Though his other scenes are misty, no reader of Thackeray who engages in
a search for the places which he describes is likely, however, to
overlook the Charterhouse, the ancient foundation to which he refers
again and again, dwelling on it with many fond reminiscences. It is the
school in which he himself was educated, and he has associated three
generations of his characters with it. Thomas Newcome received
instruction here, also his son Clive, with Pendennis, Osborne, and Philip
of the second generation, after whom came Rawdon Crawley’s little son and
young George Osborne; and, finally, the dear old Colonel, when broken
down and weary, joined the poor brethren who are pensioners of the
institution, and within its monastic walls cried _Adsum_ as he heard a
voice summoning him to the everlasting peace. Occasionally it is called
Slaughter-house, once or twice “Smiffle” (after the boys’ way of
pronouncing Smithfield, where it is situated); but in Thackeray’s later
works he generally speaks of it as Grayfriars or Whitefriars.
“It had been,” he says in _Vanity Fair_, “a Cistercian convent in old
days when the Smith field, which is contiguous to it, was a tournament
ground. Obstinate heretics used to be brought thither, convenient for
burning hard by. Henry the Eighth seized upon the monastery and its
possessions, and hanged and tortured some of the monks who would not
accommodate themselves to the pace of his reform. Finally, a great
merchant bought the house and land adjoining, in which, with the help of
other wealthy endowments of land and money, he established a famous
foundation hospital for old men and children. An extra school grew round
the old, almost monastic foundation, which subsists still with its
middle-age costume and usages; and all Christians pray that it may
flourish.
“Of this famous house some of the greatest noblemen, prelates and
dignitaries in England, are governors; and as the boys are very
comfortably lodged, fed and educated, and subsequently inducted to good
scholarships at the University, and livings in the Church, many little
gentlemen are devoted to the ecclesiastical profession from their
tenderest years, and there is considerable emulation to procure
nominations for the foundation. It was originally intended for the sons
of poor and deserving clerics and laics; but many of the noble governors
of the institution, with an enlarged and rather capricious benevolence,
selected all sorts of objects for their bounty. To get an education for
nothing, and a livelihood and profession assured, was so excellent a
scheme, that some of the richest people did not disdain it; and not only
the great men’s relations, but great men themselves, sent their sons to
profit by the chance. Right reverend prelates sent their own kinsmen as
the sons of their clergy, while on the other hand some great noblemen did
not disdain to patronize the children of their confidential servants, so
that a lad entering this establishment had every variety of youthful
society wherewith to mingle.”
As a rule, however, the boys, belong to the upper classes, and an
education obtained at Charterhouse is scarcely less of a social
distinction than the much coveted and costly preparation of Eton, Harrow,
or Winchester. The history of the school is full of brilliant names, and
among its scholars have been Joseph Addison, Richard Steele, Isaac
Barrow, General Havelock, Sir William Blackstone, Lord Chief Justice
Ellenborough, Lord Liverpool, John Wesley and George Grote.
It is possible that one may know London intimately, and yet be ignorant
of the situation of the Charterhouse. Smithfield is out of the way of
the main lines of traffic: it is a squalid neighbourhood, north of
Ludgate Hill, and it retains its ancient characteristics more than almost
all other parts of the great city,—which has been so modernized that
Cheapside looks like a slice of Broadway, and once shabby Fleet Street is
showing all sorts of ornamental fronts. It has in it many solemn brick
houses of a blackish purple, with glowing roofs of red tiles; smaller
buildings of an earlier period, with high peaked gables and overlapping
second stories; sequestred alleys, and courts bearing queer names, and
many curious little shops.
One of the most direct approaches to it is through the Old Bailey from
Ludgate Hill. On this route we pass the austere granite of Newgate
Prison and also Pye Corner, where as the sign-board of a public house
tells us, the great fire of 1666 ended, after burning from the 2nd to the
10th of September; we also pass Cock Lane, famous for its ghost, and the
quaintest of old London churches, St. Bartholomew the Great, which is
hemmed in and partly extinguished by the surrounding houses, that hide
all but its smoked and patched tower, and a few square feet of grass,
which is justifiably discouraged in its want of sunshine and space;
thence our path is by the extensive buildings of St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital, about which there is a morbid activity in the flow of officials
and visitors, most of the latter being slatternly and anxious-looking
women, with babies and baskets on their arms, and from the Hospital we
cross the street, and so through the new cattle market, which fills the
space once occupied by the pens, and covers the spot whence the souls of
many martyrs have passed in flame from the stake to heaven.