It is only a minutes’ walk from the corner of Fleet Lane, to the street
of booksellers, Paternoster Row, in which the rival publishers, Bungay
and Bacon lived—Bacon in an ancient low-browed building, with a few of
his books displayed in the windows under a bust of my Lord Verulam; and
Bungay in the house opposite, which was newly painted, and elaborately
decorated in the style of the seventeenth century, “so that you might
have fancied stately Mr. Evelyn passing over the threshold, or curious
Mr. Pepys examining the books in the windows.” _The_ Row, so called—as
financiers arrogantly call Wall Street, _the_ Street—is not wider than an
alley way, and in this respect it is exactly as it was when Warrington
introduced Pendennis to the editor of the _Parlor Table Annual_, wherein
his verses were published. But though its breadth has not been
increased, the old buildings on both sides of it have given place in many
instances to towering new ones, five and six stories high, which shut out
the light, and keep the editors, compilers, printers, engravers, and
book-binders, who are the principal laborers of the Row, in an all-day
gloom. Both Bungay and Bacon had their domestic establishments over
their shops, and their wives, who were sisters, thus had an opportunity
to insult one another by looks and mute signs from their opposite
windows. Bungay and Bacon, and their belligerent spouses are now out of
the trade, and the annual _Souvenirs_ and _Keepsakes_ which made a part
of their business, belong to an extinct form of literature. The Row is
full of Grub Street curiosities; but Lady Fanny Fantail, Miss Bunion, and
the Honorable Percy Popinjay are seen within its precincts no more, and
if they still exist, they probably find a new field for their
distinguished services in the society papers.
Let anyone strike out which way he will from Fleet Street, he is sure to
find himself in the presence of something which reminds him of Dickens,
near some object which his humor has made famous, or which answers to one
of his luminous descriptions.
The slums between the Strand and Soho, and between Smithfield and
Clerkenwell, were fertile to him, and not a _gamin_ there knew the
winding alleys, and crisscross streets better than the gentleman with the
high complexion, the sparkling eye, the iron-gray beard, the well-cut
dress, and the brisk step, who might have been seen speeding through them
at all sorts of unusual hours. One day, he was heard of in Ratcliff
Highway, or among the riverside shanties of Poplar, and the next, among
the bird shops of Seven Dials, or in the courts of Lambeth. When we
contrast the little we have found of Thackeray in the neighbourhood
through which we have just been, with the variety and suggestiveness of
the reminiscences of Dickens in the same region, our search seems
disappointing.
As we have said Thackeray was not a novelist of low life. “Perhaps,” he
says in the preface to _Pendennis_: “the lovers of excitement may care to
know that this book began with a very precise plan, which was entirely
put aside. Ladies and Gentlemen, you were to have been treated, and the
writer’s and publisher’s pocket benefited by the recital of the most
active horrors. What more exciting than a ruffian (with many admirable
virtues) in St. Giles, visited constantly by a young lady from Belgravia?
What more stirring than the contrasts of society? The mixture of slang
and fashionable language? The escapes, the battles, the murders? . . . .
The exciting plan was laid aside (with a very honorable forbearance on
part of the publishers) because on attempting it, I found that I failed
from want of experience of my subject; and never having been intimate
with any convict in my life, and the manners of ruffians and gaol-birds
being quite unfamiliar to me, the idea of entering into competition with
M. Eugene Sue was abandoned.”