FLEET STREET (_continued_).
Dr. Johnson in Ambuscade at Temple Bar--The First Child--Dryden and
Black Will--Rupert's Jewels--Telson's Bank--The Apollo Club at the
"Devil"--"Old Sir Simon the King"--"Mull Sack"--Dr. Johnson's Supper
to Mrs. Lennox--Will Waterproof at the "Cock"--The Duel at "Dick's
Coffee House"--Lintot's Shop--Pope and Warburton--Lamb and the
_Albion_--The Palace of Cardinal Wolsey--Mrs. Salmon's
Waxwork--Isaak Walton--Praed's Bank--Murray and Byron--St.
Dunstan's--Fleet Street Printers--Hoare's Bank and the "Golden
Bottle"--The Real and Spurious "Mitre"--Hone's Trial--Cobbett's
Shop--"Peele's Coffee House."
There is a delightful passage in an almost unknown essay by Dr. Johnson
that connects him indissolubly with the neighbourhood of Temple Bar. The
essay, written in 1756 for the _Universal Visitor_, is entitled "A
Project for the Employment of Authors," and is full of humour, which,
indeed, those who knew him best considered the chief feature of
Johnson's genius. We rather pride ourselves on the discovery of this
pleasant bit of autobiography:--"It is my practice," says Johnson, "when
I am in want of amusement, to place myself for an hour at Temple Bar, or
any other narrow pass much frequented, and examine one by one the looks
of the passengers, and I have commonly found that between the hours of
eleven and four every sixth man is an author. They are seldom to be seen
very early in the morning or late in the evening, but about dinner-time
they are all in motion, and have one uniform eagerness in their faces,
which gives little opportunity of discerning their hopes or fears,
their pleasures or their pains. But in the afternoon, when they have all
dined, or composed themselves to pass the day without a dinner, their
passions have full play, and I can perceive one man wondering at the
stupidity of the public, by which his new book has been totally
neglected; another cursing the French, who fright away literary
curiosity by their threat of an invasion; another swearing at his
bookseller, who will advance no money without copy; another perusing as
he walks his publisher's bill; another murmuring at an unanswerable
criticism; another determining to write no more to a generation of
barbarians; and another wishing to try once again whether he cannot
awaken the drowsy world to a sense of his merit." This extract seems to
us to form an admirable companion picture to that in which we have
already shown Goldsmith bantering his brother Jacobite, Johnson, as they
looked up together at the grim heads on Temple Bar.
[Illustration: DR. TITUS OATES.]
That quiet grave house (No. 1), that seems to demurely huddle close to
Temple Bar, as if for protection, is the oldest banking-house in London
except one. For two centuries gold has been shovelled about in those
dark rooms, and reams of bank-notes have been shuffled over by practised
thumbs. Private banks originated in the stormy days before the Civil
War, when wealthy citizens, afraid of what might happen, entrusted their
money to their goldsmiths to take care of till the troubles had blown
over. In the reign of Charles I., Francis Child, an industrious
apprentice of the old school, married the daughter of his master,
William Wheeler, a goldsmith, who lived one door west of Temple Bar, and
in due time succeeded to his estate and business. In the first London
Directory (1677), among the fifty-eight goldsmiths, thirty-eight of whom
lived in Lombard Street, "Blanchard & Child," at the "Marygold," Fleet
Street, figure conspicuously as "keeping running cashes." The original
Marygold (sometimes mistaken for a rising sun), with the motto, "Ainsi
mon ame," gilt upon a green ground, elegantly designed in the French
manner, is still to be seen in the front office, and a marigold in full
bloom still blossoms on the bank cheques. In the year 1678 it was at Mr.
Blanchard's, the goldsmith's, next door to Temple Bar, that Dryden the
poet, bruised and angry, deposited L50 as a reward for any one who would
discover the bullies of Lord Rochester who had beaten him in Rose Alley
for some scurrilous verses really written by the Earl of Dorset. The
advertisement promises, if the discoverer be himself one of the actors,
he shall still have the L50, without letting his name be known or
receiving the least trouble by any prosecution. Black Will's cudgel was,
after all, a clumsy way of making a repartee. Late in Charles II.'s
reign Alderman Backwell entered the wealthy firm; but he was ruined by
the iniquitous and arbitrary closing of the Exchequer in 1672, when the
needy and unprincipled king pocketed at one swoop more than a million
and a half of money, which he soon squandered on his shameless
mistresses and unworthy favourites. In that quaint room over Temple Bar
the firm still preserve the dusty books of the unfortunate alderman, who
fled to Holland. There, on the sallow leaves over which the poor
alderman once groaned, you can read the items of our sale of Dunkirk to
the French, the dishonourable surrender of which drove the nation almost
to madness, and hastened the downfall of Lord Clarendon, who was
supposed to have built a magnificent house (on the site of Albemarle
Street, Piccadilly) with some of the very money. Charles II. himself
banked here, and drew his thousands with all the careless nonchalance of
his nature. Nell Gwynne, Pepys, of the "Diary," and Prince Rupert also
had accounts at Child's, and some of these ledgers are still hoarded
over Temple Bar in that Venetian-looking room, approached by strange
prison-like passages, for which chamber Messrs. Child pay something less
than L50 a year.
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR AND THE "DEVIL TAVERN" (_see page 38_).]
When Prince Rupert died at his house in the Barbican, the valuable
jewels of the old cavalry soldier, valued at L20,000, were disposed of
in a lottery, managed by Mr. Francis Child, the goldsmith; the king
himself, who took a half-business-like, half-boyish interest in the
matter, counting the tickets among all the lords and ladies at
Whitehall.
In North's "Life of Lord Keeper Guildford," the courtier and lawyer of
the reign of Charles II., there is an anecdote that pleasantly connects
Child's bank with the fees of the great lawyers who in that evil reign
ruled in Chancery Lane:--
"The Lord Keeper Guildford's business increased," says his biographer,
"even while he was solicitor, to be so much as to have overwhelmed one
less dexterous; but when he was made Attorney-General, though his gains
by his office were great, they were much greater by his practice, for
that flowed in upon him like an orage, enough to overset one that had
not an extraordinary readiness in business. His skull-caps, which he
wore when he had leisure to observe his constitution, as I touched
before, were now destined to lie in a drawer, to receive the money that
came in by fees. One had the gold, another the crowns and half-crowns,
and another the smaller money. When these vessels were full, they were
committed to his friend (the Hon. Roger North), who was constantly near
him, to tell out the cash and put it into the bags according to the
contents; and so they went to his treasurers, Blanchard & Child,
goldsmiths, Temple Bar."
Year by year the second Sir Francis Child grew in honour. He was
alderman, sheriff, Lord Mayor, President of Christ's Hospital, and M.P.
for the City, and finally, dying in 1713, full of years, was buried
under a grand black marble tomb in Fulham churchyard, and his account
closed for ever. The family went on living in the sunshine. Sir Robert,
the son of the Sir Francis, was also alderman of his ward; and, on his
death, his brother, Sir Francis, succeeded to all his father's
dignities, became an East Indian director, and in 1725 received the
special thanks of the citizens for promoting a special act for
regulating City elections. Another member of this family (Sir Josiah
Child) deserves special mention as one of the earliest writers on
political economy and a man much in advance of his time. He saw through
the old fallacy about the balance of trade, and explained clearly the
true causes of the commercial prosperity of the Dutch. He also condemned
the practice of each parish paying for its own poor, an evil which all
Poor-law reformers have endeavoured to alter. Sir Josiah was at the head
of the East India Company, already feeling its way towards the gold and
diamonds of India. His brother was Governor of Bombay, and by the
marriage of his numerous daughters the rich merchant became allied to
half the peers and peeresses of England. The grandson of Alderman
Backwell married a daughter of the second Sir Francis Child, and his
daughter married William Praed, the Truro banker, who early in the
present century opened a bank at 189, Fleet Street. So, like three
strands of a gold chain, the three banking families were welded
together. In 1689 Child's bank seems to have for a moment tottered, but
was saved by the timely loan of L1,400 proffered by that overbearing
woman the Duchess of Marlborough. Hogarth is said to have made an oil
sketch of the scene, which was sold at Hodgson's sale-room in 1834, and
has since disappeared.
In Pennant's time (1793) the original goldsmith's shop seems to have
still existed in Fleet Street, in connection with this bank. The
principal of the firm was the celebrated Countess of Jersey, a former
earl having assumed the name of Child on the countess inheriting the
estates of her maternal grandfather, Robert Child, Esq., of Osterly
Park, Middlesex. A small full-length portrait of this great beauty of
George IV.'s court, painted by Lawrence in his elegant but meretricious
manner, hangs in the first-floor room of the old bank. The last Child
died early in this century. A descendant of Addison is a member of the
present firm. In Chapter 1., Book I., of his "Tale of Two Cities,"
Dickens has sketched Child's bank with quite an Hogarthian force and
colour. He has playfully exaggerated the smallness, darkness, and
ugliness of the building, of which he describes the partners as so
proud; but there is all his usual delightful humour, occasionally
passing into caricature:--
"Thus it had come to pass that Telson's was the triumphant perfection of
inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a
weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Telson's down two steps, and
came to your senses in a miserable little shop with two little counters,
where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled
it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which
were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and which were
made the dingier by their own iron bars and the heavy shadow of Temple
Bar. If your business necessitated your seeing 'the House,' you were put
into a species of Condemned Hold at the back, where you meditated on a
mis-spent life, until the House came with its hands in its pockets, and
you could hardly blink at it in the dismal twilight."
In 1788 (George III.) the firm purchased the renowned "Devil Tavern,"
next door eastward, and upon the site erected the retiring row of houses
up a dim court, now called Child's Place, finally absorbing the old
place of revelry and hushing the unseemly clatter of pewter pots and the
clamorous shouts of "Score a pint of sherry in the Apollo" for ever.
The noisy "Devil Tavern" (No. 2, Fleet Street) had stood next the quiet
goldsmith's shop ever since the time of James I. Shakespeare himself
must, day after day, have looked up at the old sign of St. Dunstan
tweaking the Devil by the nose, that flaunted in the wind near the Bar.
Perhaps the sign was originally a compliment to the goldsmith's men who
frequented it, for St. Dunstan was, like St. Eloy, a patron saint of
goldsmiths, and himself worked at the forge as an amateur artificer of
church plate. It may, however, have only been a mark of respect to the
saint, whose church stood hard by, to the east of Chancery Lane. At the
"Devil" the Apollo Club, almost the first institution of the kind in
London, held its merry meetings, presided over by that grim yet jovial
despot, Ben Jonson. The bust of Apollo, skilfully modelled from the head
of the Apollo Belvidere, that once kept watch over the door, and heard
in its time millions of witty things and scores of fond recollections of
Shakespeare by those who personally knew and loved him, is still
preserved at Child's bank. They also show there among their heirlooms
"The Welcome," probably written by immortal Ben himself, which is full
of a jovial inspiration that speaks well for the canary at the "Devil."
It used to stand over the chimney-piece, written in gilt letters on a
black board, and some of the wittiest and wisest men of the reigns of
James and Charles must have read it over their cups. The verses run,--
"Welcome all who lead or follow
To the oracle of Apollo," &c.
Beneath these verses some enthusiastic disciple of the author has added
the brief epitaph inscribed by an admirer on the crabbed old poet's
tombstone in Westminster Abbey,--
"O, rare Ben Jonson."
The rules of the club (said to have been originally cut on a slab of
black marble) were placed above the fire-place. They were devised by Ben
Jonson, in imitation of the rules of the Roman entertainments, collected
by the learned Lipsius; and, as Leigh Hunt says, they display the
author's usual style of elaborate and compiled learning, not without a
taste of that dictatorial self-sufficiency that made him so many
enemies. They were translated by Alexander Brome, a poetical attorney of
the day, who was one of Ben Jonson's twelve adopted poetical sons. We
have room only for the first few, to show the poetical character of the
club:--
"Let none but guests or clubbers hither come;
Let dunces, fools, and sordid men keep home;
Let learned, civil, merry men b' invited,
And modest, too; nor be choice liquor slighted.
Let nothing in the treat offend the guest:
More for delight than cost prepare the feast."
The later rules forbid the discussion of serious and sacred subjects. No
itinerant fiddlers (who then, as now, frequented taverns) were to be
allowed to obtrude themselves. The feasts were to be celebrated with
laughing, leaping, dancing, jests, and songs, and the jests were to be
"without reflection." No man (and this smacks of Ben's arrogance) was to
recite "insipid" poems, and no person was to be pressed to write verse.
There were to be in this little Elysium of an evening no vain disputes,
and no lovers were to mope about unsocially in corners. No fighting or
brawling was to be tolerated, and no glasses or windows broken, or was
tapestry to be torn down in wantonness. The rooms were to be kept warm;
and, above all, any one who betrayed what the club chose to do or say
was to be, _nolens volens_, banished. Over the clock in the kitchen some
wit had inscribed in neat Latin the merry motto, "If the wine of last
night hurts you, drink more to-day, and it will cure you"--a happy
version of the dangerous axiom of "Take a hair of the dog that bit you."
At these club feasts the old poet with "the mountain belly and the rocky
face," as he has painted himself, presided, ready to enter the ring
against all comers. By degrees the stern man with the worn features,
darkened by prison cell and hardened by battle-fields, had mellowed into
a Falstaff. Long struggles with poverty had made Ben arrogant, for he
had worked as a bricklayer in early life and had served in Flanders as a
common soldier; he had killed a rival actor in a duel, and had been in
danger of having his nose slit in the pillory for a libel against King
James's Scotch courtiers. Intellectually, too, Ben had reason to claim a
sort of sovereignty over the minor poets. His _Every Man in his Humour_
had been a great success; Shakespeare had helped him forward, and been
his bosom friend. Parts of his _Sejanus_, such as the speech of Envy,
beginning,--
"Light, I salute thee, but with wounded nerves,
Wishing thy golden splendour pitchy darkness,"
are as sublime as his songs, such as
"Drink to me only with thine eyes,"
are graceful, serious, and lyrical. The great compass of his power and
the command he had of the lyre no one could deny; his learning Donne and
Camden could vouch for. He had written the most beautiful of court
masques; his Bobadil some men preferred to Falstaff. Alas! no Pepys or
Boswell has noted the talk of those evenings.
A few glimpses of the meetings we have, and but a few. One night at the
"Devil" a country gentleman was boastful of his property. It was all he
had to boast about among the poets; Ben, chafed out of all decency and
patience, at last roared, "What signify to us your dirt and your clods?
Where you have an acre of land I have ten acres of wit!" "Have you so,
good Mr. Wise-acre," retorted Master Shallow. "Why, now, Ben," cried out
a laughing friend, "you seem to be quite stung." "I' faith, I never was
so pricked by a hobnail before," growled Ben, with a surly smile.
Another story records the first visit to the "Devil" of Randolph, a
clever poet and dramatist, who became a clergyman, and died young. The
young poet, who had squandered all his money away in London pleasures,
on a certain night, before he returned to Cambridge, resolved to go and
see Ben and his associates at the "Devil," cost what it might. But there
were two great obstacles--he was poor, and he was not invited.
Nevertheless, drawn magnetically by the voices of the illustrious men in
the Apollo, Randolph at last peeped in at the door among the waiters.
Ben's quick eye soon detected the eager, pale face and the scholar's
threadbare habit. "John Bo-peep," he shouted, "come in!" a summons
Randolph gladly obeyed. The club-men instantly began rhyming on the
meanness of the intruder's dress, and told him if he could not at once
make a verse he must call for a quart of sack. There being four of his
tormentors, Randolph, ready enough at such work, replied as quick as
lightning:--
"I, John Bo-peep, and you four sheep,
With each one his good fleece;
If that you are willing to give me your shilling,
'Tis fifteen pence apiece."
"By the Lord!" roared the giant president, "I believe this is my son
Randolph!" and on his owning himself, the young poet was kindly
entertained, spent a glorious evening, was soaked in sack, "sealed of
the tribe of Ben," and became one of the old poet's twelve adopted sons.
Shakerley Marmion, a contemporary dramatist of the day, has left a
glowing Rubenesque picture of the Apollo evenings, evidently coloured
from life. Careless, one of his characters, tells his friends he is full
of oracles, for he has just come from Apollo. "From Apollo?" says his
wondering friend. Then Careless replies, with an inspired fervour worthy
of a Cavalier poet who fought bravely for King Charles:--
"From the heaven
Of my delight, where the boon Delphic god
Drinks sack and keep his bacchanalia,
And has his incense and his altars smoking,
And speaks in sparkling prophecies; thence I come,
My brains perfumed with the rich Indian vapour,
And heightened with conceits....
And from a mighty continent of pleasure
Sails thy brave Careless."
Simon Wadloe, the host of the "Devil," who died in 1627, seems to have
been a witty butt of a man, much such another as honest Jack Falstaff; a
merry boon companion, not only witty himself, but the occasion of wit in
others, quick at repartee, fond of proverbial sayings, curious in his
wines. A good old song, set to a fine old tune, was written about him,
and called "Old Sir Simon the King." This was the favourite
old-fashioned ditty in which Fielding's rough and jovial Squire Western
afterwards delighted.
Old Simon's successor, John Wadloe (probably his son), made a great
figure at the Restoration procession by heading a band of young men all
dressed in white. After the Great Fire John rebuilt the "Sun Tavern,"
behind the Royal Exchange, and was loyal, wealthy, and foolish enough to
lend King Charles certain considerable sums, duly recorded in Exchequer
documents, but not so duly paid.
In the troublous times of the Commonwealth the "Devil" was the favourite
haunt of John Cottington, generally known as "Mull Sack," from his
favourite beverage of spiced sherry negus. This impudent rascal, a sweep
who had turned highwayman, with the most perfect impartiality rifled the
pockets alternately of Cavaliers and Roundheads. Gold is of no religion;
and your true cut-purse is of the broadest and most sceptical Church. He
emptied the pockets of Lord Protector Cromwell one day, and another he
stripped Charles II., then a Bohemian exile at Cologne, of plate valued
at L1,500. One of his most impudent exploits was stealing a watch from
Lady Fairfax, that brave woman who had the courage to denounce, from the
gallery at Westminster Hall, the persons whom she considered were about
to become the murderers of Charles I. "This lady" (and a portly handsome
woman she was, to judge by the old portraits), says a pamphlet-writer of
the day, "used to go to a lecture on a week-day to Ludgate Church, where
one Mr. Jacomb preached, being much followed by the Puritans. Mull Sack,
observing this, and that she constantly wore her watch hanging by a
chain from her waist, against the next time she came there dressed
himself like an officer in the army; and having his comrades attending
him like troopers, one of them takes off the pin of a coach-wheel that
was going upwards through the gate, by which means it falling off, the
passage was obstructed, so that the lady could not alight at the
church door, but was forced to leave her coach without. Mull Sack,
taking advantage of this, readily presented himself to her ladyship, and
having the impudence to take her from her gentleman usher who attended
her alighting, led her by the arm into the church; and by the way, with
a pair of keen sharp scissors for the purpose, cut the chain in two, and
got the watch clear away, she not missing it till the sermon was done,
when she was going to see the time of the day."
[Illustration: INTRODUCTION OF RANDOLPH TO BEN JONSON AT THE "DEVIL"
TAVERN (_see page 40_).]
The portrait of Mull Sack has the following verses beneath:--
"I walk the Strand and Westminster, and scorn
To march i' the City, though I bear the horn.
My feather and my yellow band accord,
To prove me courtier; my boot, spur, and sword,
My smoking-pipe, scarf, garter, rose on shoe,
Show my brave mind t' affect what gallants do.
I sing, dance, drink, and merrily pass the day,
And, like a chimney, sweep all care away."
In Charles II.'s time the "Devil" became frequented by lawyers and
physicians. The talk now was about drugs and latitats, jalap and the law
of escheats. Yet, still good company frequented it, for Steele describes
Bickerstaff's sister Jenny's wedding entertainment there in October,
1709; and in 1710 (Queen Anne) Swift writes one of those charming
letters to Stella to tell her that he had dined on October 12th at the
"Devil," with Addison and Dr. Garth, when the good-natured doctor, whom
every one loved, stood treat, and there must have been talk worth
hearing. In the Apollo chamber the intolerable court odes of Colley
Cibber, the poet laureate, used to be solemnly rehearsed with fitting
music; and Pope, in "The Dunciad," says, scornfully:--
"Back to the 'Devil' the loud echoes roll,
And 'Coll' each butcher roars in Hockly Hole."
But Colley had talent and he had brass, and it took many such lines to
put him down. A good epigram on these public recitations runs thus:--
"When laureates make odes, do you ask of what sort?
Do you ask if they're good or are evil?
You may judge: from the 'Devil' they come to the Court,
And go from the Court to the 'Devil.'"
Dr. Kenrick afterwards gave lectures on Shakespeare at the Apollo. This
Kenrick, originally a rule-maker, and the malicious assailant of Johnson
and Garrick, was the Croker of his day. He originated the _London
Review_, and when he assailed Johnson's "Shakespeare," Johnson
laughingly replied, "That he was not going to be bound by Kenrick's
rules."
In 1746 the Royal Society held its annual dinner in the old consecrated
room, and in the year 1752 concerts of vocal and instrumental music were
given in the same place. It was an upstairs chamber, probably detached
from the tavern, and lay up a "close," or court, like some of the old
Edinburgh taverns.
The last ray of light that fell on the "Devil" was on a memorable spring
evening in 1751. Dr. Johnson (aged forty-two), then busy all day with
his six amanuenses in a garret in Gough Square compiling his Dictionary,
at night enjoyed his elephantine mirth at a club in Ivy Lane,
Paternoster Row. One night at the club, Johnson proposed to celebrate
the appearance of Mrs. Lennox's first novel, "The Life of Harriet
Stuart," by a supper at the "Devil Tavern." Mrs. Lennox was a lady for
whom Johnson--ranking her afterwards above Mrs. Carter, Mrs. Hannah
More, or even his favourite, Miss Burney--had the greatest esteem. Sir
John Hawkins, that somewhat malign rival of Boswell, describes the night
in a manner, for him, unusually genial. "Johnson," says Hawkins (and his
words are too pleasant to condense), "proposed to us the celebrating the
birth of Mrs. Lennox's first literary child, as he called her book, by a
whole night spent in festivity. Upon his mentioning it to me, I told him
I had never sat up a night in my life; but he continuing to press me,
and saying that I should find great delight in it, I, as did all the
rest of the company, consented." (The club consisted of Hawkins, an
attorney; Dr. Salter, father of a master of the Charter House; Dr.
Hawkesworth, a popular author of the day; Mr. Ryland, a merchant; Mr.
John Payne, a bookseller; Mr. Samuel Dyer, a young man training for a
Dissenting minister; Dr. William M'Ghie, a Scotch physician; Dr. Barker
and Dr. Bathurst, young physicians.) "The place appointed was the 'Devil
Tavern;' and there, about the hour of eight, Mrs. Lennox and her husband
(a tide-waiter in the Customs), a lady of her acquaintance, with the
club and friends, to the number of twenty, assembled. The supper was
elegant; Johnson had directed that a magnificent hot apple-pie should
make a part of it, and this he would have stuck with bay leaves,
because, forsooth, Mrs. Lennox was an authoress and had written verses;
and, further, he had prepared for her a crown of laurel, with which, but
not till he had invoked the Muses by some ceremonies of his own
invention, he encircled her brows. The night passed, as must be
imagined, in pleasant conversation and harmless mirth, intermingled at
different, periods with the refreshment of coffee and tea. About five
a.m., Johnson's face shone with meridian splendour, though his drink
had been only lemonade; but the far greater part of the company had
deserted the colours of Bacchus, and were with difficulty rallied to
partake of a second refreshment of coffee, which was scarcely ended when
the day began to dawn. This phenomenon began to put us in mind of our
reckoning; but the waiters were all so overcome with sleep that it was
two hours before a bill could be had, and it was not till near eight
that the creaking of the street-door gave the signal of our departure."
How one longs to dredge up some notes of such a night's conversation
from the cruel river of oblivion! The Apollo Court, on the opposite
side of Fleet Street, still preserves the memory of the great club-room
at the "Devil."
[Illustration: TEMPLE BAR IN DR. JOHNSON'S TIME (_see page 29_).]
In 1764, on an Act passing for the removal of the dangerous projecting
signs, the weather-beaten picture of the saint, with the Devil gibbering
over his shoulder, was nailed up flat to the front of the old
gable-ended house. In 1775, Collins, a public lecturer and mimic, gave a
satirical lecture at the "Devil" on modern oratory. In 1776 some young
lawyers founded there a Pandemonium Club; and after that there is no
further record of the "Devil" till it was pulled down and annexed by the
neighbouring bankers. In Steele's time there was a "Devil Tavern" at
Charing Cross, and a rival "Devil Tavern" near St. Dunstan's; but
these competitors made no mark.
[Illustration: MULL SACK AND LADY FAIRFAX (_see page 40_).]
The "Cock Tavern" (201), opposite the Temple, has been immortalised by
Tennyson as thoroughly as the "Devil" was by Ben Jonson. The playful
verses inspired by a pint of generous port have made
"The violet of a legend blow
Among the chops and steaks"
for ever, though old Will Waterproof has long since descended for the
last time the well-known cellar-stairs. The poem which has embalmed his
name was, we believe, written when Mr. Tennyson had chambers in
Lincoln's Inn Fields. At that time the room was lined with wainscoting,
and the silver tankards of special customers hung in glittering rows in
the bar. This tavern was shut up at the time of the Plague, and the
advertisement announcing such closing is still extant. Pepys, in his
"Diary," mentions bringing pretty Mrs. Knipp, an actress, of whom his
wife was very jealous, here; and the gay couple "drank, eat a lobster,
and sang, and mighty merry till almost midnight." On his way home to
Seething Lane, the amorous Navy Office clerk with difficulty avoided two
thieves with clubs, who met him at the entrance into the ruins of the
Great Fire near St. Dunstan's. These dangerous meetings with Mrs. Knipp
went on till one night Mrs. Pepys came to his bedside and threatened to
pinch him with the red-hot tongs. The waiters at the "Cock" are fond of
showing visitors one of the old tokens of the house in the time of
Charles II. The old carved chimney-piece is of the age of James I.; and
there is a doubtful tradition that the gilt bird that struts with such
self-serene importance over the portal was the work of that great
carver, Grinling Gibbons.
"Dick's Coffee House" (No. 8, south) was kept in George II.'s time by a
Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, who were much admired by the young
Templars who patronised the place. The Rev. James Miller, reviving an
old French comedietta by Rousseau, called "The Coffee House," and
introducing malicious allusions to the landlady and her fair daughter,
so exasperated the young barristers that frequented "Dick's," that they
went in a body and hissed the piece from the boards. The author then
wrote an apology, and published the play; but unluckily the artist who
illustrated it took the bar at "Dick's" as the background of his sketch.
The Templars went madder than ever at this, and the Rev. Miller, who
translated Voltaire's "Mahomet" for Garrick, never came up to the
surface again. It was at "Dick's" that Cowper the poet showed the first
symptoms of derangement. When his mind was off its balance he read a
letter in a newspaper at "Dick's," which he believed had been written to
drive him to suicide. He went away and tried to hang himself; the garter
breaking, he then resolved to drown himself; but, being hindered by some
occurrence, repented for the moment. He was soon after sent to a
madhouse in Huntingdon.
In 1681 a quarrel arose between two hot-headed gallants in "Dick's"
about the size of two dishes they had both seen at the "St. John's Head"
in Chancery Lane. The matter eventually was roughly ended at the "Three
Cranes" in the Vintry--a tavern mentioned by Ben Jonson--by one of them,
Rowland St. John, running his companion, John Stiles, of Lincoln's Inn,
through the body. The St. Dunstan's Club, founded in 1796, holds its
dinner at "Dick's."
The "Rainbow Tavern" (No. 15, south) was the second coffee-house started
in London. Four years before the Restoration, Mr. Farr, a barber, began
the trade here, trusting probably to the young Temple barristers for
support. The vintners grew jealous, and the neighbours, disliking the
smell of the roasting coffee, indicted Farr as a nuisance. But he
persevered, and the Arabian drink became popular. A satirist had soon to
write regretfully,--
"And now, alas! the drink has credit got,
And he's no gentleman that drinks it not."
About 1780, according to Mr. Timbs, the "Rainbow" was kept by Alexander
Moncrieff, grandfather of the dramatist who wrote _Tom and Jerry_.
Bernard Lintot, the bookseller, who published Pope's "Homer," lived in a
shop between the two Temple gates (No. 16). In an inimitable letter to
the Earl of Burlington, Pope has described how Lintot (Tonson's rival)
overtook him once in Windsor Forest, as he was riding down to Oxford.
When they were resting under a tree in the forest, Lintot, with a keen
eye to business, pulled out "a mighty pretty 'Horace,'" and said to
Pope, "What if you amused yourself in turning an ode till we mount
again?" The poet smiled, but said nothing. Presently they remounted, and
as they rode on Lintot stopped short, and broke out, after a long
silence: "Well, sir, how far have we got?" "Seven miles," replied Pope,
naively. He told Pope that by giving the hungry critics a dinner of a
piece of beef and a pudding, he could make them see beauties in any
author he chose. After all, Pope did well with Lintot, for he gained
L5,320 by his "Homer." Dr. Young, the poet, once unfortunately sent to
Lintot a letter meant for Tonson, and the first words that Lintot read
were: "That Bernard Lintot is so great a scoundrel." In the same shop,
which was then occupied by Jacob Robinson, the publisher, Pope first met
Warburton. An interesting account of this meeting is given by Sir John
Hawkins, which it may not be out of place to quote here. "The friendship
of Pope and Warburton," he says, "had its commencement in that
bookseller's shop which is situate on the west side of the gateway
leading down the Inner Temple Lane. Warburton had some dealings with
Jacob Robinson, the publisher, to whom the shop belonged, and may be
supposed to have been drawn there on business; Pope might have made a
call of the like kind. However that may be, there they met, and entering
into conversation, which was not soon ended, conceived a mutual liking,
and, as we may suppose, plighted their faith to each other. The fruit of
this interview, and the subsequent communications of the parties, was
the publication, in November, 1739, of a pamphlet with this title, 'A
Vindication of Mr. Pope's "Essay on Man," by the Author of "The Divine
Legation of Moses." Printed for J. Robinson.'" At the Middle Temple
Gate, Benjamin Motte, successor to Ben Tooke, published Swift's
"Gulliver's Travels," for which he had grudgingly given only L200.
The third door from Chancery Lane (No. 197, north side), Mr. Timbs
points out, was in Charles II.'s time a tombstone-cutter's; and here, in
1684, Howel, whose "Letters" give us many curious pictures of his time,
saw a huge monument to four of the Oxenham family, at the death of each
of whom a white bird appeared fluttering about their bed. These
miraculous occurrences had taken place at a town near Exeter, and the
witnesses names duly appeared below the epitaph. No. 197 was afterwards
Rackstrow's museum of natural curiosities and anatomical figures; and
the proprietor put Sir Isaac Newton's head over the door for a sign.
Among other prodigies was the skeleton of a whale more than seventy feet
long. Donovan, a naturalist, succeeded Rackstrow (who died in 1772) with
his London museum. Then, by a harlequin change, No. 197 became the
office of the _Albion_ newspaper. Charles Lamb was turned over to this
journal from the _Morning Post_. The editor, John Fenwick, the "Bigot"
of Lamb's "Essay," was a needy, sanguine man, who had purchased the
paper of a person named Lovell, who had stood in the pillory for a libel
against the Prince of Wales. For a long time Fenwick contrived to pay
the Stamp Office dues by money borrowed from compliant friends. "We,"
says Lamb, in his delightful way, "attached our small talents to the
forlorn fortunes of our friend. Our occupation was now to write
treason." Lamb hinted at possible abdications. Blocks, axes, and
Whitehall tribunals were covered with flowers of so cunning a
periphrasis--as, Mr. Bayes says, never naming the _thing_ directly--that
the keen eye of an Attorney-General was insufficient to detect the
lurking snake among them.
At the south-west corner of Chancery Lane (No. 193) once stood an old
house said to have been the residence of that unfortunate reformer, Sir
John Oldcastle, Baron Cobham, who was burnt in St. Giles's Fields in
1417 (Henry V.). In Charles II.'s reign the celebrated Whig Green Ribbon
Club used to meet here, and from the balcony flourish their periwigs,
discharge squibs, and wave torches, when a great Protestant procession
passed by, to burn the effigy of the Pope at the Temple Gate. The house,
five stories high and covered with carvings, was pulled down for City
improvements in 1799.
Upon the site of No. 192 (east corner of Chancery Lane) the father of
Cowley, that fantastic poet of Charles II.'s time, it is said carried on
the trade of a grocer. In 1740 a later grocer there sold the finest
caper tea for 24s. per lb., his fine green for 18s. per lb., hyson at
16s. per lb., and bohea at 7s. per lb.
No house in Fleet Street has a more curious pedigree than that gilt and
painted shop opposite Chancery Lane (No. 17, south side), falsely called
"the palace of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey." It was originally the
office of the Duchy of Cornwall, in the reign of James I. It is just
possible that it was the house originally built by Sir Amyas Paulet, at
Wolsey's command, in resentment for Sir Amyas having set Wolsey, when a
mere parish priest, in the stocks for a brawl. Wolsey, at the time of
the ignominious punishment, was schoolmaster to the children of the
Marquis of Dorset. Paulet was confined to this house for five or six
years, to appease the proud cardinal, who lived in Chancery Lane. Sir
Amyas rebuilt his prison, covering the front with badges of the
cardinal. It was afterwards "Nando's," a famous coffee-house, where
Thurlow picked up his first great brief. One night Thurlow, arguing here
keenly about the celebrated Douglas case, was heard by some lawyers with
delight, and the next day, to his astonishment, was appointed junior
counsel. This cause won him a silk gown, and so his fortune was made by
that one lucky night at "Nando's." No. 17 was afterwards the place where
Mrs. Salmon (the Madame Tussaud of early times) exhibited her waxwork
kings and queens. There was a figure on crutches at the door; and Old
Mother Shipton, the witch, kicked the astonished visitor as he left.
Mrs. Salmon died in 1812. The exhibition was then sold for L500, and
removed to Water Lane. When Mrs. Salmon first removed from St.
Martin's-le-Grand to near St. Dunstan's Church, she announced, with true
professional dignity, that the new locality "was more convenient for the
quality's coaches to stand unmolested." Her "Royal Court of England"
included 150 figures. When the exhibition removed to Water Lane, some
thieves one night got in, stripped the effigies of their finery, and
broke half of them, throwing them into a heap that almost touched the
ceiling.
Tonson, Dryden's publisher, commenced business at the "Judge's Head,"
near the Inner Temple gate, so that when at the Kit-Kat Club he was not
far from his own shop. One day Dryden, in a rage, drew the greedy
bookseller with terrible force:--
"With leering looks, bull-faced, and speckled fair,
With two left legs and Judas-coloured hair,
And frowzy pores that taint the ambient air."
The poet promised a fuller portrait if the "dog" tormented him further.
Opposite Mrs. Salmon's, two doors west of old Chancery Lane, till 1799,
when the lawyer's lane was widened, stood an old, picturesque, gabled
house, which was once the milliner's shop kept, in 1624, by that good
old soul, Isaak Walton. He was on the Vestry Board of St. Dunstan's, and
was constable and overseer for the precinct next Temple Bar; and on
pleasant summer evenings he used to stroll out to the Tottenham fields,
rod in hand, to enjoy the gentle sport which he so much loved. He
afterwards (1632) lived seven doors up Chancery Lane, west side, and
there married the sister of that good Christian, Bishop Ken, who wrote
the "Evening Hymn," one of the most simply beautiful religious poems
ever written. It is pleasant in busy Fleet Street to think of the good
old citizen on his guileless way to the river Lea, conning his verses on
the delights of angling.
Praed's Bank (No. 189, north side) was founded early in the century by
Mr. William Praed, a banker of Truro. The house had been originally the
shop of Mrs. Salmon, till she moved to opposite Chancery Lane, and her
wax kings and frail queens were replaced by piles of strong boxes and
chests of gold. The house was rebuilt in 1802, from the designs of Sir
John Soane, whose curious museum still exists in Lincoln's Inn Fields.
Praed, that delightful poet of society, was of the banker's family, and
in him the poetry of refined wealth found a fitting exponent. Fleet
Street, indeed, is rich in associations connected with bankers and
booksellers; for at No. 19 (south side) we come to Messrs. Gosling's.
This bank was founded in 1650 by Henry Pinckney, a goldsmith, at the
sign of the "Three Squirrels"--a sign still to be seen in the iron-work
over the centre window. The original sign of solid silver, about two
feet in height, made to lock and unlock, was discovered in the house in
1858. It had probably been taken down on the general removal of out-door
signs and forgotten. In a secret service-money account of the time of
Charles II., there is an entry of a sum of L646 8s. 6d. for several
parcels of gold and silver lace bought of William Gosling and partners
by the fair Duchess of Cleveland, for the wedding clothes of the Lady
Sussex and Lichfield.
No. 32 (south side), still a bookseller's, was originally kept for forty
years by William Sandby, one of the partners of Snow's bank in the
Strand. He sold the business and goodwill in 1762 for L400, to a
lieutenant of the Royal Navy, named John M'Murray, who, dropping the
Mac, became the well-known Tory publisher. Murray tried in vain to
induce Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," to join him as a
partner. The first Murray died in 1793. In 1812 John Murray, the son of
the founder, removed to 50, Albemarle Street. In the _Athenaeum_ of 1843
a writer describes how Byron used to stroll in here fresh from his
fencing-lessons at Angelo's or his sparring-bouts with Jackson. He was
wont to make cruel lunges with his stick at what he called "the spruce
books" on Murray's shelves, generally striking the doomed volume, and by
no means improving the bindings. "I was sometimes, as you will guess,"
Murray used to say with a laugh, "glad to get rid of him." Here, in
1807, was published "Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery;" in 1809, the
_Quarterly Review_; and, in 1811, Byron's "Childe Harold."
The original Columbarian Society, long since extinct, was born at
offices in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan's. This society was replaced
by the Pholoperisteron, dear to all pigeon-fanciers, which held its
meetings at "Freemasons' Tavern," and eventually amalgamated with its
rival, the National Columbarian, the fruitful union producing the
National Peristeronic Society, now a flourishing institution, meeting
periodically at "Evans's," and holding a great fluttering and most
pleasant annual show at the Crystal Palace. It is on these occasions
that clouds of carrier-pigeons are let off, to decide the speed with
which the swiftest and best-trained bird can reach a certain spot (a
flight, of course, previously known to the bird), generally in Belgium.
The first St. Dunstan's Church--"in the West," as it is now called, to
distinguish it from one near Tower Street--was built prior to 1237. The
present building was erected in 1831. The older church stood thirty feet
forward, blocking the carriage-way, and shops with projecting signs were
built against the east and west walls. The churchyard was a favourite
locality for booksellers. One of the most interesting stories connected
with the old building relates to Felton, the fanatical assassin of the
Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of Charles I. The murderer's mother
and sisters lodged at a haberdasher's in Fleet Street, and were
attending service in St. Dunstan's Church when the news arrived from
Portsmouth; they swooned away when they heard the name of the assassin.
Many of the clergy of St. Dunstan's have been eminent men. Tyndale, the
translator of the New Testament, did duty here. The poet Donne was
another of the St. Dunstan's worthies; and Sherlock and Romaine both
lectured at this church. The rectory house, sold in 1693, was No. 183.
The clock of old St. Dunstan's was one of the great London sights in the
last century. The giants that struck the hours had been set up in 1671,
and were made by Thomas Harrys, of Water Lane, for L35 and the old
clock. Lord Hertford purchased them, in 1830, for L210, and set them up
at his villa in Regent's Park. When a child he was often taken to see
them; and he then used to say that some day he would buy "those giants."
Hatton, writing in 1708, says that these figures were more admired on
Sundays by the populace than the most eloquent preacher in the pulpit
within; and Cowper, in his "Table Talk," cleverly compares dull poets to
the St. Dunstan's giants:--
"When labour and when dulness, club in hand,
Like the two figures at St. Dunstan stand,
Beating alternately, in measured time,
The clock-work tintinnabulum of rhyme."
The most interesting relic of modern St. Dunstan's is that unobtrusive
figure of Queen Elizabeth at the east end. This figure from the old
church came from Ludgate when the City gates were destroyed in 1786. It
was bought for L16 10s. when the old church came to the ground, and was
re-erected over the vestry entrance. The companion statues of King Lud
and his two sons were deposited in the parish bone-house. On one
occasion when Baxter was preaching in the old church of St. Dunstan's,
there arose a panic among the audience from two alarms of the building
falling. Every face turned pale; but the preacher, full of faith, sat
calmly down in the pulpit till the panic subsided, then, resuming his
sermon, said reprovingly, "We are in the service of God, to prepare
ourselves that we may be fearless at the great noise of the dissolving
world when the heavens shall pass away and the elements melt with
fervent heat."
Mr. Noble, in his record of this parish, has remarked on the
extraordinary longevity attained by the incumbents of St. Dunstan's. Dr.
White held the living for forty-nine years; Dr. Grant, for fifty-nine;
the Rev. Joseph Williamson (Wilkes's chaplain) for forty-one years;
while the Rev. William Romaine continued lecturer for forty-six years.
The solution of the problem probably is that a good and secure income is
the best promoter of longevity. Several members of the great banking
family of Hoare are buried in St. Dunstan's; but by far the most
remarkable monument in the church bears the following inscription:--
"HOBSON JUDKINS, ESQ., late of Clifford's Inn, the Honest Solicitor,
who departed this life June 30, 1812. This tablet was erected by his
clients, as a token of gratitude and respect for his honest,
faithful, and friendly conduct to them throughout life. Go, reader,
and imitate Hobson Judkins."
Among the burials at St. Dunstan's noted in the registers, the following
are the most remarkable:--1559-60, Doctor Oglethorpe, the Bishop of
Carlisle, who crowned Queen Elizabeth; 1664, Dame Bridgett Browne, wife
of Sir Richard Browne, major-general of the City forces, who offered
L1,000 reward for the capture of Oliver Cromwell; 1732, Christopher
Pinchbeck, the inventor of the metal named after him and a maker of
musical clocks. The Plague seems to have made great havoc in St.
Dunstan's, for in 1665, out of 856 burials, 568 in only three months are
marked "P.," for Plague. The present church, built in 1830-3, was
designed by John Shaw, who died on the twelfth day after the completion
of the outer shell, leaving his son to finish his work. The church is of
a flimsy Gothic, the true revival having hardly then commenced. The
eight bells are from the old church. The two heads over the chief
entrance are portraits of Tyndale and Dr. Donne; and the painted window
is the gift of the Hoare family.
According to Aubrey, Drayton, the great topographical poet, lived at
"the bay-window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church." Now it
is a clearly proved fact that the Great Fire stopped just three doors
east of St. Dunstan's, as did also, Mr. Timbs says, another remarkable
fire in 1730; so it is not impossible that the author of "The
Polyolbion," that good epic poem, once lived at the present No. 180,
though the next house eastward is certainly older than its neighbour. We
have given a drawing of the house.
[Illustration: MRS. SALMON'S WAXWORK, FLEET STREET--"PALACE OF HENRY
VIII. AND CARDINAL WOLSEY" (_see page 45_).]
That shameless rogue, Edmund Curll, lived at the "Dial and Bible,"
against St. Dunstan's Church. When this clever rascal was put in the
pillory at Charing Cross, he persuaded the mob he was in for a political
offence, and so secured the pity of the crowd. The author of "John
Buncle" describes Curll as a tall, thin, awkward man, with goggle eyes,
splay feet, and knock-knees. His translators lay three in a bed at the
"Pewter Platter Inn" at Holborn. He published the most disgraceful books
and forged letters. Curll, in his revengeful spite, accused Pope of
pouring an emetic into his half-pint of canary when he and Curll and
Lintot met by appointment at the "Swan Tavern," Fleet Street. By St.
Dunstan's, at the "Homer's Head," also lived the publisher of the first
correct edition of "The Dunciad."
[Illustration: ST. DUNSTAN'S CLOCK (_see page 47_).]
Among the booksellers who crowded round old St. Dunstan's were Thomas
Marsh, of the "Prince's Arms," who printed Stow's "Chronicles;" and
William Griffith, of the "Falcon," in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, who, in
the year 1565, issued, without the authors' consent, _Gorboduc_, written
by Thomas Norton and Lord Buckhurst, the first real English tragedy and
the first play written in English blank verse. John Smethwicke, a still
more honoured name, "under the diall" of St. Dunstan's Church, published
"Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." Richard Marriot, another St. Dunstan's
bookseller, published Quarle's "Emblems," Dr. Donne's "Sermons," that
delightful, simple-hearted book, Isaak Walton's "Complete Angler," and
Butler's "Hudibras," that wonderful mass of puns and quibbles, pressed
close as potted meat. Matthias Walker, a St. Dunstan's bookseller, was
one of the three timid publishers who ventured on a certain poem,
called "The Paradise Lost," giving John Milton, the blind poet, the
enormous sum of L5 down, L5 on the sale of 1,300 copies of the first,
second, and third impressions, in all the munificent recompense of L20;
the agreement was given to the British Museum in 1852, by Samuel Rogers,
the banker poet.
Nor in this list of Fleet Street printers must we forget to insert
Richard Pynson, from Normandy, who had worked at Caxton's press, and was
a contemporary of De Worde. According to Mr. Noble (to whose work we are
so deeply indebted), Pynson printed in Fleet Street, at his office, the
"George" (first in the Strand, and afterwards beside St. Dunstan's
Church), no less than 215 works. The first of these, completed in the
year 1483, was probably the first book printed in Fleet Street,
afterwards a gathering-place for the ink-stained craft. A copy of this
book, "Dives and Pauper," was sold a few years since for no less than
L49. In 1497 the same busy Frenchman published an edition of "Terence,"
the first Latin classic printed in England. In 1508 he became printer to
King Henry VII., and after this produced editions of Fabyan's and
Froissart's "Chronicles." He seems to have had a bitter feud with a
rival printer, named Robert Rudman, who pirated his trade-mark. In one
of his books he thus quaintly falls foul of the enemy: "But truly
Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men.... Truly I
wonder now at last that he hath confessed it in his own typography,
unless it chanced that even as the devil made a cobbler a mariner, he
made him a printer. Formerly this scoundrel did prefer himself a
bookseller, as well skilled as if he had started forth from Utopia. He
knows well that he is free who pretendeth to books, although it be
nothing more."
To this brief chronicle of early Fleet Street printers let us add
Richard Bancks, who, in 1600, at his office, "the sign of the White
Hart," printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer
Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the
compositors--nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and snatched
a passage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surreptitious
glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the
printer, as Mr. Noble says, of the first correct folio English
translation of the Bible, by permission of Henry VIII. When in Paris,
Grafton had to fly with his books from the Inquisition. After his patron
Cromwell's execution, in 1540, Grafton was sent to the Fleet for
printing Bibles, but in the happier times of Edward VI. he became king's
printer at the Grey Friars (now Christ's Hospital). His former
fellow-worker in Paris, Edward Whitchurch, set up his press at De
Worde's old house, the "Sun," near the Fleet Street conduit. He
published the "Paraphrase of Erasmus," a copy of which, Mr. Noble says,
existed, with its desk-chains, in the vestry of St. Benet's, Gracechurch
Street. Whitchurch married the widow of Archbishop Cranmer.
The "Hercules Pillars" (now No. 27, Fleet Street, south) was a
celebrated tavern as early as the reign of James I., and in the now
nameless alley by its side several houses of entertainment nestled
themselves. The tavern is interesting to us chiefly because it was a
favourite resort of Pepys, who frequently mentions it in his quaint and
graphic way.
No. 37 (Hoare's Bank), south, is well known by the golden bottle that
still hangs, exciting curiosity, over the fanlight of the entrance.
Popular legend has it that this gilt case contains the original leather
bottle carried by the founder when he came up to London, with the usual
half-crown in his pocket, to seek his fortune. Sir Richard Colt Hoare,
however, in his family history, destroys this romance. The bottle is
merely a sign adopted by James Hoare, the founder of the bank, from his
father having been a citizen and cooper of the city of London. James
Hoare was a goldsmith who kept "running cash" at the "Golden Bottle" in
Cheapside in 1677. The bank was removed to Fleet Street between 1687 and
1692. The original bank, described by Mr. Timbs as "a low-browed
building with a narrow entrance," was pulled down about forty years
since. In the records of the debts of Lord Clarendon is the item, "To
Mr. Hoare, for plate, L27 10s. 3d."; and, by the secret service expenses
of James II., "Charles Duncombe and James Hoare, Esqrs.," appear to have
executed for a time the office of master-workers at the Mint. A Sir
Richard Hoare was Lord Mayor in 1713; and another of the same family,
sheriff in 1740-41 and Lord Mayor in 1745, distinguished himself by his
preparations to defend London against the Pretender. In an
autobiographical record still extant of the shrievalty of the first of
these gentlemen, the writer says:--"After being regaled with sack and
walnuts, I returned to my own house in Fleet Street, in my private
capacity, to my great consolation and comfort." This Richard Hoare, with
Beau Nash, Lady Hastings, &c., founded, in 1716, the Bath General
Hospital, to which charity the firm still continue treasurers; and to
this same philanthropic gentleman, Robert Nelson, who wrote the
well-known book on "Fasts and Festivals," gave L100 in trust as the
first legacy to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. Noble
quotes a curious broadside still extant in which the second Sir Richard
Hoare, who died in 1754, denies a false and malicious report that he had
attempted to cause a run on the Bank of England, and to occasion a
disturbance in the City, by sending persons to the Bank with ten notes
of L10 each. What a state of commercial wealth, to be shaken by the
sudden demand of a mere L100!
Next to Hoare's once stood the "Mitre Tavern," where some of the most
interesting of the meetings between Dr. Johnson and Boswell took place.
The old tavern was pulled down, in 1829, by the Messrs. Hoare, to extend
their banking-house. The original "Mitre" was of Shakespeare's time. In
some MS. poems by Richard Jackson, a contemporary of the great poet, are
some verses beginning, "From the rich Lavinian shore," inscribed as
"Shakespeare's rime, which he made at ye 'Mitre,' in Fleet Street." The
balcony was set on flames during the Great Fire, and had to be pulled
down. Here, in June, 1763, Boswell came by solemn appointment to meet
Johnson, so long the god of his idolatry. They had first met at the shop
of Davis, the actor and bookseller, and afterwards near an eating-house
in Butcher Row. Boswell describes his feelings with delightful sincerity
and self-complacency. "We had," he says, "a good supper and port wine,
of which Johnson then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox High Church
sound of the Mitre, the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel
Johnson, the extraordinary power of his conversation, and the pride
arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a
variety of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had
ever before experienced." That memorable evening Johnson ridiculed
Colley Cibber's birthday odes and Paul Whitehead's "grand nonsense," and
ran down Gray, who had declined his acquaintance. He talked of other
poets, and praised poor Goldsmith as a worthy man and excellent author.
Boswell fairly won the great man by his frank avowals and his adroit
flattery. "Give me your hand," at last cried the great man to the small
man: "I have taken a liking to you." They then finished a bottle of port
each, and parted between one and two in the morning. As they shook
hands, on their way to No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, where Johnson then
lived, Johnson said, "Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope we shall pass
many evenings, and mornings too, together." A few weeks after the Doctor
and his young disciple met again at the "Mitre," and Goldsmith was
present. The poet was full of love for Dr. Johnson, and speaking of some
scapegrace, said tenderly, "He is now become miserable, and that insures
the protection of Johnson." At another "Mitre" meeting, on a Scotch
gentleman present praising Scotch scenery, Johnson uttered his bitter
gibe, "Sir, let me tell you that the noblest prospect which a Scotchman
ever sees is the high road that leads him to England." In the same month
Johnson and Boswell met again at the "Mitre." The latter confessed his
nerves were much shaken by the old port and the late tavern hours; and
Johnson laughed at people who had accepted a pension from the house of
Hanover abusing him as a Jacobite. It was at the "Mitre" that Johnson
urged Boswell to publish his "Travels in Corsica;" and at the "Mitre" he
said finely of London, "Sir, 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 ten miles from
where we sit than in all the rest of the kingdom." It was here the
famous "Tour to the Hebrides" was planned and laid out. Another time we
find Goldsmith and Boswell going arm-in-arm to Bolt Court, to prevail on
Johnson to go and sup at the "Mitre;" but he was indisposed. Goldsmith,
since "the big man" could not go, would not venture at the "Mitre" with
Boswell alone. At Boswell's last "Mitre" evening with Johnson, May,
1778, Johnson would not leave Mrs. Williams, the blind old lady who
lived with him, till he had promised to send her over some little dainty
from the tavern. This was very kindly and worthy of the man who had the
coat but not the heart of a bear. From 1728 to 1753 the Society of
Antiquaries met at the "Mitre," and discussed subjects then wrongly
considered frivolous. The Royal Society had also conclaves at the same
celebrated tavern; and here, in 1733, Thomas Topham, the strongest man
of his day, in the presence of eight persons, rolled up with his iron
fingers a large pewter dish. In 1788 the "Mitre" ceased to be a tavern,
and became, first Macklin's Poet's Gallery, and then an auction-room.
The present spurious "Mitre Tavern," in Mitre Court, was originally
known as "Joe's Coffee-House."
It was at No. 56 (south side) that Lamb's friend, William Hone, the
publisher of the delightful "Table Book" and "Every-day Book," commenced
business about 1812. In 1815 he was brought before the Wardmote Inquest
of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop on Sundays, and for carrying on
a retail trade as bookseller and stationer, not being a freeman. The
Government had no doubt suggested the persecution of so troublesome an
opponent, whose defence of himself is said to have all but killed Lord
Ellenborough, the judge who tried him for publishing blasphemous
parodies. In 1815 Hone took great interest in the case of Eliza Fenning,
a poor innocent servant girl, who was hung for a supposed attempt to
poison her master, a law stationer in Chancery Lane. It was afterwards
believed that a nephew of Mr. Turner really put the poison in the dough
of some dumplings, in revenge at being kept short of money.
Mr. Cyrus Jay, a shrewd observer, was present at Hone's trial, and has
described it with vividness:--
"Hone defended himself firmly and well, but he had no spark of eloquence
about him. For years afterwards I was often with him, and he was made a
great deal of in society. He became very religious, and died a member of
Mr. Clayton's Independent chapel, worshipping at the Weigh House. The
last important incident of Lord Ellenborough's political life was the
part he took as presiding judge in Hone's trials for the publication of
certain blasphemous parodies. At this time he was suffering from the
most intense exhaustion, and his constitution was sinking under the
fatigues of a long and sedulous discharge of his important duties. This
did not deter him from taking his seat upon the bench on this occasion.
When he entered the court, previous to the trial, Hone shouted out, 'I
am glad to see you, Lord Ellenborough. I know what you are come here
for; I know what you want.' 'I am come to do justice,' replied his
lordship. 'My wish is to see justice done.' 'Is it not rather, my lord,'
retorted Hone, 'to send a poor devil of a bookseller to rot in a
dungeon?' In the course of the proceedings Lord Ellenborough more than
once interfered. Hone, it must be acknowledged, with less vehemence than
might have been expected, requested him to forbear. The next time his
lordship made an observation, in answer to something the defendant urged
in the course of his speech, Hone exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, 'I
do not speak to you, my lord; you are not my judge; these,' pointing to
the jury, 'these are my judges, and it is to them that I address
myself.' Hone avenged himself on what he called the Chief Justice's
partiality; he wounded him where he could not defend himself. Arguing
that Athanasius was not the author of the creed that bears his name, he
cited, by way of authority, passages from the writings of Gibbon and
Warburton to establish his position. Fixing his eyes on Lord
Ellenborough, he then said, 'And, further, your lordship's father, the
late worthy Bishop of Carlisle, has taken a similar view of the same
creed.' Lord Ellenborough could not endure this allusion to his father's
heterodoxy. In a broken voice he exclaimed, 'For the sake of decency,
forbear!' The _request_ was immediately complied with. The jury
acquitted Hone, a result which is said to have killed the Chief Justice;
but this is probably not true. That he suffered in consequence of the
trial is certain. After he entered his private room, when the trial was
over, his strength had so far deserted him that his son was obliged to
put his hat on for him. But he quickly recovered his spirits; and on his
way home, in passing through Charing Cross, he pulled the check-string,
and said, 'It just occurs to me that they sell here the best herrings in
London; buy six.' Indeed Dr. Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who
accompanied him in his carriage, said that so far from his nerves being
shaken by the hootings of the mob, Lord Ellenborough only observed that
their saliva was worse than their bite....
"When Hone was tried before him for blasphemy, Lord Tenterden treated
him with great forbearance; but Hone, not content with the indulgence,
took to vilifying the judge. 'Even in a Turkish court I should not have
met with the treatment I have experienced here,' he exclaimed.
'Certainly,' replied Lord Tenterden; 'the bowstring would have been
round your neck an hour ago.'"
That sturdy political writer, William Cobbett, lived at No. 183 (north),
and there published his _Political Register_. In 1819 he wrote from
America, declaring that if Sir Robert Peel's Bank Bill passed, he would
give Castlereagh leave to lay him on a gridiron and broil him alive,
while Sidmouth stirred the coals, and Canning stood by and laughed at
his groans. In 1827 he announced in his _Register_ that he would place a
gridiron on the front of his shop whenever Peel's Bill was repealed. The
"Small Note Bill" was repealed, when there was a reduction of the
interest of the National Debt. The gridiron so often threatened never
actually went up, but it was to be seen a few years ago nailed on the
gable end of a candle manufacturer's at Kensington. The two houses next
to Cobbett's (184 and 185) are the oldest houses standing in Fleet
Street.
"Peele's Coffee-House" (Nos. 177 and 178, north side) once boasted a
portrait of Dr. Johnson, said to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the
keystone of the mantelpiece. This coffee-house is of antiquity, but is
chiefly memorable for its useful files of newspapers and for its having
been the central committee-room of the Society for Repealing the Paper
Duty. The struggle began in 1858, and eventually triumphed, thanks to
the president, the Right Hon. Milner Gibson, and the chairman, the late
Mr. John Cassell. The house within the last few years has been entirely
rebuilt. In former times "Peele's Coffee-House" was quite a house of
call and post-office for money-lenders and bill-discounters; though
crowds of barristers and solicitors also frequented it, in order to
consult the useful files of London and country newspapers hoarded there
for now more than a century. Mr. Jay has left us an amusing sketch of
one of the former frequenters of "Peele's"--the late Sir William Owen
Barlow, a bencher of the Middle Temple. This methodical old gentleman
had never travelled in a stage-coach or railway-carriage in his life,
and had not for years read a book. He came in for dinner at the same
hour every day, except in Term-time, and was very angry if any loud
talkers disturbed him at his evening paper. He once requested the
instant discharge of a waiter at "Peele's," because the civil but
ungrammatical man had said, "There are a leg of mutton, and there is
chops."