character, the man who had served in the army--perhaps borne his
Majesty's commission--and had returned to live, not by his wits, because
he had none, but by his strength of arm, his skill of fence, and his
powers of bluster. He became the bully. As such he was either the Darby
Captain, who was paid to be the gaming-house bully, or the Cock and
Bottle Captain, who was the ale-house bully, and fought bailiffs for his
friends; or the Tash Captain, who now has another name, and may be found
near Coventry Street.
The Setter played a game which brought in great gains, but was extremely
difficult and delicate. He was the agent for ladies whose reputations
were--let us say unjustly--cracked. His object was to restore them to
society by honorable marriage, and not only to society, but also to
position, credit, and luxury. A noble ambition! He therefore frequented
the coffee-houses, the bagnios, and the gambling places on the lookout
for heirs and eldest sons, or, if possible, young men of wealth and
position. Of course they must be without experience. He would thus
endeavor to obtain the confidence of his victim until it became safe to
introduce him to the beautiful young widow of good family, and so on;
the rest we may guess. Sometimes, of course, the young heir was a young
fortune-hunter, who married the widow of large fortune only to find that
she was a penniless adventuress with nothing but debts, which he thus
took upon himself and paid by a life-long imprisonment in the Fleet.
The travelling quack we have considered. There was another kind who was
stationary and had a good house in the City. This kind cured by
sympathy, by traction, by earth-bathing, by sea-bathing, by the
quintessence of Bohea tea and cocoanuts distilled together, by drugs,
and by potions. He advertised freely, he drove about ostentatiously in a
glass coach; he had all kinds of tricks to arrest attention--for
instance, the Goddess of Hygeia was to be seen by all callers daily, at
the house of the great Dr. Graham. The cruel persecution of the College
of Physicians has extinguished the quack, who, if he now exists, must
have first passed the examinations required by the regular practitioner.
The bogus auction has always been a favorite method of getting quick
returns and a rapid turnover. It is not now so common as formerly, but
it still exists.
The intelligence office, where you paid a shilling and were promised a
place of great profit, and were called upon for another shilling and
still another, and then got nothing, is now called an agency, and is
said to flourish very well indeed.
The pretended old friend, who was a common character in 1760, has, I am
told, crossed the ocean and changed his name. He is now a naturalized
citizen of the United States, and his name is Bunco Steerer.
Let me add to this account--too scanty and meagre--of London in the last
century a brief narrative--borrowed, not invented--of a Sunday holiday.
It has been seen that the City was careful about the church-going of the
citizens. But laws were forgotten, manners relaxed; outside the City no
such discipline was possible, nor was any attempted. And to the people
within the walls, as well as to those without, Sunday gradually became a
day of holiday and pleasure. You shall see what a day was made of a
certain Sunday in the summer of 17-- by a pair of citizens whose names
have perished.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF ST. STEPHEN, WALBROOK]
The holiday makers slept at the Marlborough Head, in Bishopsgate Street,
whence they sallied forth at four in the morning. Early as it was, the
gates of the inn-yards were thronged with young people gayly dressed,
waiting for the horses, chaises, and carriages which were to carry them
to Windsor, Hampton Court, Richmond, etc., for the day. They were mostly
journeymen or apprentices, and the ladies with them were young milliners
and mantua-makers. They first walked westward, making for the Foundling
Hospital, on their way passing a rabble rout drinking saloop and
fighting. Arrived at the fields lying south of that institution, they
met with a company of servants, men and girls, who had stolen some of
their masters' wine, and were out in the fields to drink it. They shared
in the drink, but deplored the crime. It will be observed, as we go
along, that a very creditable amount of drink accompanied this holiday.
Then they continued walking across the fields till they came to
Tottenham Court Road, where the Wesleyans, in their tabernacle, were
holding an early service. Outside the chapel a prize-fight was going on,
with a crowd of ruffians and betting men. It was, however, fought on the
cross.
They next retraced their steps across the fields and arrived at Bagnigge
Wells, which lay at the east of the Gray's Inn Road, nearly opposite
what is now Mecklenburgh Square, and north-east of the St. Andrew's
Burying-ground. Early as it was, the place already contained several
hundreds of people. The Wells included a great room for concerts and
entertainments, a garden planted with trees, shrubs, and flowers, and
provided with walks, a fish-pond, fountain, rustic bridge, rural
cottages, and seats. The admission was threepence. They had appointed to
breakfast at the Bank Coffee-house, therefore they could not wait longer
here. On the way to the City they stopped at the Thatched House and took
a gill of red port.
The Bank Coffee-house was filled with people taking breakfast and
discussing politics or trade. It is not stated what they had for
breakfast, but as one of the company is spoken of as finishing his dish
of chocolate, it may be imagined that this was the usual drink. A lovely
barmaid smiled farewell when they left the place. From this
coffee-house they went to church at St. Mary-le-Strand, where a bishop
preached a charity sermon. At the close of the sermon the charity
children were placed at the doors, loudly imploring the benefactions of
the people. After church they naturally wanted a little refreshment;
they therefore went to a house near St. Paul's, where the landlord
provided them a cold collation with a pint of Lisbon.
[Illustration: CONCERT TICKET]
The day being fine, they agreed to walk to Highgate and to dine at the
ordinary there. On the way they were beset by beggars in immense
numbers. They arrived at Highgate just in time for the dinner--probably
at two o'clock. The company consisted principally of reputable tradesmen
and their families. There was an Italian musician, a gallery
reporter--that is, a man who attended the House and wrote down the
debates from memory--and a lawyer's clerk. The ordinary consisted of two
or three dishes and cost a shilling each. They had a bottle of wine and
sat till three o'clock, when they left the tavern and walked to Primrose
Hill. Here they met an acquaintance in the shape of an Eastcheap
cheesemonger, who was dragging his children in a four-wheel chaise up
the hill, while his wife carried the good man's wig and hat on the
point of his walking-stick. The hill was crowded with people of all
kinds.
When they had seen enough they came away and walked to the top of
Hampstead Hill. Here, at the famous Spaniard's, they rested and took a
bottle of port.
It was five o'clock in the afternoon when they left Hampstead and made
for Islington, intending to see the White Conduit House on their way to
the Surrey side.
All these gardens--to leave these travellers for a moment--Ranelagh,
Vauxhall, Bagnigge Wells, and the rest, were alike. They contained a
concert and a promenade room, a garden laid out in pleasing walks, a
fish-pond with arbors, and rooms for suppers, a fountain, a band of
music, and a dancing-floor. The amusements of Ranelagh are thus
described by a visitor who dropped into verse:
"To Ranelagh, once in my life,
By good-natured force I was driven;
The nations had ceased from their strife,
And peace beamed her radiance from heaven.
"(I stop to apologize for these two lines; but everybody knows that
_strife_ and _heaven_ are very neat rhymes of _life_ and _driven_.
Otherwise I admit that they have nothing to do with Ranelagh.)
"What wonders were there to be found
That a clown might enjoy or disdain?
First we traced the gay circle around,
And then we went round it again.
"A thousand feet rustled on mats--
A carpet that once had been green;
Men bowed with their outlandish hats,
With women so fearfully keen.
Fair maids, who, at home in their haste,
Had left all their clothes but a train,
Swept the floor clean as they passed,
Then walked round and swept it again."
At these gardens this Sunday afternoon there were several hundreds of
people, not of the more distinguished kind. They found a very pretty
girl here who was so condescending as to take tea with them.
Leaving the Conduit House, they paid another visit to Bagnigge Wells in
order to drink a bowl of negus. By this time the place was a scene of
open profligacy. They next called a coach, and drove to Kensington
Gardens, where they walked about for an hour seeing the great people.
Among others, they had the happiness of beholding the D-- of Gr-ft-n,
accompanied by Miss P--, and L--d H--y with the famous Mrs. W--. Feeling
the want of a little refreshment, they sought a tea-garden in Brompton
known as Cromwell's Gardens or Florida Gardens, where they drank coffee,
and contemplated the beauty of many lovely creatures.
It was now nine o'clock in the evening. In the neighborhood of the Mall
they saw a great block of carriages on their way to Lady H--'s Sunday
routs. The explorers then visited certain houses frequented by the baser
sort, and were rewarded in the manner that might have been
expected--namely, with ribaldry and blasphemy. As the clock struck ten
they arrived at the Dog and Duck, St. George's Fields. From the Dog and
Duck they repaired to The Temple of Flora, a place of the same
description as Bagnigge Wells. Here, as the magistrates had refused a
wine license, they kept a citizen and vintner on the premises. He, by
virtue of his livery, had the right to sell wine without a license. Our
friends took a bottle here. The Apollo Gardens, the Thatched House, the
Flora Tea-garden, were also places of resort of the same kind, all with
a garden, tea and music rooms, and a company of doubtful morals. They
drove next to the Bermondsey Spa Gardens, described as an elegant place
of entertainment, two miles from London Bridge, with a walk hung with
colored lamps not inferior to that of Vauxhall. There was also a lovely
pasteboard castle and a museum of curiosities. They had another bottle
here, and a comfortable glass of cherry-brandy before getting into the
carriage. Finally they reached the place whence they started at
midnight, and after a final bumper of red port retired to rest. A noble
Sunday, lasting from four o'clock in the morning till midnight. They
walked twenty miles at least; they drank all day long--port, Lisbon,
chocolate, negus, tea, coffee, and cherry-brandy, besides their beer at
dinner. On nine different occasions they called for a pint or a bottle.
A truly wonderful and improving Sunday!
A chapter on Georgian London would be incomplete indeed which failed to
notice the institution which plays so large a part in the literature of
the period--the debtors' prison. Strange it seems to us who have only
recently reformed in this matter, that a man should be locked up for
life because he was unable to pay a trifling debt, or even a heavy debt.
Everybody knows the Fleet, with its racquet courts and its prisoners;
everybody knows the King's Bench, and the Marshalsea also is familiar
to us. Here, however, is a picture of Wood Street Compter, which is not
so well known. In this place, one of the two City Compters under the
sheriffs, were confined not only debtors, but also persons charged with
night assaults--men or women--and felons and common thieves, the latter
perhaps when Newgate was full. For these there was the strong room, in
which men and women were locked up together, unless they could afford a
separate room, for which they paid two shillings a night before
commitment, and one shilling a night after. On the master's side, those
of the debtors who could afford to pay for them had separate rooms, but
miserably furnished; on the common side there were two wards. In one of
these, which was nearly dark and called the Hole, shelves were arranged
along the wall like the bunks in a cabin; here those who had any beds
laid them, those who had none slept on the bare shelf. This was the
living-room and the cooking-room, as well as the sleeping-room. The
smell of the place, the narrator says, was intolerable. In the second
ward of the common side lived those a little removed from destitution,
who could pay fifteen pence a week for the accommodation of a bed.
Otherwise it was the same as the first ward. The women had a separate
ward. There was a drinking-bar here in a kind of cellar--"the place full
of ill smells and every inconvenience that man could conceive."
Quarrels, fightings, and brawls were punished by black hole. Men in
prison on charge of night assaults were called rats; women under similar
charges were called mice.
It seems as if life under such conditions must have been intolerable.
Never to be alone, never to be clean, never to be quiet, never to be
free from the smell of bad cooking, confined rooms, stale tobacco, vile
spirits; never to be free from the society of vile men; this was the
punishment for those who could not pay their debts. Wood Street Compter
was removed to Giltspur Street in 1791.
The subject of Fleet weddings has been treated at length in a certain
novel founded on one of them. They did not altogether belong to the
baser sort, or to the more profligate sort. Many a young citizen
arranged with his mistress to take her secretly to the Fleet, there to
marry her, then back again and on their knees to the parents. This saved
the expense of the wedding-feast, which was almost as great as that of
the funeral-feast.
As to trade, it was marching in giant strides, such as even good old Sir
Thomas Gresham had not considered possible. The increase of trade
belongs to the historian; we have only to notice the great warehouses
along Thames Street, the quays and wharves, the barges and lighters, the
ships lying two miles in length in two long lines below bridge, the
crowd of stevedores, watermen, lightermen, the never-ending turmoil of
those who loaded and unloaded the ships, the solid, sober merchants
dressed in brown cloth, with white silk stockings and white lace ruffles
and neckerchiefs. They are growing rich--they are growing very rich.
London has long been the richest city in the world.
These notes are wholly insufficient to show the London of George, the
Second. They illustrate the daily life of the citizens; they also show
something of the brutality, the drunkenness, and the rough side of the
lower levels. The better side of London--that of the scholars, divines,
writers, and professional men--comes out fully in the memoirs and
letters of the period, which are fortunately abundant. There we can find
the stately courtesy of the better sort, the dignity, the respect to
rank, the exaction of respect, the social gradations which were
recognized by those above as well as those below, the religion which was
partly formal and partly touched with the old Puritanic spirit, the
benevolence and the charity of the upper class, coupled with their
determination that those below shall never be allowed to combine, the
survival of old traditions, and all the other points which make us love
this century so much. If any notes on London of this period omitted
mention of these points, they would be inadequate indeed.
These notes--these chapters--to conclude, make no pretence to show more
than the City life; which was decorous at all times, and especially
during the last century. Of the wickedness, goodness, vice, and virtue
that went on at the court, and among the aristocracy from age to age,
nothing has been said. The moralist has plenty to say on this subject.
Unfortunately, the moralist always picks out the worst cases, and wants
us to believe that they are average specimens. A good deal might be
said, I am of opinion, on the other side, in considering the many
virtues; the courage, loyalty, moderation, and the sense of honor which
has always distinguished the better sort among the nobility.
* * * * *
We have seen London from age to age. It has changed indeed. Yet in one
thing it has shown no change. London has always been a city looking
forward, pressing forward, fighting for the future, using up the present
ruthlessly for the sake of the future, trampling on the past. As it has
been, so it is. The City may have reached its highest point; it may be
about to decline; but as yet it shows no sign, it has sounded no note of
decay, or of decline, or of growing age. The City, which began with the
East Saxon settlement among the forsaken streets thirteen hundred years
ago, is still in the full strength and lustihood of manhood--perhaps as
yet it is only early manhood. For which, as in private duty bound, let
us laud, praise, and magnify the Providence which has so guided the
steps of the citizens, and so filled their hearts, from generation to
generation, with the spirit of self-reliance, hope, and courage.
INDEX
Abergavenny House, 177
"Abram Man," the, 416
Agas, Ralph, map of, 274
Ale-houses, number of, in 1736, 476
Alfune, founder of Church of St. Giles, Cripplegate, 63
Alien priories suppressed, 240
Alleyn, 364
All Hallows the Great, Church of, Thames Street, 441
Almshouses in the City, 238
Alphege, Archbishop of Canterbury, 85
Alsatia, 120
Amusements in Saxon and Norman times, 90
Anderida destroyed, 29
"Angler," the, 416
_Angliæ Metropolis, or, The Present State of London_, 1690, quoted, 400
_Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, 1, 8, 13;
London not mentioned in, 13
Antwerp at commencement of Elizabeth's reign, 293
Apothecaries, 474
Apprentices, London, 334
Assessment of London in 1397, 184
Augusta, fate of, after the Romans left, 8
Aulaf and Swegen, 85
Austin Friars Monastery, 112;
distinguished persons buried there, 264
Bagnigge Wells, 492
Baltic Coffee-house, 477
Bank Side, 356
Barber-surgeons, 474
Barnard's Castle, 288
Bartholomew's Fair, 457
Bassing Hall, 83
Bath, ruins of Roman temples at, 6
Baynard's Castle, history of, 163
Bean tansy, 476
Bede's Ecclesiastical History, 1
Beer-drinking, 419
Beer the national drink, 83, 481
Bermondsey, Abbey of, 134, 267
-- Spa Gardens, 496
Bethlehem Hospital, 131
Black Friars Church destroyed, 267
Blackfriars Theatre, 308
Blackwell Hall, 83
Blakeney, William, story of, 249
Blue-coat School, 115, 303
Bonvici, Antonio, 170
Bow Church, Mile End Road, 135
Bowyers' Company, 454
Bradford-on-Avon, description of Church of St. Laurence at, 71
Bread a luxury in time of Charles II., 421
Brewer, Dr., and his estimate of mediæval London, 155
Breweries along the river, 50
Bridewell Palace, 83
Briset, Jordan, and Muriel, his wife, 65, 128
Buildings small and mean until long after the Norman conquest, 47
Bull-baiting, 356, 361, 408
"Bully," the, in the Georgian period, 489
Burghley House, 286
Butcher Row, 446
Calleva Atrebatum destroyed, 29
Card-makers' Company, 454
Card-playing _temp._ Elizabeth, 310
Carmelites, the, 119
Carpenter, John, founder of the City of London School, 193
Carthusians, House of the, 120
Castellan and standard-bearer to the City of London, 164
Cedd, Bishop, 53
Champneys, Sir John, 311
Chapter Coffee-house, 477
Charing Cross, 141
Charles, King, deplorable morals of Court of, 371
Charter House, 128, 266
-- -- School, 303
Chaucer, 149
Chepe, 334, 337
-- East, butchers in, 217
-- of mediæval London, 185
-- the chief market of the City, 50
-- West, mercers and haberdashers in, 217
Chester, battle of, in 607, 111
Chichele, Sir Robert, 194
Christ Church, built by Wren, 115
Christian symbols and emblems found on site of Roman towns, 5
Christ's Hospital, 115
Church of England in time of George II., 436
Churches, the thirteen large conventual, 54
-- penalties for absence from, 442
Cistercian Order, 123
City companies, formation of, 208
-- foreign trade of, 190
-- holidays, 236
-- of London School founded by John Carpenter, 193
-- residences of the nobility, 174
-- wall, 81, 111
-- water supply of, 83
-- wealth of, 184
-- worthies, 194
"Clapperdozen," the, 416
Cloth Fair, 63
Clubs, 477
Cnut, 85
Coals, duty on, to rebuild public buildings after the Great Fire, 400
Cock-fighting on Shrove Tuesday, 224
Cockpit Theatre, 308
Coffee-houses, business carried on at, 477
-- first started _temp._ Charles II., 411
Cold Harborough, house built by Sir John Poultney, 166, 289
Companies, City, formation of, 208
Congreve's "Way of the World," 410
Cordwainer Street, shoemakers in, 217
Cornhill, drapers in, 217
Court of Judicature created after the Great Fire, 399
Craftsmen of London, 215
Cranmer and Waltham Abbey, 139
Cromwell House, 265
-- Lord, 325
Crosby Hall, 170, 289
-- Sir John, 169
Crutched Friars' Church turned into a carpenter's shop and
tennis court, 265
-- -- Priory of, 111
Cuneglass, King, 3
Curfew bell, the, 243
Curtain Theatre, Shoreditch, 307
Daily Life, Elizabethan, 303
Dances in time of Elizabeth, 310
Danes, the, 47
Debtors' prison in the Georgian era, 496
Debts, like property, destroyed by the Great Fire, 402
Defoe, Daniel, and his account of the Plague, 377
-- trades enumerated by, 380
Derby House, 163, 289
Dick's Coffee-house, 411
Dominicans, first settlement of, in Chancery Lane, 118
"Dommerer," the, 416
Dover, St. Mary's Church at, 75
Dress of the time of George II., 458
Drinking and fires the pests of London, 52
-- habits in the time of George II., 475
-- in time of Charles II., 407
Dryden, John, on the Great Fire, 404
D'Urfey, Tom, songs of, 412
Durovernum destroyed, 29
East India Company, the, 297
Eastland Company, the, 297
Eastminster, 133
-- pulled down, 263
Edmund, Earl of Lancaster, founds Holywell Nunnery, 132
Education of girls, thorough, _temp._ Elizabeth, 314
Edward II. and the City, 205
Edward IV. and Baynard's Castle, 164
Elbing, merchants of, 296
Eleanor, Queen, a benefactor of St. Katherine's by the Tower, 66
Elizabethan Daily Life, 303
-- house, the, 286
-- pageants, 304
Elsing's Spital, founded in 1329, 144
Elsing, William, 197, 238
England, Conquest of, completed, 10
Epping Forest, 233
Erber House, history of, 169
Ermyn Street, 23
Estfield, Sir William, 197
Ethelbald, King, grant of, to Bishop of Rochester, 47
Etheling, Edmund, 85
Ethelwerd, 1
Falcon Tavern, Bank Side, 362
Famines in London, 240
Fire, Great, of London, 394
-- -- John Dryden on, 404
-- -- destruction caused by, 397
Fires, great, of London, 394
Fitz-Stephen, William, 48, 51
Fleet weddings, 483, 498
Flemings, the, 44
Fletchers' Company, 454
Flogging in the army and navy, 484
Food in the time of George II., 475
-- of the citizens, 236
Fortune Theatre, Whitecross Street, 308
Foxe's _Book of Martyrs_, written at Waltham Abbey, 139
Franciscans, the, 113
Franklin, Benjamin, on beer-drinking in a London printing-house, 420
Fraternities, the, 147
_Fratres de Saccâ_, 139
Froissart on the Londoners, 205
Fuller, Thomas, wrote his _Church History_ at Waltham Abbey, 139
Funerals, 484
Furniture in mediæval times, 181
Fustarers' Company, 453
Gaming _temp._ Elizabeth, 310
Gambling in the time of Charles II., 415
Gardens in Saxon and Norman times, 89
Garraway's Coffee-house, 477
Gascony wine, ingredients of, 473
Gates of the City closed at sunset until 1760, 433
Gay's _Trivia_, description of London in, 436
Geoffrey of Monmouth, 1
Gerrard's Hall in Basing Lane, 179
Gildas, 1-3, 25, 43
Gin-shops, number of, in 1736, 476
Girls, education of, thorough, in time of Elizabeth, 314
Gisors, John, 179
Glasse, Mrs., and her book on cookery, 475
Globe Theatre, Bank Side, 307, 356
Glovers' Company, laws and regulations of, 209
Government situations bought in time of George II., 482
Greenstead Church, Essex, 71
Greenwich Fair, 457
Gresham College, 301
-- House, 288
-- Sir Thomas, account of, 290, 301;
builds the Royal Exchange, 294;
crest of, 294
Grey Friars, foundation of, 113
-- -- Church, celebrated persons buried here, 267
Guildhall, remains of Roman London in, 48
Guilds, 50, 208
Guthrun's Lane, goldsmiths in, 217
Haberdashers' Company, 452
Hainault Forest, 233
Hampton Court, 288