like this, for such
nuisances to exist, as a fetid _public_ ditch, and scouts of degraded
clergymen asking people to "walk in and be married!" Yet such was the
case a century ago. At the bottom of Ludgate Hill the little river
Fleet formerly ran, and was rendered navigable. Adjoining the site of
Fleet Market is Sea-coal Lane, so called from the barges that landed
coal there; and Turnagain Lane, at the bottom of which the unadvised
passenger found himself compelled by the water to retrace his steps.
The water gradually got clogged and foul; and the channel was built
over and made a street, as we have noticed in our introduction. But
even in the time we speak of, this had not been entirely done. The
ditch was open from Fleet Market to the river, occupying the site of
the modern Bridge Street; and in the market, before the door of the
Fleet prison, men plied in behalf of a clergyman, literally inviting
people to walk in and be married. They performed the ceremony inside
the prison, to sailors and others, for what they could get. It was the
most squalid of Gretnas, bearding the decency and common-sense of a
whole metropolis. The parties retired to a gin shop to treat the
clergyman; and there, and in similar houses, the register was kept of
the marriages. Not far from where the Fleet stood is Newgate; so that
the victims had their succession of nooses prepared, in case, as no
doubt it often happened, one tie should be followed by the other.
Pennant speaks of this nuisance from personal knowledge.
"In walking along the streets in my youth," he tells us, "on
the side next this prison, I have often been tempted by the
question, '_Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be
married_.' Along this most lawless space was frequently hung up
the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with _Marriages
performed within_, written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you
in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid,
profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid night-gown, with a
fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll
of tobacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, put these
demons to flight, and saved thousands from the misery and
disgrace which would be entailed by these extemporary
thoughtless unions."
This extraordinary disgrace to the city, which arose most likely from
the permission to marry prisoners, and one great secret of which was
the advantage taken of it by wretched women to get rid of their debts,
was maintained by a collusion between the warden of the Fleet and the
disreputable clergymen he became acquainted with. "To such an extent,"
says Malcolm, "were the proceedings carried, that twenty and thirty
couple were joined in one day, at from ten to twenty shillings each;"
and "between the 19th Oct., 1704, and the 12th Feb., 1705, 2,954
marriages were celebrated (by evidence), besides others known to have
been omitted. To these neither licence nor certificate of banns were
required, and they concealed, by private marks, the names of those who
chose to pay them for it." The neighbourhood at length complained; and
the abuse was put an end to by the Marriage Act, to which it gave
rise.
Ludgate and Fleet ditch figure among the scenes of the Dunciad. It is
near Bridewell, on the site of the modern Bridge Street, that the
venal and scurrilous heroes of that poem emulate one another, at the
call of Dulness, in seeing who can plunge deepest into the mud and
dirt.
"This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,
(As morning prayer and flagellation end[73]),
To where Fleet ditch, with disemboguing streams,
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames;
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
Here strip, my children! here at once leap in;
Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin;
And who the most in love of dirt excel,
And dark dexterity of groping well."[74]
This part of the games being over,
"Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet,
Rolls the black troop and overshades the street;
Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fences whiten all the ways:
So clouds replenished from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes and descend in snow."
The "well-known Fleet" is the prison just mentioned, the side of
which appears to have been visible at that time in Ludgate Hill, and
where it was a joke (too often founded in truth) to suppose authors
incarcerated.
"Few sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet;
But fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet,"
says a prologue of Sheridan's. The Fleet having "rules," like the
King's Bench, authors were found in the neighbourhood also. Arthur
Murphy, provoked by the attacks of Churchill and Lloyd, describes them
as among the poor hacks,
"On Ludgate Hill who bloody murders write,
Or pass in Fleet Street supperless the night."
Booksellers' shops were then common as now in Fleet Street and the
Strand, in Paternoster Row, and St. Paul's Churchyard. This is
pleasant to think of; for change is not desirable without improvement.
One feels gratified, where difference is not demanded of us, in being
able to have the same association of ideas with such men as Pope and
Dryden, even if it be upon no higher ground than the quantity of books
in Paternoster Row, or the circumstance that Ludgate Hill still leads
into Fleet Street.
[Illustration: THE STONE IN PANYER ALLEY.]
FOOTNOTES:
[46] Brayley, vol. ii., p. 303.
[47] In his Life, vol. iii., p. 98. Edit. 1827.
[48] Unless, indeed, we are to suppose, as has been suggested, that
_Sermon_ Lane is a corruption of _Sheremoniers_ Lane, that is, the
lane of the money clippers, or such as cut and rounded the metal which
was to be coined or stamped into money. There was anciently a place in
this lane for melting silver, called the _Blackloft_--and the Mint was
in the street now called Old Change, in the immediate neighbourhood.
See Maitland, ii., 880 (edit. of 1756.)
[49] Letters to Stella, in the duodecimo edition of his works, 1775,
Letter vi., p. 43.
[50] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edition, vol. iv., p. 93.
[51] History of London, vol. ii., p. 925.
[52] The Tatler. With notes historical, biographical, and critical
8vo. 1797. Vol. iv., p. 206.
[53] Pennant's London, p. 377.
[54] Of William III.
[55] The genius of Clarke, which, agreeably to his unhappy end, was
tender and melancholy, was unsuited to the livelier intoxication of
Dryden's feast, afterwards gloriously set by Handel. Clarke has been
styled the musical Otway of his time. He was organist at St. Paul's,
and shot himself at his house in St. Paul's Churchyard. Mr. John
Reading, organist of St. Dunstan's, who was intimately acquainted with
him, was going by at the moment the pistol went off, and upon entering
the house "found his friend and fellow-student in the agonies of
death." Another friend of his, one of the lay vicars of the cathedral,
relates of him, that a few weeks before the catastrophe, Clarke had
alighted from his horse in a sequestered spot in the country, where
there was a pond surrounded by trees, and not knowing whether to hang
or drown himself, tossed up a piece of money to see which. The money
stuck in the earth edgeways. Of this new chance for life, poor Clarke,
we see, was unable to avail himself.
[56] See Maitland, vol. ii., p. 949.
[57] Since this was written, the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical
Court in Doctors' Commons on matters of divorce has been transferred
to a new "Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes," sitting at
Westminster.
[58] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 473.
[59] On the authority of Langton, Johnson's friend. See Memoirs,
Anecdotes, &c., by Letitia Matilda Hawkins, vol. i., p. 293.
[60] Censura Literaria, vol. iii., p. 254.
[61] Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, by
Hamper. Lond. 1827. Our memorandum has omitted the page. The letter
was written to Dugdale by Randall Holme, a brother herald.
[62] Another opinion, however, is that the spear had been given to one
of his ancestors as having been a magistrate of some description. This
supposition seems to be supported by the grant of arms to John
Shakspeare in 1599, which has been printed by Mr. Malcolm. But
Shakspeares in Warwickshire are as plentiful as blackberries, and
perhaps the name originated in the stout arms of a whole tribe of
soldiers.
[63] _Vix ea nostra voco_--(as above translated). The effect is
stronger if the whole passage is called to mind. It is Ovid;
Nam genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,
Vix ea nostra voco.--_Metamor_. lib. 13. v. 140.
For birth, and rank, and what our own good powers
Have earned us not, I scarcely call them ours.
Ovid, himself a man of birth, puts this sentiment in the mouth of
Ulysses, a king. But then he was a king whose talents were above his
royalty.
[64] Life of Gibbon, in the Autobiography, vol. i.
[65] Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, p. 147.
[66] Maitland, vol. i., p. 28.
[67] Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, iv., p. 367.
[68] Spectator, vol. i., No. 28.
[69] Malone, in his Historical Account of the English Stage, has an
ingenious parallel between these inn-theatres and the construction of
the modern ones. "Many of our ancient dramatick pieces," he observes,
"were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the
beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first
united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form
of these temporary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern
theatre. The galleries in both are ranged over each other on three
sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these
galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable, that
these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period
expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still retained their old name,
and were frequently called _rooms_ by our ancient writers. The yard
bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use. We
may suppose the stage to have been raised in this arena, on the fourth
side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for
admission was taken. Thus in fine weather, a play-house, not
incommodious, might have been formed." Reed's Edition of Johnson's and
Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. iii., p. 73.
[70] Tatler, No. 127.
[71] Londinium Redivivum, ii., 375.
[72] History of London, ii., 880.
[73] The whipping of the criminals in Bridewell took place after the
church service.
[74] Dunciad, book ii., v. 269.