[23] In Craven, the hay is not stacked as in the south, but housed in
barns, which from this custom are called hay-mows.
* * * * *
~Literary Novelty.~
“THE SYBIL’S LEAVES, _or a Peep into Futurity_, published by Ackermann,
Strand, and Lupton Relfe, Cornhill,” consist of sixty lithographic
verses on as many cards, in a case bearing an engraved representation of
a party in high humour consulting the cards. Thirty of them are designed
for ladies, and as many for gentlemen: a lady is to hold the gentleman’s
pack, and _vice versa_. From these packs, each lady or gentleman wishing
to have “the _most important_ points _infallibly_ predicted” is to draw
a card.
The idea of telling fortunes at home is very pleasant; and the variety
of “the Sybil’s Leaves” assists to as frequent opportunities of
re-consultation as the most inveterate craver can desire. A lady
condemned by one of the leaves to “wither on the virgin thorn,” on
turning over a new leaf may chance to be assured of a delightful
reverse; and by a like easy process, a “disappointed gentleman” become,
at last, a “happy man.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: ~The ancient River Fleet at Clerkenwell.~]
Lo! hither Fleet-_brook_ came, in former times call’d the Fleet-
_river_,
Which navies once rode on, in present times hidden for ever,
Save where water-cresses and sedge mark its oozing and creeping,
In yonder old meadows, from whence it lags slowly--as weeping
Its present misgivings, and obsolete use, and renown--
And bearing its burdens of shame and abuse into town,
On meeting the buildings sinks into the earth, nor aspires
To decent-eyed people, till forced to the Thames at Blackfri’rs.
*
In 1825, this was the first open view nearest London of the ancient
River Fleet: it was taken during the building of the high-arched walls
connected with the House of Correction, Cold-bath-fields, close to which
prison the river ran, as here seen. At that time, the newly-erected
walls communicated a peculiarly picturesque effect to the stream flowing
within their confines. It arrived thither from Bagnigge-wells, on its
way to a covered channel, whereby it passes between Turnmill-street, and
again emerging, crosses Chick-lane, now called West-street, near
Field-lane, at the back of which it runs on, and continues under
Holborn-bridge, Fleet-market, and Bridge-street, till it reaches the
Thames, close to the stairs on the west side of Blackfriars-bridge. The
bridge, whereby boys cross the stream in the engraving, is a large iron
pipe for conveying water from the New River Company’s works, to supply
the houses in Grays-inn-lane. A few years ago, the New River water was
conducted across this valley through wooden pipes. Since the drawing was
made, the Fleet has been diverted from the old bed represented in the
print, through a large barrel drain, into the course just mentioned,
near Turnmill-street. This notice of the deviation, and especially the
last appearance of the river in its immemorial channel, may be of
interest, because the Fleet is the only ancient stream running into
London which is not yet wholly lost to sight.
The River Fleet at its source, in a field on the London side of the
Hampstead ponds, is merely a sedgy ditchling, scarcely half a step
across, and “winds its sinuosities along,” with little increase of width
or depth, to the road from the Mother Red Cap to Kentish Town, beneath
which road it passes through the pastures to Camden Town; and in one of
these pastures, the canal, running through the Tunnel at Pentonville to
the City-road, is conveyed over it by an arch. From this place its width
increases, till it reaches towards the west side of the road leading
from Pancras Workhouse to Kentish Town. In the rear of the houses on
that side of the road, it becomes a brook, washing the edge of the
garden in front of the premises late the stereotype-foundery and
printing-offices of Mr. Andrew Wilson, which stand back from the road;
and, cascading down behind the lower road-side houses, it reaches the
Elephant and Castle, in front of which it tunnels to Battle-bridge, and
there levels out to the eye, and runs sluggishly to Bagnigge-wells,
where it is at its greatest width, which is about twelve feet across;
from thence it narrows to the House of Correction, and widens again near
Turnmill-street, and goes to the Thames, as above described.
In a parliament held at Carlile, in 35 Edward I., 1307, Henry Lacy earl
of Lincoln complained that, in former times, the course of water running
under Holborn-bridge and Fleet-bridge into the Thames, had been of such
breadth and depth that ten or twelve ships at once, “navies with
merchandise,” were wont to come to Fleet-bridge, and some of them to
Holborn-bridge; yet that, by filth of the tanners and others, and by
raising of wharfs, and especially by a diversion of the water in the
first year of king John, 1200, by them of the New Temple, for their
mills without Baynard’s Castle, and by other impediments, the course was
decayed, and ships could not enter as they were used. On the prayer of
the earl, the constable of the Tower, with the mayor and sheriffs of
London, were directed to take with them honest and discreet men to
inquire into the former state of the river, to leave nothing that might
hurt or stop it, and to restore it to its wonted condition. Upon this,
the river was cleansed, the mills were removed, and other means taken
for the preservation of the course; but it was not brought to its old
depth and breadth, and therefore it was no longer termed a river, but a
brook, called Turne-mill or Tremill Brook, because mills were erected on
it.
After this, it was cleansed several times; and particularly in 1502, the
whole course of Fleet Dike, as it was then called, was scoured down to
the Thames, so that boats with fish and fuel were rowed to Fleet-bridge
and Holborn-bridge.
In 1589, by authority of the common council of London, a thousand marks
were collected to draw several of the springs at Hampstead-heath into
one head, for the service of the City with fresh water where wanted, and
in order that by such “a follower,” as it was termed, the channel of the
brook should be scoured into the Thames. After much money spent, the
effect was not obtained, and in Stow’s time, by means of continual
encroachments on the banks, and the throwing of soil into the stream, it
became worse clogged than ever.[24]
After the Fire of London, the channel was made navigable for barges to
come up, by the assistance of the tide from the Thames, as far as
Holborn-bridge, where the Fleet, otherwise Turnmill-brook, fell into
this, the wider channel; which had sides built of stone and brick, with
warehouses on each side, running under the street, and used for the
laying in of coals, and other commodities. This channel had five feet
water, at the lowest tide, at Holborn-bridge, the wharfs on each side
the channel were thirty feet broad, and rails of oak were placed along
the sides of the ditch to prevent people from falling into it at night.
There were four bridges of Portland stone over it; namely, at Bridewell,
Fleet-street, Fleet-lane, and Holborn.
When the citizens proposed to erect a mansion-house for their lord
mayor, they fixed on Stocks-market, where the Mansion-house now stands,
for its site, and proposed to arch the Fleet-ditch, from Holborn to
Fleet-street, and to remove that market to the ground they would gain by
that measure. In 1733, therefore, they represented to the House of
Commons, that although after the Fire of London the channel of the Fleet
had been made navigable from the Thames to Holborn-bridge, yet the
profits from the navigation had not answered the charge; that the part
from Fleet-bridge to Holborn-bridge, instead of being useful to trade,
had become choked with mud, and was therefore a nuisance, and that
several persons had lost their lives by falling into it. For these and
other causes assigned, an act passed, vesting the fee simple of the site
referred to in the corporation for ever, on condition that drains should
be made through the channel, and that no buildings on it should exceed
fifteen feet in height. The ditch was accordingly arched over from
Holborn to Fleet-bridge, where the present obelisk in Bridge-street now
stands, and Fleet-market was erected on the arched ground, and opened
with the business of Stocks-market, on the 30th of September, 1737.
In 1765, the building of Blackfriars-bridge rendered it requisite to
arch over the remainder, from Fleet-bridge to the Thames; yet a small
part remained an open dock for a considerable time, owing to the
obstinate persistence of a private proprietor.[25]
Previous to the first arching of the Fleet, Pope, in “The Dunciad,”
imagined the votaries of Dulness diving and sporting in Fleet-ditch,
which he then called
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
“I recollect,” says Pennant, “the present noble approach to
Blackfriars-bridge, the well-built opening of Chatham-place, a muddy and
genuine ditch.” It has of late been rendered a convenient and capacious
sewer.
* * * * *
During the digging of Fleet-ditch, in 1676, with a view to its
improvement after the Fire of London, between the Fleet-prison and
Holborn-bridge, at the depth of fifteen feet, several Roman utensils
were discovered; and, a little lower, a great quantity of Roman coins,
of silver, copper, brass, and various other metals, but none of gold;
and at Holborn-bridge, two brass lares, or household gods, of the
Romans, about four inches in length, were dug out; one a Ceres, and the
other a Bacchus. The great quantity of coins, induces a presumption that
they were thrown into this river by the Roman inhabitants of the city,
on the entry of Boadicea, with her army of enraged Britons, who
slaughtered their conquerors, without distinction of age or sex. Here
also were found arrow-heads, spur-rowels of a hand’s breadth, keys,
daggers, scales, seals with the proprietors’ names in Saxon characters,
ship counters with Saxon characters, and a considerable number of
medals, crosses, and crucifixes, of a more recent age.[26]
Sometime before the year 1714, Mr. John Conyers, an apothecary in
Fleet-street, who made it his chief business to collect antiquities,
which about that time were daily found in and about London, as he was
digging in a field near the Fleet not far from Battle-bridge, discovered
the body of an elephant, conjectured to have been killed there, by the
Britons, in fight with the Romans; for, not far from the spot, was found
an ancient British spear, the head of flint fastened into a shaft of
good length.[27] From this elephant, the public-house near the spot
where it was discovered, called the Elephant and Castle, derives its
sign.
There are no memorials of the extent to which the river Fleet was
anciently navigable, though, according to tradition, an anchor was found
in it as high up as the Elephant and Castle, which is immediately
opposite Pancras workhouse, and at the corner of the road leading from
thence to Kentish-town. Until within these few years, it gave motion to
flour and flatting mills at the back of Field-lane, near Holborn.[28]
That the Fleet was once a very serviceable stream there can be no doubt,
from what Stow relates. The level of the ground is favourable to the
presumption, that its current widened and deepened for navigable
purposes to a considerable extent in the valley between the
Bagnigge-wells-road and Gray’s-inn, and that it might have had
accessions to its waters from other sources, besides that in the
vicinity of Hampstead. Stow speaks of it under the name of the “_River
of Wels_, in the west part of the citie, and _of old_ so called of the
_Wels_;” and he tells of its running from the moor near the north corner
of the wall of Cripplegate postern. This assertion, which relates to the
reign of William the Conqueror, is controverted by Maitland, who
imagines “great inattention” on the part of the old chronicler. It is
rather to be apprehended, that Maitland was less an antiquary than an
inconsiderate compiler. The drainage of the city has effaced proofs of
many appearances which Stow relates as existing in his own time, but
which there is abundant testimony of a different nature to corroborate;
and, notwithstanding Maitland’s objection, there is sufficient reason to
apprehend that the river of Wells and the Fleet river united and flowed,
in the same channel, to the Thames.
[24] Stow’s Survey.
[25] Noorthouck.
[26] Maitland. Pennant.
[27] Letter from Bagford to Hearne.
[28] Nelson’s History of Islington.
~January.~
If you are _ill_ at this season, there is no occasion to send for the
doctor--only _stop eating_. Indeed, upon general principles, it seems to
me to be a mistake for people, every time there is any little thing the
matter with them, to be running in such haste for the “doctor;” because,
if you are going to die, a doctor can’t help you; and if you are
not--there is no occasion for him.[29]
* * * * *