On the site of the Imperial Club in Cursitor street, Chancery Lane, stood
a notorious “sponging house,” to which Rawdon Crawley was taken when
arrested for debt, immediately after leaving the brilliant entertainment
given by the Marquis of Steyne, and from which he wrote an ill-spelled
letter to his wife (who had appeared triumphantly in some charades at
that entertainment), begging her to send some money for his release. The
reader remembers how the faithless little woman answered,—assuring him of
her grief and anxiety, and telling him that she had not the money, but
would get it; though, as poor, blundering, soft-hearted Rawdon discovered
afterward, she had a very large sum at the moment she wrote to him, and
did not send him any of it because she wished to keep him in jail that
she might intrigue with the licentious old marquis; and the reader will
remember that Rawdon was released at the instance of his cousin’s wife,
and went to the little house in Curzon street, where he surprised his
deceitful spouse, and nearly murdered her companion, the same old Marquis
of Steyne, knight of the garter, lord of the powder-box, trustee of the
British Museum, etc.
When we come to the end of that passage, we put the book on our lap and
lean back in the chair, and, while we are still glowing with the
excitement of the scene, we are filled with admiration of the genius
which produced it. How did Thackeray achieve his effects? Becky Sharp
is a unique and permanent figure in literature, a subtle embodiment of
duplicity, ambition, and selfishness. She is avaricious, hypocritical,
specious, and crafty. Though not malignant nor to a certainty criminal,
she is a conscienceless little malefactor, whose ill deeds are only
limited by the ignoble dimensions of her passions. She lies with amazing
glibness, is utterly faithless to her hulking husband, and utterly
indifferent to her child. Her mendacity is superlative, and
double-dealing enters into all her transactions. But she is so shrewd,
so vivacious, so artful, so immensely clever and good-humoured, she has
so much prettiness of manner and person, that, while we despise her, and
have not the least pity for her when retribution falls heavily upon her,
our indignation against her is not so great as we feel that it ought to
be, principally because her sins have a certain feminine archness and
irresponsibility in them, which keeps them well down to the level of
comedy. When we close the book we know her through and through, and
thoroughly understand all the complex workings of her strategic mind.
How do we know her so well? Thackeray is not exegetical, and does not
depend on elaborate analysis for his effects. The actions of the
characters are themselves fully expository, and do not call for any
outside comments or enlargement on the part of the author. This is the
case to such an extent that, when we examine the completeness with which
the characters are revealed to us, we are inclined to believe that
Thackeray’s art is of the very highest kind, and that, though in form it
is undramatic, intrinsically it is powerfully dramatic.
But we are straying from our purpose, which is simply to look for
ourselves at the places which he has described. Across the way from the
bottom of Chancery Lane is the Temple, to the interest of which he has
added many associations. He was fond of its dark alleys, archways,
courts, and back stairs.
In 1834 he was called to the bar, and for some time he occupied chambers
in the venerable buildings with the late Tom Taylor. His rooms, which
were at number 10 Crown Office Row, have disappeared before
“improvements” that present a modern front to the gardens and the river.
Philip had chambers in the Temple, and there, also, in classic Lamb’s
Court, Pendennis and Warrington were located.
Warrington smoking his cutty pipe, and writing his articles—the
fine-hearted fellow, the unfortunate gentleman, the unpedantic scholar,
who took Pendennis by the hand and introduced him to Grub street when
that young unfortunate came to the end of his means. George Warrington
teaches us a new lesson in manhood, in patience, in self-abnegation. His
lot is full of sorrow, his cherished ambitions are impossible, through no
fault of his own, but it is not in him to surrender to “the dull gray
life and apathetic end,”—his contentment is the repose of a generous
nature, his cheeriness with his pipe and his work springs out of a calmly
philosophic mind, a satisfied conscience, a profound faith, and when we
pass through Lamb’s court, not least in our affections is the shadow of
him.
“The man of letters cannot but love the place which has been inhabited by
so many of his brethren, and peopled by their creations as real to us at
this day, as the authors whose children they were,” and says Thackeray.
“Sir Roger de Coverley walking in the Temple garden, and discoursing with
Mr. Spectator about the beauties in hoops and patches who are sauntering
over the grass, is just as lively a figure to me, as old Samuel Johnson
rolling through the fog with the Scotch gentleman at his heels, on their
way to Mr. Goldsmith’s chambers in Brick court, or Harry Fielding, with
inked ruffles and a wet towel round his head, dashing off articles at
midnight for the _Covent Garden Journal_, while the printer’s boy is
asleep in the passage.”
Leaving the Temple, we once more enter Smithfield, to look for the site
of the old Fleet prison, the scene of many episodes in the stories of
Dickens. It was in this strange place, that the brilliant, but
thriftless Captain Shandon lived, “one of the wisest, wittiest, and most
incorrigible of Irishmen;” here Pendennis found him sitting on a bed, in
a torn dressing gown, with a desk on his knees: here a prisoner for debt,
he indited the prospectus of the _Pall Mall Gazette_, which was so
called, he said, because its editor was born in Dublin, and the
sub-editor (excellent Jack Finucane) at Cork; because the proprietor
lived in Paternoster Row, and the paper was published in Catherine
Street, Strand. This imaginary title of Thackeray’s was not the only one
afterwards adopted by a real newspaper. He writes of the _Whitehall
Review_ as an opposing print, and that is now the name of a successful
London journal.
The Fleet is a thing of the past, and the attributes of Captain Shandon
have no inheritors in the press of to-day. A knight armed cap-à-pie in
Cheapside, would not be a more antiquated figure, than the boozy scholar
editing a reputable journal in the cell of a prison. Journalism has
taken off its soft hat and shabby clothes; it has mended its erring and
improvident ways, and put on the manners of polite society. Not in a
tap-room, with jorums of hot whiskey, Welsh rabbits, and devilled chops
does the modern scribe regale himself. He has a club somewhere in
Adelphi, or St. James’, where he presents himself in sedate evening
dress, he turns pale at the very mention of supper, and, instead of
singing old English songs, sadly compares notes with his
fellow-dyspeptics. A vulgar public-house, or low music hall stands on
the site of the Haunt and the Back Kitchen. When Warrington, Pendennis,
Tom Sarjeant, Clive Newcome, and Fred. Bayham frequented the Haunt, and
joined in the diversions of the literary democracy, there was a
superstition among them, that the place vanished at the approach of
daybreak, that when Betsy turned the gas off at the door lamp, as the
company went away, the whole thing faded into mist—the door, the house,
the bar, Betsy, the beer-boy, Mrs. Nokes, and all. Whether this was so
or not, it has now vanished, not for a day, but for ever, like Captain
Shandon, and the wild Bohemianism of his time. {42}