FLEET STREET TRIBUTARIES SOUTH.
Worthy Mr. Fisher--Lamb's Wednesday Evenings--Persons one would wish
to have seen--Ram Alley--Serjeants' Inn--The _Daily News_--"Memory"
Woodfall--A Mug-House Riot--Richardson's Printing Office--Fielding
and Richardson--Johnson's Estimate of Richardson--Hogarth and
Richardson's Guest--An Egotist Rebuked--The King's
"Housewife"--Caleb Colton: his Life, Works, and Sentiments.
Falcon Court, Fleet Street, took its name from an inn which bore the
sign of the "Falcon." This passage formerly belonged to a gentleman
named Fisher, who, out of gratitude to the Cordwainers' Company,
bequeathed it to them by will. His gratitude is commonly said to have
arisen from the number of good dinners that the Company had given him.
However this may be, the Cordwainers are the present owners of the
estate, and are under the obligation of having a sermon preached
annually at the neighbouring church of St. Dunstan, on the 10th of July,
when certain sums are given to the poor. Formerly it was the custom to
drink sack in the church to the pious memory of Mr. Fisher, but this
appears to have been discontinued for a considerable period. This Fisher
was a jolly fellow, if all the tales are true which are related of him,
as, besides the sack drinking, he stipulated that the Cordwainers should
give a grand feast on the same day yearly to all their tenants. What a
quaint picture might be made of the churchwardens in the old church
drinking to the memory of Mr. Fisher! Wynkyn de Worde, the father of
printing in England, lived in Fleet Street, at his messuage or inn known
by the sign of the Falcon. Whether it was the inn that stood on the site
of Falcon Court is not known with certainty, but most probably it was.
Charles Lamb came to 16, Mitre Court Buildings in 1800, after leaving
Southampton Buildings, and remained in that quiet harbour out of Fleet
Street till 1809, when he removed to Inner Temple Lane.
It was whilst Lamb was residing in Mitre Court Buildings that those
Wednesday evenings of his were in their glory. In two of Mr. Hazlitt's
papers are graphic pictures of these delightful Wednesdays and the
Wednesday men, and admirable notes of several choice conversations.
There is a curious sketch in one of a little tilt between Coleridge and
Holcroft, which must not be omitted. "Coleridge was riding the high
German horse, and demonstrating the 'Categories of the Transcendental
Philosophy' to the author of _The Road to Ruin_, who insisted on his
knowledge of German and German metaphysics, having read the 'Critique of
Pure Reason' in the original. 'My dear Mr. Holcroft,' said Coleridge, in
a tone of infinitely provoking conciliation, 'you really put me in mind
of a sweet pretty German girl of about fifteen, in the Hartz Forest, in
Germany, and who one day, as I was reading "The Limits of the Knowable
and the Unknowable," the profoundest of all his works, with great
attention, came behind my chair, and leaning over, said, "What! you read
Kant? Why, I, that am a German born, don't understand him!"' This was
too much to bear, and Holcroft, starting up, called out, in no measured
tone, 'Mr. Coleridge, you are the most eloquent man I ever met with, and
the most troublesome with your eloquence.' Phillips held the
cribbage-peg, that was to mark him game, suspended in his hand, and the
whist-table was silent for a moment. I saw Holcroft downstairs, and on
coming to the landing-place in Mitre Court he stopped me to observe that
he thought Mr. Coleridge a very clever man, with a great command of
language, but that he feared he did not always affix very proper ideas
to the words he used. After he was gone we had our laugh out, and went
on with the argument on 'The Nature of Reason, the Imagination, and the
Will.' ... It would make a supplement to the 'Biographia Literaria,' in
a volume and a half, octavo."
It was at one of these Wednesdays that Lamb started his famous question
as to persons "one would wish to have seen." It was a suggestive topic,
and proved a fruitful one. Mr. Hazlitt, who was there, has left an
account behind him of the kind of talk which arose out of this hint, so
lightly thrown out by the author of "Elia," and it is worth giving in
his own words:--
"On the question being started, Ayrton said, 'I suppose the two first
persons you would choose to see would be the two greatest names in
English literature, Sir Isaac Newton and Locke?' In this Ayrton, as
usual, reckoned without his host. Everyone burst out a laughing at the
expression of Lamb's face, in which impatience was restrained by
courtesy. 'Y--yes, the greatest names,' he stammered out hastily; 'but
they were not persons--not persons.' 'Not persons?' said Ayrton, looking
wise and foolish at the same time, afraid his triumph might be
premature. 'That is,' rejoined Lamb, 'not characters, you know. By Mr.
Locke and Sir Isaac Newton you mean the "Essay on the Human
Understanding" and "Principia," which we have to this day. Beyond their
contents, there is nothing personally interesting in the men. But what
we want to see anyone _bodily_ for is when there is something peculiar,
striking in the individuals, more than we can learn from their writings
and yet are curious to know. I dare say Locke and Newton were very like
Kneller's portraits of them; but who could paint Shakespeare?' 'Ay,'
retorted Ayrton, 'there it is. Then I suppose you would prefer seeing
him and Milton instead?' 'No,' said Lamb, 'neither; I have seen so much
of Shakespeare on the stage.' ... 'I shall guess no more,' said Ayrton.
'Who is it, then, you would like to see "in his habit as he lived," if
you had your choice of the whole range of English literature?' Lamb then
named Sir Thomas Brown and Fulke Greville, the friend of Sir Philip
Sydney, as the two worthies whom he should feel the greatest pleasure to
encounter on the floor of his apartment in their night-gowns and
slippers, and to exchange friendly greeting with them. At this Ayrton
laughed outright, and conceived Lamb was jesting with him; but as no one
followed his example he thought there might be something in it, and
waited for an explanation in a state of whimsical suspense....
"When Lamb had given his explanation, some one inquired of him if he
could not see from the window the Temple walk in which Chaucer used to
take his exercise, and on his name being put to the vote I was pleased
to find there was a general sensation in his favour in all but Ayrton,
who said something about the ruggedness of the metre, and even objected
to the quaintness of the orthography....
"Captain Burney muttered something about Columbus, and Martin Burney
hinted at the Wandering Jew; but the last was set aside as spurious, and
the first made over to the New World.
"'I should like,' said Mr. Reynolds, 'to have seen Pope talking with
Patty Blount, and I _have_ seen Goldsmith.' Everyone turned round to
look at Mr. Reynolds, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of
Goldsmith....
"Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of
the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if Junius would not be a fit
person to invoke from the dead. 'Yes,' said Lamb, 'provided he would
agree to lay aside his mask.'
"We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned as
a candidate. Only one, however, seconded the proposition. 'Richardson?'
'By all means; but only to look at him through the glass-door of his
back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary
contrast that ever was presented between an author and his works), but
not to let him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn
customer; nor to go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the
first manuscript of "Sir Charles Grandison," which was originally
written in twenty-eight volumes octavo; or get out the letters of his
female correspondents to prove that "Joseph Andrews" was low.'
"There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any
one expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine,
frank, rough, pimply face and wily policy--and one enthusiast, John
Bunyan, the immortal author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress.'....
"Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the
greatest enthusiasm. He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel,
who had been talked of, but then it was on condition that he should sit
in tragedy and comedy, in the play and the farce,--Lear and Wildair, and
Abel Drugger....
"Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would choose
to mention, and I answered, 'Eugene Aram.'"
The present Hare Place was the once disreputable Ram Alley, the scene of
a comedy of that name, written by Lodowick Barry and dramatised in the
reign of James I.; the plot Killigrew afterwards used in his vulgar
_Parson's Wedding_. Barry, an Irishman, of whom nothing much is known,
makes one of his roystering characters say,--
"And rough Ram Alley stinks with cooks' shops vile;
Yet, stay, there's many a worthy lawyer's chamber
'Buts upon Ram Alley."
As a precinct of Whitefriars, Ram Alley enjoyed the mischievous
privilege of sanctuary for murderers, thieves, and debtors--indeed, any
class of rascals except traitors--till the fifteenth century. After this
it sheltered only debtors. Barry speaks of its cooks, salesmen, and
laundresses; and Shadwell classes it (Charles II.) with Pye Corner, as
the resort of "rascally stuff." Lord Clarendon, in his autobiography,
describes the Great Fire as burning on the Thames side as far as the
"new buildings of the Inner Temple next to Whitefriars," striking next
on some of the buildings which joined to Ram Alley, and sweeping all
those into Fleet Street. In the reign of George I. Ram Alley was full of
public-houses, and was a place of no reputation, having passages into
the Temple and Serjeants' Inn. "A kind of privileged place for debtors,"
adds Hatton, "before the late Act of Parliament (9 & 10 William III. c.
17, s. 15) for taking them away." This useful Act swept out all the
London sanctuaries, those vicious relics of monastic rights, including
Mitre Court, Salisbury Court (Fleet Street), the Savoy, Fulwood Rents
(Holborn), Baldwin's Gardens (Gray's Inn Lane), the Minories, Deadman's
Place, Montague Close (Southwark), the Clink, and the Mint in the same
locality. The Savoy and the Mint, however, remained disreputable a
generation or two later.
Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street, now deserted by the faithless Serjeants,
is supposed to have been given to the Dean and Chapter of York in 1409
(Henry IV.) It then consisted of shops, &c. In 1627 (Charles I.) the inn
began its legal career by being leased for forty years to nine judges
and fifteen serjeants. In this hall, in 1629, the judges in full bench
struck a sturdy blow at feudal privileges by agreeing that peers might
be attached upon process for contempt out of Chancery. In 1723 (George
I.) the inn was highly aristocratic, its inmates being the Lord Chief
Justice, the Lord Chief Baron, justices, and Serjeants. In 1730,
however, the fickle serjeants removed to Chancery Lane, and Adam, the
architect of the Adelphi, designed the present nineteen houses and the
present street frontage. On the site of the hall arose the Amicable
Assurance Society, which in 1865 transferred its business to the
Economic, and the house is now the Norwich Union Office. The inn is a
parish in itself, making its own assessment, and contributing to the
City rates. Its pavement, which had been part of the stone-work of Old
St. Paul's, was not replaced till 1860. The conservative old inn
retained its old oil lamps long after the introduction of gas.
The arms of Serjeants' Inn, worked into the iron gate opening on Fleet
Street, are a dove and a serpent, the serpent twisted into a kind of
true lover's knot. The lawyers of Serjeants' Inn, no doubt, unite the
wisdom of the serpent with the guilelessness of the dove. Singularly
enough Dr. Dodd, the popular preacher, who was hanged, bore arms nearly
similar.
Half way down Bouverie Street, in the centre of old Whitefriars, is the
office of the _Daily News_. The first number of this popular and
influential paper appeared on January 21, 1846. The publishers, and part
proprietors, were Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the printers; the editor was
Charles Dickens; the manager was Dickens's father, Mr. John Dickens; the
second, or assistant, editor, Douglas Jerrold; and among the other
"leader" writers were Albany Fonblanque and John Forster, both of the
_Examiner_. "Father Prout" (Mahoney) acted as Roman correspondent. The
musical critic was the late Mr. George Hogarth, Dickens's father-in-law;
and the new journal had an "Irish Famine Commissioner" in the person of
Mr. R.H. Horne, the poet. Miss Martineau wrote leading articles in the
new paper for several years, and Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens was also a
recognised contributor. The staff of Parliamentary reporters was said to
be the best in London, several having been taken, at an advanced salary,
off the _Times_.
"The speculative proprietorship," says Mr. Grant, in his "History of the
Newspaper Press," "was divided into one hundred shares, some of which
were held by Sir William Jackson, M.P., Sir Joshua Watkins, and the late
Sir Joseph Paxton. Mr. Charles Dickens, as editor, received a salary of
L2,000 a year."
[Illustration: THE DORSET GARDENS THEATRE, WHITEFRIARS (_see page
140_).]
The early numbers of the paper contained instalments of Dickens's
"Pictures from Italy;" yet the new venture did not succeed. Charles
Dickens and Douglas Jerrold took the night-work on alternate days; but
Dickens, who never made politics a special study, very soon retired from
the editorship altogether, and Jerrold was chief editor for a little
while till he left to set up his _Weekly Newspaper_. Mr. Forster also
had the editorship for a short period, and the paper then fell into the
hands of the late Mr. Dilke, of the _Athenaeum_, who excited some
curiosity by extensively advertising these words: "See the _Daily News_
of June 1st." The _Daily News_ of June 1, 1846 (which began No. 1
again), was a paper of four pages, issued at 2-1/2_d._, which, deducting
the stamp, at that time affixed to every copy of every newspaper, was
in effect three halfpence. One of the features of the new plan was that
the sheet should vary in size, according to the requirements of the
day--with an eye, nevertheless, at all times to selection and
condensation. It was a bold attempt, carried out with great intelligence
and spirit; but it was soon found necessary to put on another halfpenny,
and in a year or two the _Daily News_ was obliged to return to the usual
price of "dailies" at that time--fivepence. The chief editors of the
paper, besides those already mentioned, have been Mr. Eyre Evans Crowe,
Mr. Frederick Knight Hunt, Mr. Weir, and Mr. Thomas Walker, who retired
in January, 1870, on receiving the editorship of the _London Gazette_.
The journal came down to a penny in June, 1868.
[Illustration: ATTACK ON A WHIG MUG HOUSE (_see page 142_)]
The _Daily News_, at the beginning, inspired the _Times_ with some dread
of rivalry; and it is noteworthy that, for several years afterwards, the
great journal was very unfriendly in its criticisms on Dickens's books.
There is no doubt that, over sanguine of success, the _Daily News_
proprietors began by sinking too much money in the foundations. In 1846,
the _Times'_ reporters received on an average only five guineas a week,
while the _Daily News_ gave seven; but the pay was soon of necessity
reduced. Mr. Grant computes the losses of the _Daily News_ for the first
ten years at not much less than L200,000. The talent and enterprise of
this paper, during the recent (1870) German invasion of France, and the
excellence of their correspondents in either camp, is said to have
trebled its circulation, which Mr. Grant computes at a daily issue of
90,000. As an organ of the highest and most enlightened form of
Liberalism and progress, the _Daily News_ now stands pre-eminent.
Many actors, poets, and authors dwelt in Salisbury Court in Charles
II.'s time, and the great Betterton, Underhill, and Sandford affected
this neighbourhood, to be near the theatres. Lady Davenant here presided
over the Dorset Gardens Company; Shadwell, "round as a butt and liquored
every chink," nightly reeled home to the same precinct, unsteadily
following the guidance of a will-o'-the-wisp link-boy; and in the square
lived and died Sir John King, the Duke of York's solicitor-general.
If Salisbury Square boasts of Richardson, the respectable citizen and
admirable novelist, it must also plead guilty to having been the
residence of that not very reputable personage, Mr. John Eyre, who,
although worth, as it was said, some L20,000, was transported on
November 1, 1771 (George III.) for systematic pilfering of paper from
the alderman's chamber, in the justice room, Guildhall. This man, led
away by the thirst for money, had an uncle who made two wills, one
leaving Eyre all his money, except a legacy of L500 to a clergyman;
another leaving the bulk to the clergyman, and L500 only to his nephew.
Eyre, not knowing of the second will, destroyed the first, in order to
cancel the vexatious bequest. When the real will was produced his
disappointment and selfish remorse must have produced an expression of
repressed rage worthy of Hogarth's pencil.
In Salisbury Square Mr. Clarke's disagreeable confessions about the Duke
of York were publicly burned, on the very spot (says Mr. Noble) where
the zealous radical demagogue, Waithman, subsequently addressed the
people from a temporary platform, not being able to obtain the use of
St. Bride's Vestry. Nor must we forget to chronicle No. 53 as the house
of Tatum, a silversmith, to whom, in 1812, that eminent man John Faraday
acted as humble friend and assistant. How often does young genius act
the herdsman, as Apollo did when he tended the kine of Admetus!
The Woodfalls, too, in their time, lent celebrity to Salisbury Square.
The first Woodfall who became eminent was Henry Woodfall, at the
"Elzevir's Head" at Temple Bar. He commenced business under the auspices
of Pope. His son Henry, who rose to be a Common Councilman and Master of
the Stationers' Company, bought of Theophilus Cibber, in 1736-37,
one-third of a tenth share of the London _Daily Post_, an organ which
gradually grew into the _Public Advertiser_, that daring paper in which
the celebrated letters of Junius first appeared. Those letters, scathing
and full of Greek fire, brought down Lords and Commons, King's Bench and
Old Bailey, on Woodfall, and he was fined and imprisoned. Whether Burke,
Barre, Chatham, Horne Tooke, or Sir Philip Francis wrote them, will now
probably never be known. The stern writer in the iron mask went down
into the grave shrouded in his own mystery, and that grave no
inquisitive eyes will ever find. "I am the sole depository of my
secret," he wrote, "and it shall perish with me." The Junius Woodfall
died in 1805. William Woodfall, the younger brother, was born in 1745,
and educated at St. Paul's School. He was editor and printer of the
_Morning Chronicle_, and in 1790 had his office in Dorset Street,
Salisbury Square (Noble). "Memory" Woodfall, as William was generally
called, acquired fame by his extraordinary power of reporting from
memory the speeches he heard in the House of Commons. His practice
during a debate (says his friend Mr. Taylor, of the _Sun_) was to close
his eyes and lean with both hands upon his stick. He was so well
acquainted with the tone and manner of the several speakers that he
seldom changed his attitude but to catch the name of a new member. His
memory was as accurate as it was capacious, and, what was almost
miraculous, he could retain full recollection of any particular debate
for a full fortnight, and after many long nights of speaking. Woodfall
used to say he could put a speech away on a corner shelf of his mind for
future reference. This is an instance of power of memory scarcely
equalled by Fuller, who, it is said, could repeat the names of all the
shops down the Strand (at a time every shop had a sign) in regular and
correct sequence; and it even surpasses "Memory" Thompson, who used to
boast he could remember every shop from Ludgate Hill to the end of
Piccadilly. Yet, with all his sensitively retentive memory, Woodfall did
not care for slight interruptions during his writing. Dr. Johnson used
to write abridged reports of debates for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ from
memory, but, then, reports at that time were short and trivial. Woodfall
was also a most excellent dramatic critic--slow to censure, yet never
sparing just rebuke. At the theatre his extreme attention gave his
countenance a look of gloom and severity. Mr. J. Taylor, of the _Sun_,
describes Kemble as watching Woodfall in one of those serious moods, and
saying to a friend, "How applicable to that man is the passage in
_Hamlet_,--'thoughts black, hands apt.'"
Finding himself hampered on the _Morning Chronicle_, Woodfall started a
new daily paper, with the title of the _Diary_, but eventually he was
overpowered by his competitors and their large staff of reporters. His
eldest son, who displayed great abilities, went mad. Mr. Woodfall's
hospitable parties at his house at Kentish Town are sketched for us by
Mr. J. Taylor. On one particular occasion he mentions meeting Mr.
Tickel, Richardson (a partner in "The Rolliad"), John Kemble, Perry (of
the _Chronicle_), Dr. Glover (a humorist of the day), and John Coust.
Kemble and Perry fell out over their wine, and Perry was rude to the
stately tragedian. Kemble, eyeing him with the scorn of Coriolanus,
exclaimed, in the words of Zanga,--
"A lion preys not upon carcases."
Perry very naturally effervesced at this, and war would have been
instantly proclaimed between the belligerents had not Coust and
Richardson promptly interposed. The warlike powers were carefully sent
home in separate vehicles.
Mr. Woodfall had a high sense of the importance of a Parliamentary
reporter's duties, and once, during a heavy week, when his eldest son
came to town to assist him, he said, "And Charles Fox to have a debate
on a Saturday! What! does he think that reporters are made of iron?"
Woodfall used to tell a characteristic story of Dr. Dodd. When that
miserable man was in Newgate waiting sentence of death he sent earnestly
for the editor of the _Morning Chronicle_. Woodfall, a kind and
unselfish man, instantly hurried off, expecting that Dodd wished his
serious advice. In the midst of Woodfall's condolement he was stopped by
the Doctor, who said he had wished to see him on quite a different
subject. Knowing Woodfall's judgment in dramatic matters, he was anxious
to have his opinion on a comedy which he had written, and to request
his interest with a manager to bring it on the stage. Woodfall was the
more surprised and shocked as on entering Newgate he had been informed
by Ackerman, the keeper of Newgate, that the order for Dr. Dodd's
execution had just arrived.
Before parting with the Woodfall family, we may mention that it is quite
certain that Henry Sampson Woodfall did not know who the author of
"Junius" was. Long after the letters appeared he used to say,--"I hope
and trust Junius is not dead, as I think he would have left me a legacy;
for though I derived much honour from his preference, I suffered much by
the freedom of his pen."
The grandson of William, Henry Dick Woodfall, died in Nice, April 13,
1869, aged sixty-nine, carrying to the grave (says Mr. Noble) the last
chance of discovering one of the best kept secrets ever known.
The Whig "mug-house" of Salisbury Court deserves notice. The death of
Queen Anne (1714) roused the hopes of the Jacobites. The rebellion of
1715 proved how bitterly they felt the peaceful accession of the Elector
of Hanover. The northern revolt convinced them of their strength, but
its failure taught them no lesson. They attributed its want of success
to the rashness of the leaders and the absence of unanimity in their
followers, to the outbreak not being simultaneous; to every cause,
indeed, but the right one. It was about this time that the Whig
gentlemen of London, to unite their party and to organise places of
gathering, established "mug-houses" in various parts of the City. At
these places, "free-and-easy" clubs were held, where Whig citizens could
take their mug of ale, drink loyal toasts, sing loyal songs, and arrange
party processions. These assemblies, not always very just or forbearing,
soon led to violent retaliations on the part of the Tories, attacks were
made on several of the mug-houses, and dangerous riots naturally ensued.
From the papers of the time we learn that the Tories wore white roses,
or rue, thyme, and rosemary in their hats, flourished oak branches and
green ribbons, and shouted "High Church;" "Ormond for ever;" "No King
George;" "Down with the Presbyterians;" "Down with the mug-houses." The
Whigs, on the other side, roared "King George for ever," displayed
orange cockades, with the motto,--
"With heart and hand
By George we'll stand,"
and did their best on royal birthdays and other thanksgivings, by
illuminations and blazing bonfires outside the mug-house doors, to
irritate their adversaries and drive them to acts of illegal violence.
The chief Whig mug-houses were in Long Acre, Cheapside, St. John's Lane
(Clerkenwell), Tower Street, and Salisbury Court.
Mackey, a traveller, who wrote "A Journey through England" about this
time, describes the mug-houses very lucidly:--
"The most amusing and diverting of all," he says, "is the 'Mug-House
Club,' in Long Acre, where every Wednesday and Saturday a mixture of
gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen meet in a great room, and are seldom
under a hundred. They have a grave old gentleman in his own grey hairs,
now within a few months of ninety years old, who is their president, and
sits in an armed-chair some steps higher than the rest of the company,
to keep the whole room in order. A harp always plays all the time at the
lower end of the room, and every now and then one or other of the
company rises and entertains the rest with a song; and, by-the-by, some
are good masters. Here is nothing drank but ale; and every gentleman
hath his separate mug, which he chalks on the table where he sits as it
is brought in, and everyone retires when he pleases, as in a
coffee-house. The room is always so diverted with songs, and drinking
from one table to another to one another's healths, that there is no
room for politics, or anything that can sour conversation. One must be
up by seven to get room, and after ten the company are, for the most
part, gone. This is a winter's amusement that is agreeable enough to a
stranger for once or twice, and he is well diverted with the different
humours when the mugs overflow."
An attack on a Whig mug-house, the "Roebuck," in Cheapside, June, 1716,
was followed by a still more stormy assault on the Salisbury Court
mug-house in July of the same year. The riot began on a Friday, but the
Whigs kept a resolute face, and the mob dwindled away. On the Monday
they renewed the attack, declaring that the Whigs were drinking "Down
with the Church," and reviling the memory of Queen Anne; and they swore
they would level the house and make a bonfire of the timber in the
middle of Fleet Street. But the wily Whigs, barricading the door,
slipped out a messenger at a back door, and sent to a mug-house in
Tavistock Street, Covent Garden, for reinforcements. Presently a band of
Whig bludgeon-men arrived, and the Whigs of Salisbury Court then
snatched up pokers, tongs, pitchforks, and legs of stools, and sallied
out on the Tory mob, who soon fled before them. For two days the Tory
mob seethed, fretted, and swore revenge. But the report of a squadron
of horse being drawn up at Whitehall ready to ride down on the City
kept them gloomily quiet. On the third day a Jacobite, named Vaughan,
formerly a Bridewell boy, led them on to revenge; and on Tuesday they
stormed the place in earnest. "The best of the Tory mob," says a Whig
paper of the day, "were High Church scaramouches, chimney-sweeps,
hackney coachmen, foot-boys, tinkers, shoe-blacks, street idlers, ballad
singers, and strumpets." The contemporaneous account will most vividly
describe the scene.
The _Weekly Journal_ (a Whig paper) of July 28, 1716, says: "The Papists
and Jacobites, in pursuance of their rebellious designs, assembled a mob
on Friday night last, and threatened to attack Mr. Read's mug-house in
Salisbury Court, in Fleet Street; but, seeing the loyal gentlemen that
were there were resolved to defend themselves, the cowardly Papists and
Jacobites desisted for that time. But on Monday night the villains
meeting together again in a most rebellious manner, they began first to
attack Mr. Goslin's house, at the sign of the 'Blew Boar's Head,' near
Water Lane, in Fleet Street, breaking the windows thereof, for no other
reason but because he is well-affected to his Majesty King George and
the present Government. Afterwards they went to the above-said mug-house
in Salisbury Court; but the cowardly Jacks not being able to accomplish
their hellish designs that night, they assembled next day in great
numbers from all parts of the town, breaking the windows with
brick-bats, broke open the cellar, got into the lower rooms, which they
robb'd, and pull'd down the sign, which was carried in triumph before
the mob by one Thomas Bean, servant to Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Cassey, two
rebels under sentence of death, and for which he is committed to
Newgate, as well as several others, particularly one Hook, a joyner, in
Blackfriars, who is charged with acting a part in gutting the mug-house.
Some of the rioters were desperately wounded, and one Vaughan, a
seditious weaver, formerly an apprentice in Bridewell, and since
employed there, who was a notorious ringleader of mobs, was kill'd at
the aforesaid mug-house. Many notorious Papists were seen to abet and
assist in this villanous rabble, as were others, who call themselves
Churchmen, and are like to meet with a suitable reward in due time for
their assaulting gentlemen who meet at these mug-houses only to drink
prosperity to the Church of England as by law established, the King's
health, the Prince of Wales's, and the rest of the Royal Family, and
those of his faithful and loyal Ministers. But it is farther to be
observed that women of mean, scandalous lives, do frequently point,
hiss, and cry out 'Whigs' upon his Majesty's good and loyal subjects, by
which, raising a mob, they are often insulted by them. But 'tis hoped
the magistrates will take such methods which may prevent the like
insults for the future.
"Thursday last the coroner's inquest sat on the body of the person
killed in Salisbury Court, who were for bringing in their verdict,
wilful murder against Mr. Read, the man of the mug-house; but some of
the jury stick out, and will not agree with that verdict; so that the
matter is deferr'd till Monday next."
"On Tuesday last," says the same paper (August 4, 1716), "a petition,
signed by some of the inhabitants of Salisbury Court, was deliver'd to
the Court of Aldermen, setting forth some late riots occasioned by the
meeting of some persons at the mug-house there. The petition was
referr'd to, and a hearing appointed the same day before the Lord Mayor.
The witnesses on the side of the petition were a butcher woman, a
barber's 'prentice, and two or three other inferior people. These swore,
in substance--that the day the man was killed there, they saw a great
many people gathered together about the mug-house, throwing stones and
dirt, &c.; that about twelve o'clock they saw Mr. Read come out with a
gun, and shoot a man who was before the mob at some distance, and had no
stick in his hand. Those who were call'd in Mr. Read's behalf depos'd
that a very great mob attacked the house, crying, 'High Church and
Ormond; No Hanover; No King George;' that then the constable read the
Proclamation, charging them to disperse, but they still continued to
cry, 'Down with the mug-house;' that two soldiers then issued out of the
house, and drove the mob into Fleet Street; but by throwing sticks and
stones, they drove these two back to the house, and the person shot
returned at the head of the mob with a stick in his hand flourishing,
and crying, 'No Hanover; No King George;' and 'Down with the mug-house.'
That then Mr. Read desired them to disperse, or he would shoot amongst
them, and the deceased making at him, he shot him and retired indoors;
that then the mob forced into the house, rifled all below stairs, took
the money out of the till, let the beer about the cellar, and what goods
they could not carry away, they brought into the streets and broke to
pieces; that they would have forced their way up stairs and murdered all
in the house, but that a person who lodged in the house made a barricade
at the stair-head, where he defended himself above half an hour against
all the mob, wounded some of them, and compelled them to give over the
assault. There were several very credible witnesses to these
circumstances, and many more were ready to have confirmed it, but the
Lord Mayor thought sufficient had been said, and the following
gentlemen, who are men of undoubted reputation and worth, offering to be
bail for Mr. Read, namely, Mr. Johnson, a justice of the peace, and
Colonels Coote and Westall, they were accepted, and accordingly entered
into a recognisance."
Five of the rioters were eventually hung at Tyburn Turnpike, in the
presence of a vast crowd. According to Mr. J.T. Smith, in his "Streets
of London," a Whig mug-house existed as early as 1694. It has been said
the slang word "mug" owes its derivation to Lord Shaftesbury's "ugly
mug," which the beer cups were moulded to resemble.
In the _Flying Post_ of June 30, 1716, we find a doggerel old mug-house
ballad, which is so characteristic of the violence of the times that it
is worth preserving:--
"Since the Tories could not fight,
And their master took his flight,
They labour to keep up their faction;
With a bough and a stick,
And a stone and a brick,
They equip their roaring crew for action.
"Thus in battle array
At the close of the day,
After wisely debating their deep plot,
Upon windows and stall,
They courageously fall,
And boast a great victory they have got.
"But, alas! silly boys,
For all the mighty noise,
Of their 'High Church and Ormond for ever,'
A brave Whig with one hand,
At George's command,
Can make their mightiest hero to quiver."
Richardson's printing office was at the north-west corner of Salisbury
Square, communicating with the court, No. 76, Fleet Street. Here the
thoughtful old citizen wrote "Pamela," and here, in 1756, Oliver
Goldsmith acted as his "reader." Richardson seems to have been an
amiable and benevolent man, kind to his compositors and servants and
beloved by children. All the anecdotes relating to his private life are
pleasant. He used to encourage early rising among his workmen by hiding
half crowns among the disordered type, so that the earliest comer might
find his virtue rewarded; and he would frequently bring up fruit from
the country to give to those of his servants who had been zealous and
good-tempered.
[Illustration: FLEET STREET, THE TEMPLE, ETC., FROM A PLAN PUBLISHED BY
RALPH AGGAS, 1563.]
Samuel Richardson, the author of "Pamela" and "Clarissa," was the son of
a Derbyshire joiner. He was born in 1689, and died in 1761. Apprenticed
to a London printer, he rose by steady industry and prudence to be the
manager of a large business, printer of the Journals of the House of
Commons, Master of the Stationers' Company, and part-printer to the
king. In 1741, at the age of fifty-two, publishers urging the thriving
citizen to write them a book of moral letters, Richardson produced
"Pamela," a novel which ran through five editions the first year, and
became the rage of the town. Ladies carried the precious volumes to
Ranelagh, and held them up in smiling triumph to each other. Pope
praised the novel as more useful than twenty volumes of sermons, and Dr.
Sherlock gravely recommended it from the pulpit. In 1749 Richardson
wrote "Clarissa Harlowe," his most perfect work, and in 1753 his
somewhat tedious "Sir Charles Grandison" (7 vols.). In "Pamela" he drew
a servant, whom her master attempts to seduce and eventually marries,
but in "Clarissa" the heroine, after harrowing misfortunes, dies
unrewarded. Richardson had always a moral end in view. He hated vice and
honoured virtue, but he is too often prolix and wearisome. He wished to
write novels that should wean the young from the foolish romances of
his day. In "Pamela" he rewarded struggling virtue; in "Clarissa" he
painted the cruel selfishness of vice; in "Sir Charles" he tried to
represent the perfect Christian gentleman. Coleridge said that to read
Fielding after Richardson was like emerging from a sick room, heated by
stoves into an open lawn on a breezy May morning. Richardson, indeed,
wrote more for women than men. Fielding was coarser, but more manly; he
had humour, but no moral purpose at all. The natural result was that
Fielding and his set looked on Richardson as a grave, dull, respectable
old prig; Richardson on Fielding as a low rake, who wrote like a man who
had been an ostler born in a stable, or a runner in a sponging-house.
"The virtues of Fielding's heroes," the vain old printer used to say to
his feminine clique, "are the vices of a truly good man."
Dr. Johnson, who had been befriended by Richardson, was never tired of
depreciating Fielding and crying up the author of "Pamela." "Sir," he
used to thunder out, "there is as much difference between the two as
between a man who knows how a watch is made and a man who can merely
tell the hour on the dial-plate." He called Fielding a "barren rascal."
"Sir, there is more knowledge of the heart in one letter of Richardson's
than in all 'Tom Jones.'" Some one present here mildly suggested that
Richardson was very tedious. "Why, sir," replied Johnson, "if you were
to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so great that
you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and
consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment." After all,
it must be considered that, old-fashioned as Richardson's novels have
now become, the old printer dissected the human heart with profound
knowledge and exquisite care, and that in the back shop in Salisbury
Court, amid the jar of printing-presses, the quiet old citizen drew his
ideal beings with far subtler lines and touches than any previous
novelist had done.
[Illustration: FLEET STREET, THE TEMPLE, ETC., FROM A MAP OF LONDON,
PUBLISHED 1720.]
On one occasion at least Hogarth and Johnson met at Richardson's house.
"Mr. Hogarth," says Nichols, "came one day to see Richardson, soon after
the execution of Dr. Cameron, for having taken arms for the house of
Stuart in 1745-46; and, being a warm partisan of George II., he
observed to Richardson that certainly there must have been some very
unfavourable circumstances lately discovered in this particular case
which had induced the king to approve of an execution for rebellion so
long after the time it was committed, as this had the appearance of
putting a man to death in cold blood, and was very unlike his majesty's
usual clemency. While he was talking he perceived a person standing at a
window in the room shaking his head and rolling himself about in a
ridiculous manner. He concluded he was an idiot, whom his relations had
put under the care of Mr. Richardson as a very good man. To his great
surprise, however, this figure stalked forward to where he and Mr.
Richardson were sitting, and all at once took up the argument, and burst
out into an invective against George II., as one who, upon all
occasions, was unrelenting and barbarous; mentioning many instances,
particularly that, where an officer of high rank had been acquitted by a
court martial, George II. had, with his own hand, struck his name off
the list. In short, he displayed such a power of eloquence that Hogarth
looked at him in astonishment, and actually imagined that this idiot had
been at the moment inspired. Neither Johnson nor Hogarth were made known
to each other at this interview."
Boswell tells a good story of a rebuke that Richardson's amiable but
inordinate egotism on one occasion received, much to Johnson's secret
delight, which is certainly worth quoting before we dismiss the old
printer altogether. "One day," says Boswell, "at his country house at
Northend, where a large company was assembled at dinner, a gentleman who
was just returned from Paris, wishing to please Richardson, mentioned to
him a flattering circumstance, that he had seen his 'Clarissa' lying on
the king's brother's table. Richardson observing that part of the
company were engaged in talking to each other, affected then not to
attend to it; but by and bye, when, there was a general silence, and he
thought that the flattery might be fully heard, he addressed himself to
the gentleman: 'I think, sir, you were saying somewhat about'--pausing
in a high flutter of expectation. The gentleman provoked at his
inordinate vanity resolved not to indulge it, and with an exquisitely
sly air of indifference answered, 'A mere trifle, sir; not worth
repeating.' The mortification of Richardson was visible, and he did not
speak ten words more the whole day. Dr. Johnson was present, and
appeared to enjoy it much."
At one corner of Salisbury Square (says Mr. Timbs) are the premises of
Peacock, Bampton, & Mansfield, the famous pocket-book makers, whose
"Polite Repository" for 1778 is "the patriarch of all pocket-books." Its
picturesque engravings have never been surpassed, and their morocco and
russia bindings scarcely equalled. In our time Queen Adelaide and her
several maids of honour used the "Repository." George IV. was provided
by the firm with a ten-guinea housewife (an antique-looking pocket-book,
with gold-mounted scissors, tweezers, &c.); and Mr. Mansfield relates
that on one occasion the king took his housewife from his pocket and
handed it round the table to his guests, and next day the firm received
orders for twenty-five, "just like the king's."
In St. Bride's Passage, westward (says Mr. Timbs), was a large
dining-house, where, some forty years ago, Colton, the author, used to
dine, and publicly boast that he wrote the whole of his "Lacon; or, Many
Things in Few Words," upon a small rickety deal table, with one pen.
Another frequenter of this place was one Webb, who seems to have been so
well up in the topics of the day that he was a sort of walking
newspaper, who was much with the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands
when they visited England in 1825.
This Caleb Colton, mentioned by Mr. Timbs, was that most degraded being,
a disreputable clergyman, with all the vices but little of the genius of
Churchill, and had been, in his flourishing time, vicar of Kew and
Petersham. He was educated at Eton, and eventually became Fellow of
King's College, Cambridge. He wrote "A Plain and Authentic Narrative of
the Stamford Ghost," "Remarks on the Tendencies of 'Don Juan,'" a poem
on Napoleon, and a satire entitled "Hypocrisy." His best known work,
however, was "Lacon; or, Many Things in Few Words," published in 1820.
These aphorisms want the terse brevity of Rochefoucauld, and are in many
instances vapid and trivial. A passion for gaming at last swallowed up
Colton's other vices, and becoming involved, he cut the Gordian knot of
debt in 1828 by absconding; his living was then seized and given to
another. He fled to America, and from there returned to that syren city,
Paris, where he is said in two years to have won no less than L25,000.
The miserable man died by his own hand at Fontainebleau, in 1832. In the
"Lacon" is the subjoined passage, that seems almost prophetic of the
miserable author's miserable fate:--
"The gamester, if he die a martyr to his profession, is doubly ruined.
He adds his soul to every loss, and by the act of suicide renounces
earth to forfeit heaven.".... "Anguish of mind has driven thousands to
suicide, anguish of body none. This proves that the health of the mind
is of far more consequence to our happiness than the health of the body,
although both are deserving of much more attention than either of them
receive."
And here is a fine sentiment, worthy of Dr. Dodd himself:--
"There is but one pursuit in life which it is in the power of all to
follow and of all to attain. It is subject to no disappointments, since
he that perseveres makes every difficulty an advancement and every
contest a victory--and this the pursuit of virtue. Sincerely to aspire
after virtue is to gain her, and zealously to labour after her wages is
to receive them. Those that seek her early will find her before it is
late; her reward also is with her, and she will come quickly. For the
breast of a good man is a little heaven commencing on earth, where the
Deity sits enthroned with unrivalled influence, every subjugated
passion, 'like the wind and storm, fulfilling his word.'"