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.
In the reign of Edward I., on the country road from London to
Westminster, stood the hamlet of Charing; a rustic spot, containing a
few houses, and the last cross set up by that Prince in honour of the
resting-places of his wife's body on its way to interment in the
Abbey. The Cross was originally of wood, but afterwards of stone. The
reader may see it in the old map of London by Aggas. He will there
observe, that towards the beginning of Elizabeth's, reign Charing
Cross was united with London on the Strand side, and at little
intervals with Whitehall; but Spring Gardens was then and long after
what its name implies; and, in the reign of Charles II., Hedge Lane
(now Whitcomb Street) and the Haymarket were still real lanes and
passages into the fields. In Elizabeth's time, you might set out from
the site of the present Pall-mall, and, leaving St. Giles in the
Fields on the right hand, walk all the way to Hampstead without
encountering perhaps a dwelling-place. Lovers plucked flowers in
Cranbourne Alley, and took moonlight walks in St. James's market.
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF CHARING FROM AGGAS'S MAP.]
On this spot, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, is to be found the fullest
"tide of human existence" in the metropolis. We know not how that may
be at present when the tide is so full everywhere; but Charing Cross
has long been something the reverse of a rural village, and is now
exhibiting one of the newest and grandest evidences of an improving
metropolis. By way of north front, the Mews (formerly the mews of the
King's falcons) has given way to a sorry palace for the Fine Arts; on
the west is a handsome edifice including the new college of
Physicians; on the east St. Martin's church has obtained its long
desired opening: and in the midst of these buildings and of the
Strand-end is a new square, named after the greatest of our naval
victories, adorned with a column surmounted by their hero, and
disgraced by a couple of shabby fountains. Here also is an equestrian
statue of George the Fourth. What for?
"In the reign of Henry VIII.," says Pennant, speaking of St
Martin's, "a small church was built here at the King's expense,
by reason of the poverty of the parishioners, who possibly were
at that period very poor. In 1607 it was enlarged because of
the increase of buildings. In 1721 it was found necessary to
take the whole down, and in five years from that time this
magnificent temple was completed at the expense of near
thirty-seven thousand pounds. This is the best performance of
Gibbs, the architect of the Radcliffe Library. The steeple is
far the most elegant of any of that style which I named the
_pepper-box_; and with which (I beg pardon of the good people
of Glasgow) I marked their boasted steeple of St. Andrew."[319]
Our lively biographer seems chiefly to admire the steeple of this
church. The Corinthian portico, we believe, is the usual object of
praise. Both of them may deserve praise separately; nor, indeed, will
their size and situation allow them to be regarded with indifference
in conjunction; but the elevation of the steeple on the neck of the
church, or without any apparent or proper base to rest upon, is a
fault not to be denied; and Mr. Pennant perhaps would not have been in
the wrong, had he found an ill name for steeples in general, as well
as for the species which he "peppered." Steeples, however noble, and
porticoes, however Greek, can never truly coalesce. The finest steeple
with a portico to it is but an excrescence and an anomaly, a horn
growing out of the church's neck. The Italians felt this absurdity so
much, that they have often made a separate building of the steeple,
converting it into a beautiful tower aloof from the church, as in the
instances of the famous Hanging Tower in Pisa, and the Campanile in
Florence. Suppose a shaft like the Monument, in a space near St.
Martin's church, and the church itself a proper building with a
portico, like St. Paul's Covent Garden, and you have an improvement in
the Italian style. The best thing to say for
---- sharpèd steeples high shot up in air
(as Spenser calls them) is, that they seem to be pointing to heaven,
or running up into space like an intimation of interminability. An
idea of this kind is supposed to have given rise to them. But they
always have a meagre, incongruous look, considered in their union with
the body to which they are attached. Their best appearance is at a
distance, and when they are numerous, as in the view of a great city;
but even then, how inferior are they to the massive dignity of such
towers as those of Westminster Abbey, or to a dome like that of St.
Paul's!
The origin of the word Charing is unknown. The cross was destroyed
during the Reformation. The spot where it stood is occupied by the
statue of Charles I. originally the property of the Earl of Arundel,
for whom it was cast by Le Soeur in 1633. It was not placed in its
present situation till the decline of the reign of Charles II. The
pedestal is the work of Grinling Gibbons. The statue had been
condemned by Parliament to be sold and broken in pieces; "but John
River, the brazier, who purchased it," says Pennant, "having more
taste or more loyalty than his masters, buried it unmutilated and
showed to them some broken pieces of brass in token of his obedience.
M. D'Archenholz gives a diverting anecdote of this brazier, and says
that he cast a vast number of handles of knives and forks in brass,
which he sold as made of the broken statue. They were bought with
great eagerness by the royalists, from affection to their monarch; by
the rebels as a mark of triumph over the murdered sovereign."[320] The
sovereign now faces Whitehall as if in triumph: yet behind the
Banquetting house lurks a statue of another of this unfortunate race,
who lost his throne for attempting to renew the dictatorial spirit
which cost his ancestor his head. The omission of the horse's girth in
this statue has been thought a singular instance of forgetfulness in
the artist. But it is hardly possible he could have forgotten it. Most
likely he took a poetical license, and rejected what might have hurt
the symmetry of his outline.
Charles's memory, like his life, was destined to be connected with
tragedies. On this spot, before the statue was erected, a number of
the regicides were executed with tortures; and, till of late years, it
was a place for the pillory. Harrison died there, Scrope, Colonel
Jones, Hugh Peters, and others of those extraordinary men, who, in
welcoming a bloody death, gave the last undoubted proofs that they
were real patriots as well as bigots. The spirit in which they died
(bold and invincible, though in the very glow and loquacity evincing
that lingering love of life which is so affecting to one's own
mortality,) had such an effect on the public, that the king was
advised not to have any more such executions near the court, and the
scaffold was accordingly removed to Tyburn. A ghastly story is related
of Harrison;--that after he was cut down alive (according to his
sentence), and had his bowels removed and burnt before his face by the
executioner, he rose up and gave the man a box on the ear. He had
behaved with great patience before this half-death; so that there
appears to have been something of delirium in this action,--the
action, perhaps, of a being feeling himself to be no longer under the
ordinary condition of his species.
The particular sort of religious enthusiasm evinced by these men is
now as obsolete as some of the absurdities which they fought against,
and as others which they would have upheld; but there are passages of
lasting interest in the account of their last moments, which the
reader will perhaps expect to see.
As Harrison was going to suffer, "one in derision called to him and
said, 'Where is your Good Old Cause?' He with a cheerful smile clapt
his hand on his breast, and said 'Here it is, and I am going to seal
it with my blood?' And when he came to the sight of the gallows, he
was transported with joy, and his servant asked him how he did; he
answered 'Never better in my life.' His servant told him, 'Sir, there
is a crown of glory ready prepared for you.' 'O yes,' said he, 'I
see.' When he was taken off the sledge, the hangman desired him to
forgive him. 'I do forgive thee,' said he, 'with all my heart, as it
is a sin against me;' and told him he wished him all happiness. And
further said, 'Alas, poor man, thou dost it ignorantly; the Lord grant
that this sin may not be laid to thy charge!' And putting his hand
into his pocket gave him all the money he had, and so parting with his
servant, hugging of him in his arms, he went up the ladder with an
undaunted countenance.
"The people observing him to tremble in his hands and legs, he,
taking notice of it, said:--
"'Gentlemen, by reason of some scoffing that I do hear, I judge
that some do think I am afraid to die, by the shaking I have in
my hands and knees; I tell you no, but it is by reason of much
blood I have lost in the wars, and many wounds I have received
in my body, which caused this shaking and weakness in my
nerves; I have had it this twelve years: I speak this to the
praise and glory of God; he hath carried me above the fear of
death; and I value not my life, because I go to my Father, and
am assured I shall take it again.
"'Gentlemen, take notice, that for being instrumental in that
cause and interest of the Son of God, which hath been pleaded
amongst us, and which God hath witnessed to my appeals and
wonderful victories I am brought to this place to suffer death
this day, and if I had ten thousand lives, I could freely and
cheerfully lay them down all, to witness to this matter.'"[321]
The time of Colonel Jones's departure being come "this aged
gentleman," says the account, "was drawn in one sledge with his aged
companion Scroope, whose grave and graceful countenances, accompanied
with courage and cheerfulness, caused great admiration and compassion
in the spectators, as they passed along the streets to Charing Cross,
the place of their execution; and, after the executioner had done his
part upon three others that day he was so drunk with blood, that, like
one surfeited, he grew sick at stomach; and not being able himself, he
set his boy to finish the tragedy upon Col. Jones." The night before
he died he "told a friend he had no other temptation but this, lest he
should be too much transported, and carried out to neglect and slight
his life, so greatly was he satisfied to die in that cause."
"The day he suffered, he grasped a friend in his arms, and said
to him with some expressions of endearment, 'Farewell: I could
wish thee in the same condition with myself, that thou mightest
share with me in my joys.'"[322]
The famous Hugh Peters, the commonwealth preacher, whom Burnet speaks
of as an "enthusiastical buffoon," and a very "vicious man," is
thought by a greater loyalist (Burke) to have had "hard measures dealt
him at the Restoration." He calls him a "poor good man." Peters was
afraid at first he should not behave himself with the proper courage,
but rallied his spirits afterwards, and, according to the account
published by his friends (and all the accounts, it should be observed,
emanate from that side), no man appears to have behaved better. Burnet
says otherwise, and that he was observed all the while to be drinking
cordials to keep him from fainting, and Burnet's testimony is not to
be slighted, though he seems too readily to have taken upon trust some
evil reports of Peters' life and manners, which the "poor man,"
expressly contradicted in prison. Be this as it may, "Being carried,"
says the account, "upon the sledge to execution, and made to sit
thereon within the rails at Charing Cross to behold the execution of
Mr. Cook, one comes to him and upbraided him with the death of the
King, bidding him (with opprobrious language) to repent; he replied,
'Friend, you do not well to trample upon a dying man; you are greatly
mistaken, I had nothing to do in the death of the King.'"
"When Mr. Cook was cut down and brought to be quartered, one
they called Colonel Turner called to the Sheriff's men to bring
Mr. Peters near that he might see him; and by and by the
hangman came to him all besmeared in blood, and rubbing his
bloody hands together, he tauntingly asked, 'Come, how do you
like this, how do you like this work?' To whom he replied, 'I
am not, I thank God, terrified at it; you may do your worst.'
"When he was going to his execution, he looked about and espied
a man, to whom he gave a piece of gold (having bowed it first),
and desired him to go to the place where his daughter lodged,
and to carry that to her as a token from him, and to let her
know that his heart was as full of comfort as it could be, and
that before that piece should come into her hands he should be
with God in glory.
"Being upon the ladder, he spake to the Sheriff, saying, 'Sir,
you have here slain one of the servants of God before mine
eyes, and have made me to behold it on purpose to terrify and
discourage me; but God hath made it an ordinance to me for my
strengthening and encouragement.'
"When he was going to die, he said, 'What! flesh, art thou
unwilling to go to God through the fire and jaws of death? Oh'
(said he), 'this is a good day; he is come that I have long
looked for, and I shall be with him in glory;' and so smiled
when he went away.
"What Mr. Peters said farther at his execution, either in his
speech or prayer, it could not be taken, in regard his voice
was low at that time, and the people uncivil."[323]
Ben Jonson is supposed to have been born in Hartshorn Lane, Charing
Cross, where he lived when a little child. "Though I cannot," says
Fuller, "with all my industrious inquiry, find him in his cradle, I
can fetch him from his long coats. When a little child he lived in
Hartshorn Lane, Charing Cross, when his mother married a bricklayer
for her second husband. He was first bred in a private school in St.
Martin's Court; then in Westminster school." But we shall have other
occasions of speaking of him.
The famous reprobate Duke of Buckingham, Villiers, the second of that
name, was born in Wallingford House, which stood on the site of the
present Admiralty. "The Admiralty Office," says Pennant "stood
originally in Duke Street, Westminster: but in the reign of King
William was removed to the present spot, to the house then called
Wallingford, I believe, from its having been inhabited by the Knollys,
Viscounts Wallingford. From the roof the pious Usher, Archbishop of
Armagh, then living here with the Countess of Peterborough, was
prevailed on to take the last sight of his beloved master Charles I.,
when brought on the scaffold before Whitehall. He sank at the horror
of the sight, and was carried in a swoon to his apartment."
Wallingford House was often used by Cromwell and others in their
consultations.
"The present Admiralty Office," continues Pennant, "was rebuilt in the
late reign, by Ripley; it is a clumsy pile, but properly veiled from
the street by Mr. Adam's handsome screen." Where the poor Archbishop
sank in horror at the sight of the misguided Charles, telegraphs have
since plied their dumb and far-seen discourses, like spirit in the
guise of mechanism, telling news of the spread of liberty and
knowledge all over the world. Of the Villierses, Dukes of Buckingham,
who have not heard? The first one was a favourite not unworthy of his
fortune, open, generous, and magnificent; the second, perhaps because
he lost his father so soon, a spoiled child from his cradle, wilful,
debauched, unprincipled, but witty and entertaining. Here, and at York
House in the Strand, he turned night into day, and pursued his
intrigues, his concerts, his dabblings in chemistry and the
philosopher's stone, and his designs on the Crown: for Charles's
character, and the devices of Buckingham's fellow quacks and
astrologers, persuaded him that he had a chance of being king. When a
youth, he compounded with Cromwell, and married Fairfax's
daughter;--he was afterwards all for the king, when he was not "all
for rhyming" or ousting him;--when an old man, or near it (for these
prodigious possessors of animal spirits have a trick of lasting a long
while), he was still a youth in improvidence and dissipation, and his
whole life was a dream of uneasy pleasure. He is now best known from
Dryden's masterly portrait of him in the "Absalom and Achitophel."
"A man so various, that he seemed to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes,
So very violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laugh'd himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, or wise Achitophel;
Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left."
"This inimitable description," observes Sir Walter Scott, in a
note on the subject, "refers, as is well known, to the famous
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of
Charles I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put
into the hands of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and
licentious genius who ever lived, an estate of 20,000_l._ a
year, to be squandered in every wild scheme which the lust of
power, of pleasure, of license, or of whim, could dictate to an
unrestrained imagination. Being refused the situation of
President of the North, he was suspected of having favoured the
disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced
accordingly. But in 1666 he regained the favour of the King,
and became a member of the famous Administration called the
Cabal, which first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary
measures, and laid the foundation for the troubles of his
future reign. Buckingham changed sides about 1675, and becoming
attached to the country party, made a most active figure in all
proceedings which had relation to the Popish plot; intrigued
deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as a
promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent
mark for Dryden's satire; which we may believe was not the less
poignant, that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from
being depicted by his grace under the character of Bayes in the
"Rehearsal." As Dryden owed the Duke no favour, he has shown
him none. Yet even here the ridiculous rather than the infamous
part of his character is touched upon; and the unprincipled
libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury while his adulterous
countess held his horse in the disguise of a page, and who
boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody clothes
in which he had murdered her husband, is not exposed to hatred,
whilst the spendthrift and castle builder are held up to
contempt. So just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden,
that it differs little from the following sober historical
account.
"'The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an
infinite deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgment, and had
no virtue, or principle of any kind. These essential defects
made his whole life one train of inconsistencies. He was
ambitious beyond measure, and implacable in his resentments;
these qualities were the effects or different faces of his
pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside, no man living
could be more entertaining in conversation. He had a wonderful
talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own
conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world than any
which he could, with all his vivacity of wit and turn of
imagination, draw of others. Frolic and pleasure took up the
greatest part of his life: and in these he had neither any
taste nor set himself any bounds: running into the wildest
extravagances and pushing his debaucheries to a height, which
even a libertine age could not help censuring as downright
madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject had at
that time in England; yet his profuseness made him always
necessitous, as that necessity made him grasp at every thing
that would help to support his expenses. He was lavish without
generosity, and proud without magnanimity; and though he did
not want some bright talents, yet no good one ever made part of
his composition; for there was nothing so mean that he would
not stoop to, nor anything so flagrantly impious but he was
capable of undertaking.'"
"Buckingham's death," concludes the commentator, "was as awful
a beacon as his life. He had dissipated a princely fortune, and
lost both the means of procuring and the power of enjoying the
pleasures to which he was devoted. He had fallen from the
highest pinnacle of ambition into the last degree of contempt
and disregard." His dying scene, in a paltry inn, in Yorkshire,
has been immortalized by Pope's beautiful lines:--
"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung;
The floors of plaister and the walls of dung;
On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw,
The George and Garter, dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies! Alas! how changed from him!
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim;
Gallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimicked statesmen and a merry king;
No wit to flatter left of all his store,
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;
There victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!"[324]
"The worst inn's worst room," however, is a poetical fiction.
Buckingham died at the house of one of his tenants at Kirby Mallory,
where he was overtaken with illness. He had wasted his fortune to a
comparative nothing; but was not reduced to such necessity as the poet
would imply.[325]
Andrew Marvel makes the statue of Charing Cross the speaker in one of
his witty libels on Charles and his brother. There was an equestrian
statue of Charles II. at Woolchurch, the horse of which is made to
hold a dialogue with this other. The poet fancies that the riders,
"weary of sitting all day," stole off one evening, and the two horses
came together. The readers at Will's must have been a little
astonished at the boldness of such passages as the following:--
"Quoth the marble horse, It would make a stone speak,
To see a Lord Mayor and a Lombard Street beak,
Thy founder and mine, to cheat one another,
When both knaves agreed to be each other's brother.
Here Charing broke forth, and thus he went on--
My brass is provoked as much as thy stone
To see church and state bow down to a ----
And the King's chief ministers holding the door,
The money of widows and orphans employed,
And the bankers quite broke to maintain the ----'s pride.
WOOLCHURCH. To see _Dei Gratia_ writ on the throne.
And the King's wicked life says God there is none.
CHARING. That he should be styled Defender of the Faith,
Who believes not a word what the Word of God saith.
WOOLCHURCH. That the Duke should turn Papist, and that church defy,
For which his own father a Martyr did die.
CHARING. Tho' he changed his religion, I hope he's so civil,
Not to think his own father has gone to the Devil.
* * * * *
CHARING. Pause, brother, awhile, and calmly consider
What thou hast to say against my royal rider.
WOOLCHURCH. Thy priest-ridden King turned desperate fighter
For the surplice, lawn-sleeves, the cross, and the mitre;
Till at last on the scaffold he was left in the lurch,
By knaves, who cried themselves up for the church,
Archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and deans.
CHARING. Thy King will ne'er fight unless for his Queens.
WOOLCHURCH. He that dys for ceremonys, dys like a fool.
CHARING. The King on thy back is a lamentable tool.
WOOLCHURCH. the Goat and the Lion I Equally Hate,
And Freemen alike value life and estate:
Tho' the father and son be different rods,
Between the two scourgers we find little odds;
Both infamous stand in three kingdoms' votes,
This for picking our pockets, that for cutting our throats.
* * * * *
What is thy opinion of James Duke of York?
CHARING. The same that the frogs had of Jupiter's stork.
With the Turk in his head, and the Pope in his heart,
Father Patrick's disciples will make England smart.
If e'er he be king, I know Britain's doom,
We must all to a stake, or be converts to Rome.
Ah! Tudor, ah! Tudor, of Stuarts enough;
None ever reigned like old Bess in the ruff.
* * * * *
WOOLCHURCH. But canst thou devise when things will be mended?
CHARING. When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended."
And these very lampoons had a hand in ending them.
In the days of Buckingham there was a famous house of entertainment in
Charing Cross, called Locket's Ordinary. Where it exactly stood seems
to be no longer known: we suspect by the great Northumberland
Coffee-house. "It is often mentioned," says a manuscript in Birch's
collection, "in the plays of Cibber, Vanbrugh, &c., where the scene
sometimes is laid." It was much frequented by Sir George Etherege, as
appears from the following anecdotes, picked up at the British Museum.
Sir George Etherege and his company, "provoked by something amiss in
the entertainment or attendance, got into a violent passion and abused
the waiters. This brought in Mrs. Locket: 'We are so provoked,' said
Sir George, 'that even I could find in my heart to pull the nose-gay
out of your bosom, and throw the flowers in your face.' This turned
all their anger into jest."
"Sir G. Etherege discontinued Locket's Ordinary, having run up
a score which he could not conveniently discharge. Mrs. Locket
sent one to dun him, and to threaten him with a prosecution. He
bid the messenger tell her that he would kiss her if she
stirred a step in it. When this answer was brought back, she
called for her hood and scarf, and told her husband, who
interposed, that 'she'd see if there was any fellow alive who
had the impudence.' 'Pr'ythee, my dear, don't be so rash,' said
her husband, 'you don't know what a man may do in his
passion.'"[326]
The site of the tavern is now also unknown, where Prior was found,
when a boy, reading Horace. It was called the Rummer. Mr. Nichols has
found that, in the year 1685, it was kept by "Samuel Prior," and that
the "annual feasts of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of
St. Martin" were held there, October 14, in that year. "Prior," says
Johnson, "is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the
hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing Cross, who sent him for
some time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him
any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well
educated in literature, to his own house, where the Earl of Dorset,
celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet
relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency,
that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education."[327]
It is doubtful, however, from one of Prior's epistles to Fleetwood
Shepherd, whether the poet was more indebted to the Lord Dorset or to
that gentleman for his first advancement in life, though the Earl
finally became his great patron. He says to Shepherd,--
"Now, as you took me up when little
Gave me my learning and my vittle,
Asked for me, from my lord, things fitting
Kind, as I 'ad been your own begetting,
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen."
And again:--
"My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish;
So, when for hock I drew pricked white-wine,
Swear 't had the flavour, and was right-wine;
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
Val's Inn, to some good rogue attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds and cheating,
I 'ad found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit to follow
That sneaking, whey-fac'd god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I 'ad never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
I add no more invectives to it,
You spoiled the youth to make a poet."
Johnson says "A survey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify
a sentence which he doubtless understood well when he read Horace at
his uncle's; 'the vessel long retains the scent which it first
receives.' In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his
amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and
nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of
reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or elegance as a
poet." It is doubtful whether the general colour of everybody's life
and character might not be found in that of his childhood; but there
is no more reason to think that Prior's tavern propensities were owing
to early habit than those of his patrician companions. No man was
fonder of his bottle than Lord Dorset, and of low company than many a
lord has been. According to Burke, who was a king's man, kings are
naturally fond of low company. Yet they are no nephews of
tavern-keepers. Nor does it appear that Prior did anything in his
uncle's house but pass the time and read.
Thomson wrote part of his "Seasons" in the room over the shop of Mr.
Egerton, bookseller, where he resided when he first came to London. He
was at that time a raw Scotchman, gaping about town, getting his
pocket picked, and obliged to wait upon great men with his poem of
"Winter." Luckily his admiration of freedom did not hinder him from
acquiring the highest patronage. He obtained an easy place, which
required no compromise with his principles, and passed the latter part
of his life in a dwelling of his own at Richmond, writing in his
garden, and listening to nightingales. He was of an indolent
constitution, and has been seen in his garden eating peaches off the
trees, with his hands in his waistcoat pockets. But his indolence did
not hinder him from writing. He had the luck to have the occupation he
was fond of; and no man perhaps in his native country, with the
exception of Shakspeare, has acquired a greater or more unenvied fame.
His friends loved him, and his readers love his memory.
In Spring Gardens, originally a place of public entertainment, died
Mrs. Centlivre, the sprightly authoress of the "Wonder," the "Busy
Body," and the "Bold Stroke for a Wife." She was buried at St.
Martin's. She is said to have been a beauty, an accomplished linguist,
and a good-natured friendly woman. Pope put her in his "Dunciad," for
having written, it is said, a ballad against his "Homer" when she was
a child! But the probability is that she was too intimate with Steele
and other friends of Addison while the irritable poet was at variance
with them. It is not impossible, also, that some raillery of hers
might have been applied to him, not very pleasant from a beautiful
woman against a man of his personal infirmities, who was naturally
jealous of not being well with the sex. Mrs. Centlivre is said to have
been seduced when young by Anthony Hammond, father of the author of
the "Love Elegies," who took her to Cambridge with him in boy's
clothes. This did not hinder her from marrying a nephew of Sir Stephen
Fox, who died a year thereafter; nor from having two husbands
afterwards. Her second was an officer in the army, of the name of
Carrol, who, to her great sorrow, was killed in a duel. Her third
husband, Mr. Centlivre, who had the formidable title of Yeoman of the
Mouth, being principal cook to Queen Anne, fell in love with her when
she was performing the part of _Alexander the Great_, at Windsor; for
she appears at one time to have been an actress, though she never
performed in London. Mrs. Centlivre's dramas are not in the taste of
Mrs. Hannah More's, but the public still have a regard for them. All
the plays above-mentioned are stock pieces. The reason is, that,
careless as they are in dialogue, and not very scrupulous in manners,
they are full of action and good-humour.
Hedge Lane retained its name till lately, when, ceasing to be a heap
of squalidity, it was new christened and received the appellation of
Dorset Place. Part of it is merged in Pall Mall East. It is now the
handsomest end of the thoroughfare which runs up into Oxford Road, and
takes the successive names of Whitcomb, Princes, and Wardour Streets.
Not long ago the whole thoroughfare appears to have been called Hedge
Lane. It is related of Steele, Budgel, and Philips, that, issuing from
a tavern one day in Gerrard Street, they were about to turn into Hedge
Lane, when they were told that some suspicious-looking persons were
standing there as if in wait. "Thank ye," said the wits, and hurried
three different ways.
It is not pleasant to have old places altered which are connected with
interesting recollections, even if the place or recollection be none
of the pleasantest. When the houses in Suffolk Street were pulled
down, we could not help regretting that the abode was among them in
which poor Miss Vanhomrigh lived, who died for love of Swift. She
resided there with her mother, the widow of a Dutch merchant, and had
a small fortune. Swift while in England, upon the affairs of the Irish
Church, was introduced to them, and became so intimate as to leave his
best gown and cassock there for convenience. He found the coffee also
very pleasant, and gradually became too much interested in the
romantic spirit and flattering attentions of the young lady, whose
studies he condescended to direct, and who, in short, fell in love
with him at an age when he was old enough to be her father. Unluckily
he was married; and most unluckily he did not say a word about the
matter. It is curious to observe in the letters which he sent over to
Stella (his wife), with what an affected indifference he speaks of the
Vanhomrighs and his visits to them, evidently thinking it necessary
all the while to account for their frequency. When he left England,
Miss Vanhomrigh, after the death of her mother, followed him, and
proposed that he should either marry or refuse her. He would do
neither.
At length both the ladies, the married and unmarried, discovered their
mutual secret: a discovery which is supposed ultimately to have
hastened the death of both. Miss Vanhomrigh's survival of it was
short--not many weeks. For what may remain to be said on this painful
subject the reader will allow us to quote a passage from one of the
magazines.
"There was a vanity, perhaps, on both sides, though it may be
wrong to attribute a passion wholly to that infirmity, where
the object of it is not only a person celebrated, but one full
of wit and entertainment. The vanity was certainly not the less
on his side. Many conjectures have been made respecting the
nature of this connection of Swift's, as well as another more
mysterious. The whole truth, in the former instance, appears
obvious enough. Swift, partly from vanity, and partly from a
more excusable craving after some recreation of his natural
melancholy, had suffered himself to take a pleasure, and
exhibit an interest, in the conversation of an intelligent
young woman, beyond what he ought to have done. An attachment
on her part ensued, not greater, perhaps, than he contemplated
with a culpable satisfaction as long as it threatened no very
great disturbance of his peace, but which must have given him
great remorse in after-times, when he reflected upon his
encouragement of it. On the occasion of its disclosure his
self-love inspired him with one of his most poetical fancies:--
'Cadenus many things had writ;
Vanessa much esteemed his wit,
And called for his poetic works:
Meanwhile the boy in secret lurks,
And while the book was in her hand
The urchin from his private stand,
Took aim, and shot with all his strength
A dart of such prodigious length,
It pierced the feeble volume through,
And deep transfixed her bosom too.
Some lines more moving than the rest,
Stuck to the point that pierced her breast,
And borne directly to the heart,
With pains unknown increased her smart.
Vanessa, not in years a score,
Dreams of a gown of forty-four,
Imaginary charms can find
In eyes with reading almost blind:
Cadenus now no more appears
Declined in health, advanced in years,
She fancies music in his tongue,
Nor farther looks, but thinks him young.'
"A reflection ensues which it is a pity he had not made
before:--
'What mariner is not afraid
To venture in a ship decayed?
What planter will attempt to yoke
A sapling with a fallen oak?
As years increase she brighter shines,
Cadenus with each day declines;
And he must fall a prey to time
While she continues in her prime.'
"If he had thought of this when he used to go to her mother's
house in order to change his wig and gown and drink coffee, he
would have avoided those encouragements of Miss Vanhomrigh's
sympathy and admiration, which must have given rise to very
bitter reflections when she read such passages as the lines
that follow:--
'Cadenus, common forms apart,
In every scene had kept his heart;
Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ,
For pastime, or to show his wit.'
"It was sport to him, but death to her. His allegations of not
being conscious of anything on her part, are not to be trusted.
There are few men whose self-love is not very sharp-sighted on
such occasions,--men of wit in particular; nor was Swift,
notwithstanding the superiority he assumed over fopperies of
all sorts, and the great powers which gave a passport to the
assumption, exempt, perhaps, from any species of vanity. The
more airs he gives himself on that point, the less we are to
believe him. He was fond of lords and great ladies, and levees,
and canonicals, and of having the verger to walk before him. He
saw very well, we may be assured, the impression which he made
on the young lady; but he hoped, as others have hoped, that it
would accommodate itself to circumstances in cases of
necessity; or he pretended to himself that he was too modest to
believe it a great one; or sacrificing her ultimate good to her
present pleasure and to his own, he put off the disagreeable
day of alteration and self-denial till it was too late. There
are many reasons why Swift should have acted otherwise, and why
no man, at any time of life, should hazard the peace of another
by involvements which he cannot handsomely follow up. If he
does, he is bound to do what he can for it to the last."[328]
The famous Calves' Head Club (in ridicule of the memory of Charles I.)
was held at a tavern in Suffolk Street; at least the assembly of it
was held there which made so much noise in the last century, and
produced a riot. At this meeting it was said that a bleeding calf's
head had been thrown out of the window, wrapt up in a napkin, and that
the members drank damnation to the race of the Stuarts. This was
believed till the other day, and has often been lamented as a
disgusting instance of party spirit. To say the truth, the very name
of the club was disgusting, and a dishonour to the men who invented
it. It was more befitting their own heads. But the particulars above
mentioned are untrue. The letter has been set right by the publication
of "Spence's Anecdotes," at the end of which are some letters to Mr.
Spence, including one from Lord Middlesex, giving the real account of
the affair. By the style of the letter the reader may judge what sort
of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of
speaking to a waiter in those days:--
Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.
"Dear _Spanco_,
"I don't in the least doubt but long before this time the noise
of the riot on the 30 of Jan. has reached you at Oxford, and
though there has been as many lies and false reports raised
upon the occasion in this good city as any reasonable man could
expect, yet I fancy even those may be improved or increased
before they come to you. Now, that you may be able to defend
your friends (as I don't in the least doubt you have an
inclination to do), I'll send you the matter of fact literally
and truly as it happened, upon my honour. Eight of us happened
to meet together the 30th of January, it might have been the
10th of June, or any other day in the year, but the mixture of
the company has convinced most reasonable people by this time
that it was not a designed or premeditated affair. We met,
then, as I told you before, by chance upon this day, and after
dinner, having drunk very plentifully, especially some of the
company, some of us going to the window unluckily saw a little
nasty fire made by some boys in the street, of straw I think it
was, and immediately cried out, 'Damn it, why should not we
have a fire as well as anybody else?' Up comes the drawer,
'Damn you, you rascal, get us a bonfire.' Upon which the
imprudent puppy runs down, and without making any difficulty
(which he might have done by a thousand excuses, and which if
he had, in all probability, some of us would have come more to
our senses), sends for the faggots, and in an instant behold a
large fire blazing before the door. Upon which some of us,
wiser, or rather soberer, than the rest, bethinking themselves
then, for the first time, what day it was, and fearing the
consequences a bonfire on that day might have, proposed
drinking loyal and popular healths to the mob (out of the
window), which by this time was very great, in order to
convince them we did not intend it as a ridicule upon that day.
The healths that were drank out of the window were these, and
these only: The King, Queen, and Royal Family, the Protestant
Succession, Liberty and Property, the present Administration.
Upon which the first stone was flung, and then began our siege:
which, for the time it lasted, was at least as furious as that
of Philipsbourgh; it was more than an hour before we got any
assistance; the more sober part of us, doing this, had a fine
time of it, fighting to prevent fighting; in danger of being
knocked on the head by the stones that came in at the windows;
in danger of being run through by our mad friends, who, sword
in hand, swore they would go out, though they first made their
way through us. At length the justice, attended by a strong
body of guards, came and dispersed the populace. The person who
first stirred up the mob is known; he first gave them money,
and then harangued them in a most violent manner; I don't know
if he did not fling the first stone himself. He is an Irishman
and a priest, and belonging to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy.
This is the whole story from which so many calves' heads,
bloody napkins, and the Lord knows what has been made; it has
been the talk of the town and the country, and small beer and
bread and cheese to my friends the Garretters in Grub Street,
for these few days past. I, as well as your friends, hope to
see you soon in town. After so much prose, I can't help ending
with a few verses:--
O had I lived in merry Charles's days,
When dull the wise were called, and wit had praise;
When deepest politics could never pass
For aught, but surer tokens of an ass;
When not the frolicks of one drunken night
Could touch your honour, make your fame less bright,
Tho' mob-form'd scandal rag'd, and Papal spight.
"MIDDLESEX."
The author of a "Secret History of the Calves' Head Club, or the
Republicans Unmasked" (supposed to be Ned Ward, of ale-house memory),
attributes the origin to Milton and some other friends of the
Commonwealth, in opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr. Sanderson, and
others, who met privately every 30th of January, and had compiled a
private form of service for the day, not very different from that now
in use.
"After the Restoration," says the writer, "the eyes of the
Government being upon the whole party, they were obliged to
meet with a great deal of precaution; but in the reign of King
William they met almost in a public manner, apprehending no
danger." The writer farther tells us, he was informed that it
was kept in no fixed house, but that they moved as they thought
convenient. The place where they met when his informant was
with them was in a blind alley near Moorfields, where an axe
hung up in the club-room, and was reverenced as a principal
symbol in this diabolical sacrament. Their bill of fare was a
large dish of calves' heads, dressed several ways, by which
they represented the king and his friends who had suffered in
his cause; a large pike, with a small one in his mouth, as an
emblem of tyranny; a large cod's head by which they intended to
represent the person of the king singly; a boar's head with an
apple in its mouth, to represent the king by this as bestial,
as by their other hieroglyphics they had done foolish and
tyrannical. After the repast was over, one of their elders
presented an _Icon Basilike_, which was with great solemnity
burnt upon the table, whilst the other anthems were singing.
After this, another produced Milton's _Defensio Populi
Anglicani_, upon which all laid their hands, and made a
protestation in form of an oath for ever to stand by and
maintain the same. The company only consisted of Independents
and Anabaptists; and the famous Jeremy White, formerly chaplain
to Oliver Cromwell, who no doubt came to sanctify with his
pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After
the table-cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they
impiously called it, was sung, and a calf's skull filled with
wine, or other liquor; and then a brimmer went about to the
pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant
and relieved their country from his arbitrary sway: and,
lastly, a collection was made for the mercenary scribbler, to
which every man contributed according to his zeal for the cause
and ability of his purse."
"Although no great reliance," says Mr. Wilson, from whose life
of De Foe this passage is extracted, "is to be placed upon the
faithfulness of Ward's narrative, yet, in the frighted mind of
a high-flying churchman, which was continually haunted by such
scenes, the caricature would easily pass for a likeness." "It
is probable," adds the honest biographer of De Foe, "that the
persons thus collected together to commemorate the triumph of
their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste,
and outrageous to humanity, would have confined themselves to
the ordinary methods of eating and drinking, if it had not been
for the ridiculous farce so generally acted by the royalists
upon the same day. The trash that issued from the pulpit in
this reign, upon the 30th of January, was such as to excite the
worst passions in the hearers. Nothing can exceed the grossness
of language employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of
common decorum, the speakers ransacked the vocabulary of the
vulgar for terms of vituperation, and hurled their anathemas
with wrath and fury against the objects of their hatred. The
terms rebel and fanatic were so often upon their lips, that
they became the reproach of honest men, who preferred the
scandal to the slavery they attempted to establish. Those who
could profane the pulpit with so much rancour in the support of
senseless theories, and deal it out to the people for religion,
had little reason to complain of a few absurd men who mixed
politics and calves' heads at a tavern; and still less, to
brand a whole religious community with their actions."[329]
[Illustration: SCOTLAND YARD IN 1750.]
Scotland Yard is so called from a palace built for the reception of
the Kings of Scotland when they visited this country. Pennant tells us
that it was originally given to King Edgar, by Kenneth, Prince of that
country, for the purpose of his coming to pay him annual homage, as
Lord Paramount of Scotland. Margaret, widow of James V. and sister of
Henry VIII., resided there a considerable time after the death of her
husband, and was magnificently entertained by her brother on his
becoming reconciled to her second marriage with the Earl of
Angus.[330] When the Crowns became united, James I. of course waived
his right of abode in the homage-paying house, which was finally
deserted as a royal residence. We know not when it was demolished.
Probably it was devoted for some time to Government offices. Scotland
Yard was the place of one of Milton's abodes during the time he served
the Government of Cromwell. He lost an infant son there. The eccentric
Beau Fielding died in it at the beginning of the last century, and
Vanbrugh a little after him. There was a coffee-house in the yard,
which seems, by the following pleasant advertisement, to have been
frequented by good company:--
"Whereas six gentlemen (all of the same honourable profession),
having been more than ordinarily put to it for a little
pocket-money, did, on the 14th instant, in the evening, near
Kentish Town, borrow of two persons (in a coach) a certain sum
of money, without staying to give bond for the repayment: And
whereas fancy was taken to the hat, peruke, cravat, sword, and
cane, of one of the creditors, which were all lent as freely as
the money: these are therefore to desire the said six worthies,
how fond soever they may be of the other loans, to un-fancy the
cane again and send it to Well's Coffee House in Scotland Yard;
it being too short for any such proper gentlemen as they are to
walk with, and too small for any of their important uses; and
withal, only valuable as having been the gift of a
friend."[331]
Beau Fielding was thought worthy of record by Sir Richard Steele, as
an extraordinary instance of the effects of personal vanity upon a man
not without wit. He was of the noble family of Fielding, and was
remarkable for the beauty of his person, which was a mixture of the
Hercules and the Adonis. It is described as having been a real model
of perfection. He married to his first wife the dowager Countess of
Purbeck; followed the fortunes of James II., who is supposed to have
made him a major-general and perhaps a count; returned and married a
woman of the name of Wadsworth, under the impression that she was a
lady of fortune; and, discovering his error, addressed or accepted the
addresses of the notorious Duchess of Cleveland, and married her, who,
on discovering her mistake in turn, indicted him for bigamy and
obtained a divorce. Before he left England to follow James, "Handsome
Fielding," as he was called, appears to have been insane with vanity.
On his return, he had added, to the natural absurdities of that
passion, the indecency of being old; but this only rendered him the
more perverse in his folly. He always appeared in an extraordinary
dress: sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less size than ordinary,
the better to display the nobleness of his person; and his footmen
appeared in liveries of yellow, with black feathers in their hats, and
black sashes. When people laughed at him, he refuted them, as Steele
says, "by only moving." Sir Richard says he saw him one day stop and
call the boys about him, to whom he spoke as follows:--
"Good youths,--Go to school, and do not lose your time in following my
wheels: I am loth to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my
own offspring. Hark ye, you sirrah with the white hair, I am sure you
are mine, there is half-a-crown for you. Tell your mother, this, with
the other half-crown I gave her ... comes to five shillings. Thou hast
cost me all that, and yet thou art good for nothing. Why, you young
dogs, did you never see a man before?" "Never such a one as you, noble
general," replied a truant from Westminster. "Sirrah, I believe thee:
there is a crown for thee. Drive on, coachman." Swift puts him in his
list of Mean Figures, as one who "at fifty years of age, when he was
wounded in a quarrel upon the stage, opened his breast and showed the
wound to the ladies, that he might move their love and pity; but they
all fell a laughing." His vanity, which does not appear to have been
assisted by courage, sometimes got him into danger. He is said to have
been caned and wounded by a Welsh gentleman, in the theatre in
Lincoln's Inn Fields; and pressing forward once at a benefit of Mrs.
Oldfield's, 'to show himself,' he trod on Mr. Fulwood, a barrister,
who gave him a wound twelve inches deep. His fortune, which he ruined
by early extravagance, he thought to have repaired by his marriage
with Mrs. Wadsworth, and endeavoured to do so by gambling; but
succeeded in neither attempt, and after the short-lived splendour with
the Duchess of Cleveland, returned to his real wife, whom he pardoned,
and died under her care. During the height of his magnificence, he
carried his madness so far, according to Steele, as to call for his
tea by beat of drum; his valet got ready to shave him by a trumpet to
horse; and water was brought for his teeth, when the sound was changed
to boots and saddle." If this looks like a jest, there is no knowing
how far vanity might be carried, especially when the patient may
cloak it from himself under the guise of giving way to a humour.[332]
Vanbrugh, comic poet, architect, and herald, was comptroller of the
royal works. His house in Whitehall, built by himself, was remarkable
for its smallness. Swift compared it to a goose-pie. On the other
hand, his Blenheim and public buildings are ridiculed for their
ponderous hugeness. The close of Dr. Evans's epitaph upon him is well
known:--
Lie heavy on him earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.
When he was made Clarencieux king-at-arms, Swift said he might now
"build houses." The secret of this ridicule was, that Vanbrugh was a
Whig. Sir Joshua Reynolds has left the following high encomium on his
merits as an architect. "In the buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a poet
as well as an architect, there is a greater display of imagination
than we shall find, perhaps, in any other; and this is the ground of
the effect we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults
with which many of them are charged. For this purpose, Vanbrugh
appears to have had recourse to some principles of the Gothic
architecture, which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, _is more so
to our imagination_, with which the artist is more concerned than with
absolute truth." "To speak of Vanbrugh (adds Sir Joshua), in the
language of a painter, he had originality of invention; he understood
light and shadow, and had great skill in composition. To support his
principal object, he produced his second and third groups or masses.
He perfectly understood in his art, what is the most difficult in
ours, the conduct of the back-ground, by which the design and
invention are set off to the greatest advantage. What the back-ground
is in painting, in architecture is the real ground on which the
building is erected; and no architect took greater care that his work
should not appear crude and hard; that is, that it did not abruptly
start out of the ground without expectation or preparation. This is a
tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a
painter, and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits
of his time, _who did not understand the principles of composition in
poetry better than he, and who knew little or nothing of what he
understood perfectly--the general ruling principles of architecture
and painting_. Vanbrugh's fate was that of the great Perrault. Both
were the objects of the petulant sarcasms of factious men of letters,
and both have left some of the fairest monuments which, to this day,
decorate their several countries;--the façade of the Louvre; Blenheim,
and Castle Howard."[333] Perrault, however, had a worse fate than
Vanbrugh, for the Frenchman was ridiculed not only as an architect but
as a man of letters, whereas our author's pretensions that way were
acknowledged.
In the front of Scotland Yard an extraordinary adventure befell Lord
Herbert of Cherbury--(_see_ Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields), who
relates it in a strain of coxcombry (particularly about the ladies)
which would have brought discredit upon such a story from any other
pen. There is no doubt, however, that the story is true.
"There was a lady," says his lordship, "wife to Sir John Ayres,
knight, who finding some means to get a copy of my picture from
Larkin, gave it to Mr. Isaac, the painter, in Blackfriars, and
desired him to draw it in little, after his manner; which being
done, she caused it to be set in gold and enamelled, and so
wore it about her neck so low that she hid it under her
breasts, which I conceive, coming afterwards to the knowledge
of Sir John Ayres, gave him more cause of jealousie than
needed, had he known how innocent I was from pretending to
anything that might wrong him or his lady, since I could not so
much as imagine that either she had my picture, or that she
bare more than ordinary affection to me. It is true, that as
she had a place in court, and attended Queen Anne, and was
beside of an excellent wit and discourse, she had made herself
a considerable person. Howbeit, little more than a common
civility ever passed betwixt us; though I confess I think no
man was welcomer to her when I came, for which I shall allege
this passage:--
"Coming one day into her chamber, I saw her through the
curtains lying upon her bed with a wax candle in one hand, and
the picture I formerly mentioned in the other. I coming
thereupon somewhat boldly to her, she blew out the candle and
hid the picture from me: myself thereupon being curious to know
what that was she held in her hand, got the candle to be
lighted again, by means whereof I found it was my picture she
looked upon with more earnestness and passion than I could
easily have believed, especially since myself was not engaged
in any affection towards her. I could willingly have omitted
this passage, but that it was the beginning of a bloody history
which followed: howsoever, yet I must before the eternal God
clear her honour. And now in court a great person sent for me
divers times to attend her; which summons, though I obeyed, yet
God knows I declined coming to her as much as conveniently I
could without incurring her displeasure; and this I did, not
only for very honest reasons, but, to speak ingenuously,
because that affection passed between me and another lady (who
I believe was the fairest of her time) as nothing could divert
it. I had not been long in London, when a violent burning fever
seized upon me, which brought me almost to my death, though at
last I did by slow degrees recover my health. Being thus upon
my amendment, the Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Leicester,
sent me word, that Sir John Ayres intended to kill me in my
bed; and wished me to keep guard upon my chamber and person.
The same advertisement was confirmed by Lucy, Countess of
Bedford, and the Lady Hobby, shortly after. Hereupon I thought
fit to entreat Sir William Herbert, now Lord Powis, to go to
Sir John Ayres, and tell him that I marvelled much at the
information given me by these great persons, and that I could
not imagine any sufficient ground hereof; howbeit, if he had
anything to say to me in a fair and noble way, I would give him
the meeting as soon as I had got strength enough to stand on my
legs. Sir William hereupon brought me so ambiguous and doubtful
an answer from him, that, whatsoever he meant, he would not
declare yet his intention, which was really, as I found
afterwards, to kill me any way that he could." The reason, Lord
Herbert tells us, was, that Sir John, though falsely, accused
him of having seduced his wife. "Finding no means thus to
surprise me," continues the noble lord, "he sent me a letter to
this effect; that he desired to meet me somewhere, and that it
might so fall out as I might return quietly again. To this I
replied, that if he desired to fight with me on equal terms, I
should, upon assurance of the field and fair play, give him
meeting when he did any way specify the cause, and that I did
not think fit to come to him upon any other terms, having been
sufficiently informed of his plots to assassinate me.
"After this, finding he could take no advantage against me,
then in a treacherous way he resolved to assassinate me in this
manner;--hearing I was to come to Whitehall on horseback with
two lacqueys only, he attended my coming back in a place called
Scotland Yard, at the hither end of Whitehall, as you come to
it from the Strand, hiding himself here with four men armed to
kill me. I took horse at Whitehall Gate, and, passing by that
place, he being armed with a sword and dagger, without giving
me so much as the least warning, ran at me furiously, but
instead of me, wounded my horse in the brisket, as far as his
sword could enter for the bone; my horse hereupon starting
aside, he ran him again in the shoulder, which, though it made
the horse more timorous, yet gave me time to draw my sword: his
men thereupon encompassed me, and wounded my horse in three
places more; this made my horse kick and fling in that manner,
as his men durst not come near me, which advantage I took to
strike at Sir John Ayres with all my force, but he warded the
blow both with his sword and dagger; instead of doing him harm,
I broke my sword within a foot of the hilt; hereupon, some
passenger that knew me, observing my horse wounded in so many
places, and so many men assaulting me, and my sword broken,
cried to me several times, 'Ride away, ride away;' but I
scorning a base flight upon what terms soever, instead thereof
alighted as well I could from my horse; I had no sooner put one
foot upon the ground than Sir John Ayres, pursuing me, made at
my horse again, which the horse perceiving, pressed on me on
the side I alighted, in that manner, that he threw me down, so
that I remained flat upon the ground, only one foot hanging in
the stirrup, with that piece of a sword in my right hand. Sir
John Ayres hereupon ran about the horse, and was thrusting his
sword into me, when I, finding myself in this danger, did with
both my arms reaching at his legs pull them towards me, till he
fell down backwards on his head; one of my footmen hereupon,
who was a little Shropshire boy, freed my foot out of the
stirrup, the other, who was a great fellow, having run away as
soon as he saw the first assault; this gave me time to get upon
my legs and to put myself in the best posture I could with that
poor remnant of a weapon; Sir John Ayres by this time likewise
was got up, standing betwixt me and some part of Whitehall,
with two men on each side of him, and his brother behind him,
with at least twenty or thirty persons of his friends, or
attendants on the Earl of Suffolk; observing thus a body of men
standing in opposition against me, though to speak truly I saw
no swords drawn but Sir John Ayres' and his men, I ran
violently against Sir John Ayres, but he, knowing my sword had
no point, held his sword and dagger over his head, as believing
I could strike rather than thrust, which I no sooner perceived
but I put a home thrust to the middle of his breast, that I
threw him down with so much force, that his head fell first to
the ground and his heels upwards; his men hereupon assaulted
me, when one Mr. Mansel, a Glamorganshire gentleman, finding so
many set against me alone, closed with one of them; a Scotch
gentleman also, closing with another, took him off also: all I
could well do to those that remained was to ward their thrusts,
which I did with that resolution that I got ground upon them.
Sir John Ayres was now got up a third time, when I making
towards him with intention to close thinking, that there was
otherwise no safety for me, put by a thrust of his with my left
hand, and so coming within him, received a stab with his dagger
on my right side, which ran down my ribs as far as my hips,
which I feeling, did with my right elbow force his hand,
together with the hilt of the dagger, so near the upper part of
my right side, that I made him leave hold. The dagger now
sticking in me, Sir Henry Carey, afterwards Lord of Faulkland,
and Lord Deputy of Ireland, finding the dagger thus in my body,
snatched it out; this while I, being closed with Sir John
Ayres, hurt him on the head and threw him down a third time,
when kneeling on the ground and bestriding him, I struck at him
as hard as I could with my piece of a sword, and wounded him in
four several places, and did almost cut off his left hand; his
two men this while struck at me, but it pleased God even
miraculously to defend me, for when I lifted up my sword to
strike at Sir John Ayres, I bore off their blows half a dozen
times; his friends now finding him in this danger, took him by
the head and shoulders and drew him from betwixt my legs, and
carrying him along with them through Whitehall, at the stairs
whereof he took boat, Sir Herbert Croft (as he told me
afterwards) met him upon the water vomiting all the way, which
I believe was caused by the violence of the first thrust I gave
him; his servants, brother, and friends, being now retired
also, I remained master of the place and his weapons, having
first wrested his dagger from him, and afterwards struck his
sword out of his hand.
"This being done, I retired to a friend's house in the Strand,
where I sent for a surgeon, who, searching my wound on the
right side, and finding it not to be mortal, cured me in the
space of some ten days, during which time I received many noble
visits and messages from some of the best in the kingdom. Being
now fully recovered of my hurts, I desired Sir Robert Harley to
go to Sir John Ayres, and tell him, that though I thought he
had not so much honour left in him, that I could be in any way
ambitious to get it, yet that I desired to see him in the field
with his sword in his hand; the answer that he sent me was
(repeating the charge above mentioned) 'that he would kill me
with a musket out of a window.'
"The Lords of the Privy Council, who had at first sent for my
sword, that they might see the little fragment of a weapon with
which I had so behaved myself, as perchance the like had not
been heard in any credible way, did afterwards command both him
and me to appear before them; but I, absenting myself on
purpose, sent one Humphrey Hill with a challenge to him in an
ordinary, which he refusing to receive, Humphrey Hill put it
upon the point of his sword, and so let it fall before him and
the company then present.
"The Lords of the Privy Council had now taken order to
apprehend Sir John Ayres, when I, finding nothing else to be
done, submitted myself likewise to them. Sir John Ayres had now
published everywhere that the ground of his jealousie, and
consequently of his assaulting me, was drawn from the
confession of his wife, the Lady Ayres. She, to vindicate her
honour, as well as free me from this accusation, sent a letter
to her aunt, the Lady Crook, to this purpose: that her husband,
Sir John Ayres, did lie falsely, ... but most falsely of all
did lie when he said he had it from her confession, for she had
never said any such thing.
"This letter the Lady Crook presented to me most opportunely,
as I was going to the Counsell table before the Lords, who,
having examined Sir John Ayres concerning the cause of his
quarrel with me, found him still to persist on his wife's
confession of the fact; and now, he being withdrawn, I was sent
for, when the Duke of Lennox, afterwards of Richmond, telling
me that was the ground of his quarrel, and the only excuse he
had for assaulting me in that manner, I desired his lordship to
peruse the letter, which I told him was given me as I came into
the room; this letter being publicly read by a clerk of the
Counsell, the Duke of Lennox then said, that he thought Sir
John Ayres the most miserable man living, for his wife had not
only given him the lie, as he found by the letter, but his
father had disinherited him for attempting to kill me in that
barbarous fashion, which was most true, as I found
afterwards;--for the rest, that I might content myself with
what I had done, it being more almost than could be believed,
but that I had so many witnesses thereof; for all which
reasons, he commanded me in the name of his Majesty, and all
their lordships, not to send any more to Sir John Ayres, nor to
receive any message from him, in the way of fighting, which
commandment I observed: howbeit, I must not omit to tell, that
some years afterwards Sir John Ayres, returning from Ireland by
Beaumaris, where I then was, some of my servants and followers
broke open the doors of the house where he was, and would, I
believe, have cut him into pieces, but that I, hearing
thereof, came suddenly to the house and recalled them, sending
him word also that I scorned to give him the usage he gave me,
and that I would set him free of the town, which courtesie of
mine (as I was told afterwards) he did thankfully
acknowledge."[334]
FOOTNOTES:
[319] Page 143.
[320] Pennant, p. 112. He quotes Archenholz's Tableau d'Angleterre,
183.
[321] State Trials, _ut supra_, vol. v., p. 1236.
[322] Id. pp. 1284, 1286.
[323] State Trials, vol. v., p. 1282.
[324] Scott's Edition of "Dryden," vol. ix., p. 270.
[325] See the life of him by his retainer Fairfax, and the account of
him on his deathbed in the "Collection of Letters of several Persons
of Quality and others."
[326] MSS. Birch, 4221, quoted in the Notes of the Tatler, _ut supra_,
vol. i., p. 208.
[327] Life of Prior in the "Lives of the Poets."
[328] New Monthly Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 140.
[329] Memoirs of the Life and Writings of De Foe, 1829, vol. ii., p.
116.
[330] Pennant, p. 110.
[331] Extracted from Salisbury's Flying Post, of October 27, 1696, in
Malcolm's Manners and Customs of London to the year 1700, vol. i., p.
396.
[332] See State Trials, _ut supra_, "Egerton's Memoirs of Mrs.
Oldfield;" "Swift's Great and Mean Figures," vol. xvii., 1765; and the
"History of Orlando the Fair, in the Tatler," as above, Nos. 50 and
51. "The author of Memoirs of Fielding in the Select Trials," says a
note on the latter number, "admits, that for all the ludicrous air and
pleasantry of this narration (Steele's), the truth of facts and
character is in general fairly represented."
[333] Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy. Sharpe's Edition,
vol. ii., pp. 113, 115.