HAUNTED LONDON
DR. JOHNSON’S OPINIONS OF LONDON.--“It is not in the showy evolution of
buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations, that the
wonderful immensity of London consists.... The happiness of London is not
to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say
there is more learning and science within the circumference of where we
now sit than in all the rest of the kingdom.... A man stores his mind [in
London] better than anywhere else.... No place cures a man’s vanity or
arrogance so well as London, for no man is either great or good, _per se_,
but as compared with others, not so good or great, and he is sure to find
in the metropolis many his equals and some his superiors.... No man of
letters leaves London without regret.... By seeing London I have seen as
much of life as the world can show.... When a man is tired of London he is
tired of life, for there is in London all life can afford, and [London] is
the fountain of intelligence and pleasure.”--_Boswell’s Life of Johnson._
BOSWELL’S OPINION OF LONDON.--“I have often amused myself with thinking
how different a place London is to different people. They whose narrow
minds are contracted to the consideration of some one particular pursuit,
view it only through that medium, a politician thinks of it merely as the
seat of government, etc.; but the intellectual man is struck with it _as
comprehending the whole of human life in all its variety, the
contemplation of which is inexhaustible_.”--_Boswell’s Life of Johnson_
(Croker, 1848), p. 144.
HAUNTED LONDON
BY WALTER THORNBURY
EDITED BY EDWARD WALFORD, M.A.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR, 1761.]
_ILLUSTRATED BY F. W. FAIRHOLT, F.S.A._
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1880
PREFACE.
This book deals less with the London of the ghost-stories, the scratching
impostor in Cock Lane, or the apparition of Parson Ford at the Hummums,
than with the London consecrated by manifold traditions--a city every
street and alley of which teems with interesting associations, every
paving-stone of which marks, as it were, the abiding-place of some ancient
legend or biographical story; in short, this London of the present haunted
by the memories of the past.
The slow changes of time, the swifter destructions of improvement, and the
inevitable necessities of modern civilisation, are rapidly remodelling
London.
It took centuries to turn the bright, swift little rivulet of the Fleet
into a fœtid sewer, years to transform the palace at Bridewell into a
prison; but events now move faster: the alliance of money with enterprise,
and the absence of any organised resistance to needful though sometimes
reckless improvements, all combine to hurry forward modern changes.
If an alderman of the last century could arise from his sleep, he would
shudder to see the scars and wounds from which London is now suffering.
Viaducts stalk over our chief roads; great square tubes of iron lie heavy
as nightmares on the breast of Ludgate Hill. In Finsbury and Blackfriars
there are now to be seen yawning chasms as large and ghastly as any that
breaching cannon ever effected in the walls of a besieged city. On every
hand legendary houses, great men’s birthplaces, the haunts of poets, the
scenes of martyrdoms, and the battle-fields of old factions, heave and
totter around us. The tombs of great men, in the chinks of which the
nettles have grown undisturbed ever since the Great Fire, are now being
uprooted. Milton’s house has become part of the _Punch_ office. A printing
machine clanks where Chatterton was buried. Almost every moment some
building worthy of record is shattered by the pickaxes of ruthless
labourers. The noise of falling houses and uprooted streets even now in my
ears tells me how busily Time, the Destroyer and the Improver, is working;
erasing tombstones, blotting out names on street-doors, battering down
narrow thoroughfares, and effacing one by one the memories of the good,
the bad, the illustrious, and the infamous.
A sincere love of the subject, and a strong conviction of the importance
of the preservation of such facts as I have dredged up from the Sea of
Oblivion, have given me heart for my work. The gradual changes of Old
London, and the progress of civilisation westward, are worth noting by all
students of the social history of England. It will be found that many
traits of character, many anecdotes of interest, as illustrating
biography, are essentially connected with the habitations of the great men
who have either been born in London, or have resorted to it as the centre
of progress, art, commerce, government, learning, and culture. The fact of
the residence of a poet, a painter, a lawyer, or even a rogue, at any
definite date, will often serve to point out the social status he either
aimed at or had acquired. It helps also to show the exact relative
distinctions in fashion and popularity of different parts of London at
particular epochs, and contributes to form an illustrated history of
London, proceeding not by mere progression of time, and dealing with the
abstract city--the whole entity of London--but marching through street
after street, and detailing local history by districts at a time.
A century after the martyrs of the Covenant had shed their blood for the
good old cause, an aged man, mounted on a little rough pony, used
periodically to make the tour of their graves; with a humble and pious
care he would scrape out the damp green moss that filled up the letters
once so sharp and clear, cut away the thorny arches of the brambles, tread
down the thick, prickly undergrowth of nettles, and leave the brave names
of the dead men open to the sunlight. It is something like this that I
have sought to do with London traditions.
I have especially avoided, in every case, mixing truth with fiction. I
have never failed to give, where it was practicable, the actual words of
my authorities, rather than run the risk of warping or distorting a
quotation even by accident, or losing the flavour and charm of original
testimony. Aware of the paramount value of sound and verified facts, I
have not stopped to play with words and colours, nor to sketch imaginary
groups and processions. Such pictures are often false and only mislead;
but a fact proved, illustrated, and rendered accessible by index and
heading, is, however unpretentious, a contribution to history, and has
with certain inquirers a value that no time can lesson.
In a comprehensive work, dealing with so many thousand dates, and
introducing on the stage so many human beings, it is almost impossible to
have escaped errors. I can only plead for myself that I have spared no
pains to discover the truth. I have had but one object in view, that of
rendering a walk through London a journey of interest and of pilgrimage to
many shrines.
In some cases I have intentionally passed over, or all but passed over,
outlying streets that I thought belonged more especially to districts
alien to my present plan. Maiden Lane, for example, with its memories of
Voltaire, Marvell, and Turner, belongs rather to a chapter on Covent
Garden, of which it is a palpable appanage; and Chancery Lane I have left
till I come to Fleet Street.
I should be ungrateful indeed if, in conclusion, I did not thank Mr.
Fairholt warmly for his careful and valuable drawings on wood. To that
accomplished antiquary I am indebted, as my readers will see, for several
original sketches of bygone places, and for many curious illustrations
which I should certainly not have obtained without the aid of his learning
and research.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION pp. 1-3
CHAPTER II. TEMPLE BAR.
The Devil Tavern--London Bankers and Goldsmiths--A Whim
of John Bushnell, the Sculptor--Irritating Processions--
The Bonfire at Inner Temple Gate--A Barbarous Custom--
Called to the Bar--A Curious Old Print of 1746--The
White Cockades--An Execution on Kennington Common--
Shenstone’s “Jemmy Dawson”--Counsellor Layer--Dr.
Johnson in the Abbey--The Proclamation of the Peace of
Amiens--The Dispersion of the Armada--City Pageants and
Festivities--The Guildhall--The Guildhall Twin Giants--
Proclamation of War--A Reflection pp. 4-24
CHAPTER III. THE STRAND (SOUTH SIDE).
Essex Street--Beheading a Bishop--Exeter Place--The
Gipsy Earl--Running a-muck--Lettice Knollys--A Portrait
of Essex--Robert, Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary
General--The Poisoning of Overbury--An Epicurean
Doctor--Clubable Men--The Grecian--The Templar’s
Lounge--Tom’s Coffee-house--A Princely Collector--“The
Long Strand”--“Honest Shippen”--Boswell’s Enthusiasm--
Sale and the Koran--The Infamous Lord Mohun--A fine
Rebuke--Jacob Tonson pp. 25-55
CHAPTER IV. SOMERSET HOUSE.
The Protector Somerset--Denmark House--The Queen’s
French Servants--The Lying-in-State of Cromwell--Scenes
at Somerset House--Sir Edmondbury Godfrey--Old Somerset
House--Erection of the Modern Building--Carlini’s
Grandeur--A Hive of Red Tapists--Expensive Auditing--The
Royal Society--The Geological and the Antiquarian
Societies--A Legend of Somerset House--St. Martin’s Lane
Academy--An Insult to Engravers--Rebecca’s Practical
Jokes--A Fashionable Man actually Surprised--Lying in
State pp. 56-81
CHAPTER V. THE STRAND (SOUTH SIDE, CONTINUED).
The Folly--Fountain Court and Tavern--The Coal-hole--The
Kit-cat Club--Coutts’s Bank--The Eccentric Philosopher--
Old Salisbury House--Robert the Devil--Little Salisbury
House--Toby Matthew--Ivy Bridge--The Strand Exchange--
Durham House--Poor Lady Jane--The Parochial Mind--A
Strange Coalition--Garrick’s Haunt--Shipley’s School of
Art--Barry’s Temper--The Celestial Bed--Sir William
Curtis pp. 82-105
CHAPTER VI. THE SAVOY.
The Earl of Savoy--John Wickliffe--A French King
Prisoner--The Kentish Rebellion--John of Gaunt--The
Hospital of St. John--Cowley’s Regrets--Secret
Marriages--Conference between Church of England and
Presbyterian Divines--An Illegal Sanctuary--A Lampooned
General--A Fat Adonis--John Rennie--Waterloo Bridge--The
Duchy of Lancaster pp. 106-125
CHAPTER VII. FROM THE SAVOY TO CHARING CROSS.
York House--Lord Bacon--“To the Man with an Orchard give
an Apple”--“Steenie”--Buckingham Street--Zimri--York
Stairs--Pepys and Etty--Scenery on the Banks of the
Thames--The London Lodging of Peter the Great--The Czar
and the Quakers--The Hungerford Family--The Suspension
Bridge--Grinling Gibbons--The Two Smiths--Cross
Readings--Northumberland Street--Armed Clergymen pp. 126-145
CHAPTER VIII. THE NORTH SIDE OF THE STRAND (FROM TEMPLE BAR TO CHARING
CROSS).
Faithorne, the Engraver--The Stupendous Arch--The Murder
of Miss Ray--One of Wren’s Churches--Thomas Rymer--Dr.
Johnson at Church--Shallow’s Revelry--Low Comedy
Preachers--New Inn--Alas! poor Yorick!--The first
Hackney Coaches--Doyley--The Beef-steak Club--Beef and
Liberty--Madame Vestris--Old Thomson--Irene in a
Garret--Mathews at the Adelphi--The Bad Points of
Mathew’s Acting--The Old Adelphi--A Riot in a Theatre--
Dr. Johnson’s Eccentricities pp. 146-189
CHAPTER IX. CHARING CROSS.
The Gunpowder Plot--Lord Herbert’s Chivalry--A Schoolboy
Legend--Goldsmith’s Audience--Dobson Buried in a
Garret--Charing--Queen Eleanor--A Brave Ending--
Great-hearted Colonel Jones--King Charles at Charing
Cross--A Turncoat--A Trick of Curll’s--The Cock Lane
Ghost--Savage the Poet--The Mews--The Nelson Column--The
Trafalgar Square Fountains--Want of Pictures of the
English School--Turner’s Pictures--Mrs. Centlivre of
Spring Gardens--Maginn’s Verses--The Hermitage at
Charing Cross--Ben Jonson’s Grace--The Promised Land pp. 190-238
CHAPTER X. ST. MARTIN’S LANE.
A Certain Proof of Insanity--An Eccentric Character--
Experimentum Crucis--St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields--Gibb’s
Opportunity--St. Martin’s Church--Good Company--The
Thames Watermen--Copper Holmes--Old Slaughter’s--
Gardelle the Murderer--Hogarth’s Quack--St. Martin’s
Lane Academy--Hayman’s Jokes--The Old Watch-house and
Stocks--Garrick’s Tricks--An Encourager of Art--John
Wilkes--The Royal Society of Literature--The Artist
Quarter pp. 239-261
CHAPTER XI. LONG ACRE AND ITS TRIBUTARIES.
The Plague--Great Queen Street--Burning Panama--Lord
Herbert’s Poetry--Kneller’s Vanity--Conway House--
Winchester House--Ryan the Actor--An Eminent Scholar and
Antiquary--Miss Pope--The Freemasons’ Hall--Gentleman
Lewis--Franklin’s Self-denial--The Gordon Riots--Colonel
Cromwell--An Eccentric Poetaster--Black Will’s Rough
Repartee--Ned Ward--Prior’s Humble Cell--Stothard--The
Mug-houses--Charles Lamb pp. 262-286
CHAPTER XII. DRURY LANE.
Drury House--Donne’s Vision--Donne in his Shroud--The
Queen of Bohemia--Brave Lord Craven--An Anecdote of
Gondomar--Drury Lane Poets--Nell Gwynn--Zoffany--The
King’s Company--Memoranda by Pepys--Anecdotes of Joe
Haines--Mrs. Oldfield’s Good Sense--The Wonder of the
Town--Quin and Garrick--Barry and Garrick--The Bellamy--
The Siddons--Dicky Suett--Liston’s Hypochondria--The
First Play--Elliston’s Tears--The End of a Man about
Town--Edmund Kean--Grimaldi--Kelly and Malibran--Keeley
and Harley--Scenes at Drury Lane--“Wicked Will
Whiston”--Henley’s Butchers--“Il faut vivre”--Henley’s
Sermons--The Leaden Seals pp. 287-348
CHAPTER XIII. ST. GILES’S.
The Lollards--Cobham’s Death--The Lazar House--Holborn
First Paved--The Mud Deluge--French Protestants--The
Plague Cart--The Plague Time--Brought to his Knees--The
New Church--The Grave of Flaxman--The Thorntons--Hog
Lane--The Tyburn Bowl--The Swan on the Hop--The Irish
Deluge--Sham Abraham--Simon and his Dog--Hiring Babies--
Pavement Chalkers--Monmouth Street pp. 349-386
CHAPTER XIV. LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS.
The Earl of Lincoln’s Garden--The Headless Chancellor--
Spelman a late Ripener--Denham and Wither--Lord
Lyndhurst--Warburton and Heber--Ben Jonson the
Bricklayer--A Murder in Whetstone Park--The Dangers of
Lincoln’s Inn Fields--Shelter in St. John’s Wood--Lord
William Russell--A Brave Wife--Pelham--The Caricature of
a Duke--Wilde and Best--Lindsey House--The Dukes of
Ancaster--Skeletons--Lady Fanshawe--Lord Kenyon’s
Latin--The Belzoni Sarcophagus--Sir John Soane--Worthy
Mrs. Chapone--The Duke’s House--Betterton--Mrs.
Bracegirdle--A Riot--Rich’s Pantomime--The Jump pp. 387-442
APPENDIX pp. 443-465
INDEX pp. 467-476
DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
TEMPLE BAR, 1761, from a drawing by S. Wale. The view is
taken from the City side of the Bar, looking through the
arch to Butcher Row and St. Clement’s Church. The sign
projecting from the house to the spectator’s left is that
of the famous Devil Tavern _Vignette on Title_
PAGE
OLD HOUSES, SHIP YARD, TEMPLE BAR, circa 1761, from a plate
in Wilkinson’s _Londina Illustrata_ 4
THE LORD MAYOR’S SHOW. From the picture by Hogarth 19
TEMPLE BAR, 1746, copied from an undated print published soon
after the execution of the rebel adherents of the young
Pretender. The view is surrounded by an emblematic framework,
and contains representations of the heads of Townley and
Fletcher, remarkable as the last so exposed; they remained
there till 1772 23
ST. CLEMENT’S CHURCH AND THE STRAND IN 1753, from a print by
I. Maurer 25
TWO VIEWS OF ARUNDEL HOUSE, 1646, after Hollar. These views,
unique of their kind, are particularly valuable for the
clear idea they give of a noble London mansion of the period.
Arundel House retains many ancient features, particularly in
its dining-hall, which, with the brick residence for the
noble owner, is the only dignified portion of the building.
The rest has the character of an inn-yard--a mere collection
of ill-connected outhouses and stabling. The shed with the
tall square window in the roof was the depository of the
famous collection of pictures and antiques made by the
renowned Earl, part of which still forms the Arundel
Collection at Oxford 40, 41
PENN’S HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, 1749, from a view by J. Buck.
The view is taken from the river, looking up Norfolk Street
to a range of old houses, still standing, in the Strand.
Penn’s house was the last on the west side of the street (to
the spectator’s left), overlooking the water 55
SOMERSET HOUSE FROM THE RIVER, 1746, from an engraving by I.
Knyff. Upon a barge moored in the river is seen the famous
coffee-house known as “The Folly,” which, originally used as
a musical summer-house, ended in being the resort of depravity 56
STRAND FRONT OF SOMERSET HOUSE, 1777, from a large engraving
after I. Moss 80
JACOB TONSON’S BOOK-SHOP, 1742, from an etching by Benoist.
The shop of this famous bibliopole was opposite Catherine
Street. The view is obtained from the background of the
print representing a burlesque procession of Masons, got up
by some humourist in ridicule of the craft 82
OLD HOUSES IN THE STRAND, 1742, copied from the same print as
the preceding view. These houses stood on the site of the
present Wellington Street 104
THE SAVOY, FROM THE THAMES, IN 1650, after Hollar 106
THE SAVOY CHAPEL, from an original drawing 119
THE SAVOY PRISON, 1793, from an etching by J. T. Smith 125
DURHAM HOUSE, 1790, from an etching by J. T. Smith 126
THE WATER GATE, 1860, from a Sketch 133
YORK STAIRS AND SURROUNDING BUILDINGS, circa 1745, after an
original drawing by Canaletti in the British Museum. This is
one of the few interesting views of Old London sketched by
Canaletti during his short stay in England. It comprises the
famous water-gate designed by Inigo Jones, and the tall
wooden tower of the York Buildings Water Company. The large
mansion behind this (at the south-west corner of Buckingham
Street) was that inhabited by Pepys from 1684, and in which
he entertained the members of the Royal Society during his
presidency. The house at the opposite corner (seen above the
trees) is that in which the Czar Peter the Great resided for
some time, when he visited England for instruction in
shipbuilding 144
CROCKFORD’S FISH-SHOP, from an original sketch 146
THE OLD ROMAN BATH, from a drawing 169
EXETER CHANGE, 1821, from an etching by Cooke 188
TITUS OATES IN THE PILLORY, from an anonymous contemporary
Dutch engraving 190
THE KING’S MEWS, 1750, from a print by I. Maurer. This
building, erected in 1732 at the expense of King George II.,
was pulled down in 1830. In the foreground of this view the
King is represented returning to his carriage after
inspecting his horses 238
BARRACK AND OLD HOUSES on the site of Trafalgar Square in
1826, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt. The view is
taken from St. Martin’s Church, looking toward Pall Mall;
the building in the distance, to the left, is the College of
Physicians 239
OLD SLAUGHTER’S COFFEE-HOUSE, 1826, from an original sketch
by F. W. Fairholt 260
SALISBURY AND WORCESTER HOUSES IN 1630, from a drawing by
Hollar in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge 262
LYON’S INN, 1804, from an engraving in Herbert’s _History of
the Inns of Court_ 286
CRAVEN HOUSE, 1790, from an original drawing in the British
Museum 287
DRURY LANE THEATRE, 1806, from an original drawing by Pugin.
This was the _third_ theatre, succeeding Garrick’s. It was
built by Henry Holland, opened March 12, 1794, and burnt down
Feb. 24, 1809. It was never properly finished on the side
toward Catherine Street, where this view was taken 347
CHURCH LANE AND DYOT STREET, from an original sketch by F. W.
Fairholt 349
THE SEVEN DIALS, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt 386
LINCOLN’S INN FIELDS THEATRE IN 1821, from an original sketch
by F. W. Fairholt 387
THE BLACK JACK, Portsmouth Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, from
an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt. This public-house was
the resort of the actors from the theatre, and among them Joe
Miller, who was buried in the graveyard close by, where the
hospital now stands. The house was also frequented by Jack
Sheppard, and was sometimes termed “The Jump,” from the
circumstance of his having once jumped from one of the
first-floor windows to escape from officers of justice 441
HAUNTED LONDON.
CHAPTER I.
INTRODUCTION.
One day when Fuseli and Haydon were walking together, they reached the
summit of a hill whence they could catch a glimpse of St. Paul’s.
There was the grey dome looming out by fits through rolling drifts of
murky smoke. The two little lion-like men stood watching “the sublime
canopy that shrouds the city of the world.”[1] Now it spread and seethed
like the incense from Moloch’s furnace; now it lifted and thinned into the
purer blue, like the waft of some great sacrifice, or settled down to
deeper and gloomier grandeur over “the vastness of modern Babylon.” That
brown cloud hid a huge ants’ nest teeming with three millions of people.
That dome, with its golden coronet and cross, rose like the globe in an
emperor’s hand--a type of the civilisation, and power, and Christianity of
England.
The hearts of the two men beat faster at the great sight.
“Be George!” said Fuseli, shaking his white hair and stamping his little
foot, “be George! sir, it’s like the smoke of the Israelites making bricks
for the Egyptians.”
“It is grander, Fuseli,” said Haydon, “for it is the smoke of a people who
would _have made the Egyptians make bricks for them_.”
It is of the multitudinous streets of this more than Egyptian city, their
traditions, and their past and present inhabitants, that I would now
write. I shall not pass by many houses where any eminent men dwell or
dwelt, without some biographical anecdote, some epigram, some
illustration; yet I will not stop long at any door, because so many others
await me. I have “set down,” I hope, “nought in malice.” Truth I trust has
been, and truth alone shall be, my object. I shall stay at Charing Cross
to point out the heroism of the dying regicides; I shall pause at
Whitehall to narrate some redeeming traits even in the character of a
wilful king.
The growth of London, and its conquest of suburb after suburb, has roused
the imagination of poets and essayists ever since the days of Queen
Elizabeth.
When James I. forbade the building of fresh houses outside London walls,
he little foresaw the time when the City would become almost impassable;
when practical men would burrow roads under ground, or make subterranean
railways to drain off the choking traffic; when cool-headed people would
seriously propose to have flying bridges thrown over the chief
thoroughfares; when new manners and customs, new diseases, new follies,
new social complications would arise, from the fact of three millions of
men silently agreeing to live together on only eleven square miles of
land; when fish would cease to inhabit the poisoned river; when the roar
of the traffic would render it almost impossible to converse; when, in
fact, London would grow too large for comfort, safety, pleasure, or even
social intercourse.
It is difficult to select from what centre to commence a pilgrimage. For
old Roman London we might start from the Exchange or the Tower; for
mediæval London from Chepe or Aldermanbury; for fashionable London from
Charing Cross; for Shaksperean London from the Globe or Blackfriars. Even
then our tours would be circuitous, and sometimes retrograde, and we
should turn and double like hares before the hounds.
I have for several reasons, therefore, and after some consideration,
decided to start from Temple Bar, and walk westward along the Strand to
Charing Cross; then to turn up St. Martin’s Lane, and return by Longacre
and Drury Lane to Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields.
That walk embraces the long line of palaces which once adorned the Strand,
or river-bank street, the countless haunts of artists in St. Martin’s
Lane, the legends of Longacre, the theatrical reminiscences of Drury Lane,
and the old noblemen’s houses in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields. It comprises a
period not so remote as East London, and not so modern as that of the West
End. It brings us acquainted not only with many of the contemporaries of
Shakspere and Dryden, but also with many celebrities of Garrick’s time and
of Dr. Johnson’s age.
If this is not the best point of departure, it has at least much to be
said in its favour, as the loop I have drawn includes nothing intramural,
and comprises a part of London inhabited by persons who lived more within
the times of memoir-writing than those in the farther East,--a district,
too, more within the range of the antiquary than the newer region of the
West.
I trust that in these remarks I have in some degree explained why I have
spent so much time in pouring “old wine into new bottles.”
A preface is too often a pillory made by an author, in which he exposes
himself to a shower of the most unsavoury missiles. I trust that mine may
be considered only as a wayside stone on which I stand to offer a fitting
apology for what I trust is a venial fault.
It is the glory of my old foster-mother, London, I would celebrate; it is
her virtues and her crimes I would record. Her miles of red-tiled roofs,
her quiet green squares, her vast black mountain of a cathedral, her
silver belt of a river, her acres and acres of stony terraces, her
beautiful parks, her tributary fleets, seem to me as so many episodes in
one great epic, the true delineation of which would form a new chapter in
the HISTORY OF MANKIND.
[Illustration: SHIP YARD, TEMPLE BAR, 1761.]