BATTERSEA TO LONDON BRIDGE.
The Scene Changes--A City River--Battersea--Chelsea--The Old
Church--Sir T. More and Sir Hans Sloane--Cheyne Walk--Don Saltero's
Coffee-house and Thomas Carlyle--The Botanical Gardens--Chelsea
Hospital--The Pensioners--Battersea Park--The Suspension
Bridge--Vauxhall--Lambeth--The Church and Palace--Westminster
Palace and the Abbey--Its Foundation and History--Westminster
Hall--Westminster Bridge--The Victoria Embankment--York
Gate--Waterloo Bridge and Somerset House--The Temple--Blackfriars
Bridge--St. Paul's--Southwark Bridge--The Old Theatres--Cannon
Street Bridge--London Bridge and its Traffic.
It is at Battersea and Chelsea that the Thames first acquires
unmistakably the character of a metropolitan stream. Hamlets there are,
higher up, which announce the proximity of a great capital; but here
is the capital itself, though only the rudimentary beginnings, or, to
speak more correctly, the scattered ends. Looking down the channel
from this point of view, we see on both sides abundant evidence of
crowded life--of industry on the one bank, and of wealth on the other.
The omnibus of the river--the penny steamboat--plies to and fro on its
frequent errands. On shore, the vehicles of London bring something of
its noise. Yet there is plenty of quiet in both these old-fashioned
suburbs; and, although innovation has been at work here as elsewhere,
nooks may be found, both in Battersea and Chelsea, which have all the
character of a sleepy old county town. Battersea, in particular, is
the most straggling oddity in the neighbourhood of London--a grave,
slow, otiose place, lulled with the lapping of waves, soothed with the
murmur of trees in unsuspected gardens, troubled but little with the
clamour of passing trains, and dreaming, perhaps, of eighteenth-century
days, when there were mansions in the land, and my Lord Bolingbroke
had his family seat near the church. The river here makes a somewhat
abrupt curve, and gives a dubious outline to the whole locality. Small
inlets run up between old walls, dark with the sludge of many years;
and the streets and buildings have had to accommodate themselves to the
caprices of the stream. Hence it is that, when walking about Battersea,
you speedily lose your bearings, and, after following a devious lane
which you suppose to be parallel with the river, suddenly find yourself
on a bit of shingly strand, with a barge on the limits of the tide, and
a general appearance as if the end of all things had been reached.
[Illustration: OLD BATTERSEA BRIDGE, 1890.]
Battersea, then, is as "nook-shotten" a place as is the "isle of
Albion" itself, according to Shakespeare. Gardens as old as the time
of Queen Anne hide coyly behind walls that permit only the tops of the
trees to be discerned. Houses, of the sedate red-and-brown brick that
our ancestors loved, stand at oblique angles to the roadways, each
with the silent history of vanished generations entombed beneath
its ponderous, red-tiled roof. Ancient taverns or inns (call them not
public-houses, still less hotels or gin-palaces)--goodly hostelries
of the past, broad-frontaged, deep-windowed, large-chimneyed,
many-gabled--invite the most temperate passer-by to refresh himself
in the cavernous gloom of the bar. The old parish church--not so old
as one could wish, but having a Georgian character that is beginning
to acquire the interest of all departed modes--occupies a sort of
peninsula on the river, the ripple of which speaks closely in the ears
of dead parishioners. On the whole, Battersea has known better days.
It is now chiefly given up to factories, to the humble dwellings of
factory people, and to the houses and shops of the lower middle class.
But, in the National Society's Training College, it has a noble old
mansion, standing in well-timbered grounds; and the free school of Sir
Walter St. John (grandfather of Queen Anne's famous minister) is also
interesting. The school was founded in 1700, but the building is of the
modern Tudor style. To a casual visitor, however, the most noticeable
thing about the suburb is the river itself, with its belongings;--the
straggling banks; the rickety water-side structures; the boat-builders'
yards; the heavy, black barges hauled on to the foreshore, undergoing
repair, or being lazily broken up; the larger vessels, with sails of
that rusty orange hue which tells of sun and breeze; and the prevalent
smell of pitch, mingled with watery ooze.
Chelsea is becoming fashionable along the river frontage; but, although
the stately red-brick mansions recently erected on the Embankment are
sumptuous and noble, the chief interest of the locality is in the older
parts. Advancing in the direction of town, historic Chelsea begins
about the spot represented in our view of Cheyne Walk. The fine old
house at the corner of Beaufort Street is an excellent specimen of the
kind of suburban dwelling our forefathers used to build, when, the land
being far less valuable than now, they spread out broadly and roomily,
and were not constrained to pile storey upon storey, until the roofs
seemed desirous of making acquaintance with the clouds. It is at this
point that the Chelsea Embankment commences--a splendid promenade
between avenues of plane-trees, which every season will make more
umbrageous. Several years ago, before the late Sir Joseph Bazalgette
began to reclaim the river-bank, there was no more picturesque spot
in Chelsea, of the dirty, out-at-elbows order, than the bit extending
eastward from Battersea Bridge to the old church. Its fantastic
irregularity of roof and gable, its dormer windows, its beetling
chimney-stacks, its red and brown, its look of somnolent old age and
grave experience, had something of a Dutch character; but it was
certainly not Dutch in point of cleanliness. Picturesque it is still;
but the Embankment has swept away that side of the street which was
towards the river, while the ragged tenements on the other side await
the hands of the destroyer.
[Illustration: CHEYNE WALK.]
Old Chelsea Church is familiar to every Londoner who goes up the river
in a steamboat or a wherry. Its massive square tower, its red-tiled
roofs, its external monuments in the bit of green churchyard, the dusky
glow of its old brick, and its general aspect of having been entirely
neglected by the restorers, attract attention, and to a great extent
reward it. The edifice cannot be reckoned among the most beautiful
specimens of ecclesiastical architecture in London; yet its appearance
is venerable and interesting, and its associations might furnish matter
for a whole chapter, or even for a book. The chancel is said to have
been rebuilt in the early part of the sixteenth century, and the chapel
at the east end of the south aisle was erected by Sir Thomas More. The
date of this chapel is about 1520; the tower of the church belongs to
the reign of Charles II.; and the building generally stands on the site
of one which antiquarians refer to the beginning of the fourteenth
century, and of which some portions still remain. The body of More
(minus the head) is stated by Aubrey to have been interred in "Chelsey
Church, neer the middle of the south wall;" but this is doubtful. At
the place indicated, however--which is about the spot where he used to
sit among the choir, and where he erected a tomb for himself during his
lifetime--a tablet of black marble yet appears to his memory. More is
the presiding deity of Chelsea. His house was not far from the church,
in a north-westerly direction; and here he was visited by Holbein, who
painted his portrait, and by Henry VIII., who on one occasion walked
with him in the garden for the space of an hour, "holding his arm about
his neck," as his son-in-law Roper relates--the same neck which he
afterwards caused to be divided by the headsman's axe. Many persons
of eminence, especially in connection with literature and science,
lie buried in Chelsea Old Church, or in the adjoining graveyard; and
the passer-by almost brushes against the urn, entwined with serpents,
which marks the resting-place of Sir Hans Sloane. At the north side
of the church is the grave of John Anthony Cavallier, the leader of
the Camisards, a body of Protestants in the Cevennes, who, about
the beginning of the eighteenth century, carried on a religious war
in which Louis XIV. lost ten thousand of his best troops. Cavallier
ultimately escaped to England, entered the British service, was for a
time Lieutenant-Governor of Jersey, and died at Chelsea in 1740.
It was towards the close of the seventeenth century that Chelsea first
became socially famous as a pleasant outlet from London; and some of
the existing houses belong to that period. A few years later--in the
reign of Anne--it was a place of great resort. Hither came the cits
by boat, to stare at the curiosities of "Don Saltero's" coffee-house
in Cheyne Walk, or to visit the Chelsea China Works, established in
Justice Walk by a foreigner, the products of which manufactory (now
discontinued a hundred years or thereabouts), still haunt the old shops
of the suburb, and command good prices. Here also people flocked to eat
buns at the "Old Chelsea Bun-house," which retained a distinguished
reputation until its long existence ceased in 1839. Swift mentions
these celebrated dainties in the "Journal to Stella," and seems to have
had a relish for them, together with a fondness for Chelsea generally,
the distance of which from town he measured not only in miles, but in
steps. Cheyne Walk is the most characteristic portion of the suburb.
Many of the houses are ancient; some are extremely attractive, with
their substantial look of old-world liberality and thoroughness, their
massive piers and wrought-iron gates, their stone globes and sculptured
ornaments, their shadowy trees and draping creepers. The two most
interesting of these houses, by reason of the modern associations which
mingle with their antiquity, are that formerly occupied by the late
Dante Gabriel Rossetti--truly a house of dream and vision--and that
where "George Eliot" died, after a brief residence. But the greatest
memorial figure in modern Chelsea is that of Thomas Carlyle, who lived
for nearly fifty years in Great Cheyne Row, and died there in 1881.
The Embankment has altered the character of Cheyne Walk, which looks
scarcely so old-fashioned as it did in other days, when the river came
up almost to the roadway, and boatmen lounged about on a scrap of
beach, ready to take you to Putney or Hammersmith, if you disdained
the steamer. There is a scene in one of Miss Thackeray's novels, which
portrays, with exquisite delicacy of touch and colouring, the Cheyne
Walk of a somewhat recent, yet a bygone, epoch. Still, the alterations
have given an added dignity to the place, and a beauty which forbids us
to regret the past. The real injury to the old row has proceeded from
the bad taste of some of its inhabitants, who have faced and coloured
a few of the houses in a way entirely out of keeping with the general
character of the neighbourhood.
Making our way down the river, we come to the Botanical Gardens,
belonging to the Apothecaries' Company of London, where all manner
of simples have been cultivated since the year 1673. The ground was
first enclosed in 1686, and some of the old walls remained until the
alterations consequent on the making of the Embankment. An ancient look
still hangs about the prim walks and orderly beds, where one seems to
sniff the aromatics of departed generations. Old houses cluster round,
and peer with blinking windows into the old nursery of herbs. In the
centre is a statue by Rysbrack of Sir Hans Sloane, set up in 1733,
in consideration of benefits conferred on the gardens by the great
physician; and near the southern boundary is a rugged cedar, planted,
together with another, in 1685. More interesting to the general public
is Chelsea Hospital, the grounds of which should be reckoned among the
parks of London. The Chelsea Pensioner, with his scarlet gabardine,
flaming along the ways like a travelling fire, is a figure so peculiar
to this neighbourhood that one scarcely ever sees it anywhere else. The
retired soldier has a noble dwelling-house in the massive yet comely
structure which Sir Christopher Wren reared for him. There is no finer
specimen of brick architecture, with stone for the decorations, than
the edifice which Nell Gwynne is said, by a doubtful tradition, to have
assisted in founding. One might even detect a professional analogy in
the style of building. The wings stretch out like troops in column; the
main body is the army in mass, compact, steadfast, and impenetrable.
But the battered old men have done with fighting now; they have come
here to nurse their wounds and aches, and the prevailing sentiment
is, as it should be, a blessed and a soothing calm. Within those iron
gates, having the grounds and the river on one side, and the quiet old
Queen's Road on the other, it is almost like a sanctuary. The sunlight
falls asleep in the quadrangles and passages. Caught between wall and
wall, detained by trees, reflected from numerous angles, it seems to
double back upon itself, and fill the air with somnolent heat and
glow. Here is a true place of rest; on the edge of the great city, yet
sequestered; substantial, ceremonious, prescriptive; shadowed with
greenery, bright with flowers and lawns, lulled with the memory of
ancient days, the tender comradeship of the past. Is it not right that
all wayorn men should taste a little of the lotos-eater's life ere they
depart?--
"'Courage!' he said, and pointed towards the land;
'This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon.'
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon."[7]
Round the precincts of Chelsea Hospital it seems as if it were always
Sunday.
Though frequented by Chelsea people, the grounds of the Hospital
are but little known to the rest of London. Yet the east side is
bordered by an avenue of pollarded Dutch elms worth going to see--an
avenue dusky at mid-day, and, after dark, wanting only a ghost to
make it perfect. Immediately beyond is all that remains of Ranelagh
Gardens--the rival of Vauxhall in the middle of last century, when the
Rotunda was the most fashionable lounge in London--now a miniature
park, with trees, greensward, and flower-beds, and a large space set
apart for the old pensioners, where they cultivate small plots of
garden, and will sell you a nosegay of humble but odorous blooms for a
few pence. It is pleasant, in the decaying light of a summer evening,
to see the veterans tending their plants, watering or weeding, making
up bunches of red and blue and yellow blossoms, and recollecting in
their age that Adam was a gardener, not a soldier. Several of these men
have faced the storm of battle, and left behind them arms or legs. Now
they wait upon the gentle ways of Nature, before the setting of the sun.
With the Hospital grounds on one side, and Battersea Park on the other
(the latter winning increased favour every year by its fine effects
of wood and water), we come to the Chelsea Suspension Bridge, near
neighbour of Battersea Bridge, which in 1890 superseded the older
structure shown in our illustration on page 259, and now a thing of the
past. The railway bridge from Victoria, a little beyond, is a pleasing
specimen of its order. Railway viaducts are often abominations. That
they _can_ be otherwise is shown by some few instances. The railway
bridge at Knaresborough, in Yorkshire, is really beautiful. But then
it is of stone, not of iron. Iron bridges--excepting those slung on
chains--can scarcely escape the reproach of ugliness. Vulcan himself
must have forged the original, and infused into it something of his
own deformity. But we have passed out of the stone into the iron age;
the engineers have us in hand; and we must submit to a good deal of
unloveliness for the sake of utility and cheapness. Stone bridges
are works of architecture and art; wooden bridges have a certain
rustic prettiness in the country; but the iron bridge of the railway
harmonises with nothing. It so happens that just as we reach the
Victoria Bridge we enter one of the most uninteresting parts of the
river. With Pimlico on the one side, and the outskirts of New Battersea
on the other, the eye and the mind are equally baulked of any agreeable
subjects of contemplation. As regards associations, Pimlico is perhaps
the most barren district in all London; and the part facing the Thames
is a mere succession of commonplaces. We even hail Millbank Prison as
a relief--though it would be difficult to imagine anything more dreary
than that stern, gaunt structure, with a thousand heart-aches behind
its walls.
Vauxhall, immediately opposite the great prison which Bentham designed
as a model penitentiary, at a time when such experiments were in
vogue, has some attractive memories, if only on account of the famous
Gardens, which the members of the youthful generation know not, but
which their elders bear in genial memory; and when we get to Lambeth,
of which Vauxhall is only a precinct, we are on memorial ground indeed.
Lambeth is so large a place (its circumference is said to be about
sixteen miles) that in 1846 it was subdivided into four parishes; but
the most interesting part is that which borders on the river. A certain
indescribable quaintness--a dusky hue of tradition and romance--hangs
about the neighbourhood. The very name is of unknown etymology, and
has a sort of Hebrew sound, though it is probably Anglo-Saxon in some
corrupted form. In earlier times, the suburb, as we read in an old
account, was celebrated for "astrologers and almanack-makers"--much
the same kind of people in days when men believed in the influences
of the stars. Francis Moore ("Old Moore," whose Prophetic Almanack
still finds readers) was a dweller in Lambeth; and so, likewise, was
Simon Forman, who was connected with the mysterious murder of Sir
Thomas Overbury in 1613. Lambeth, moreover, has an ancient reputation
for unusual crimes. In 1041--a sufficiently remote date for that
fascinating twilight in which it is not easy to discriminate between
fact and fiction--the Danish King, Hardicanute, died suddenly in
Lambeth, at a banquet given on account of some great lord's marriage.
By many it was supposed that he had been poisoned; but it is perhaps
more probable that he succumbed to a stroke of apoplexy or paralysis,
induced by excessive gluttony. Less open to question is the narrative
of a stupendous crime committed in 1531 by a cook in the service of Dr.
Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, who had a palace near the archiepiscopal
residence. According to Holinshed, the cook threw some poison into
a vessel of yeast, and thus not merely destroyed seventeen persons
belonging to the family, but also killed some poor people who were fed
at the gate. The conclusion of this horrible story is worthy of the
beginning. The offender was boiled to death in Smithfield, in pursuance
of a law made for that very case, but repealed in 1547. There may,
however, be some doubt as to the proportions of the crime. Stow says
that, out of seventeen persons poisoned, only two died.
[Illustration: VAUXHALL BRIDGE, FROM NINE ELMS PIER.]
Many parts of Lambeth still preserve a grave, quiet, thoughtful
aspect, as of a locality which has had many experiences of life, and
can talk to itself of ancient and shadowy days. Elias Ashmole, the
founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, who is associated with the
neighbourhood, and the Tradescants, father and son, whose collection
of curiosities was at South Lambeth, have, so to speak, thrown a hue
of antiquarianism over the whole place; while the venerable palace of
the Archbishops of Canterbury gives an ecclesiastical character to the
river-side. In the church very little ancient work remains, but its
foundation dates back several centuries, and it has some noticeable
tombs and monuments, together with the celebrated window displaying the
figure of a pedlar, with his pack, his staff, and his dog. The legend
connected with this pictorial representation is to the effect that some
well-to-do chapman endowed the parish with an acre and nineteen poles
of land (now known as "Pedlar's Acre"), on condition that his portrait,
and that of his dog, should be perpetually preserved in painted glass
in one of the windows of the church. Nothing, however, is known with
any certainty of this ancient benefactor, and it has been suggested
that the picture is nothing more than the rebus of some person whose
name was Chapman, and who thus symbolically revealed himself, after
a fashion very common with our ancestors. The most striking incident
connected with the church belongs to the revolutionary times of 1688.
We can hardly pass its walls without the mind's eye conjuring up the
shivering figure of Mary of Modena, the second wife of James II., who,
on a cold, rainy December night, took shelter beneath the porch, with
her infant son in her arms, while she waited for a coach to convey her
to Gravesend, where she was to embark for France. The infant--then only
a few months old--was the future Chevalier St. George, better known to
English readers as the Old Pretender. Thus the opening of his life was
romantic, his early manhood was romantic, and the long remainder of his
days was an ignoble commonplace.
The appearance of Lambeth Palace, whether from the river or the shore,
is extremely picturesque, and London has hardly a more charming corner
than that formed by the Archbishop's residence and the adjacent church.
The gate-house of the Palace stands broad and square, looking up the
stream, its brickwork sober with the rich red-brown of age. The grey
stone-tints of the church afford a delicate contrast; and between the
two are the grass and flowers of the graveyard. Behind the Palace
rise the trees of the archiepiscopal gardens; and the margin of the
river--formerly rugged and neglected enough--is now dignified by
the Albert Embankment. The effect of the latter, as well as of the
spacious buildings of St. Thomas's Hospital a little further on, is
perhaps a little too modern for its surroundings; but, in the presence
of Lambeth Palace, the Past is sure to overcome the Present. A large
portion of English history lurks behind those ancient walls; the shades
of kings and prelates haunt its chambers, its corridors, and its
gardens; and the sighs of miserable prisoners might be heard within the
Lollards' Tower, if the memory of bygone sufferings could find audible
expression. It is believed by antiquarians that the Archbishops of
Canterbury had a house on this spot in the latter part of the eleventh
century; but it was not until about a century later that Archbishop
Baldwin exchanged some other lands for this particular manor, which
had previously belonged to the see of Rochester. The Palace dates from
that period, but of course very little of the original structure now
exists. If any twelfth-century work remains, it is in the chapel; the
rest belongs to subsequent ages, and exhibits the influence of various
styles. The Lollards' Tower was erected in the early part of the
fifteenth century by Archbishop Chicheley, for the confinement (as most
writers suppose) of a set of heretics who were among the forerunners
of Protestantism. The dark and contracted cell at the top of the
winding staircase inside the tower, with iron rings yet clinging to the
walls, and the names of victims still visible in the blackened oak, is
a grim memorial of the Middle Ages, not to be paralleled in London,
except within the enclosure of the Tower. It is a sermon in stone and
timber, preaching toleration with mute yet eloquent lips. Some modern
authorities, however, deny that Lollards were ever imprisoned there;
and the structure is now (officially) called the Water Tower; but the
top room has obviously been used as a dungeon.
Undoubtedly, the most conspicuous figure in connection with Lambeth
Palace is that of Laud. We can hardly think of the building without
thinking of him. He was translated to the Province of Canterbury in
September, 1633; his execution was in January, 1645; but the last four
years of his life were passed in prison, so that his occupation of the
archiepiscopal residence extended over little more than seven years.
Into those years, however, were crowded the events and the struggles
of a lifetime. The Romanising tendencies of Laud gave offence to the
growing Puritanism of the middle classes, and at length he was almost
a captive in his own palace, besieged by angry crowds, who would
doubtless have paid little respect either to his office or his person
could they have laid hands on him. He records in his Diary, under
date May 11th, 1640, that a furious rabble, incited by a paper posted
up at the Old Exchange two days before, attacked his house by night,
and prolonged their violence for at least two hours. After that, he
"fortified" the place as well as he could; but the popular resentment
increased, and, in 1642 and the following year, Lambeth Palace was
roughly handled by parties of soldiery. During the Commonwealth, the
building was used as a prison, and the Great Hall was nearly destroyed.
The latter was restored by Juxon, and is supposed to represent the
original with tolerable fidelity. But it is of Laud we think, and not
of Juxon, as we move from room to room; for Laud represents an era in
the English Church.
Looking across the Thames, from Lambeth Palace, we get the best view of
the Houses of Parliament, which gain rather than lose by the absorption
of detail into the general mass. We have now passed the dull and shabby
part of the river, and are surrounded by grand and august memories.
The stream itself is a highway of empire; the shores are peopled with
stately, with noble, or with interesting shapes. The suburbs are behind
us; the ancient city of Westminster rises with its towers and steeples
on the left bank. Along this channel have passed the Briton in his
coracle, the Roman in his war-ship, the Anglo-Saxon and the Dane in
their galleys, the Norman, the Plantagenet, the Tudor, and the Stuart,
in their resplendent barges. Youth, beauty, and gallantry, genius and
learning, the courtier and the soldier, the prelate and the poet, the
merchant and the 'prentice, have taken their pleasure on these waters
through a succession of ages which form no mean portion of the world's
history. Patriots and traitors have gone this way to their death in
the sullen Tower. Kings and princesses have proceeded by this silver
path, amidst the flaunting of streamers and the music of clarions, to
bridal pomp or festal banquet. The pride of mayors, of aldermen, of
sheriffs, has glassed itself in these waves. Here, in the days of Henry
II., the adventurous young men of London played at water-quintain,
to the infinite delight of the spectators; here, somewhere between
Westminster and London Bridge, King Richard II. met the poet Gower, and
commanded him to write a book for his special reading--whence arose
the "Confessio Amantis;" and here Taylor, the Water Poet, once saw the
Muses sitting in a rank, who gave him a draught of Helicon, which had
the unfortunate effect (not unknown in other instances) of emptying his
purse.
[Illustration: LAMBETH PALACE AND CHURCH.]
Westminster is to the full as historical as London itself, from
which, be it remembered, it is even now entirely separate, as a city
with rights of its own. It might even be described as more truly the
capital than London; for the Parliament, the Government Offices, and
the Law Courts are situated within its bounds, and the chief palace
of the Kings and Queens of England, from Edward the Confessor to
Elizabeth, was at Westminster. It is curious to reflect how very
unsubstantial is the claim of London, in the strictest sense of the
term, to be considered the national metropolis. Of Roman Britain,
York was the capital--the Eboracum of Hadrian, of Septimius Severus,
and of Constantine. Winchester, as the principal city of Wessex,
which subdued the other kingdoms of the Heptarchy, became the seat of
government for all England in the early days of the united monarchy.
Then Westminster succeeded, and it is hard to say where London comes
in. The very name of this city of royalty and statecraft has a grandeur
about it with which its appearance corresponds. Westminster Abbey,
Westminster Hall, and the Houses of Parliament are three structures
not easily to be surpassed for majesty of association and picturesque
dignity of aspect. It was a wise decision by which the Gothic style was
selected for the new buildings rendered necessary by the disastrous
fire of 1834. Anything else would have broken the continuity of the
national life, and been altogether at issue with surrounding objects.
Sir Charles Barry has provided London with one of its most distinctive
features, and his two great towers must henceforth be landmarks of the
surrounding country, even more than the dome of St. Paul's, though
that, too, will always remain one of the great memorial characteristics
of the vast metropolis.
[Illustration: THE VICTORIA TOWER.]
Where one has so noble an edifice, it seems ungracious to repine; yet
the loss of the older building was a misfortune for which nothing can
compensate. It was nearly the only remaining portion of the Palace of
Westminster originally founded by Edward the Confessor, and retained
by our kings until Henry VIII. removed his palace to Whitehall.
St. Stephen's Chapel, the Cloisters, the Painted Chamber, the Star
Chamber, the Armada hangings--all these were destroyed by the great
conflagration arising from the overheating of a stove in which some
official had been too assiduously burning the tally-sticks whereon the
Exchequer accounts were kept until the latter part of last century.
The House of Commons sat within the walls of St. Stephen's Chapel,
rebuilt in the reign of Edward III., and converted to the use of the
national representatives in that of Edward VI. Either at that or some
later period, the external walls were wainscoted; a new floor was laid
above the level of the old pavement, and a new ceiling shut out the
fine timber roof. The chapel, therefore, still remained, but it was
almost completely hidden from view. In 1800, however, previously to the
addition of the Irish members to those of England and Scotland, it was
found necessary to enlarge the chamber, and, on the wainscoting being
taken down, the walls erected by Edward III. shone out in all their
splendour of architecture, sculpture, painting, and gilding; the whole
looking as brilliant and vivid as if it had just left the hands of the
workers. The alterations involved the destruction of these beautiful
specimens of mediæval art; but drawings were made of most. Still, a
good deal of the original palace and chapel was left, though sadly
defaced by modern perversions, often in the most execrable taste. The
fire carried still further what other influences had begun; and, at
the present day, all that is preserved of the palatial structure which
successive kings re-edified and adorned are Westminster Hall and the
crypt of St. Stephen's Chapel.
With its Hall and its Abbey, Westminster can never cease to be
interesting, attractive, and picturesque. Here, if anywhere, we are
in the very heart of English history, and can, at our bidding, summon
a long procession of sovereigns, prelates, statesmen, soldiers, wits,
and scholars. Standing before the Abbey, with the river close at hand,
we think of those ancient days when all the adjacent ground was a
marsh, so environed with water, and beset with brambles, as to acquire
the name of Thorney Island: a wild, bleak, barren spot, almost at the
very gates of London, yet apart from it; inhabited only by poor and
outcast people, or perchance by banditti, who levied contributions on
the rich nobles and merchants, and then escaped to their fastnesses
among the thickets of the fenny isle. Then--somewhere about 616--came
Sebert, King of the East Saxons, who, according to tradition, founded
the Benedictine monastery of which the Abbey is a noble relic. West
Minster--the Minster west of St. Paul's, originally called East
Minster, according to some accounts--took its rise from that time, and
speedily became a place of great importance. The brambles disappeared;
the land was drained; the creeks and ditches of the Thames were made
to retire into their natural channel; walls and pinnacles arose out of
the wet and dreary soil; and the chant of the Benedictines was heard
along the river-banks, and in the neighbouring fields. After a while,
houses grew up around the monastery, and population was attracted to a
spot which the Monarchy and the Church were beginning to favour. The
religious foundation was enlarged by King Edgar, and afterwards by
Edward the Confessor; and from the time of the latter to that of Queen
Victoria, all our kings and queens have been crowned within the walls
of the Abbey. Many, also, are buried in the same building, which gives
occasion to moralising Jeremy Taylor to observe:--"In the same Escurial
where the Spanish princes live in greatness and power, and decree war
or peace, they have wisely placed a cemetery, where their ashes and
their glory shall sleep till time shall be no more; and where our kings
have been crowned, their ancestors lie interred, and they must walk
over their grandsire's head to take his crown." Whether for kings or
humble men, there is no place better adapted to this vein of thought
than Westminster Abbey.
The Abbey-church was dedicated to St. Peter, who, according to the
mediæval tradition, appeared to a fisherman on the opposite bank of
the Thames, and requested him to ferry him over to Thorney Island,
where, with his own hands, he performed the ceremony of consecration.
An atmosphere of legend and romance surrounds the earlier history of
Westminster Abbey, and continues even as late as the days of Edward
the Confessor. It is related in old chronicles that that monarch,
having omitted to make a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had promised on
condition that he should be restored to his throne, from which the
Danes had expelled him, was enjoined by the Pope, as the necessary
price of absolution, that he should expend the funds set apart for his
journey on the foundation or repair of some religious house dedicated
to St. Peter. The particular house was not indicated; but, just at that
time, a monk of Westminster, named Wulsine, dreamed that the Apostle
appeared to him, and bade him acquaint the King that he should restore
the church on Thorney Island. "There is," he is reported to have said,
"a place of mine in the west part of London, which I chose, and love,
and which I formerly consecrated with my own hands, honoured with my
presence, and made illustrious by my miracles. The name of the place
is Thorney; which, having, for the sins of the people, been given to
the power of the barbarians, from rich has become poor, from stately
low, and from honourable is made despicable. This let the King, by my
command, restore and amply endow: it shall be no less than the house of
God and the gates of Heaven." This, according to the old belief, was
the way in which the later Abbey arose. At any rate, Edward rebuilt
the monastery and church on a larger and more sumptuous scale; and,
from that time forth, Westminster Abbey became the grandest, and on
the whole the most august, building in London. It was then, likewise,
that the edifice first took a distinct and historical place in the
annals of the English people. Until then, it is difficult to trace its
history, which, indeed, is little more than a series of ecclesiastical
myths. From the days of Edward the Confessor, the story of the Abbey
is clear in every respect; but, in such an edifice, history itself
assumes a romantic, almost a marvellous, colour. We are in the presence
of eight centuries of the national life; for, although no portion of
Edward the Confessor's work remains at the present day, the Abbey
is so associated with the saintly monarch that it is impossible to
detach his memory from the structure begun by Henry III., continued
by Edward II., Edward III., and Richard II., and from time to time
enlarged by later sovereigns. The building we now behold is the legacy
of successive ages, which have left upon the stone itself the imprint
of their thoughts, their aspirations, their struggles, and their hopes.
In passing from chapel to chapel, from cloister to cloister, from aisle
to aisle, we seem to pass through the centuries which gave them birth,
and which have strewn over all the dust of their extinguished fires.
But Westminster Abbey is not merely an embalmed corpse, preserving the
semblance of a life which has long since vanished, It is still the
shrine of England's greatest men--still the embodiment of ideas yet
living in the national heart.
[Illustration: THE ABBEY, FROM LAMBETH BRIDGE.]
Westminster Hall is second only to the Abbey in historic interest. It
was originally built by William Rufus, and it is probable that some of
his work still exists, though the bulk of what we see is due to Richard
II. The magnificent timber roof--one of the finest in Europe--belongs
undoubtedly to the period of Richard; and it is marvellous to think
that this piece of wood-carving should have survived the wear of five
centuries, and resisted without injury the dynamite explosion of 1885.
A well-known tradition states that the roof is made of Irish oak, in
which spiders cannot live; but it appears to be really constructed of
chestnut. The place was intended as a banqueting-hall, and so used
by King Richard; but some of our early Parliaments assembled there,
and, at the very first meeting of the Houses in the new edifice,
Richard himself was deposed. The Law Courts were likewise held in this
building and its predecessor, from 1224 to 1882. Until a comparatively
recent time, the judges sat in the main body of the Hall; and, in the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, one side of the vast chamber was
taken up by the judges, the lawyers, the juries, and the other persons
concerned, while the opposite side was divided into a number of little
shops or counters, where vociferous traders bawled their wares and
solicited custom, until the Usher over the way commanded silence with
a voice louder than their own. With one exception--the Hall of Justice
at Padua--Westminster Hall is believed to be the largest chamber in
the world not supported by pillars. Its aspect is indeed noble, and
the recollections which crowd upon the mind on entering its walls are
almost overwhelming in their historic and dramatic interest. In the
Hall of Rufus, Sir William Wallace was condemned to death; while the
very building that now stands has witnessed the trials of Sir Thomas
More, the Protector Somerset, the Earl and Countess of Somerset,
who contrived the assassination of Sir Thomas Overbury, the Earl of
Strafford, King Charles I., the Seven Bishops who defied the power
of James II., three of the rebel lords in 1745, Warren Hastings, and
several other persons of less distinction, who still have made some
mark in the political or social history of the land. Here Oliver
Cromwell was inaugurated as Protector; and here, only a few years
later, his head was set upon a pole, between the skulls of Ireton and
Bradshaw. One could fancy ghosts flitting at night about this vast old
Hall. It would be a strange gathering, drawn from the tragedies of five
hundred years.
Returning to the river, we pass under new Westminster Bridge, but think
rather of its predecessor, the work of Charles Labelye, a native of
Switzerland, yet a naturalised British subject. This structure lasted
from 1750, when it was completed, to 1853, when its destruction was
commenced. Until the building of Labelye's bridge, there was actually
no way over the Thames, within the metropolis, but at London Bridge;
and the proposal to execute this most necessary work encountered
violent opposition in the City. Old Westminster Bridge was a ponderous
erection, in which, if we may accept the statement of the architect,
twice as many cubic feet of stone were employed as in St. Paul's
Cathedral. With its fifteen arches, diminishing in span from the
centre, its lofty parapet and wide alcoves, it presented a rather
handsome appearance, and many Londoners, not yet old, retain it in
kindly memory. It was badly constructed, however, and several of the
piers gave way in 1846. There was no alternative but to take the whole
structure down; but it has an abiding place in literature, owing
to the noble sonnet which Wordsworth composed there on the 3rd of
September, 1803. Another literary association with the bridge is of a
painful nature. When Crabbe the poet first came to London, in 1780, he
was in such deep distress that, after appealing in vain to many persons
of distinction, he delivered a letter at the door of Burke's house--a
letter to which the great orator and statesman afterwards replied with
the utmost kindness; but, pending the answer, Crabbe was in such a
state of agitation that, as he told Lockhart in later days, he walked
Westminster Bridge backwards and forwards until daylight. It was by
such experiences as this that Crabbe acquired his realistic power of
delineating the sufferings of the poor, with whom the fear of hunger or
the workhouse is one of the permanent facts of life.
It is on quitting Westminster Bridge that the Victoria Embankment
begins--a magnificent work, containing the finest effects of
architecture, mingled with trees and shrubbery, that are to be found
in the metropolis. When one recollects the unsightly mud-banks that
used to stretch along the shores of the Thames in this part of its
course--the grim, dilapidated buildings that approached the water's
edge--the general appearance of ruin--the shiftless, disreputable air
of the whole locality, save where some great building, such as Somerset
House, broke the dull uniformity of dirt, decay, and neglect--it is
impossible to be too grateful for what we now possess. The massive
river-wall, with the bronze heads of lions starting out of every pier,
the extended line of parapet, the artistic lamps reflected at night in
the shining stream, the Cleopatra's Needle, with Sphinxes round its
base, the avenues of planes, the green and leafy gardens, the elevated
terrace of the Adelphi, the stately river-front of Somerset House,
and the splendid new buildings which have been erected at various
points of the route, make up, together with the broad and flowing
river, a picture which it would not be easy to surpass. At Charing
Cross, unfortunately, there is an irremediable contradiction to this
grandeur. The railway bridge which there crosses the Thames is one
of the ugliest of an ugly family; and all we can do is to comfort
ourselves with a sense of the convenience afforded by such structures,
and with the impression of Titanic power always accompanying the
transit of vast bodies through the air above our heads. As soon as our
backs are turned upon the viaduct, it is forgotten; and close by, at
the bottom of Buckingham Street, we come upon a decaying relic of old
London, which is worth going to see. The Water Gate, formerly belonging
to York House, and built by Inigo Jones for George Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham, still outlasts, in melancholy isolation, all the princely
splendours that once distinguished this spot. York House was, for a
short time, the London residence of the Archbishops of York, by whom
it was afterwards let to the Lord Keepers of the Great Seal. It was
here that no less a man than Francis Bacon was born, and he retained
possession of the dwelling until his death. The next occupant was the
famous Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of James I. and Charles I.,
who pulled down the old house, and erected a temporary mansion to
supply its place. His intention was to build a more sumptuous palace
on the site of Bacon's town-house; but Inigo Jones's Gate was the only
portion ever erected. Of course, when originally made, it was on the
absolute margin of the river, and here, at high tide, the Duke and his
friends took the water in their barges, or landed after an excursion
on the Thames. At the present day, owing to the formation of the
Embankment, which covers the sloping shores of the river formerly left
dry, or rather oozy, when the tide was out, the Water Gate of Inigo
Jones is a long way inland, and looks forlornly across the intermediate
gardens towards the stream from which it is permanently divorced.
The edifice is a fine piece of Roman architecture, massive, rugged,
yet ornamental, and admirably adapted, by the peculiarities of its
structure, to serve as the approach to a mansion whose grounds came
sweeping down to the edge of the waves. The house was afterwards sold
by the second Duke of Buckingham, one of the profligate noblemen of
Charles II.'s reign, illustrious by his own wit and spirit, and still
more so by the masterly portraitures of Dryden and Pope; and a number
of streets were built upon the site, some of which were called after
the names and title of the Duke.
[Illustration: YORK GATE.]
Waterloo Bridge--the grandest bridge in London, and perhaps in the
world--admirably falls in with the architectural character of the
Embankment and its surroundings. Nothing can exceed the magnificence
of those nine broad arches, each one hundred and twenty feet in span,
and thirty-five feet high; or of the columned piers from which they
spring. The whole effect is colossal, yet graceful to the last degree
of cultured power. Where the massive pillars meet the Embankment, they
give an added grandeur to the work of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, and the
triumphant arches, as they leap the channel of the river, display the
happiest admixture of strength and suavity. The engineer who executed
the works of Waterloo Bridge was the celebrated John Rennie; but the
design was furnished by a somewhat obscure projector named George
Dodd, who, in the first instance, was appointed to carry out his own
conception, but who appears to have been discharged through inattention
to his duties, and the lax habits which ultimately brought him to the
prison where he died. The name of Rennie is so universally associated
with the bridge, often to the exclusion of any other, that it seems but
fair to give the credit of the plan to this forgotten and most unhappy
genius.
Leaving Waterloo Bridge and Somerset House in our rear, the next
object of note that we reach is the Temple, where we might linger a
whole summer's day, without exhausting all the interest that attaches
to that memorable spot. What one chiefly sees from the river is the
green and pleasant garden, where, according to Shakespeare, the
partisans of the Houses of York and Lancaster plucked the white and red
roses which served as the distinctive badges of their cause. Looking
northward, however, we discern some of the new buildings which border
the open ground; and we know that beyond these lie the wonderful
courts and alleys--the mazy lanes and avenues of old houses--which,
taken altogether, make the Temple one of the most fascinating spots
in London. As he passes by on the smooth waves, the man familiar with
books can hardly refrain from repeating to himself the murmuring lines
of Spenser, in which the poet traces back the history of that cloistral
retreat to the days when it was associated with a great military and
ecclesiastical Order. Spenser was a thorough Londoner, and therefore
well acquainted with
"Those bricky towers
The which on Thames' broad, aged back doe ride,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers:
There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride."
In the poet's time, and for nearly a hundred years after, brick
edifices were very uncommon in London, and the Great Fire of 1666
would never have spread so rapidly, or extended so far, had not the
majority of the houses been constructed of wood. It was the "bricky
towers" of the Temple which at length stopped the westward march of the
conflagration. The oldest parts of the two Inns seem almost as if they
might be coeval with the days of Spenser; but the greater number of
the buildings belong apparently to the latter part of the seventeenth
century. Many alterations have of late taken place in the Temple, and
the new work (if only for its newness) is out of harmony with the old.
Could Charles Lamb revisit this beloved spot, it is to be feared that
he would be much troubled by some of the recent innovations. Those who
share Lamb's appreciation of old London have certainly a good deal
to put up with in these days. Perhaps the alterations are necessary
and unavoidable; but they are often terribly jarring, though there
are persons who will scarcely tolerate even a sigh over the departed
or departing relics of an interesting past. A good deal of the old
Temple, however, still remains, and may perhaps survive for another
decade or two. In the Temple Church we have a striking relic of the
Middle Ages, elaborately, but not always judiciously, restored between
1839 and 1842; and the Middle Temple Hall is thought to contain some of
the best Elizabethan architecture in London.
[Illustration: BIT OF THE VICTORIA EMBANKMENT.]
We are in modern times again when we come to Blackfriars Bridge; for
not only is the structure one of yesterday, but that which preceded
it dates back no farther than the second half of last century. The
bridge erected by Robert Mylne was completed in 1769, and lasted for
nearly a hundred years; but it shared the infirmity of Labelye's work
at Westminster, and the subsidence of the piers became so alarming
that in 1864 the whole edifice was doomed to destruction. One of the
finest views of St. Paul's Cathedral, or, at any rate, of the dome,
is obtainable from Blackfriars Bridge; but the appearance of the
bridge itself on the eastern side is greatly marred by the railway
viaduct of the London, Chatham, and Dover line. We have now passed the
Thames Embankment, and the river begins to be bordered by wharves and
warehouses, often black with the smoke of many years, yet not devoid
of a certain rugged picturesqueness and gloomy state. Enormous cranes
project from the walls; vast bales of goods dangle perilously in the
air, and are lowered into the barges and other vessels which come up
close to the landing-stages. Tier above tier of narrow, grimy windows
rise into the sky; and gaunt openings in the walls, which seem as if
they were intended for suicide, but are really meant for the reception
and discharge of goods, reveal to the observant passer-by some dusky
glimpses of that accumulated merchandise, the interchange of which has
made London the greatest city in the world. In these sullen edifices,
beetling over the water-side, you shall see nothing of beauty or of
grandeur; but a man must be ignorant indeed, or grossly dull in his
perceptions, if his mind do not discover, in the reaches of the Lower
Thames, matter of the deepest interest, affecting not merely his own
country, but her possessions in every part of the world, and to some
extent the whole world itself. From this point, the wondrous city
spreads around: the city with its roots in fable, and its branches in
the living present; the city of commerce, of manufactures, of finance;
the city of incalculable riches, and of that hopeless poverty which
accompanies riches as the shadow accompanies the sun; the city which
receives into its bosom the vessels and the wealth of all the globe,
and which is in constant and electric sympathy with every part of
Europe, with the teeming populations of the East, with the desert
heart of Africa, with the young Republics of the Western Continent,
and with the rising commonwealths of Australasian seas. Whence comes
this marvellous power--this universality of influence? Partly from
the genius and energy of the races which people Britain; but partly
also from the opportunities presented by that deep and expanding
stream which issues out into the German Ocean, and brings the fleets
of nations to the walls of London. The greatness of England depends
upon this liberal and majestic Thames--a fact so apparent, even in the
time of Queen Mary, that an acute Alderman, hearing of the sovereign's
intention to remove with the Parliament and the Law Courts to Oxford,
observed that they should do well enough, provided her Majesty left
the river behind. Even in the time of the Roman occupation, London
was a great commercial city; and since then, eighteen centuries of
development have reared the mighty fabric of her trade.
[Illustration: THE RIVER AT BLACKFRIARS.]
Though St. Paul's Cathedral is some little way from the Thames,
its splendid cupola is so prominent an object from the river that
it is impossible not to pause a little before Wren's masterpiece,
and consider the history of this great edifice, the foundation of
which takes us back to the early days of British history. By some
antiquarians it has been supposed that, in the Roman times, the summit
of Ludgate Hill was occupied by a temple to Diana; but this tradition
was entirely discredited by Sir Christopher, who records that, in
digging for the foundations of the present Cathedral, he found no
evidences whatever of the existence of any such pagan structure--no
fragments of cornice or capital, no remains of sacrifices. He
did, however, arrive at some foundations, consisting of Kentish
rubble-stone, cemented with exceedingly hard mortar, after the Roman
manner. He believed these to have been the relics of an early Christian
church, destroyed during the Diocletian persecution, the erection of
which he considered may have been due to St. Paul himself. Whatever
may be the truth of these remote traditions, it seems unquestionable
that a Christian fane existed on this spot from an early period. The
crown of the hill was a very likely place for such an edifice, and the
proximity of the river made it easy of access from surrounding parts.
The church demolished during the persecution of 302 was rebuilt in the
reign of Constantine, between the years 323 and 337. In the following
century it was destroyed by the Saxons, but, after the conversion of
the early English, was again erected by Ethelbert and Sebert in the
sixth and seventh centuries. The Cathedral which immediately preceded
the present was begun about 1083, and lasted until the Great Fire of
1666. During this long period of nearly six hundred years, the edifice
underwent frequent alterations, and received many additions. Some of
its dimensions are thought to have exceeded those of any other church
in Christendom. Its length from east to west was six hundred and ninety
feet, and the spire over the central tower rose five hundred and twenty
feet into the air. This spire was burned in 1561, and, from that time
until 1633, the noble old pile was in a state of dilapidation, which
it is surprising that so rich a city as London should have allowed
to continue. But the whole condition of the Cathedral at this period
was one not easy to understand at the present day. The middle aisle,
usually termed Paul's Walk, was an ordinary lounging-place for the
wits, gallants, and disreputable characters of the time. Under the
pillars of that magnificent arcade the lawyer received his clients;
the business man transacted his affairs; the idle inquired after
news; servants wanting employment let themselves out for hire; and
the chorister boys exacted tribute of gentlemen who entered the
Cathedral, during divine service, with spurs on. From the period of the
Reformation to the early part of the reign of Philip and Mary, matters
had been even worse; for a daily market was held in the nave, and men
would lead mules, horses, and other animals from entrance to exit.
"Paul's Walk" is one of the most frequent subjects of allusion in the
works of the Elizabethan dramatists; and there was certainly no better
place in London for an observer of manners, like Ben Jonson, to imbue
himself with the humours of men.
It need hardly be said that Old St. Paul's was a Gothic structure; but
when it was repaired in 1633, the work was put into the hands of Inigo
Jones, who was entirely a child of the Italian school. He accordingly
set up a classical portico in front of the ancient Gothic church,
thus producing an effect of painful incongruity, although the portico
in itself appears to have been extremely fine. The circumstance,
however, is to some degree excused by the design of Charles I. to
build an entirely new Cathedral, of which Inigo's portico was to be
the frontispiece. The Civil War put an end to this project, together
with many others; and during those tumultuous days Cromwell's soldiers
stabled their horses in the metropolitan church of London. The complete
destruction of the building followed six years after the Restoration,
when the greater part of London succumbed to a disaster which more
vigorous measures might have stifled in its infancy. Another Gothic
edifice would have been more in accordance with the traditions of
the place; but it is fortunate that no attempt was made to revive
an architectural style with which all the builders of that age were
entirely out of sympathy. Wren held the Gothic forms in absolute
contempt, and the towers which he added to Westminster Abbey show how
miserably he failed when trying to accommodate himself to methods which
he neither understood nor cared to understand. With the Renaissance he
was perfectly at home; and his great work, whatever objections we may
make on the score of coldness, so far as the interior is concerned, is
surely characterised by a grandeur of its own, dependent not merely
upon physical size, but on vastness of conception, and on that sense of
towering magnificence, and almost infinite dilation, which is produced
by this mountain of hewn stone, extending into curved and pillared
aisles, and swelling upwards into the mimic firmament of the dome. For
nearly two hundred years Sir Christopher Wren's Cathedral has been the
central monument of London. Round its giant mass the waves of the great
city beat day by day in feverish unrest; and there is something in its
ponderous bulk, its countless reduplication of arch and column, and its
soaring cupola, which seems to image the stability of English life in
the midst of constant agitation and perpetual change.
[Illustration: ST. PAUL'S, FROM THE THAMES.]
Southwark Bridge, under which we pass shortly after returning to the
river, is chiefly interesting as being the first thoroughfare which
carries us over into what is popularly called "the Borough"--certainly
one of the most memorable parts of the capital. By a kind of fiction,
Southwark is accounted one of the twenty-six wards of London, and,
considered in this relation, is entitled Bridge Ward Without. It is
therefore, to some extent, a part of the City; yet it has its own
government, and a distinctive character, both in general appearance
and in metropolitan history. In early times, it was a sanctuary for
malefactors, and in other respects possessed an evil reputation, which
appears to have been not wholly undeserved. In the Bankside, Southwark,
was situated the Bear Garden, of which we read so frequently in old
English writers--a place where Shakespeare must have seen the bear
Sackerson which he has immortalised in the _Merry Wives of Windsor_.
Edward Alleyn, the actor, who founded Dulwich College, was at one time
master of this objectionable place of amusement; and here Pepys went
one day with his wife, and pronounced the entertainment "a very rude
and nasty pleasure." A much pleasanter association with old Southwark
is the fact that Shakespeare's theatre, the famous "Globe Playhouse,"
conspicuous in stage history, was here situated close to the river.
The external shape of this illustrious edifice was hexagonal, and,
though the stage was roofed over with thatch, the spectators sat in
the open air without any covering whatever. The interior was circular,
and the building displayed a classic figure of Hercules supporting
the globe. One would be glad to know the exact spot where Shakespeare
trod the boards, submitted some of his works to public approval, and
perhaps discharged the duties of a manager. But, although the theatre
is commonly said to have stood in Bankside, there appears to be some
doubt upon the point. Unquestionably, however, the Bankside has the
best claim, and it is believed that Barclay and Perkins's brewery
occupies the site, or nearly so. Originally erected in 1594, the Globe
was burned down on the 29th of June, 1613, owing to some lighted
paper, projected from a piece of ordnance, having found a lodgment in
the thatch. This was rather less than three years before the death of
Shakespeare; but the playhouse was speedily rebuilt, at the expense of
James I., and of many noblemen and gentlemen. The drama that was being
acted on the occasion of the fire seems to have been Shakespeare's
_Henry VIII._; and Sir Henry Wotton, who writes an amusing account of
the affair to his nephew, says that the drama "was set forth with many
extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting
of the stage; the knights of the Order with their Georges and Garters,
the guards with their embroidered coats, and the like." The new
theatre was much handsomer than the old, and provided with a roof of
tile, so that the discharge of ordnance should not again produce such
disastrous consequences. The house was pulled down in 1644, by which
time Puritanical opinions had gained so much ground amongst the London
population that theatres were no longer the prosperous undertakings
they had been in more careless and light-hearted days.
From the Bankside to the High Street of Southwark is no great distance;
but it takes us backward from the time of Shakespeare to the time of
Chaucer. The "Tabard" Inn stood in that ancient thoroughfare, and,
until recently, some old, decrepit buildings flanked the back yard of
this hostelry, which, though probably not coeval with Chaucer, were
at any rate antique enough to suggest his period. The Borough High
Street, being the main road into the south-eastern parts of England,
was from an early date celebrated for its roomy hostelries, some of
which still remain in all their picturesque amplitude, with external
galleries, overhanging roofs, carved timber, dusky passages, and
cavernous doorways. None, however, could boast such an association as
that which throws its halo round the "Tabard." We are not, of course,
to suppose that Chaucer's immortal poem is an exact record of anything
that happened on some given occasion; but it is more than probable that
Chaucer performed the pilgrimage to Canterbury, "the holy, blissful
martyr for to seek," and that, with his companions, he started from the
"Tabard" in the High Street. It is also conceivable that these pious
excursionists often beguiled the way by telling stories; and it is
thoroughly in accordance with the manners of the time that some of the
stories should be of a very questionable tendency. Pilgrimages, after a
while, became a form of dissipation with which the religious sentiment
was but slightly associated. As early as the fourth Christian century,
Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, dissuaded his flock from joining pilgrimages,
because of the low moral tone frequently developed amongst the
travellers. In the ninth century, Englishwomen had a particularly bad
name for the gallantries they carried on under pretence of devotion;
and in the fourteenth century, when Chaucer wrote, the matter had
doubtless become still worse. One of the results of this perversion,
however, was that people distinguished by every variety of character
were drawn together by the common object of adoration at some famous
shrine. Chaucer was thus presented with the finest possible opportunity
for the exercise of those powers of observation and of portraiture
in which he was hardly inferior to Shakespeare himself. Hence a poem
which, notwithstanding the difficulties of its partially obsolete
English, is still a living force in the literature of our race. Hence a
collection of stories which touch the whole round of human nature--in
its pathos, its humour, its tragedy, its devotion, its blunt and rugged
realism, its high-raised phantasy, its vulgarity, and its nobleness;
and hence that fascinating light of genius and human fellowship which
hovers round the vicinity of the "Tabard" Inn, and will consecrate even
its modern brick-and-mortar with the tenderest memories of the past.
Returning towards the river, we find on our left hand, not far from
the water itself, the fine old church of St. Saviour's, Southwark
(anciently called St. Mary Overies, from its position as to the
bridge), which contains a handsome Gothic monument to Chaucer's
contemporary, John Gower. The church has been much injured by
alterations in recent times, but still presents some beautiful
specimens of the Early English style. All that remains of the old
church founded in 1208 is in the choir and the Lady Chapel; yet,
on the whole, the effect is venerable, and the associations with
the church are highly interesting. Among the persons here buried
are Edmund Shakespeare, the brother of William; John Fletcher, the
fellow-dramatist with Beaumont; Philip Massinger, another dramatic
poet; and several persons more or less connected with the theatrical
world of Shakespeare's generation.
[Illustration: SOUTHWARK BRIDGE.]
We are now at the southern extremity of London Bridge--one of the
best of Rennie's works, but a very uninteresting structure compared
with that which preceded it. Still, it is impossible to pass over
this granite causeway without seeing, at any hour of the day, such a
spectacle of human life as penetrates both the heart and soul. All
bridges are favourable to this kind of observation; for they contract
and isolate the great stream of human beings, which for a brief period
is incapable of any diversion either to the right or to the left,
but is brought sharply and sternly face to face with him who would
take note of his fellow-creatures. Moreover, the absence of houses or
other buildings at the side of the footpaths brings every figure into
relief against the vast, eternal sky, and suggests, in a subtle and
almost terrible way, the fragility of the individual, as compared with
the infinity above his head. Beneath is the deep, dark river; above
are the inscrutable heavens; and between the two are these mites and
motes of a vanishing existence, suspended for a time between elements
which are stronger than themselves. On London Bridge one sees all
the chief varieties of human character, passing on from morn to eve,
and often far into the night, with that look of patient endurance,
or of half-suppressed suffering, which comes out so strangely when
large multitudes of men and women are brought together, without any
community of interest, or knowledge of each other's cares. The City
man, the lawyer, the clerk, the rugged labourer, the railway servant,
the desperately poor, who are evidently on the tramp, either from
London to the country, or from the country to London; the lurking
thief, the flashy swindler, the Jew with his bag, poor women with their
heavy bundles, and heavier faces, and perhaps still heavier hearts; the
street Arab on the look-out for stray halfpence, the girls who sell
cigar-lights, the meagre seamstresses going to and fro with their work,
and, at one season of the year the vast emigration of hop-pickers,
making for the fields of Kent--all these are here, together with many
other types of character that demand recognition from thoughtful minds.
Under certain climatic conditions, the effect is almost phantasmal in
its reduplication and variety, its familiar aspects and its mysterious
depth of life.
[Illustration: CANNON STREET STATION.]
The complete demolition of the old bridge in 1832 was a matter of
necessity, since the decrepitude of the former had at length gone
beyond all hope of further patching, and the growing traffic of London
required a broader and more convenient way from the City to the
Borough. But no more interesting structure was ever devoted to the
labourer's pickaxe. A bridge appears to have existed as early as 978;
another, built of wood, in 1014, was partly burned in 1136; and this
was succeeded, some years later, by the edifice which was destroyed
within the memory of some still living. The design was given by Peter
of Colechurch, chaplain of St. Mary Colechurch in the Poultry. The
construction occupied thirty-three years, from 1176 to 1209, which,
considering the breadth of river to be spanned, the massiveness of the
work, and the primitive nature of engineering science at that time,
does not seem excessive. Peter's bridge was of stone, not of timber,
and consisted of nineteen arches, a drawbridge for large vessels, a
gate-house at each end, and a chapel in the centre, dedicated to St.
Thomas of Canterbury. According to an old tradition, the course of the
river was diverted into a trench while the works were proceeding--a
trench which, commencing about Battersea, ended at Redriffe. Traces of
this vast ditch were remaining about Lambeth Marsh in the middle of the
seventeenth century, when small lakes of water appeared here and there,
with intervals of fenny ground between. The bridge was built on piles,
and these masses of timber, driven into the bed of the stream, must
have lasted until the destruction of the bridge itself. On the outside
of the timber foundations other piles were fixed, which rose up to
low-water-mark, and formed projections into the river, having somewhat
the character of open boats or barges. The object of the external
masses, which were called "starlings," was to break the rush of water
as it dashed towards the bridge itself; but the narrow arches and their
timber defences constituted a peril in the navigation of the river,
and were the occasion of several accidents to boatmen not thoroughly
masters of their calling. The operation of "shooting the bridge" was an
exceedingly awkward one, and many persons were afraid to undertake it.
The water formed a little cascade in these menacing straits, and the
strength and rapidity of the current would sweep away small boats, and
leave their occupants little chance of their lives.
In many ways, London Bridge was perhaps the most characteristic
structure of its kind in the world. The chapel of St. Thomas, erected
on the eastern side of the bridge, over the tenth or central pier
(which was carried a considerable distance eastward along the channel
of the river), appears to have been a very beautiful Gothic building,
reared upon a massive and graceful crypt, which could be approached
not only from the bridge, but by a flight of steps leading from the
starling of the pier. A tower, often grimly adorned with the heads
of distinguished traitors, stood near the centre of the bridge, and
the sides were covered with substantial houses, which were not taken
down until 1757-8. The tower in the middle part of the bridge was
removed towards the end of the sixteenth century, when its place was
occupied by a wooden edifice called Nonsuch House, constructed in
Holland, brought over to England in pieces, and put together with
wooden pegs, to the exclusion of all iron. It crossed the bridge on
an arch, and presented a singularly picturesque appearance, with its
timber carvings, its four square towers, its domes, its spires, and
its gilded vanes. The heads of the traitors--or of those who were
described as such--were transferred from the demolished tower to the
gate at the Southwark end, which was henceforth known as "Traitors'
Gate." Such was the singular aspect of Old London Bridge, which,
whether viewed from the river or from the roadway, must have looked
like some fantastic vision. Its history is no less full of variety
and of strange experiences. Terrific fires occurred from time to time,
by which, on some occasions, large numbers of lives were lost. Arches
and piers were carried away by high tides, or rendered frail by the
incessant action of the water, so that large structural repairs were
frequently needed. Here, in 1263, Eleanor of Provence, the queen
of Henry III., was attacked by the Londoners, when, during the De
Montfort troubles, she was endeavouring to escape to Windsor. Eleanor
was proceeding up the river in a boat, and the exasperated citizens,
assembling on the bridge, assailed her, not merely with insulting
words, but with dirt and stones, so that she was obliged to return to
the Tower. It should be observed that, although the bridge was for
the most part flanked by houses, there were open spaces every here
and there, very convenient for pelting a queen who happened to be
unpopular. By this way, Wat Tyler obtained an entrance into the City at
the head of his Kentish men. Single combats; desperate faction-fights,
attended by much slaughter; triumphal processions of conquering
kings; splendid pageantries of the great and noble; the mournful
pomp of royal funerals; the sumptuous entry of foreign princesses;
Wolsey in his grandeur, Wyatt and his insurgents, Charles II. on his
return from the Continent, when he at length succeeded to the throne;
knights, citizens, men-at-arms, priests, 'prentices, beggars, ruffians,
fugitives; the rich, the poor, the mighty, the humble, the downcast,
and the prosperous--all this wealth of human action, suffering,
despair, and hope, gives an enduring charm to the memory of Peter
of Colechurch's structure, and furnishes such a record as few other
buildings can parallel. The story of London Bridge is a romance of the
deepest interest, of the most gorgeous and the most gloomy colours. But
we touch only on its more salient points, and, passing on along the
eternal river, leave the shadow of this English _Ponte Vecchio_ behind
us like a dream.
[Illustration: BATTERSEA TO LONDON BRIDGE.]
/Edmund Ollier/.
[Illustration: IN THE POOL.]