DICKENS IN LONDON.
Dickens, indeed, is so bound up with the old places of London that it
may be said that he has lent a peculiar flavour and charm to all town
peregrination. He certainly must be considered to have been the best
interpreter of the City to us. He supplied the tragic and comic
grotesque meaning of the old courts, shops, alleys, “all-alones,”
“rents,” etc. “The reminiscences of his stories,” says a late visitor,
“meet us at every turn, in the ancient churches, hemmed in on all sides
by gigantic warehouses, in their melancholy deserted graveyards, with
their ragged grass, their blackened trees, and neglected gravestones. In
the odd boarding-houses and unaccountable inns that had buried
themselves up strange courts, and lurked, half hidden, in unaccountable
alleys, and presented themselves in quiet behind-the-age squares. In the
spacious halls of opulent companies, which showed but an old-fashioned
porch in a narrow quiet lane, but which presented to those who were
permitted to enter their portals a superb range of apartments teeming,
mayhap, with old furniture and valuable pictures, and doubtless giving
on a quiet garden, worth no one knows what a square foot for building
purposes, but preserved from the ravages of the builder, merely to
gladden the eyes of the plump City sparrows, and of the master, the
wardens, and the clerk of these most worshipful corporations. So too in
the curious old banking-houses, in the mouldy old counting-houses where
so much money was made; in the difficult-to-find but cosy chop-houses
where you could get a chop or a steak--and such a chop or a
steak!--hissing hot from the gridiron; in the methodical old clerks, the
astonishing octogenarian housekeepers, the corpulent beadles in their
splendid gaberdines, in the ticket porters, the bankers’ clerks chained
to their pocket-books, the porters, the dockmen, the carters, the
brokers. Down by the waterside, along Thames Street, through the narrow
lanes and passages leading thereto, you continually saw some spot, some
character or incident that recalled something in one of the stories you
knew so well.”
With such a guide the old streets and houses long since demolished and
being fast demolished every day, revive before us; with them rises the
oldfashioned London, its humours, its society of fifty years ago. One
of the results of this association is that as we walk through some of
these old-world quarters, such as Goswell Street or “Lant Street, Boro’”
(where Bob Sawyer gave his party), the whole Pickwick, or rather Dickens
flavour seems to pour out, and the figures live again. It is not
surprising that this connection between the gifted writer and the old
bricks of London should have become a study, and a very engaging study,
and in antiquaries’ accounts of the great city it is now become
customary to trace the haunts and localities of the places described in
his novels. In an unpretending but lively little book Mr. Allbut has
undertaken this labour of love, and furnished a very useful little
handbook to the Dickens explorer. From this one might profitably glean a
few passages. It will be noted what a poetical instinct the great writer
had in this respect, and he caught the true “note” as it were of making
selection of what was best fitted for his purpose. This power of vividly
imprinting the locality on the mind might be illustrated by that dismal
gate and alley, “Tom all alone’s,” of which the site only remains in
Bedfordbury, just out of Chandos Street, where the huge Peabody
Buildings rise, though it has been claimed for other localities. Indeed,
close to the upper end of Shaftesbury Avenue there is a strange forlorn
alley with a dilapidated tottering old inclosure beyond, which would
exactly serve for the original. And in Russell Court, that curious
winding passage leading to the pit door of “Old Drury,” we fancy we see
the gate of the dismal burial ground on whose steps Lady Deadlock was
found. It still looks exactly as in the print, “with houses looking on
on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives
access to the iron gate.” This depressing intramural burial ground has
been garnished up into a recreation inclosure, and is but a trifle less
gloomy than a cheerful mortuary house built at one side.
Dickens always delighted in the mystery attendant on banks and their
cashiers, old mouldy mercantile houses where yet a large and safe
business was done; and these things he could interpret and give
significance to, just as Wordsworth and the later poets did with their
favourite district. When Temple Bar was removed in 1878, there was
removed with it a building which touched it, and was as old and grimy,
Child’s venerable bank. It is difficult to call up either structure now,
though the frequent “omnibus outside” may have occasionally turned his
eyes to the blackened walls and to the windows in the Bar, a sort of
store room where were kept stacked away all the old account books of the
firm. The late Peter Cunningham was allowed, I believe, to rummage here,
and discovered some curious documents, among which were cheques drawn by
Nell Gwynne, who kept her account with the Childs or the predecessors of
the firm. Speaking of the old house Dickens says, in the “Tale of Two
Cities”:
“Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, was an old-fashioned place even in the
year 1780. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious.
Any one of the partners would have disinherited his son on the question
of rebuilding Tellson’s. Thus it had come to pass that Tellson’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
Tellson’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 proper and the shadow of Temple Bar.”
Dickens just lived to see the extraordinary wholesale reformation that
took place in the construction of the Holborn Viaduct, with the
levelling and sweeping away of some of his most popular localities. The
Holborn Valley before lay between two steep hills, of which Snow Hill
was one, and on Snow Hill was “The Saracen’s Head,” where Mr. Squeers
invariably put up. This old hostelry stood close to St. Sepulchre’s
Church, on the ground, Mr. Allbut states, now covered by the new police
office.
“The Wooden Midshipman,” one of the most effective and playful conceits
of Dickens, might be pointed out as an illustration of his mode of
illustrating stories. Take away the little figure from the associations
of Cap’n Cuttle and Sol Gills, and much life and colour seems
abstracted. Only so late as the close of 1881 the “Midshipman” was
flourishing at a house in Leadenhall Street, nearly opposite the India
House. In that year some tremendous operations in demolition and
re-erection were being carried out, and the “Wooden Midshipman” received
notice to quit. A pleasant writer, Mr. Ashby Sterry, with a specially
delicate touch, and who has written some “Tiny Travels”--so
called--because they are merely visits to places familiar and close at
hand, often more enjoyable than the official far-off showplaces--heard
of what was going to be done, and made a hasty pilgrimage to take a last
look. He tells us how he was affected. “With his quadrant at his round
black knob of an eye, and his figure in the old attitude of indomitable
alacrity, the midshipman displayed his elfin small clothes to the best
advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no sympathy with
worldly concern. When I was a boy, the very first book of Dickens’s that
I read was ‘Dombey and Son.’ Passing down Leadenhall Street shortly
afterwards, I noted the ‘Wooden Midshipman,’ and at once ‘spotted’ it as
the original of Sol Gills’s residence. The description is so vivid and
exact that it is unmistakable.” This was the old-established firm of
Norie and Wilson, nautical instrument makers, established since 1773,
and which, as it seems to me, had a thoroughly Dickens flavour--that
name _Norie_. The firm had associations with Nelson, kept up diligently
their old-fashioned connections, and took pride in their Midshipman.
“A more popular little officer in his own domain than our friend it
would be difficult to find. At one time the Little Man used to get his
knuckles severely abraded by passing porters carrying loads, and was
continually being sent into dock to have a fresh set of knuckles
provided. Old pupils, who had become distinguished naval officers, would
pop in to inquire what had become of the genius of the place, and many
have been the offers to buy him outright and remove him. Several
Americans have been in lately and have offered his proprietors very
large sums if they might be allowed to purchase him and take him to New
York. It is furthermore on record that King William the Fourth on
passing through Leadenhall Street to the Trinity House raised his hat to
him as he passed by.” All this is quaint enough. But before this account
appeared he had been already taken away carefully, and set up at his new
quarters, No. 156, Minories, where he still continues to take his
observations. But he is sadly out of keeping. The old shop is described
as being curiously appropriate, so snug, and so unobtrusive, so ancient
and conservative in its fittings. On the eve of the levelling of the
place, the visitor was invited in by the owner, “It is with a sad
heart,” he says, “that I accept the courteous invitation of Mr. Wilson
to take a last look at the premises, and listen to much curious gossip
about the old shop and its frequenters. The interior of the shop, with
its curious desks and its broad counter, is fully as old-fashioned as
its exterior.” He then went upstairs, passing up “a panelled staircase
with a massive handrail and spiral balusters to the upper rooms. I look
in at Walter’s chamber, and see the place in the roof where Rob the
Grinder kept his pigeons. I spend some time in a cheerful panelled
apartment, which at one time was the bedchamber of Sol Gills.” There is
something, however, too remote in thus identifying minutely the various
rooms and scenes; for Dickens, as the writer has shown, like all good
writers, “abstracted” in all his creations or adoptions, and would have
found a loss of power had he copied strictly. It was the tone of the
place that inspired him. When I myself came by that way a little later,
the whole was gone.
Again, many have noted in the vicinity of Clare Market, in Portsmouth
Street, the old overhanging shop devoted to the sale of waste paper and
bones. Some years ago it was boarded up and shored up, and it became
known of a sudden that the original of Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop”
was doomed to “demolition.” Then was witnessed one of those strange
rushes after “fads” so peculiar to the Londoner. “All day long on
Saturday the narrow pavements of Portsmouth Street--that quaint
southwestern outlet from Lincoln’s Inn Fields--were besieged by a crowd
of sympathetic sight-seers, who had journeyed there from all parts of
London ‘to worship at the shrine of Little Nell.’ They stood four deep
in front of the ‘Crooked Billet,’ staring curiously over the way at the
rickety old timber house with a projecting story, on the plaster face of
which was boldly inscribed, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, Immortalised by
Charles Dickens. Here and there among them was an artist, busy with
pencil and note-book taking down sketches of the tumble-down old place;
and one could not fail to distinguish the noisy demonstration of the
American traveller, as he demanded to know, with nasal eagerness, ‘If
that really was the home of Little Nell.’ For a year or two past, at any
rate, it had been one of the stock visiting places of American tourists.
‘They went there to worship,’ a neighbouring shopkeeper said; ‘took off
their hats when they got through the doorway, and asked questions about
Quilp and the Grandfather as if they had been actual persons. The ladies
were the worst. I have known them get down on their knees and burst out
crying about Little Nell.’ Miss Mary Anderson might have been seen there
more than once, with her heart full of tenderness for the little maiden;
and so delighted was the fair American with the ancient dwelling and its
overhanging story that the doors of the Lyceum were opened to the
fortunate occupant whenever she chose to go.” The place had been
condemned by the Board of Works, but that body moved very slowly, or
there had been a reprieve. With American shrewdness, the American
actress, Lotto, brought this scene into an adaptation of the story she
was about to play.
Latterly it is becoming a pleasant hobby, notably in the case of the
Americans, to diligently follow in the footsteps of Dickens, and visit
and identify all the scenes he placed in his novels. Year by year these
are disappearing. Numerous pleasant articles have appeared in American
magazines, with pretty illustrations, and carried out in a very fond and
tender spirit. Indeed, this _culte_ of Dickens is growing every day; but
it will be a serious loss when all his houses and haunts have been
pulled down. There will be a link lost then between him and us.[9] We
have only to walk to the Marble Arch, and there we see his last town
residence, No. 5, Hyde Park Place, a solemnly genteel, if not
monotonous, residence, that belonged to Mr. Gibson. It is astonishing,
indeed, how every step, turn, and corner in London is somehow associated
with this great master of fiction--chambers, old streets, slums, etc.
The secret is, he delighted himself to associate his fancies with some
particular locality, and this feeling inspired him. There is a
remarkable passage in his life where he deplores the difficulty of
writing, when far away from the bustle and motion of London streets. It
will be remembered how he set off to “choose a house” for Sampson Brass
in Bevis Marks. It is impossible to look at Bevis Marks now without
calling up that strange character. You feel he _must_ have lived there.
So with Lant Street, Borough, the residence of Mr. Sawyer, and which has
the suitable dinginess: all this is pleasant to the pedestrian, the
scenery being so much in keeping. In a few years, when everything is
altered and pulled down, we shall have only the _site_ left by which to
recall old associations.
Near the bottom of Parliament Street, and almost opposite the Home
Office, is a narrow lane leading into Cannon Row, whence could be long
seen the rear of the unfinished Opera house. At the corner stands a
third-rate public-house, suggesting one of the extraordinary incidents
in London, where meanness and opulence are ever side by side. This
public-house is associated with the hardships of Dickens’s boyhood, in a
very characteristic recollection, which he relates himself. “I remember,
one evening (I had been somewhere for my father, and was going back to
the Borough over Westminster Bridge), that I went into a public-house in
Parliament Street, which is still there, though altered, at the corner
of the short street leading into Cannon Row, and said to the landlord
behind the bar, ‘What is your very best--the _very best_--ale, a glass?’
For the occasion was a festive one, for some reason: I forget why. It
may have been my birthday, or somebody else’s. ‘Twopence,’ says he.
‘Then,’ says I, ‘just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a
good head to it.’ The landlord looked at me in return, over the bar,
from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of
drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his
wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined
him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my
study in Devonshire Terrace. The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning
against the bar window-frame; his wife, looking over the little
half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the
partition. They asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how
old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc. To all of
which, that I might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers. They
served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the
premises; and the landlord’s wife, opening the little half-door and
bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and
half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.”
When a bachelor, he lived in Furnival’s Inn, No. 15, on the right as you
enter, but on his marriage removed to 48, Doughty Street. In this clean
little street there is a prim monotony, every house being of the same
cast--small, and suited for a clerk and his family. These seem indeed
miniature Wimpole Street houses; but they have a snug, comfortable air,
and it is something to pause before No. 48 and think of “Oliver Twist”
and “Nicholas Nickleby” written in this study. With increasing
prosperity he moved from this humble but snug quarter to a more
pretentious mansion, “Tavistock House,” where he lived for ten years.
There are three houses standing together in this rather forlorn-looking
waste, which stands in a _cul de sac_, and his is the first. “In
Tavistock Square,” says Hans Andersen, “stands Tavistock House. This and
the strip of garden in front of it are shut out from the thoroughfare by
an iron railing. A large garden, with a grass plat and high trees,
stretches behind the house and gives it a countrified look in the midst
of this coal and gas steaming London. In the passage from street to
garden hung pictures and engravings. Here stood a marble bust of
Dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom door
were inserted the bas-reliefs of Night and Day, after Thorwaldsen. On
the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing
table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter Dickens
and his friends acted plays.” Turning out of the road one is struck by
the rather stately air of the mansion. During these ten years he made it
re-echo with his gaiety and cheery spirit. It had, however, a damp or
dampish air, which all such edifices seem to contract. The trees and the
verdure generally do not flourish. Later it become the residence of Mrs.
Georgina Weldon, _née_ the beautiful Miss Treherne.
[Illustration: DOUGHTY STREET.
Where the last portion of “Pickwick” was written.]
A mile or two away is Devonshire Terrace, No. 1, a later residence of
the novelist, where he wrote “Master Humphrey’s Clock,” “David
Copperfield,” and other works. It is found near the Marylebone Road.
This, too, is in an inclosure set back from the road, and was humorously
described by its tenant as “a house of great promise (and great
premium), undeniable situation and excessive splendour”; while it struck
his friend Forster as a handsome house with a garden of considerable
size, shut out from the New Road by a brick wall, facing the York Gate
in Regent’s Park.
In Gower Street is a house associated with some scenes in the boy
Dickens’s life, full of pain and misery. At No. 4 (it was then) Mrs.
Dickens set up a school, or tried to do so. Mr. Allbut has found that,
owing to a change in the numbering, the present No. 145 is the former
No. 4. It is a strange feeling to stand before it and recall his own
disastrous, even tragic account of this early misery:--“A house was
soon found at No. 4, Gower Street North; a large brass plate on the door
announced Mrs. Dickens’s establishment; and the result I can give in the
exact words of the then small actor in the comedy, whose hopes it had
raised so high. ‘I left at a great many other doors a great many
circulars, calling attention to the merits of the establishment. Yet
nobody ever came to school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever
proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive
anybody. But I know that we got on very badly with the butcher and
baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last
my father was arrested.’”... “Almost everything by degrees was pawned
or sold, little Charles being the principal agent in these sorrowful
transactions ... until at last, even of the furniture of Gower Street,
No. 4, there was nothing left except a few chairs, a kitchen table, and
some beds. Then they encamped, as it were, in the two parlours of the
emptied house, and lived there night and day.”