THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.
The Greshams--Important Negotiations--Building of the Old
Exchange--Queen Elizabeth visits it--Its Milliners' Shops--A Resort
for Idlers--Access of Nuisances--The various Walks in the
Exchange--Shakespeare's Visits to it--Precautions against Fire--Lady
Gresham and the Council--The "Eye of London"--Contemporary
Allusions--The Royal Exchange during the Plague and the Great
Fire--Wren's Design for a New Royal Exchange--The Plan which was
ultimately accepted--Addison and Steele upon the Exchange--The Shops
of the Second Exchange.
In the year 1563 Sir Thomas Gresham, a munificent merchant of Lombard
Street, who traded largely with Antwerp, carrying out a scheme of his
father, offered the City to erect a Bourse at his own expense, if they
would provide a suitable plot of ground; the great merchant's local
pride having been hurt at seeing Antwerp provided with a stately
Exchange, and London without one.
A short sketch of the Gresham family is here necessary, to enable us to
understand the antecedents of this great benefactor of London. The
family derived its name from Gresham, a little village in Norfolk; and
one of the early Greshams appears to have been clerk to Sir William
Paston, a judge. The family afterwards removed to Holt, near the sea.
John Gresham married an heiress, by whom he had four sons, William,
Thomas, Richard, and John. Thomas became Chancellor of Lichfield, the
other three brothers turned merchants, and two of them were knighted by
Henry VIII. Sir Richard, the father of Sir Thomas Gresham, was an
eminent London merchant, elected Lord Mayor in 1537. Being a trusty
foreign agent of Henry VII., and a friend of Cromwell and Wolsey, he
received from the king five several gifts of church lands. Sir Richard
died at Bethnal Green, 1548-9. He was buried in the church of St.
Lawrence Jewry. Thomas Gresham was sent to Gonville College, Cambridge,
and apprenticed probably before that to his uncle Sir John, a Levant
merchant, for eight years. In 1543 we find the young merchant applying
to Margaret, Regent of the Low Countries, for leave to export gunpowder
to England for King Henry, who was then preparing for his attack on
France, and the siege of Boulogne. In 1554 Gresham married the daughter
of a Suffolk gentleman, and the widow of a London mercer. By her he had
several children, none of whom, however, reached maturity.
It was in 1551 or 1552 that Gresham's real fortune commenced, by his
appointment as king's merchant factor, or agent, at Antwerp, to raise
private loans from German and Low Country merchants to meet the royal
necessities, and to keep the privy council informed in the local news.
The wise factor borrowed in his own name, and soon raised the exchange
from 16s. Flemish for the pound sterling to 22s., at which rate he
discharged all the king's debts, and made money plentiful. He says, in a
letter to the Duke of Northumberland, that he hoped in one year to save
England L20,000. It being forbidden to export further from Antwerp,
Gresham had to resort to various stratagems, and in 1553 (Queen Mary) we
find him writing to the Privy Council, proposing to send L200 (in heavy
Spanish rials), in bags of pepper, four at a time, and the English
ambassador at Brussels was to bring over with him L20,000 or L30,000,
but he afterwards changed his mind, and sent the money packed up in
bales with suits of armour and L3,000 in each, rewarding the searcher at
Gravelines with new year presents of black velvet and black cloth. About
the time of the Queen's marriage to Philip Gresham went to Spain, to
start from Puerto Real fifty cases, each containing 22,000 Spanish
ducats. All the time Gresham resided at Antwerp, carrying out these
sagacious and important negociations, he was rewarded with the paltry
remuneration of L1 a day, of which we often find him seriously
complaining. It was in Antwerp, that vast centre of commerce, that
Gresham must have gained that great knowledge of business by which he
afterwards enriched himself. Antwerp exported to England at this time,
says Mr. Burgon, in his excellent life of Gresham, almost every article
of luxury required by English people.
Later in Queen Mary's reign Gresham was frequently displaced by rivals.
He made trips to England, sharing largely in the dealings of the
Mercers' Company, of which he was a member, and shipping vast quantities
of cloth to sell to the Italian merchants at Antwerp, in exchange for
silks. A few years later the Mercers are described as sending forth,
twice a year, a fleet of 50 or 60 ships, laden with cloth, for the Low
Countries. Gresham is mentioned, in 1555, as presenting Queen Mary, as a
new year's gift, with "a bolt of fine Holland," receiving in return a
gilt jug, weighing 16-1/2 ounces. That the Queen considered Gresham a
faithful and useful servant there can be no doubt, for she gave him, at
different times, a priory, a rectory, and several manors and advowsons.
Gresham, like a prudent courtier, seems to have been one of the first
persons of celebrity who visited Queen Elizabeth on her accession. She
gave the wise merchant her hand to kiss, and told him that she would
always keep one ear ready to hear him; "which," says Gresham, "made me a
young man again, and caused me to enter on my present charge with heart
and courage."
The young Queen also promised him on her faith that if he served her as
well as he had done her brother Edward, and Queen Mary, her sister, she
would give him as much land as ever they both had. This gracious promise
Gresham reminded the Queen of years after, when he had to complain to
his friend Cecil that the Marquis of Winchester had tried to injure him
with the Queen.
Gresham soon resumed his visits to Flanders, to procure money, and send
over powder, armour, and weapons. He was present at the funeral of
Charles V., seems to have foreseen the coming troubles in the Low
Countries, and commented on the rash courage of Count Egmont.
The death of Gresham's only son Richard, in the year 1564, was the
cause, Mr. Burgon thinks, of Gresham's determining to devote his money
to the benefit of his fellow-citizens. Lombard Street had long become
too small for the business of London. Men of business were exposed there
to all weathers, and had to crowd into small shops, or jostle under the
pent-houses. As early as 1534 or 1535 the citizens had deliberated in
common council on the necessity of a new place of resort, and Leadenhall
Street had been proposed. In the year 1565 certain houses in Cornhill,
in the ward of Broad Street, and three alleys--Swan Alley, Cornhill; New
Alley, Cornhill, near St. Bartholomew's Lane; and St. Christopher's
Alley, comprising in all fourscore householders--were purchased for
L3,737 6s. 6d., and the materials sold for L478. The amount was
subscribed for in small sums by about 750 citizens, the Ironmongers'
Company giving L75. The first brick was laid by Sir Thomas, June 7,
1566. A Flemish architect superintended the sawing of the timber, at
Gresham's estate at Ringshall, near Ipswich, and on Battisford Tye
(common) traces of the old sawpits can still be seen. The slates were
bought at Dort, the wainscoting and glass at Amsterdam, and other
materials in Flanders. The building, pushed on too fast for final
solidity, was slated in by November, 1567, and shortly after finished.
The Bourse, when erected, was thought to resemble that of Antwerp, but
there is also reason to believe that Gresham's architect closely
followed the Bourse of Venice.
The new Bourse, Flemish in character, was a long four-storeyed building,
with a high double balcony. A bell-tower, crowned by a huge grasshopper,
stood on one side of the chief entrance. The bell in this tower summoned
merchants to the spot at twelve o'clock at noon and six o'clock in the
evening. A lofty Corinthian column, crested with a grasshopper,
apparently stood outside the north entrance, overlooking the quadrangle.
The brick building was afterwards stuccoed over, to imitate stone. Each
corner of the building, and the peak of every dormer window, was crowned
by a grasshopper. Within Gresham's Bourse were piazzas for wet weather,
and the covered walks were adorned with statues of English kings. A
statue of Gresham stood near the north end of the western piazza. At the
Great Fire of 1666 this statue alone remained there uninjured, as Pepys
and Evelyn particularly record. The piazzas were supported by marble
pillars, and above were 100 small shops. The vaults dug below, for
merchandise, proved dark and damp, and were comparatively valueless.
Hentzner, a German traveller who visited England in the year 1598,
particularly mentions the stateliness of the building, the assemblage of
different nations, and the quantities of merchandise.
[Illustration: WREN'S PLAN FOR REBUILDING LONDON. (_See page 501._)]
Many of the shops in the Bourse remained unlet till Queen Elizabeth's
visit, in 1570, which gave them a lustre that tended to make the new
building fashionable. Gresham, anxious to have the Bourse worthy of such
a visitor, went round twice in one day to all the shopkeepers in "the
upper pawn," and offered them all the shops they would furnish and light
up with wax rent free for a whole year. The result of this liberality
was that in two years Gresham was able to raise the rent from 40s. a
year to four marks, and a short time after to L4 10s. The milliners'
shops at the Bourse, in Gresham's time, sold mousetraps, birdcages,
shoeing-horns, lanthorns, and Jews' trumps. There were also sellers of
armour, apothecaries, booksellers, goldsmiths, and glass-sellers; but
the shops soon grew richer and more fashionable, so that in 1631 the
editor of Stow says, "Unto which place, on January 23, 1570, Queen
Elizabeth came from Somerset House through Fleet Street past the north
side of the Bourse to Sir Thomas Gresham's house in Bishopsgate Street,
and there dined. After the banquet she entered the Bourse on the south
side, viewed every part; especially she caused the building, by herald's
trumpet, to be proclaimed 'the Royal Exchange,' so to be called from
henceforth, and not otherwise."
Such was the vulgar opinion of Gresham's wealth, that Thomas Heywood, in
his old play, _If You know not Me, You know Nobody_, makes Gresham crush
an invaluable pearl into the wine-cup in which he drinks his queen's
health--
"Here fifteen hundred pounds at one clap goes.
Instead of sugar, Gresham drinks the pearl
Unto his queen and mistress. Pledge it, lords!"
The new Exchange, like the nave of St. Paul's, soon became a resort for
idlers. In the Inquest Book of Cornhill Ward, 1574 (says Mr. Burgon),
there is a presentment against the Exchange, because on Sundays and
holidays great numbers of boys, children, and "young rogues," meet
there, and shout and holloa, so that honest citizens cannot quietly walk
there for their recreation, and the parishioners of St. Bartholomew
could not hear the sermon. In 1590 we find certain women prosecuted for
selling apples and oranges at the Exchange gate in Cornhill, and
"amusing themselves in cursing and swearing, to the great annoyance and
grief of the inhabitants and passers-by." In 1592 a tavern-keeper, who
had vaults under the Exchange, was fined for allowing tippling, and for
broiling herrings, sprats, and bacon, to the vexation of worshipful
merchants resorting to the Exchange. In 1602 we find that oranges and
lemons were allowed to be sold at the gates and passages of the
Exchange. In 1622 complaint was made of the rat-catchers, and sellers of
dogs, birds, plants, &c., who hung about the south gate of the Bourse,
especially at exchange time. It was also seriously complained of that
the bear-wards, Shakespeare's noisy neighbours in Southwark, before
special bull or bear baitings, used to parade before the Exchange,
generally in business hours, and there make proclamation of their
entertainments, which caused tumult, and drew together mobs. It was
usual on these occasions to have a monkey riding on the bear's back, and
several discordant minstrels fiddling, to give additional publicity to
the coming festival.
[Illustration: PLAN OF THE EXCHANGE IN 1837.]
No person frequenting the Bourse was allowed to wear any weapon, and in
1579 it was ordered that no one should walk in the Exchange after ten
p.m. in summer, and nine p.m. in winter. Bishop Hall, in his Satires
(1598), sketching the idlers of his day, describes "Tattelius, the
new-come traveller, with his disguised coat and new-ringed ear
[Shakespeare wore earrings], tramping the Bourse's marble twice a day."
And Hayman, in his "Quodlibet" (1628), has the following epigram on a
"loafer" of the day, whom he dubs "Sir Pierce Penniless," from Naish's
clever pamphlet, and ranks with the moneyless loungers of St. Paul's:--
"Though little coin thy purseless pockets line,
Yet with great company thou'rt taken up;
For often with Duke Humfray thou dost dine,
And often with Sir Thomas Gresham sup."
Here, too, above all, the monarch of English poetry must have often
paced, watching the Antonios and Shylocks of his day, the anxious
wistful faces of the debtors or the embarrassed, and the greedy anger of
the creditors. In the Bourse he may first have thought over to himself
the beautiful lines in the "Merchant of Venice" (act i.), where he so
wonderfully epitomises the vicissitudes of a merchant's life:--
"My wind, cooling my broth,
Would blow me to an ague, when I thought
What harm a wind too great might do at sea.
I should not see the sandy hour-glass run,
But I should think of shallows and of flats,
And see my wealthy Andrew dock'd in sand,
Vailing her high top lower than her ribs,
To kiss her burial. Should I go to church,
And see the holy edifice of stone,
And not bethink me straight of dangerous rocks?
Which, touching but my gentle vessel's side,
Would scatter all her spices on the stream;
Enrobe the roaring waters with my silks;
And, in a word, but even now worth this,
And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought
To think on this; and shall I lack the thought,
That such a thing, bechanced, would make me sad?"
[Illustration: THE FIRST ROYAL EXCHANGE.]
Gresham seems to have died before the Exchange was thoroughly furnished,
for in 1610 (James I.) Mr. Nicholas Leete, Ironmonger, preferred a
petition to the Court of Aldermen, lugubriously setting forth that
thirty pictures of English kings and queens had been intended to have
been placed in the Exchange rooms, and praying that a fine, in future,
should be put on every citizen, when elected an alderman, to furnish a
portrait of some king or queen at an expense of not exceeding one
hundred nobles. The pictures were "to be graven on wood, covered with
lead, and then gilded and paynted in oil cullors."
In Gresham's Exchange great precautions were taken against fire.
Feather-makers and others were forbidden to keep pans of fire in their
shops. Some care was also taken to maintain honesty among the
shopkeepers, for they were forbidden to use blinds to their windows,
which might obscure the shops, or throw false lights on the articles
vended.
On the sudden death of Sir Thomas Gresham, in 1579, it was found that he
had left, in accordance with his promise, the Royal Exchange jointly to
the City of London and the Mercers' Company after the decease of his
wife. Lady Gresham appears not to have been as generous, single-minded,
and large-hearted as her husband. She contested the will, and was always
repining at the thought of the property passing away from her at death.
She received L751 7s. per annum from the rent of the Exchange, but tried
hard to be allowed to grant leases for twenty-one years, or three lives,
keeping the fines to herself; and this was pronounced by the Council as
utterly against both her husband's will and the 23rd Elizabeth, to which
she had been privy. She complained querulously that the City did not act
well. The City then began to complain with more justice of Lady
Gresham's parsimony. The Bourse, badly and hastily built, began to fall
out of repair, gratings by the south door gave way in 1582, and the
clock was always out of order. Considering Lady Gresham had been left
L2,388 a year, these neglects were unworthy of her, but they
nevertheless continued till her death, in 1596. As the same lady
contributed L100 in 1588 for the defence of the country against the
Armada, let us hope that she was influenced not so much by her own love
of money as the importunities of some relatives of her first husband's
family.
[Illustration: THE SECOND ROYAL EXCHANGE, CORNHILL.]
"The Eye of London," as Stow affectionately calls the first Royal
Exchange, rapidly became a vast bazaar, where fashionable ladies went to
shop, and sometimes to meet their lovers.
Contemporary allusions to Gresham's Exchange are innumerable in old
writers. Donald Lupton, in a little work called "London and the Country
Carbonadoed and Quartered into Severall Characters," published in 1632,
says of the Exchange:--"Here are usually more coaches attendant than at
church doors. The merchants should keep their wives from visiting the
upper rooms too often, lest they tire their purses by attiring
themselves.... There's many gentlewomen come hither that, to help their
faces and complexion, break their husbands' backs; who play foul in the
country with their land, to be fair and play false in the city."
"I do not look upon the structure of this Exchange to be comparable to
that of Sir Thomas Gresham in our City of London," says Evelyn, writing
from Amsterdam in 1641; "yet in one respect it exceeds--that ships of
considerable burthen ride at the very key contiguous to it." He writes
from Paris in the same strain: "I went to the Exchange; the late
addition to the buildings is very noble; but the gallerys, where they
sell their pretty merchandize, are nothing so stately as ours in London,
no more than the place is where they walk below, being only a low
vault." Even the associations which the Rialto must have awakened failed
to seduce him from his allegiance to the City of London. He writes from
Venice, in June, 1645: "I went to their Exchange--a place like ours,
frequented by merchants, but nothing so magnificent."
During the Civil War the Exchange statue of Charles I. was thrown down,
on the 30th of May, 1648, and the premature inscription, "Exit
tyrannorum ultimus," put up in its place, which of course was removed
immediately after the Restoration, when a new statue was ordered. The
Acts for converting the Monarchy into a Commonwealth were burnt at the
Royal Exchange, May 28, 1661, by the hands of the common hangman.
Samuel Rolle, a clergyman who wrote on the Great Fire, has left the
following account of this edifice as it appeared in his day:--"How full
of riches," he exclaims, "was that Royal Exchange! Rich men in the
midst of it, rich goods both above and beneath! There men walked upon
the top of a wealthy mine, considering what Eastern treasures, costly
spices, and such-like things were laid up in the bowels (I mean the
cellars) of that place. As for the upper part of it, was it not the
great storehouse whence the nobility and gentry of England were
furnished with most of those costly things wherewith they did adorn
either their closets or themselves? Here, if anywhere, might a man have
seen the glory of the world in a moment. What artificial thing could
entertain the senses, the fantasies of men, that was not there to be
had? Such was the delight that many gallants took in that magazine of
all curious varieties, that they could almost have dwelt there (going
from shop to shop like bee from flower to flower), if they had but had a
fountain of money that could not have been drawn dry. I doubt not but a
Mohamedan (who never expects other than sensual delights) would gladly
have availed himself of that place, and the treasures of it, for his
heaven, and have thought there was none like it."
In 1665, during the Plague, great fires were made at the north and south
entrances of the Exchange, to purify the air. The stoppage of public
business was so complete that grass grew within the area of the Royal
Exchange. The strange desertion thus indicated is mentioned in Pepys'
"Notes." Having visited the Exchange, where he had not been for a good
while, the writer exclaims: "How sad a sight it is to see the streets
empty of people, and very few upon the 'Change, jealous of every door
that one sees shut up, lest it should be the Plague, and about us two
shops in three, if not more, generally shut up."
At the Great Fire the King and the Duke of York, afterwards James II.,
attended to give directions for arresting the calamity. They could think
of nothing calculated to be so effectual as blowing up or pulling down
houses that stood in its expected way. Such precautions were used in
Cornhill; but in the confusion that prevailed, the timbers which they
had contained were not removed, and when the flames reached them,
"they," says Vincent, who wrote a sermon on the Fire, "quickly cross the
way, and so they lick the whole street up as they go; they mount up to
the top of the highest houses; they descend down to the bottom of the
lowest vaults and cellars, and march along on both sides of the way with
such a roaring noise as never was heard in the City of London: no
stately building so great as to resist their fury; the Royal Exchange
itself, the glory of the merchants, is now invaded with much violence.
When the fire was entered, how quickly did it run around the galleries,
filling them with flames; then descending the stairs, compasseth the
walks, giving forth flaming vollies, and filling the court with sheets
of fire. By and by the kings fell all down upon their faces, and the
greater part of the stone building after them (the founder's statue
alone remaining), with such a noise as was dreadful and astonishing."
In Wren's great scheme for rebuilding London, he proposed to make the
Royal Exchange the centre nave of London, from whence the great
sixty-feet wide streets should radiate like spokes in a huge wheel. The
Exchange was to stand free, in the middle of a great piazza, and was to
have double porticoes, as the Forum at Rome had. Evelyn wished the new
building to be at Queenhithe, to be nearer the waterside, but eventually
both his and Wren's plan fell through, and Mr. Jerman, one of the City
surveyors, undertook the design for the new Bourse.
For the east end of the new building the City required to purchase 700
or 800 fresh superficial feet of ground from a Mr. Sweeting, and 1,400
more for a passage. It was afterwards found that the City only required
627 feet, and the improvement of the property would benefit Mr.
Sweeting, who, however, resolutely demanded L1,000. The refractory,
greedy Sweeting declared that his tenants paid him L246 a year, and in
fines L620; and that if the new street cut near St. Benet Fink Church,
another L1,000 would not satisfy him for his damage. It is supposed that
he eventually took L700 for the 783 feet 4 inches of ground, and for an
area 25 feet long by 12 wide.
Jerman's design for the new building being completed, and the royal
approbation of it obtained, together with permission to extend the
south-west angle of the new Exchange into the street, the building (of
which the need was severely felt) was immediately proceeded with; and
the foundation was laid on the 6th of May, 1667. On the 23rd of October,
Charles II. laid the base of the column on the west side of the north
entrance; after which he was plentifully regaled "with a chine of beef,
grand dish of fowle, gammons of bacon, dried tongues, anchovies,
caviare, &c, and plenty of several sorts of wine. He gave twenty pounds
in gold to the workmen. The entertainment was in a shed, built and
adorned on purpose, upon the Scotch Walk." Pepys has given some account
of this interesting ceremony in his Diary, where we read, "Sir W. Pen
and I back to London, and there saw the King with his kettle-drums and
trumpets, going to the Exchange, which, the gates being shut, I could
not get in to see. So, with Sir W. Pen to Captain Cockes, and thence
again towards Westminster; but, in my way, stopped at the Exchange, and
got in, the King being nearly gone, and there find the bottom of the
first pillar laid. And here was a shed set up, and hung with tapestry,
and a canopy of state, and some good victuals, and wine for the King,
who, it seems, did it."
James II., then Duke of York, laid the first stone of the eastern column
on the 31st of October. He was regaled in the same manner as the King
had been; and on the 18th of November following, Prince Rupert laid the
first stone of the east side of the south entrance, and was entertained
by the City and company in the same place. (_Vide_ "Journals of the
House of Commons.")
The ground-plan of Jerman's Exchange, we read in Britton and Pugin's
"Public Buildings," presented nearly a regular quadrangle, including a
spacious open court with porticoes round it, and also on the north and
south sides of the building. The front towards Cornhill was 210 feet in
extent. The central part was composed of a lofty archway, opening from
the middle intercolumniation of four Corinthian three-quarter columns,
supporting a bold entablature, over the centre of which were the royal
arms, and on the east side a balustrade, &c., surmounted by statues
emblematical of the four quarters of the globe. Within the lateral
intercolumniations, over the lesser entrance to the arcade, were niches,
containing the statues of Charles I. and II., in Roman habits, by
Bushnell. The tower, which rose from the centre of the portico,
consisted of three storeys. In front of the lower storey was a niche,
containing a statue of Sir Thomas Gresham; and over the cornice, facing
each of the cardinal points, a bust of Queen Elizabeth; at the angles
were colossal griffins, bearing shields of the City arms. Within the
second storey, which was of an octagonal form with trusses at the
angles, was an excellent clock with four dials; there were also four
wind-dials. The upper storey (which contained the bell) was circular,
with eight Corinthian columns supporting an entablature, surmounted by a
dome, on which was a lofty vane of gilt brass, shaped like a
grasshopper, the crest of the Gresham family. The attic over the
columns, in a line with the basement of the tower, was sculptured with
two alto-relievos, in panels, one representing Queen Elizabeth, with
attendant figures and heralds, proclaiming the original building, and
the other Britannia, seated amidst the emblems of commerce, accompanied
by the polite arts, manufactures, and agriculture. The height from the
basement line to the top of the dome was 128 feet 6 inches.
Within the quadrangle there was a spacious area, measuring 144 feet by
117 feet, surrounded by a wide arcade, which, as well as the area
itself, was, for the general accommodation, arranged into several
distinct parts, called "walks," where foreign and domestic merchants,
and other persons engaged in commercial pursuits, daily met. The area
was paved with real Turkey stones, of a small size, the gift, as
tradition reports, of a merchant who traded to that country.
In the centre, on a pedestal, surrounded by an iron railing, was a
statue of Charles II., in a Roman habit, by Spiller. At the
intersections of the groining was a large ornamented shield, displaying
either the City arms, the arms of the Mercers' Company, viz., a maiden's
head, crowned, with dishevelled hair; or those of Gresham, viz., a
chevron, ermine, between three mullets.
On the centre of each cross-rib, also in alternate succession, was a
maiden's head, a grasshopper, and a dragon. The piazza was formed by a
series of semi-circular arches, springing from columns. In the spandrils
were tablets surrounded by festoons, scrolls, and other enrichments. In
the wall of the back of the arcade were twenty-eight niches, only two of
which were occupied by statues, viz., that toward the north-west, in
which was Sir Thomas Gresham, by Cibber; and that toward the south-west,
in which was Sir John Barnard, whose figure was placed here, whilst he
was yet living, at the expense of his fellow-citizens, "in testimony of
his merits as a merchant, a magistrate, and a faithful representative of
the City in Parliament."
Over the arches of the portico of the piazza were twenty-five large
niches with enrichments, in which were the statues of our sovereigns.
Many of these statues were formerly gilt, but the whole were latterly of
a plain stone colour. Walpole says that the major part were sculptured
by Cibber.
We append a few allusions to the second 'Change in Addison's works, and
elsewhere.
In 1683, the following idle verses appeared, forming part of Robin
Conscience's "Progress through Court, City, and Country:"--
"Now I being thus abused below,
Did walk upstairs, where on a row,
Brave shops of ware did make a shew
Most sumptious.
"The gallant girls that there sold knacks,
Which ladies and brave women lacks,
When they did see me, they did wax
In choler.
"Quoth they, We ne'er knew Conscience yet,
And, if he comes our gains to get,
We'll banish him; he'll here not get
One scholar."
"There is no place in the town," says that rambling philosopher,
Addison, "which I so much love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It
gives me a secret satisfaction, and in some measure gratifies my vanity,
as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an assembly of countrymen and
foreigners consulting together upon the private business of mankind, and
making this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole earth. I must
confess I look upon High 'Change to be a great council in which all
considerable nations have their representatives. Factors in the trading
world are what ambassadors are in the politic world; they negociate
affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain a good correspondence between
those wealthy societies of men that are divided from one another by seas
and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a continent. I have
often been pleased to hear disputes adjusted between an inhabitant of
Japan and an alderman of London; or to see a subject of the great Mogul
entering into a league with one of the Czar of Muscovy. I am infinitely
delighted in mixing with these several ministers of commerce, as they
are distinguished by their different walks and different languages.
Sometimes I am jostled among a body of Armenians; sometimes I am lost in
a crowd of Jews; and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I am a
Dane, Swede, or Frenchman at different times; or rather, fancy myself
like the old philosopher, who, upon being asked what countryman he was,
replied that he was a citizen of the world."
"When I have been upon the 'Change" (such are the concluding words of
the paper), "I have often fancied one of our old kings standing in
person where he is represented in effigy, and looking down upon the
wealthy concourse of people with which that place is every day filled.
In this case, how would he be surprised to hear all the languages of
Europe spoken in this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so
many private men, who in his time would have been the vassals of some
powerful baron, negotiating, like princes, for greater sums of money
than were formerly to be met with in the royal treasury! Trade, without
enlarging the British territories, has given us a kind of additional
empire. It has multiplied the number of the rich, made our landed
estates infinitely more valuable than they were formerly, and added to
them an accession of other estates as valuable as the land themselves."
(_Spectator_, No. 69.)
It appears, from one of Steele's contributions to the _Spectator_, that
so late as the year 1712 the shops continued to present undiminished
attraction. They were then 160 in number, and, letting at L20 or L30
each, formed, in all, a yearly rent of L4,000: so, at least, it is
stated on a print published in 1712, of which a copy may be seen in Mr.
Crowle's "Pennant." Steele, in describing the adventures of a day,
relates that, in the course of his rambles, he went to divert himself on
'Change. "It was not the least of my satisfaction in my survey," says
he, "to go upstairs and pass the shops of agreeable females; to observe
so many pretty hands busy in the folding of ribbons, and the utmost
eagerness of agreeable faces in the sale of patches, pins, and wires, on
each side of the counters, was an amusement in which I could longer have
indulged myself, had not the dear creatures called to me, to ask what I
wanted."
"On evening 'Change," says Steele, "the mumpers, the halt, the blind,
and the lame; your vendors of trash, apples, plums; your ragamuffins,
rake-shames, and wenches--have jostled the greater number of honourable
merchants, substantial tradesmen, and knowing masters of ships, out of
that place. So that, what with the din of squallings, oaths, and cries
of beggars, men of the greatest consequence in our City absent
themselves from the Royal Exchange."
The cost of the second Exchange to the City and Mercers' Company is
estimated by Strype at L80,000, but Mr. Burgon calculates it at only
L69,979 11s. The shops in the Exchange, leading to a loss, were forsaken
about 1739, and eventually done away with some time after by the unwise
Act of 1768, which enabled the City authorities to pull down Gresham
College. From time to time frequent repairs were made in Jerman's
building. Those effected between the years 1819 and 1824 cost L34,390.
This sum included the cost of a handsome gate tower and cupola, erected
in 1821, from the design of George Smith, Esq., surveyor to the
Mercers' Company, in lieu of Jerman's dilapidated wooden tower.
The clock of the second Exchange, set up by Edward Stanton, under the
direction of Dr. Hooke, had chimes with four bells, playing six, and
latterly seven tunes. The sound and tunable bells were bought for L6 5s.
per cwt. The balconies from the inner pawn into the quadrangle cost
about L300. The signs over the shops were not hung, but were over the
doors.
Caius Gabriel Cibber, the celebrated Danish sculptor, was appointed
carver of the royal statues of the piazza, but Gibbons executed the
statue of Charles II. for the quadrangle. Bushnell, the mad sculptor of
the fantastic statues on Temple Bar, carved statues for the Cornhill
front, as we have before mentioned. The statue of Gresham in the arcade
was by Cibber; George III., in the piazza, was sculptured by Wilton;
George I. and II. were by Rysbrach.
The old clock had four dials, and chimed four times daily. The chimes
played at three, six, nine, and twelve o'clock--on Sunday, "The 104th
Psalm;" Monday, "God save the King;" Tuesday, "The Waterloo March;"
Wednesday, "There's nae Luck aboot the Hoose;" Thursday, "See the
Conquering Hero comes;" Friday, "Life let us cherish;" Saturday, "Foot
Guards' March."
The outside shops of the second Exchange were lottery offices, newspaper
offices, watchmakers, notaries, stockbrokers, &c. The shops in the
galleries were superseded by the Royal Exchange Assurance Offices,
Lloyd's Coffee-house, the Merchant Seamen's Offices, the Gresham Lecture
Room, and the Lord Mayor's Court Office. "The latter," says Timbs, "was
a row of offices, divided by glazed partitions, the name of each
attorney being inscribed in large capitals upon a projecting board. The
vaults were let to bankers, and to the East India Company for the
stowage of pepper."