"In St. Giles' Church lie Chapman, the earliest and best translator of
Homer; and Andrew Marvell, the wit and patriot, whose poverty Charles
II. could not bribe.--Who would suppose that the Borough was the most
classical ground in the metropolis? And yet it is undoubtedly so. The
Globe Theatre was there, of which Shakspeare himself was a proprietor,
and for which he wrote his plays. Globe-lane, in which it stood, is
still extant, we believe, under that name. It is probable that he lived
near it: it is certain that he must have been much there. It is also
certain that on the Borough side of the river, then and still called the
Bank-side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some say,
with other participations more remarkable, lived Beaumont and Fletcher.
In the Borough, also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger in
one grave; in the same church, under a monument and effigy, lies
Chaucer's contemporary, Gower; and from an inn in the Borough, the
existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed out by a
picture and inscription, Chaucer set out his pilgrims and himself on
their famous road to Canterbury.
"To return over the water, who would expect any thing poetical from East
Smithfield? Yet there was born the most poetical even of poets, Spenser.
Pope was born within the sound of Bowbell, in a street no less
anti-poetical than Lombard-street. So was Gray, in Cornhill. So was
Milton, in Bread-street, Cheapside. The presence of the same great poet
and patriot has given happy memories to many parts of the metropolis. He
lived in St. Bride's Churchyard, Fleet-street; in Alders-gate-street, in
Jewin-street, in Barbican, in Bartholomew-close; in Holborn, looking
back to Lincoln's Inn Fields; in Holborn, near Red-lion-square; in
Scotland-yard; in a house looking to St. James' Park, now belonging to
an eminent writer on legislation, and lately occupied by a celebrated
critic and metaphysician; and he died in Artillery-walk, Bunhill-fields;
and was buried in St. Giles', Cripplegate.
"Ben Jonson, who was born 'in Hartshorne-lane, near Charing-cross,' was
at one time 'master' of a theatre in Barbican. He appears also to have
visited a tavern called the Sun and Moon, in Aldersgate-street; and is
known to have frequented with Beaumont and others, the famous one called
the Mermaid, which was in Cornhill.
"The other celebrated resort of the great wits of that time was the
Devil Tavern, in Fleet-street, close to Temple-bar. Ben Jonson lived
also in Bartholomew-close, where Milton afterwards lived. It was in the
passage from the cloisters of Christ's Hospital into St. Bartholomew's.
Aubrey gives it as a common opinion, that at the time when Jonson's
father-in-law made him help him in his business of bricklayer, he worked
with his own hands upon the Lincoln's Inn garden wall, which looks upon
Chancery-lane, and which seems old enough to have some of his
illustrious brick and mortar still remaining.
"Under the cloisters in Christ's Hospital (which stand in the heart of
the city unknown to most persons, like a house kept invisible for young
and learned eyes) lie buried a multitude of persons of all ranks; for it
was once a monastery of Gray Friars. Among them is John of Bourbon, one
of the prisoners taken at the battle of Agincourt. Here also lies Thomas
Burdet, ancestor of the present Sir Francis, who was put to death in the
reign of Edward IV., for wishing the horns of a favourite white stag,
which the King had killed, in the body of the person who advised him to
do it. And here too (a sufficing contrast) lies Isabella, wife of Edward
II.
'She, wolf of France, with unrelenting fangs,
Who tore the bowels of her mangled mate'
GRAY.
"Her 'mate's' heart was buried with her, and placed upon her bosom! a
thing that looks like the fantastic incoherence of a dream. It is well
we did not know of her presence when at school; or after reading one of
Shakspeare's tragedies, we should have run twice as fast round the
cloisters at night time, as we used. Camden, 'the nourrice of
antiquitie,' received part of his education in this school; and here
also, not to mention a variety of others known in the literary world,
were bred two of the most powerful and deep-spirited writers of the
present day; whose visits to the cloisters we well remember.
"In a palace on the site of Hatton-garden, died John of Gaunt. Brook
House, at the corner of the street of that name in Holborn, was the
residence of the celebrated Sir Fulke Greville, Lord Brook, the 'friend
of Sir Philip Sydney.' In the same street, died, by a voluntary death,
of poison, that extraordinary person, Thomas Chatterton---
'The sleepless boy, who perished in his pride.'
WORDSWORTH.
He was buried in the workhouse in Shoe-lane; a circumstance, at which
one can hardly help feeling a movement of indignation. Yet what could
beadles and parish officers know about such a being? No more than Horace
Walpole. In Gray's Inn, lived, and in Gray's Inn Garden meditated, Lord
Bacon. In Southampton-row, Holborn, Cowper was a fellow-clerk to an
attorney with the future Lord Chancellor Thurlow. At the Fleet-street
corner of Chancery-lane, Cowley, we believe, was born. In
Salisbury-court, Fleet-street, was the house of Thomas Sackville, first
Earl of Dorset, the precursor of Spenser, and one of the authors of the
first regular English tragedy. On the demolition of this house, part of
the ground was occupied by the celebrated theatre built after the
Restoration, at which Betterton performed, and of which Sir William
Davenant was manager. Lastly, here was the house and printing-office of
Richardson. In Bolt-court, not far distant, lived Dr. Johnson, who
resided also for some time in the Temple. A list of his numerous other
residences is to be found in Boswell[2]. Congreve died in Surrey-street,
in the Strand, at his own house. At the corner of Beaufort-buildings,
was Lilly's, the perfumer, at whose house the Tatler was published. In
Maiden-lane, Covent-garden, Voltaire lodged while in London, at the sign
of the White Peruke. Tavistock-street was then, we believe, the
Bond-street of the fashionable world; as Bow-street was before. The
change of Bow-street from fashion to the police, with the theatre still
in attendance, reminds one of the spirit of the Beggar's Opera. Button's
Coffee-house, the resort of the wits of Queen's Anne's time, was in
Russell-street--we believe, near where the Hummums now stand. We think
we recollect reading also, that in the same street, at one of the
corners of Bow-street, was the tavern where Dryden held regal possession
of the arm chair. The whole of Covent-garden is classic ground, from its
association with the dramatic and other wits of the times of Dryden and
Pope. Butler lived, perhaps died, in Rose-street, and was buried in
Covent-garden Churchyard; where Peter Pindar the other day followed him.
In Leicester-square, on the site of Miss Linwood's exhibition and other
houses, was the town mansion of the Sydneys, Earls of Leicester, and the
family of Sir Philip and Algernon Sydney. In the same square lived Sir
Joshua Reynolds. Dryden lived and died in Gerrard-street, in a house
which looked backwards into the garden of Leicester House. Newton lived
in St. Martin's-street, on the south side of the square. Steele lived in
Bury-street, St. James'; he furnishes an illustrious precedent for the
loungers in St. James'-street, where scandal-mongers of those times
delighted to detect Isaac Bickerstaff in the person of captain Steele,
idling before the Coffee-house, and jerking his leg and stick
alternately against the pavement. We have mentioned the birth of Ben
Jonson, near Charing-cross. Spenser died at an inn, where he put up on
his arrival from Ireland, in King-street, Westminster--the same which
runs at the back of Parliament-street to the Abbey. Sir Thomas More
lived at Chelsea. Addison lived and died in Holland House, Kensington,
now the residence of the accomplished nobleman who takes his title from
it. In Brook-street, Grosvenor-square, lived Handel; and in
Bentinck-street, Manchester-square, Gibbon. We have omitted to mention
that De Foe kept a hosier's shop in Cornhill; and that, on the site of
the present Southampton-buildings, Chancery-lane, stood the mansion of
the Wriothesleys, Earls of Southampton, one of whom was the celebrated
friend of Shakspeare. But what have we not omitted also? No less an
illustrious head than the Boar's, in Eastcheap--the Boar's Head Tavern,
the scene of Falstaff's revels. We believe the place is still marked out
by a similar sign. But who knows not Eastcheap and the Boar's Head? Have
we not all been there time out of mind? And is it not a more real, as
well as notorious thing to us, than the London Tavern, or the Crown and
Anchor, or the Hummums, or White's, or What's-his-name's, or any other
of your contemporary and fleeting taps?
[2] The Temple must have had many eminent inmates. Among them,
it is believed, was Chaucer, who is also said, upon the strength
of an old record, to have been fined two shillings for beating a
Franciscan Friar in Fleet-street.
"Before we rest our wings, however, we must take another dart over the
city, as far as Stratford at Bow, where, with all due tenderness for
boarding-school French, a joke of Chaucer has existed as a piece of
local humour for nearly four hundred and fifty years. Speaking of the
Prioress, who makes such a delicate figure among his Canterbury
Pilgrims, he tells us, among her other accomplishments, that--
'French she spake full faire and featously;'
adding with great gravity,
'After the school of Stratford atte Bowe;
For French of Paris was to her unknowe.'
* * * * *