The Town - Its Memorable Characters and Events

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Title: The Town - Its Memorable Characters and Events
Author: Hunt, Leigh, 1784-1859
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Town - Its Memorable Characters and Events" ***

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Transcriber's Note:

Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

The quote starting with "The piety and order" on page 95 should
perhaps start on the previous page with "My first recollection of
him."

On page 263, "February 1661-2" is perhaps a typo for "February 1662."

On page 131, "vill a" is probably a typo.

[Illustration: LONDON, FROM SOUTHWARK, BEFORE THE GREAT FIRE.]

THE TOWN
ITS MEMORABLE CHARACTERS AND EVENTS

BY LEIGH HUNT

_WITH FORTY-FIVE ILLUSTRATIONS_

A NEW EDITION

LONDON
SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE
1889

ADVERTISEMENT.

In this volume entitled "THE TOWN," the reader will find an account of
London, partly topographical and historical, but chiefly recalling the
memories of remarkable characters and events associated with its
streets between St. Paul's and St. James's; being that part of the
great metropolis which may be said to have constituted "THE TOWN" when
that term was commonly used to designate London.

The present edition comprises the entire contents, unabridged, with
the Illustrations.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTION.

Different Impressions of London on different Passengers and
Minds -- Extendibility of its Interest to all -- London before
the Deluge! -- Its Origin according to the fabulous Writers and
Poets -- First historical Mention of it -- Its Names --
British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman London -- General Progress of
the City and of Civilization -- Range of the Metropolis as it
existed in the Time of Shakspeare and Bacon -- Growth of the
Streets and Suburbs during the later Reigns -- "Merry London"
and "Merry England" -- Curious Assertion respecting Trees in
the City 1

CHAPTER I.

ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Roman Temple of Diana: the first Christian Church -- Old
St. Paul's -- Inigo Jones's Portico -- Strange Usages of former
Times -- Encroachments on the Fabric of the Cathedral -- Paul's
Walkers -- Dining with Duke Humphrey -- Catholic Customs -- The
Boy-Bishop The Children of the Revels -- Strange Ceremony on
the Festivals of the Commemoration and Conversion of St. Paul
-- Ancient Tombs in the Cathedral -- Scene between John of
Gaunt and the Anti-Wickliffites -- Paul's Cross -- The Folkmote
-- The Sermons -- Jane Shore -- See-Saw of Popery and
Protestantism -- London House -- The Charnel -- The Lollards'
Tower -- St. Paul's School -- Desecration of the Cathedral
during the Commonwealth -- The present Cathedral -- Sir
Christopher Wren -- Statue of Queen Anne 23

CHAPTER II.

ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Church of St. Faith -- Booksellers of the Churchyard -- Mr.
Johnson's -- Mr. Newberry's -- Children's Books -- Clerical
Names of Streets near St. Paul's -- Swift at the top of the
Cathedral -- Dr Johnson at St. Paul's -- Paternoster Row --
Panyer's Alley -- Stationers' Hall -- Almanacks --
Knight-Riders' Street -- Armed Assemblies of the Citizens --
Doctor's Commons -- The Heralds' College -- Coats of Arms --
Ludgate -- Story of Sir Stephen Forster -- Prison of Ludgate --
Wyatt's Rebellion -- The Belle Sauvage Inn -- Blackfriars --
Shakspeare's Theatre -- Accident at Blackfriars in 1623 --
Printing House Square -- The Times -- Baynard's Castle -- Story
of the Baron Fitzwalter -- Richard III. and Buckingham --
Diana's Chamber -- The Royal Wardrobe -- Marriages in the Fleet
-- Fleet Ditch -- The Dunciad 52

CHAPTER III.

FLEET STREET.

Burning of the Pope -- St. Bride's Steeple -- Milton --
Illuminated Clock -- Melancholy End of Lovelace the Cavalier --
Chatterton -- Generosity of Hardham, of Snuff Celebrity --
Theatre in Dorset Garden -- Richardson, his Habits and
Character -- Whitefriars, or Alsatia -- The Temple -- Its
Monuments, Garden, &c. -- Eminent names connected with it --
Goldsmith dies there -- Boswell's first Visit there to Johnson
-- Johnson and Madame de Boufflers -- Bernard Lintot -- Ben
Jonson's Devil Tavern -- Other Coffee-houses and Shops --
Goldsmith and Temple-bar -- Shire Lane, Bickerstaff, and the
Deputation from the Country -- The Kit-Kat Club -- Mrs. Salmon
-- Isaac Walton -- Cowley -- Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford, and
Ben Jonson -- Serjeant's Inn -- Clifford's Inn -- The Rolls --
Sir Joseph Jekyll -- Church of St. Dunstan in the West --
Dryden's House in Fetter Lane -- Johnson, the Genius Loci of
Fleet Street -- His Way of Life -- His Residence in Gough
Square, Johnson's Court, and Bolt Court -- Various Anecdotes of
him connected with Fleet Street, and with his favourite Tavern,
the Mitre 84

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRAND.

Ancient State of the Strand -- Butcher Row -- Death of Lee, the
dramatic Poet -- Johnson at an Eating-House -- Essex Street --
House and History of the favourite Earl of Essex -- Spenser's
Visit there -- Essex, General of the Parliament -- Essex Head
Club -- Devereux Court -- Grecian Coffee-House -- Twining, the
accomplished Scholar -- St. Clement Danes -- Clement's Inn --
Falstaff and Shallow -- Norfolk, Arundel, Surrey, and Howard
Streets -- Norfolk House -- Essex's Ring and the Countess of
Nottingham -- William Penn -- Birch -- Dr. Brocklesby --
Congreve, and his Will -- Voltaire's Visit to him -- Mrs.
Bracegirdle -- Tragical End of Mountford the Player -- Ancient
Cross -- Maypole -- New Church of St. Mary-le-Strand -- Old
Somerset House -- Henrietta Maria and her French Household --
Waller's Mishap at Somerset Stairs -- New Somerset House --
Royal Society, Antiquarian Society, and Royal Academy -- Death
of Dr. King -- Exeter Street -- Johnson's first Lodging in
London -- Art of living in London -- Catherine Street --
Unfortunate Women -- Wimbledon House -- Lyceum and Beef-steak
Club -- Exeter Change -- Bed and Baltimore -- The Savoy --
Anecdotes of the Duchess of Albemarle -- Beaufort Buildings --
Lillie, the Perfumer -- Aaron Hill -- Fielding -- Southampton
Street -- Cecil and Salisbury Streets -- Durham House --
Raleigh -- Pennant on the Word Place or Palace -- New Exchange
-- Don Pantaleon Sa -- The White Milliner -- Adelphi -- Garrick
and his Wife -- Beauclerc -- Society of Arts, and Mr. Barry --
Bedford Street -- George, Villiers, and Buckingham Streets --
York House and Buildings -- Squabble between the Spanish and
French Ambassadors -- Hungerford Market -- Craven Street --
Franklin -- Northumberland House -- Duplicity of Henry, Earl of
Northampton -- Violence of Lord Herbert of Cherbury -- Percy,
Bishop of Dromore -- Pleasant mistake of Goldsmith 131

CHAPTER V.

LINCOLN'S INN AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

Lincoln's Inn -- Ben Jonson's Bricklaying -- Enactments against
Beards -- Oliver Cromwell, More, Hale, and other eminent
Students of Lincoln's Inn -- Lincoln's Inn Fields, or Square --
Houses there built by Inigo Jones -- Pepys's Admiration of the
Comforts of Mr. Povey -- Surgeons' College -- Sir Richard and
Lady Fanshawe, and Lord Sandwich -- Execution of the patriotic
Lord Russell, with an Account of the Circumstances that led to
and accompanied it, and some Remarks on his Character --
Affecting Passages from the Letters of his Widow -- Ludicrous
Story connected with Newcastle House 192

CHAPTER VI.

Great Queen Street -- Former fashionable Houses there -- Lewis
and Miss Pope, the Comedians -- Martin Folkes -- Sir Godfrey
Kneller and his Vanity -- Dr. Radcliffe -- Lord Herbert of
Cherbury -- Nuisance of Whetstone Park -- The Three Dukes and
the Beadle -- Rogues and Vagabonds in the Time of Charles II --
Former Theatres in Vere Street and Portugal Street -- First
appearance of Actresses -- Infamous deception of one of them by
the Earl of Oxford -- Appearance of an avowed Impostor on the
Stage -- Anecdotes of the Wits and fine Ladies of the Time of
Charles, connected with the Theatre in this Quarter --
Kynaston, Betterton, Nokes, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Mountford, and
other Performers -- Rich -- Joe Miller -- Carey Street and Mrs.
Chapone -- Clare Market -- History, and Specimens, of Orator
Henley -- Duke Street and Little Wild Street -- Anecdotes of
Dr. Franklin's Residence in those Streets while a Journeyman
Printer 225

CHAPTER VII.

DRURY LANE, AND THE TWO THEATRES IN DRURY LANE AND COVENT
GARDEN.

Craven House -- Donne and his vision -- Lord Craven and the
Queen of Bohemia -- Nell Gwynn -- Drury Lane Theatre -- Its
antiquity, different eras, and rebuildings -- The principal
theatre of Dryden, Wycherley, Farquhar, Steele, Garrick, and
Sheridan -- Old Drury in the time of Charles II. -- A visit to
it -- Pepys and his theatrical gossip, with notes -- Hart and
Mohun -- Goodman -- Nell Gwynn -- Dramatic taste of that age --
Booth -- Artificial tragedy -- Wilks and Cibber -- Bullock and
Penkethman -- A Colonel enamoured of Cibber's wig -- Mrs.
Oldfield -- Her singular position in society -- Not the Flavia
of the Tatler -- Pope's account of her last words probably not
true -- Declamatory acting -- Lively account of Garrick and
Quin by Mr. Cumberland -- Improvement of stage costume -- King
-- Mrs. Pritchard -- Mrs. Clive -- Mrs. Woffington -- Covent
Garden -- Barry -- Contradictory characters of him by Davies
and Churchill -- Macklin -- Woodward -- Pantomime -- English
taste in music -- Cooke -- Rise of actors and actresses in
social rank -- Improvement of the audience -- Dr. Johnston at
the theatre -- Churchill a great pit critic -- His Rosciad --
His picture of Mossop -- Mrs. Jordan and Mr. Suett -- Early
recollections of a play-goer 257

CHAPTER VIII.

COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE.

Bow Street once the Bond Street of London -- Fashions at that
time -- Infamous frolic of Sir Charles Sedley and others --
Wycherly and the Countess of Drogheda -- Tonson the Bookseller
-- Fielding -- Russell Street -- Dryden beaten by hired
ruffians in Rose Street -- His Presidency at Will's
Coffee-House -- Character of that Place -- Addison and Button's
Coffee-House -- Pope, Philips, and Garth -- Armstrong --
Boswell's introduction to Johnson -- The Hummums -- Ghost Story
there -- Covent Garden -- The Church -- Car, Earl of Somerset
-- Butler, Southern, Eastcourt, Sir Robert Strange -- Macklin
-- Curious Dialogue with him when past a century -- Dr. Walcot
-- Covent Garden Market -- Story of Lord Sandwich, Hackman, and
Miss Ray -- Henrietta Street -- Mrs. Clive -- James Street --
Partridge, the almanack-maker -- Mysterious lady -- King Street
-- Arne and his Father -- The four Indian Kings -- Southampton
Row -- Maiden Lane -- Voltaire -- Long Acre and its Mug-Houses
-- Prior's resort there -- Newport Street -- St. Martin's Lane,
and Leicester Square -- Sir Joshua Reynolds -- Hogarth -- Sir
Isaac Newton 306

CHAPTER IX.

CHARING CROSS AND WHITEHALL.

Old Charing Cross, and New St. Martin's Church -- Statue of
Charles I. -- Execution of Regicides -- Ben Jonson --
Wallingford House, now the Admiralty -- Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham; Sir Walter Scott's Account of him --
Misrepresentation of Pope respecting his Death -- Charles's
Horse a Satirist -- Locket's Ordinary -- Sir George Etherege --
Prior and his Uncle's Tavern -- Thomson -- Spring Gardens --
Mrs. Centlivre -- Dorset Place, and Whitcombe Street, &c.,
formerly Hedge Lane -- The Wits and the Bailiffs -- Suffolk
Street -- Swift and Miss Vanhomrigh -- Calves' Head Club, and
the Riot it occasioned -- Scotland Yard -- Pleasant
Advertisement -- Beau Fielding, and his Eccentricities --
Vanbrugh -- Desperate Adventure of Lord Herbert of Cherbury 355

CHAPTER X.

WOLSEY AND WHITEHALL.

Regal Character of Whitehall -- York Place -- Personal and
Moral Character of Wolsey -- Comparison of him with his Master,
Henry -- His Pomp and Popularity -- Humorous Account of his
Flatterers by Sir Thomas More -- Importance of his Hat --
Cavendish's Account of his household State, his goings forth in
Public, and his entertainments of the King 382

CHAPTER XI.

Henry the Eighth -- His Person and Character -- Modern
Qualifications of it considered -- Passages respecting him from
Lingard, Sir Thomas Wyatt, and others -- His additions to
Whitehall -- A Retrospect at Elizabeth -- Court of James
resumed -- Its gross Habits -- Letter of Sir John Harrington
respecting them -- James's Drunkenness -- Testimonies of
Welldon, Sully, and Roger Coke -- Curious Omission in the
Invective of Churchill the Poet -- Welldon's Portrait of James
-- Buckingham, the Favourite -- Frightful Story of Somerset --
Masques -- Banqueting House -- Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson --
Court of Charles the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second --
James the Second 395

CHAPTER XII.

St. James's Park and its Associations -- Unhealthiness of the
Place and Neighbourhood -- Leper Hospital of St. James -- Henry
the Eighth builds St. James's Palace and the Tilt-Yard --
Original State and Progressive Character of the Park -- Charles
the First -- Cromwell -- Charles the Second; his Walks,
Amusements, and Mistresses -- The Mulberry Gardens -- Swift,
Prior, Richardson, Beau Tibbs, Soldiers, and Syllabubs --
Character of the Park at present -- St. James's Palace during
the Reigns of the Stuarts and two first Georges -- Anecdotes of
Lord Craven and Prince George of Denmark -- Characters of Queen
Anne and of George the First and Second -- George the First and
his Carp -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the Sack of Wheat --
Horace Walpole's Portrait of George the First -- The Mistresses
of that King and of his Son -- Mistake of Lord Chesterfield --
Queen Caroline's Ladies in Waiting -- Miss Bellenden and the
Guineas -- George the Second's Rupture with his Father and with
his Son -- Character of that Son -- Buckingham House --
Sheffield and his Duchess -- Character of Queen Charlotte --
Advantages of Queen Victoria over her Predecessors 431

ILLUSTRATIONS.

ENGRAVED BY C. THURSTON THOMPSON, FROM DRAWINGS BY J. W. ARCHER AND C.
T. THOMPSON.

PAGE

London from Southwark, before the Great Fire. From a
Print by Hollar (_Frontispiece_)

West Front of Old St. Paul's, with Inigo Jones's Portico 26

"Paul's Cross and Preaching there" 51

Ludgate 69

Baynard's Castle, from the River, 1640 78

Stone in Panyer Alley, marking the highest Ground in the City 83

Interior of the Round Part of the Temple Church, previous
to the recent Restorations 101

House in Bolt Court, Fleet Street, the last Residence of
Dr. Johnson, 1810 125

Old Somerset House, from the River 167

The Savoy Palace, from the River 172

Inigo Jones's Water Gate, York Stairs 183

Old Northumberland House, from the River. Temp. Charles I. 186

Exeter Change as it appeared just before it was pulled down 192

Newcastle House, N. W. corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1796 222

Old Palace of Whitehall, from the River. Temp. Charles I.,
from a Print of the Period 225

Old Houses in Great Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields,
1817 226

The Theatre in Portugal Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, 1810 236

Printing Press at which Franklin worked 256

Craven House, Drury Lane, 1800 258

Entrance Front of Old Drury Lane Theatre in Brydges
Street, erected by Garrick 266

Entrance to old Covent Garden Theatre, 1794 305

Inigo Jones's Church and Covent Garden. Temp. James II.
From a Print of the Period 325

House in St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square, formerly the
Residence of Sir Isaac Newton, 1810 354

The Village of Charing. From Aggas's Map, 1578 356

Scotland Yard, as it appeared in 1750. From a Print after
Paul Sandby 374

Old Gate of Whitehall Palace, designed by Holbein. From
a Print by Hollar 401

The Banqueting House, Whitehall 419

St. James's Palace, 1650, from a Print by Hollar 435

The Initial Letters and Tail-pieces designed by J. W. ARCHER
and C. T. THOMPSON. (The Initial Letter to Chapter XII.
represents the Conduit at St. James's.)

THE TOWN.

INTRODUCTION.

Different impressions of London on different passengers and
minds -- Extendibility of its interest to all -- London before
the Deluge! -- Its origin according to the fabulous writers and
poets -- First historical mention of it -- Its names --
British, Roman, Saxon, and Norman London -- General progress of
the city and of civilisation -- Range of the Metropolis as it
existed in the time of Shakspeare and Bacon -- Growth of the
streets and suburbs during the later reigns -- "Merry London"
and "Merry England" -- Curious assertion respecting trees in
the city.

In one of those children's books which contain reading fit for the
manliest, and which we have known to interest very grave and even
great men, there is a pleasant chapter entitled _Eyes and no Eyes, or
the Art of Seeing_.[1] The two heroes of it come home successively
from a walk in the same road, one of them having seen only a heath and
a hill, and the meadows by the water-side, and therefore having seen
nothing; the other expatiating on his delightful ramble, because the
heath presented him with curious birds, and the hill with the remains
of a camp, and the meadows with reeds, and rats, and herons, and
kingfishers, and sea-shells, and a man catching eels, and a glorious
sunset.

In like manner people may walk through a crowded city, and see nothing
but the crowd. A man may go from Bond Street to Blackwall, and unless
he has the luck to witness an accident, or get a knock from a porter's
burden, may be conscious, when he has returned, of nothing but the
names of those two places, and of the mud through which he has
passed. Nor is this to be attributed to dullness. He may, indeed, be
dull. The eyes of his understanding may be like bad spectacles, which
no brightening would enable to see much. But he may be only
inattentive. Circumstances may have induced a want of curiosity, to
which imagination itself shall contribute, if it has not been taught
to use its eyes. This is particularly observable in childhood, when
the love of novelty is strongest. A boy at the Charter House, or
Christ Hospital, probably cares nothing for his neighbourhood, though
stocked with a great deal that might entertain him. He has been too
much accustomed to identify it with his schoolroom. We remember the
time ourselves when the only thought we had in going through the
metropolis was how to get out of it; how to arrive, with our best
speed, at the beautiful vista of home and a pudding, which awaited us
in the distance. And long after this we saw nothing in London, but the
book-shops which have taught us better.

"I have often," says Boswell, with the inspiration of his great
London-loving friend upon him, "amused myself with thinking how
different a place London is to different people. They whose
narrow minds are contracted to the consideration of some one
particular pursuit, view it only through that medium. A
politician thinks of it merely as the seat of government in its
different departments; a grazier as a vast market for cattle; a
mercantile man as a place where a prodigious deal of business
is done upon 'Change; a dramatic enthusiast as the grand scene
of theatrical entertainments; a man of pleasure as an
assemblage of taverns, &c. &c.; but the intellectual man is
struck with it as comprehending the whole of human life in all
its variety, the contemplation of which is inexhaustible."

It does not follow that the other persons whom Boswell speaks of are
not, by nature, intelligent. The want of curiosity, in some, may be
owing even to their affections and anxiety. They may think themselves
bound to be occupied solely in what they are about. They have not been
taught how to invigorate as well as to divert the mind, by taking a
reasonable interest in the varieties of this astonishing world, of
which the most artificial portions are still works of nature as well
as art, and evidences of the hand of Him that made the soul and its
endeavours. Boswell himself, with all his friend's assistance, and
that of the tavern to boot, probably saw nothing in London of the
times gone by--of all that rich aggregate of the past, which is one of
the great treasures of knowledge; and yet, by the same principle on
which Boswell admired Dr. Johnson, he might have delighted in calling
to mind the metropolis of the wits of Queen Anne's time, and of the
poets of Elizabeth; might have longed to sit over their canary in
Cornhill with Beaumont and Ben Jonson, and have thought that Surrey
Street and Shire Lane had their merits, as well as the illustrious
obscurity of Bolt Court. In Surrey Street lived Congreve; and Shire
Lane, though nobody would think so to see it now, is eminent for the
origin of the Kit-Kat Club (a host of wits and statesmen,) and for the
recreations of Isaac Bickerstaff, Esq., of Tatler celebrity, at his
_contubernium_, the Trumpet.

It may be said that the past is not in our possession; that we are
sure only of what we can realise, and that the present and future
afford enough contemplation for any man. But those who argue thus,
argue against their better instinct. We take an interest in all that
we understand; and in proportion as we enlarge our knowledge, enlarge,
_ad infinitum_, the sphere of our sympathies. Tell the grazier, whom
Boswell mentions, of a great grazier who lived before him--of
Bakewell, who had an animal that produced him in one season the sum of
eight hundred guineas; or Fowler, whose horned cattle sold for a value
equal to that of the fee-simple of his farm; or Elwes, the miser, who,
after spending thousands at the gaming table, would haggle for a
shilling at Smithfield; and he will be curious to hear as much as you
have to relate. Tell the mercantile man, in like manner, of Gresham,
or Crisp, or the foundation of the Charter House by a merchant, and he
will be equally attentive. And tell the man, _par excellence_, of
anything that concerns humanity, and he will be pleased to hear of
Bakewell, or Crisp, or Boswell, or Boswell's ancestor. Bakewell
himself was a man of this sort. Boswell was proud of his ancestors,
like most men that know who they were, whether their ancestors were
persons to be proud of or not. The mere length of line flatters the
brevity of existence. We must take care how we are proud of those who
may not be fit to render us so; but we may be allowed to be anxious to
live as long as we can, whether in prospect or retrospect. Besides,
the human mind, being a thing infinitely greater than the
circumstances which confine and cabin it in its present mode of
existence, seeks to extend itself on all sides, past, present, and to
come. If it puts on wings angelical, and pitches itself into the grand
obscurity of the future, it runs back also on the more visible line of
the past. Even the present, which is the great business of life, is
chiefly great, inasmuch as it regards the interests of the many who
are to come, and is built up of the experiences of those who have gone
by. The past is the heir-loom of the world.

Now in no shape is any part of this treasure more visible to us, or
more striking, than in that of a great metropolis. The present is
nowhere so present: we see the latest marks of its hand. The past is
nowhere so traceable: we discover, step by step, the successive abodes
of its generations. The links that are wanting are supplied by
history; nor perhaps is there a single spot in London in which the
past is not visibly present to us, either in the shape of some old
buildings or at least in the names of the streets; or in which the
absence of more tangible memorials may not be supplied by the
antiquary. In some parts of it we may go back through the whole
English history, perhaps through the history of man, as we shall see
presently when we speak of St. Paul's Churchyard, a place in which you
may get the last new novel, and find remains of the ancient Britons
and of the sea. There, also in the cathedral, lie painters, patriots,
humanists, the greatest warriors and some of the best men; and there,
in St. Paul's School, was educated England's epic poet, who hoped that
his native country would never forget her privilege of "teaching the
nations how to live." Surely a man is more of a man, and does more
justice to the faculties of which he is composed, whether for
knowledge or entertainment, who thinks of all these things in crossing
St. Paul's Churchyard, than if he saw nothing but the church itself,
or the clock, or confined his admiration to the abundance of Brentford
stages.

Milton, who began a history of England, very properly touches upon the
fabulous part of it; not, as Dr. Johnson thought (who did not take the
trouble of reading the second page), because he confounded it with the
true, but, as he himself states, for the benefit of those who would
know how to make use of it--the poets. In the same passage he alludes
to those traces of a deluge of which we have just spoken, and to the
enormous bones occasionally dug up, which, with the natural
inclination of a poet, he was willing to look upon as relics of a
gigantic race of men. Both of these evidences of a remote period have
been discovered in London earth, and might be turned to grand account
by a writer like himself. It is curious to see the grounds on which
truth and fiction so often meet, without knowing one another. The
Oriental writers have an account of a race of pre-Adamite kings, not
entirely human. It is supposed by some geologists, that there was a
period before the creation of man, when creatures vaster than any now
on dry land trampled the earth at will; perhaps had faculties no
longer to be found in connection with brute forms, and effaced,
together with themselves, for a nobler experiment. We may indulge our
fancy with supposing that, in those times, light itself, and the
revolution of the seasons, may not have been exactly what they are
now; that some unknown monster, mammoth or behemoth, howled in the
twilight over the ocean solitude now called London; or (not to fancy
him monstrous in nature as in form, for the hugest creatures of the
geologist appear to have been mild and graminivorous), that the site
of our metropolis was occupied with the gigantic herd of some more
gigantic spirit, all good of their kind, but not capable of enough
ultimate good to be permitted to last. However, we only glance at
these speculative matters, and leave them. Neither shall we say
anything of the more modern elephant, who may have recreated himself
some thousands of years ago on the site of the Chapter Coffee House;
or of the crocodile, who may have snapped at some remote ancestor of a
fishmonger in the valley of Dowgate.

By the fabulous writers, London was called Troynovant or New Troy, and
was said to have been founded by Brutus, great-grandson of Æneas, from
whom the country was called Brutain, or Britain.

For noble Britons sprong from Trojans bold,
And Troynovant was built of old Troye's ashes cold.

(This is one of Spenser's fine old lingering lines, in which he seems
to dwell on a fable till he believes it.) Brutus, having the
misfortune to kill his father, fled from his native country into
Greece, where he set free a multitude of Trojans, captives to King
Pandrasus, whose daughter he espoused. He left Greece with a numerous
flotilla, and came to an island called Legrecia, where there was a
temple of Diana. To Diana he offered sacrifice, and prayed her to
direct his course. The prayer, and the goddess's reply, as told in
Latin by Gildas, have received a lustre from the hand of Milton. He
gives us the following translation of them in his historical
fragment:--

"Diva potens nemorum:"

"Goddess of Shades, and Huntress, who at will
Walk'st on the rolling sphere, and through the deep,
On thy third reign, the earth, look now; and tell
What land, what seat of rest, thou bidst me seek;
What certain seat, where I may worship thee,
For aye, with temples vowed, and virgin quires."

"To whom, sleeping before the altar," says the poet, "Diana in a
vision that night, thus answered:--

"Brute, sub occasum solis:"

"Brutus, far to the west, in th' ocean wide,
Beyond the realm of Gaul, a land there lies,
Sea-girt it lies, where giants dwelt of old:
Now void, it fits thy people. Thither bend
Thy course: there shalt thou find a lasting seat;
There to thy sons another Troy shall rise,
And kings be born of thee, whose dreaded reign
Shall awe the world, and conquer nations bold."[2]

According to Spenser, Brutus did not find England cleared of the
giants. He had to conquer them. But we shall speak of those personages
when we come before their illustrious representatives in Guildhall.

This fiction of Troynovant, or new Troy, appears to have arisen from
the word Trinobantes in Cæsar, a name given by the historian to the
inhabitants of a district which included the London banks of the
Thames. The oldest mention of the metropolis is supposed to be found
in that writer, under the appellation of _Civitas Trinobantum_, the
city of the Trinobantes; though some are of opinion that by _civitas_
he only meant their government or community. Be this as it may, a city
of the Britons, in Cæsar's time, was nothing either for truth or
fiction to boast of, having been, as he describes it, a mere spot
hollowed out of the woods, and defended by a ditch and a rampart.

We have no reason to believe that the first germ of London was
anything greater than this. Milton supposes that so many traditions of
old British kings could not have been handed down without a foundation
in truth; and the classical origin of London, though rejected by
himself, was not only firmly believed by people in general as late as
the reign of Henry the Sixth (to whom it was quoted in a public
document), but was maintained by professed antiquaries,--Leland among
them.[3] It is probable enough that, before Cæsar's time, the affairs
of the country may have been in a better situation than he found them;
and it is possible that something may have once stood on the site of
London, which stood there no longer. But this may be said of every
other place on the globe; and as there is nothing authentic to show
for it, we must be content to take our ancestors as we find them. In
truth, nothing is known with certainty of the origin of London, not
even of its name. The first time we hear either of the city or its
appellation is in Tacitus, who calls it Londinium. The following list,
taken principally from Camden, comprises, we believe, all the names by
which it has been called. We dwell somewhat on this point, because we
conclude the reader will be pleased to see by how many _aliases_ his
old acquaintance has been known.

Troja Nova, Troynovant, or New Troy.

Tre-novant, or the New City, (a mixture of Latin and Cornish).

Dian Belin, or the City of Diana.

Caer Ludd, or the City of Ludd.--These are the names given by the
fabulous writers, chiefly Welsh.

Londinium.--_Tacitus, Ptolemy, Antoninus._

Lundiniuin.--_Ammianus Marcellinus._

Longidinium.

Lindonium, (Λιδονόνιον).--_Stephanus_ in his Dictionary.

Lundonia.--_Bede._

Augusta.--The complimentary title granted to it under Valentinian, as
was customary with flourishing foreign establishments.

Lundenbyrig.

Lundenberig.

Lundenberk.

Lundenburg.

Lundenwic, or wyc.

Lundenceastre (that is, London-_castrum_ or camp).

Lundunes.

Lundene, or Lundenne.

Lundone.--Saxon names. Lundenceastre is Alfred the Great's translation
of the Lundonia of Bede.

Luddestun.

Ludstoune.--Saxon translations of the Caer Ludd of the Welsh.

Londres.--French.

Londra.--Italian. The letter _r_ in these words is curious. It seems
to represent the _berig_ or _burgh_ of the Saxons; _quasi_ Londrig,
from Londonberig; in which case _Londres_ would mean London-borough.

The disputes upon the derivation of the word London have been
numerous. In the present day, the question seems to be, whether it
originated in Celtic British, that is, in Welsh, and signified "a city
on a lake," or in Belgic British (old German), and meant "a city in a
grove." The latest author who has handled the subject inclines to the
latter opinion.[4] Mr. Pennant being a Celt, was for the "city on a
lake," the Thames in the early periods of British history having
formed a considerable expanse of water near the site of the present
metropolis. _Llyn-Din_ is Lake-City, and _Lun-Den_ Grove-City.
Erasmus, on the strength of those affinities between Greek and Welsh,
which can be found between most languages, fetched the word from
_Lindus_, a city of Rhodes; Somner, the antiquary, derived it from
_Llawn_, full, and _Dyn_, man, implying a great concourse of people;
another antiquary, from _Lugdus_, a Celtic prince; Maitland from
_Lon_, a plain, and _Dun_ or _Don_, a hill; another, we know not who,
referred to by the same author, from a word signifying a ship and a
hill[5]; Camden from _Llong-Dinas_, a City of Ships; and Selden,
"seeing conjecture is free,"[6] was for deriving it from _Llan-Dien_,
or the temple of Diana, for reasons which will appear presently.
Pennant thinks that London might have been called Lake-City first, and
Ship-City afterwards. The opinion of the editor of the _Picture of
London_ seems most plausible--that Lun-Den, or Grove-City was the
name, because it is compounded of Belgic British, which, according to
Cæsar, must have been the language of the district; and he adds, that
the name is still common in Scandinavia.[7] It may be argued, that
London might have existed as a fortress on a lake before the arrival
of settlers from Belgium; and that Grove-City could not have been so
distinguishing a characteristic of the place as Lake-City, because
wood was a great deal more abundant than water. On the other hand, all
the rivers at that time were probably more or less given to
overflowing. Grove-City might have been the final name, though
Lake-City was the first; and the propensity to name places from trees,
is still evident in our numerous Woot-tons, or Wood-towns, Wood-fords,
Woodlands, &c. But of all disputes, those upon etymology appear the
most hopeless. Perhaps the word itself was not originally what we take
it to be. Who would suspect the word _wig_ to come from _peruke_;
_jour_ from _dies_; _uncle_ from _avus_; or that _Kensington_ should
have been corrupted by the despairing organs of a foreigner, into
_Inhimthorp_?[8]

Whether London commenced with a spot cleared out in the woods by
settlers from Holland, (Gallic Belgium,) as conjecture might imply
from Cæsar, or whether the germ of it arose with the aboriginal
inhabitants, we may conclude safely enough with Pennant, that it
existed in some shape or other in Cæsar's time.

"It stood," says he, "in such a situation as the Britains would
select, according to the rule they established. An immense
forest originally extended to the river side, and even as late
as the reign of Henry II. covered the northern neighbourhood of
the city, and was filled with various species of beasts of
chase. It was defended naturally by fosses, one formed by the
creek which ran along Fleet Ditch; the other, afterwards known
by that of Walbrook. The south side was guarded by the Thames;
the north they might think sufficiently protected by the
adjacent forest."[9]

In this place, then, seated on their hill, (probably that on which St.
Paul's Cathedral stands, as it is the highest in London,) and
gradually exchanging their burrows in the ground for huts of wicker
and clay, we are to picture to ourselves our metropolitan ancestors,
half-naked, rude in their manners, ignorant, violent, vindictive,
subject to all the half-reasoning impulses--their bodies tattooed like
South Sea Islanders--but brave, hospitable, patriotic, anxious for
esteem--in short, like other semi-barbarians, exhibiting energies
which they did not yet know how turn to account, but possessing, like
all human beings, the germs of the noblest capabilities. The accounts
given of them by Cæsar and other ancient writers appear to be
inconsistent, perhaps because we do not enough consider the
inconsistencies of our own manners. According to their statements, the
Britons had found out the art of making chariots of war, and yet had
not learnt how to convert grain into flour, or to make a solid
substance of milk. They rode, as it were, in their coaches, and yet
had not arrived at the dignity of bread and cheese. Probably their
chariots were magnified both in number and construction. The scythes
which modern fancy has turned into proper haymaking sabres, and which
some antiquaries have found so convenient for cutting through "a woody
country" (a strange way of keeping them sharp), may have been nothing
but spikes. We know not so easily what to say to the bread and cheese,
except that in more knowing times people are not always found very
ready to improve upon old habits, even with reasons staring them in
the face; though, on the other hand, lest habits should be thought
older than they are, and reformers be too impatient, it is worth while
to consider, not how _long_, but how _short_, a period has elapsed
(considering what a little thing a few centuries are in the progress
of time) since in the very spot where a Briton sat half-naked and
savage, unpossessed of a loaf or a piece of cheese, are to be found
gathered together all the luxuries of the globe. Fancy the soul of an
ancient Briton visiting his old ground in St. Paul's Churchyard, and
hardly staring more at the church and houses, than at the bread in the
baker's window, and the magic leaves in that of the bookseller. In one
respect, an ancient City-Briton differed _toto coelo_ with a modern.
He would not eat goose! He had a superstition against it.

London, in Cæsar's time, was most probably a City of Ships; that is to
say it traded with Gaul, and had a number of boats on its marshy
river. Cæsar's pretence for invading England, was, that it was too
good a provider for Gaul, and rendered his conquest of that country
difficult. But it is doubtful whether he ever beheld or even alludes
to the infant metropolis. His countrymen are supposed to have first
taken possession of it about a hundred years afterwards, in the reign
of Claudius. They had heard of a pearl-fishery, says Gibbon. At all
events they found oysters; for Sandwich (Rutupium) became famous with
them for that luxury.

It is not our design, in this Introduction, to give anything more
than a sketch of the rise and growth of the metropolis; we shall leave
the rest to be gathered as we proceed. Our intention is to go through
London, quarter by quarter, and to notice the memorials as they arise;
a plan, which, compared with others (at least if we are to judge of
the effect which it has had on ourselves), seems to possess something
of the superiority of sight over hearsay. When we read of events in
their ordinary train, we pitch ourselves with difficulty into the
scenes of action--sometimes wholly omit to do so; and there is a want
of life and presence in them accordingly. When we are placed in the
scenes themselves, and told to look about us--such and such a thing
having happened in _that_ house--_this_ street being one in which
another famous adventure took place, and _that_ old mansion having
been the dwelling of wit or beauty, we find ourselves comparatively at
home, and enjoy the probability and the spectacle twice as much. We
feel (especially if we are personally conversant with the spot) as if
Shakspeare and Milton, Pope, Gay, and Arbuthnot, the club at the
Mermaid, and the beauties at the court of White-Hall, were our
next-door neighbours.

We shall take the reader, then, as speedily as possible among the
quarters alluded to, and trouble him very little beforehand with dry
abstracts and chronologies, or with races of men almost as
uninteresting. The most patriotic reader of our history feels that he
cares very little for his ancestors the Britons; of whom almost all he
knows is, that they painted their skins, and made war in chariots. Nor
do the Romans in England interest us more. They are men in helmets and
short skirts, who have left us no memorial but a road or two, and an
iron name. That is all that we know of them, and we care accordingly.
Perhaps the Saxons, after having destroyed the Roman architecture as
much as possible, and repented of it, took their own from what had
survived. The greatest relic of Cæsar's countrymen in the metropolis
was the piece of wall which ran lately south of Moorfields, in a
street still designated as London Wall. The Romans had a vast material
genius, not so intellectual as that of the Greeks, nor so calculated
to move the world ultimately, but highly fitted to prepare the way for
better impressions, by showing what the hand could perform; and as
they built their wall in their usual giant style of solidity, it
remained a long while to testify their magnificence. Small relics of
it are yet to be seen in Little Bridge Street, behind Ludgate Hill; on
the north of Bull-and-Mouth Street, between that street and St.
Botolph's Churchyard; and on the south side of the Churchyard of
Cripplegate. There was another in the garden of Stationer's Hall, but
it has been blocked up.

ANCIENT BRITISH LONDON was a mere space in the woods, open towards the
river, and presenting circular cottages on the hill and slope, and a
few boats on the water. As it increased, the cottages grew more
numerous, and commerce increased the number of sails.

ROMAN LONDON was British London, interspersed with the better
dwellings of the conquerors, and surrounded by a wall. It extended
from Ludgate to the Tower, and from the river to the back of
Cheapside.

SAXON LONDON was Roman London, despoiled, but retaining the wall, and
ultimately growing civilized with Christianity, and richer in
commerce. The first humble cathedral church then arose, where the
present one now stands.

NORMAN LONDON was Saxon and Roman London, greatly improved, thickened
with many houses, adorned with palaces of princes and princely
bishops, sounding with minstrelsy, and glittering with the gorgeous
pastimes of knighthood. This was its state through the Anglo-Norman
and Plantagenet reigns. The friar then walked the streets in his cowl
(Chaucer is said to have beaten one in Fleet Street), and the knights
rode with trumpets in gaudy colours to their tournaments in
Smithfield.

In the time of Edward the First, houses were still built of wood, and
roofed with straw, sometimes even with reeds, which gave rise to
numerous fires. The fires brought the brooks in request; and an
importance which has since been swallowed up in the advancement of
science, was then given to the _River of Wells_ (Bagnigge, Sadler's,
and Clerkenwell), to the _Old Bourne_ (the origin of the name of
Holborn,) to the little river Fleet, the Wall-brook, and the brook
Langbourne, which last still gives its name to a ward. The conduits,
which were large leaden cisterns, twenty in number, were under the
special care of the lord mayor and aldermen, who, after visiting them
on horseback on the eighteenth of September, "hunted a hare before
dinner, and a fox _after_ it, in the _Fields near St. Giles's._"[10]
Hours, and after-dinner pursuits, must have altered marvellously since
those days, and the _body_ of aldermen with them.

It was not till the reign of Henry the Fifth, that the city was
_lighted at night_. The illumination was with lanterns, slung over the
street with wisps of rope or hay. Under Edward the Fourth we first
hear of _brick houses_; and in Henry the Eighth's time of _pavement in
the middle of the streets_. The general aspect of London then
experienced a remarkable change, in consequence of the dissolution of
religious houses; the city, from the great number of them, having
hitherto had the appearance "of a monastic, rather than a commercial
metropolis."[11] The monk then ceased to walk, and the gallant London
apprentice became more riotous. London, however, was still in a
wretched condition, compared with what it is now. The streets, which
had been impassable from mud, were often rendered so with filth and
offal; and its homeliest wants being neglected, and the houses almost
meeting at top, with heavy signs lumbering and filling up the inferior
spaces, the metropolis was subject to _plagues_ as well as fires. Nor
was the interior of the houses better regarded. The people seemed to
cultivate the plague. "The floors," says Erasmus, "are commonly of
clay, strewed with rushes, which are occasionally renewed; but
underneath lies unmolested an ancient collection of beer, grease,
fragments of fish, &c., &c., and everything that is nasty."[12] The
modern Englishman piques himself on his cleanliness, but he should do
it modestly, considering what his ancestors could do; and he should do
it not half so much as he does, considering what he still leaves
undone. It is the disgrace of the city of London in particular, that
it still continues to be uncleanly, except in externals, and even to
resist the efforts of the benevolent to purify it. But time and
circumstance ultimately force people to improve. It was plague and
fire that first taught the Londoners to build their city better. We
hope the authorities will reflect upon this; and not wait for cholera
to complete the lesson.

Erasmus wrote in the time of Henry the Eighth, when the civil wars had
terminated in a voluptuous security, and when the pride of the court
and nobility was at its height. Knighthood was becoming rather a show
than a substance; and the changes in religion, the dissolution of the
monasteries, and above all, the permission to read the Bible, set men
thinking, and identified history in future with the progress of the
general mind. Opinion, accidentally set free by a tyrant, was never to
be put down, though tyranny tried never so hard. Poetry revived in the
person of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey; and, by a maturity natural to
the first unsophisticated efforts of imagination, it came to its
height in the next age with Shakspeare. The monasteries being
dissolved, London was become entirely the commercial city it has
remained ever since, though it still abounded with noblemen's
mansions, and did so till a much later period. There were some in the
time of Charles the Second. The manners of the citizens under Henry
the Eighth were still rude and riotous, but cheerful; and manly
exercises were much cultivated. Henry was so pleased with one of the
city archers, that he mock-heroically created him Duke of Shoreditch;
upon which there arose a whole suburb peerage of Marquisses of Hogsdon
and Islington, Pancras, &c.

In Elizabeth's time the London houses were still mostly of wood. We
see remains of them in the Strand and Fleet Street, and in various
parts of the city. They are like houses built of cards, one story
projecting over the other; but unless there is something in the art of
building, which may in future dispense with solidity, the modern
houses will hardly be as lasting. People in the old ones could at
least dance and make merry. Builders in former times did not spare
their materials, nor introduce clauses in their leases against a jig.
We fancy Elizabeth hearing of a builder who should introduce such a
proviso against the health and merriment of her buxom subjects, and
sending to him, with a good round oath, to take a little less care of
his purse, and more of his own neck.

In this age, ever worthy of honour and gratitude, the illustrious
Bacon set free the hands of knowledge, which Aristotle had chained up,
and put into them the touchstone of experiment, the mighty mover of
the ages to come. This was the great age, also, of English poetry and
the drama. Former manners and opinions now began to be seen only on
the stage; intellect silently gave a man a rank in society he never
enjoyed before; and nobles and men of letters mixed together in clubs.
People now also began to speculate on government, as well as religion;
and the first evidences of that unsatisfied argumentative spirit
appeared, which produced the downfall of the succeeding dynasty, and
ultimately the Revolution, and all that we now enjoy.

The governments of Elizabeth and James, fearing that the greater the
concourse the worse would be the consequences of sickness, and
secretly apprehensive, no doubt, of the growth of large and
intellectual bodies of men near their head-quarters, did all in their
power to confine the metropolis to its then limits, but in vain.
Despotism itself, even in its mildest shape, cannot prevail against
the spirit of an age; and Bacon was at that minute foreseeing the
knowledge that was to quicken, increase, and elevate human
intercourse, by means of the growth of commerce. Houses and streets
grew then as they do now, not so quickly indeed, but equally to the
astonishment of their inhabitants; and the latter had reason to
congratulate themselves on a pavement to walk upon; a luxury for which
a lively Parisian, not half a century ago, is said to have gone down
on his knees, when he came into England, thanking God that there was a
country "in which some regard was shown to foot passengers." In
Charles the First's reign the suburbs of Westminster and Spitalfields
were greatly enlarged, and the foundation of Covent Garden was
commenced, as it now stands. Symptoms of a future neighbourhood
appeared also in Leicester Fields, though the place continued to be
what the name imports, as late as the beginning of the last century.
The progress of building received a check from the Civil Wars, but
only to revive with new spirit; and the great Fire--which was a great
blessing--swallowed up at once both the deformity and the disease of
old times, by widening the streets, and putting an end to the
liability to pestilence. London has not had a "_plague_" since, unless
it be indigestion; which, however, is the great disease of modern
sedentary times, and will never be got rid of, till we grow mental
enough to have more respect for our bodies.

Towards the end of the reign of Charles the Second the metropolis
began to increase in the direction of Holborn; Hatton Garden, Brook,
and Greville Streets were built; and Ormond Street ran towards the
fields. In this and the following reigns the mansion-houses of the
nobility on the river side began to give way to the private houses and
streets, still retaining the name of the Strand. Pall Mall and St.
James's increased also; and Soho Square, on its first building,
received the name of the Duke of Monmouth. But particulars of that
nature will be better noticed in the body of our work. The nobility,
gentry, and the wits, were now mixed up together. City taverns were
still frequented by them; and city marriages began to be sought after,
to mend the fortunes of the debauched cavaliers. Elizabeth's
successor, James, was the first king who entered into anything like
domestic familiarity with the monied men of the city. Charles the
Second took "t'other bottle" with them (see the _Spectator_); and Lord
Rochester played the buffoon on Tower Hill, as a quack doctor.

The streets about St. Martin's-in-the-fields and St.
Giles's-in-the-fields, those of Clerkenwell, the neighbourhood of Old
Street and Shoreditch, Marlborough Street, Soho, &c., successively
arose in the time of Queen Anne, as well as a good portion of Holborn,
beginning from Brook Street and including the neighbourhood of Bedford
Street and Red Lion Square. St. Paul's, too, was completed as it now
stands. This, and the succeeding times of the Hanover succession, were
the times of Whig and Tory, of the principal wit-poets, of writers
upon domestic manners, and of what may be called an ambition of good
sense and reason,--"sense" being the favourite term in books, as "wit"
had been in the age of Charles. Clubs were multiplied _ad infinitum_
by the more harmless civil wars between Whig and Tory; and ale and
beer brought the middle classes together, as wine did the rich.
_Mug-house_ clubs abounded in Long Acre, Cheapside, &c.; "where
gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen used to meet in a great room, seldom
under a hundred," if we are to believe the _Journey through England_,
in the year 1724.

At the commencement of the last century the village of St.
Mary-le-bone was almost a mile distant from any part of London; the
nearest street being Old Bond Street, which scarcely extended to the
present Clifford Street. Soon after the accession of George the First,
New Bond Street arose, with others in the immediate neighbourhood, and
the houses in Berkeley Square and its vicinity. Hanover Square and
Cavendish Square were open fields in the year 1716. They were built
about the beginning of the reign of George the Second, at which time
the houses arose on the north side of Oxford Street, which then first
took the name. The neighbourhood of Cavendish Square, and Oxford
Market, Holles Street, Margaret Street, Vere Street, &c., are of the
same date; and the grounds for Harley, Wigmore, and Mortimer Streets
were laid out; the village and church of Mary-le-bone being still
separated from them all by fields. At the same period the legislature
ordered the erection of the three parishes of St. George's Bloomsbury,
St. Anne's Limehouse, and St. Paul's Deptford, London having, at that
time, extended further in the last quarter than any other, by reason
of the trade on the river.

So late, nevertheless, as this period, Fleet Ditch was a sluggish,
foul stream, open as far as Holborn Bridge, and admitting small
vessels for trade, coal barges, &c. It had become such a nuisance,
that it was now arched over, and the late Fleet Market soon appeared
on the covering. About the year 1737, the west end of the town was
improved by the addition of Grosvenor Square and its neighbourhood.

The increase of the metropolis on all sides was in proportion to the
length of the reign of George the Third. The space between
Mary-le-bone was filled in; Southwark became a mass of houses united
with Westminster; and new towns rather than suburbs, appeared in all
quarters; some with the names of towns, as Camden and Somers Town; to
which have been added, since the death of that prince, Portland Town;
a good half of Paddington, now joined with Kilburn; a world of new
streets between Paddington and Notting Hill; Notting Hill itself
including Shepherd's Bush; another new world of streets, called
Belgravia, between Knightsbridge and Pimlico; others out by Peckham
and Camberwell, including Clapham and Norwood; and others again on the
east, reaching as far as the skirts of Epping Forest! Indeed, every
village which was in the immediate and even the remote neighbourhood
of London, and was quite distinct from one another at the beginning of
the reign of George the Third, is now almost, if not quite, joined
with it, including Highgate and Hampstead themselves on the north,
Norwood on the south, Turnham Green and Parson's Green on the west,
and Laytonstone on the east. The whole of this enormous mass of houses
now presents us, more or less, in all quarters, with handsome streets,
and even with squares; and the two sides of the river are united by a
series of noble bridges. New churches also have risen in every
direction; and though the architecture is none of the best, they
contribute to a general air of neatness and freshness, which the
increase of education and politeness promises to keep up. There is an
old prophecy that Hampstead is to be in the middle of London; a
phenomenon that London would really seem inclined to bring about. But
a metropolis must stop somewhere; and the very causes of its growth
(we mean the facilities of carriage, &c.) will ultimately, perhaps
sooner than is looked for, prevent it. Railways now allow numbers to
reside at a distance, who a few years ago would have remained in
London.

Ancient British London is conjectured to have been about a mile long,
and half a mile wide. Modern London occupies an area of above eighteen
square miles; and all this space, deducting not quite two miles for
the river, is filled up with houses and public buildings, with a
population of perhaps two million of souls, and with riches from all
parts of the globe. In this respect London may justly be said to be
the "metropolis of the world;" though Paris has the advance of it in
some others.

During the reign of George the Third, the whole mind of Europe was
shaken up more vehemently than ever by the French Revolution; and, as
the consequence is after such tempestuous innovations, men began to
look about them, to see what had stood the test of it, and how they
might improve their condition still farther. After a great many
disputes, natural on all sides, and a singular proof of the
omnipotence of public opinion over the most extraordinary military
power, it may be safely asserted, that the essence of that opinion, or
the intellectual part of it is secretly acknowledged as the great
regulator of society, even by those who appear to regulate it
themselves; and who never show their sense to more advantage, than
when they lead where they must have followed. This is the most
remarkable era, perhaps, in the history of mankind; and experiment,
and promise, are of a piece with it. Everybody is now more or less
educated; the extension of the graces of life does away with
sordidness, and teaches people that men do not live by "bread alone;"
there is a reading public, let the jealousies of secluded scholarship
say what they will; the mighty hands which Bacon set free are in full
action; the Press reports and assists them, and utters a thousand
voices daily, not to be put an end to by anything short of a
convulsion of the globe. Time and space themselves are comparatively
annihilated by the inventions of the steam-carriage and the electric
telegraph. The corn-laws have gone, opening still wider the prospects
of mankind; and improvements may be looked for in society, so much to
the benefit of all classes, that the most reasonable observer will
decline stating the amount of his expectations, lest they should be
thought as extravagant, as old times would have thought the telegraph
just mentioned, or the publication of those thousands of volumes a day
called Newspapers.[13]

A word or two more on health, and our modes of living. London was once
called "Merry London," the metropolis of "Merry England." The word did
not imply exclusively what it does now. Chaucer talks of the "merry
organ at the mass." But it appears to have had a signification still
more desirable--to have meant the best condition in which anything
could be found, with cheerfulness for the result. Gallant soldiers
were "merry men." Favourable weather was "merry." And London was
"merry," because its inhabitants were not only rich, but healthy and
robust. They had sports infinite, up to the time of the
Commonwealth--races and wrestlings, archery, quoits, tennis,
foot-ball, hurling, &c. Their May-day was worthy of the burst of the
season; not a man was left behind out of the fields, if he could help
it; their apprentices piqued themselves on their stout arms, and not
on their milliners' faces; their nobility shook off the gout in tilts
and tournaments; their Christmas closed the year with a joviality
which brought the very trees in-doors to crown their cups with, and
which promised admirably for the year that was to come. In everything
they did, there was a reference to Nature and her works, as if nothing
should make them forget her; and a gallant recognition of the duties
of health and strength, as the foundation of their very right to be
fathers.

We are aware of the drawbacks that accompanied this physical wisdom;
of the comparative ignorance of the people, and the abuses they
suffered accordingly; of slaveries, and star-chambers; of plagues,
fires, and civil wars; of the burnings in Smithfield; of the
murderings of wretched old women, supposed to be witches; and of other
domestic superstitions, of which we are, perhaps, now-a-days unable to
calculate the mischief. Surely we desire to see no more of them; and
we are heartily willing that the same progress of thought which has
swept them away, should have done us _a disservice meanwhile_, which
_more thinking_ shall put an end to. Far are we from desiring to go
back. But we would hasten the time when reflection shall recover the
good for us, without bringing back the evil. And this surely it may.
This it must--for real knowledge could not make its progress without
it. The labour would not end in the reward. It has been supposed, that
the poorer orders cannot have their enjoyments again--cannot have
their old Christmas, for example, unless the rich supply them with the
means of enjoyment, and so renew their charter of dependence. But this
is to suppose that times are not changing in other respects, and that
knowledge is not spreading. Riches and poverty themselves are modified
by the progress of society; means are increased, however, to their
apparent detriment at first, among the poor; and the knowledge of
enjoyment becomes no longer confined to the rich, any more than the
enjoyment of knowledge. Men may surely learn how to stouten their
legs, as well as to improve their stockings. Now of all pleasures,
those are the cheapest which are bought of nature--such as air and
exercise, and manly sports; and though we allow that the poor, in
order to relish them, must be free from the melancholier states of
poverty, it is desirable _meanwhile_ that the dispensers of knowledge
should assist in hastening more cheerful times by preparing for them,
and that all classes should be told how much the cultivation of their
bodily health increases the ability, both of rich and poor, to get out
of their troubles. You may steep a _gipsey_ in trouble, and he shall
issue out of it laughing. It would not be easy to do this with an
epicurean, or a fund-holder, or with one of the parish poor; but
neither need any one despair; for neither can the might of mechanical
inventions, nor the greater might of opinion, be put down, whether in
their first awful issuing forth, or in their final beneficence. And he
that shall keep this oftenest in his mind, and be among the first to
prepare for their enjoyment, by administering what helps he can to the
encouragement of manly exercises among us, will assist in reviving the
good old epithets of "merry England," and "merry London," _in a sense
they never have had yet_. The progress of society has put an end to
the melancholy absurdity of inquisitions, and star-chambers, and civil
wars. The ground, therefore, is more clear for us to make England
merrier in all respects than she was before. These things, we are
aware, must result from other changes; but the changes themselves are
in the reasonable and inevitable course of events.

As a link of a very pleasing description between old times and new not
unconnected with what we have been speaking of, we shall conclude our
introduction by observing, that there is scarcely a street in the
_city_ of London, perhaps not one, nor many out of the pale of it,
from some part of which the passenger may not discern a _tree_. Most
persons to whom this has been mentioned have doubted the accuracy of
our information, nor do we profess hitherto to have ascertained it;
though since we heard the assertion, we have made a point of
endeavouring to do so whenever we could, and have not been
disappointed. The mention of the circumstance generally creates a
laughing astonishment, and a cry of "impossible!" Two persons, who
successively heard of it the other day, not only thought it incredible
as a general fact, but doubted whether half a dozen streets could be
found with a twig in them; and they triumphantly instanced
"Cheapside," as a place in which it was "out of the question." Yet in
Cheapside is an actual, visible, and even ostentatiously visible tree,
to all who have eyes to look about them. It stands at the corner of
Wood Street, and occupies the space of a house. There was a solitary
one the other day in St. Paul's Churchyard, which has now got a
multitude of young companions. A little child was shown us a few years
back, who was said never to have beheld a tree but that single one in
St. Paul's Churchyard. Whenever a tree was mentioned, she thought it
was that and no other. She had no conception even of the remote tree
in Cheapside! This appears incredible; but there would seem to be no
bounds, either to imagination or to the want of it. We were told the
other day, on good authority, of a man who had resided six-and-thirty
years in the square of St. Peter's at Rome, and then for the first
time went inside the Cathedral.

There is a little garden in _Watling Street_! It lies completely open
to the eye, being divided from the footway by a railing only.

In the body of our work will be found notices of other trees and green
spots, that surprise the observer in the thick of the noise and smoke.
Many of them are in churchyards. Others have disappeared during the
progress of building. Many courts and passages are named from trees
that once stood in them, as Vine and Elm Court, Fig-tree Court,
Green-arbour Court, &c. It is not surprising that _garden-houses_, as
they were called, should have formerly abounded in Holborn, in
Bunhill Row, and other (at that time) suburban places. We notice the
fact, in order to observe how fond the poets were of occupying houses
of this description. Milton seems to have made a point of having one.
The only London residence of Chapman which is known, was in Old Street
Road; doubtless at that time a rural suburb. Beaumont and Fletcher's
house, on the Surrey side of the Thames (for they lived as well as
wrote together), most probably had a garden: and Dryden's house in
Gerard Street looked into the garden of the mansion built by the Earls
of Leicester. A tree, or even a flower, put in a window in the streets
of a great city (and the London citizens, to their credit, are fond of
flowers,) affects the eye something in the same way as the
hand-organs, which bring unexpected music to the ear. They refresh the
common-places of life, shed a harmony through the busy discord, and
appeal to those first sources of emotion, which are associated with
the remembrance of all that is young and innocent. They seem also to
present to us a portion of the tranquillity we think we are labouring
for, and the desire of which is felt as an earnest that we shall
realise it somewhere, either in this world or in the next. Above all,
they render us more cheerful for the performance of present duties;
and the smallest seed of this kind, dropt into the heart of man, is
worth more, and may terminate in better fruits, than anybody but a
great poet could tell us.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Evenings at Home, by Dr. Aikin and Mrs. Barbauld.

[2] History of England, 4to. 1670, p. 11.

[3] We learn this from Selden's notes to the Polyolbion of Drayton.

[4] Picture of London, 1824, p. 3.

[5] These etymologies are to be found in Maitland's History and Survey
of London. Fol. 1756. Vol. i. Book i.

[6] In the notes to Drayton's Polyolbion, Song viii.

[7] There is a Lunden in Sweden, mentioned by Maitland, vol. i. _ubi
sup._ It is the capital of the province of Schonen. Another town of
the name is in Danish Holstein.

[8] "We have one word," says Dr. Pegge, "which has not a single letter
of its original, for of the French _peruke_, we got _periwig_, now
abbreviated to _wig_. _Earwig_ comes from _eruca_, as Dr. Wallis
observes, _Anonymiana_, p. 56. The French word _jour_ (day) comes from
_dies_, through _diurnus_, _diurno_, _giorno_; so _giornale_, journal.
_Uncle_ is from _avus_, through _avunculus_. For _Inhimthorpe_, and
other impossibilities, see Cosmo the Third's Travels through England,
in the reign of Charles II."

[9] Pennant's London, third edition, 4to., p. 3.

[10] Picture of London, p. 12.

[11] Picture of London, p. 14. For a larger account of this and other
matters briefly touched upon in the present introduction, see
Brayley's London and Middlesex, vol. i. The spirit of them, however,
will appear in our work, together with particulars hitherto unnoticed.

[12] Id. p. 13.

[13] Since this paragraph was written, the wonderful events have taken
place in France, which have so agitated the whole of Europe, and which
promise to open a new epoch in human history. May all benefit from
them, as we believe all may, without real injury to any one!

CHAPTER I.

ST. PAUL'S, AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Roman Temple of Diana -- The first Christian Church -- Old
St. Paul's -- Inigo Jones's Portico -- Strange Usages of Former
Times -- Encroachments on the Fabric of the Cathedral -- Paul's
Walkers -- Dining with Duke Humphrey -- Catholic Customs -- The
Boy-Bishop -- The Children of the Revels -- Strange Ceremony on
the Festivals of the Commemoration and Conversion of St. Paul
-- Ancient Tombs in the Cathedral -- Scene between John of Gaunt
and the Anti-Wickliffites -- Paul's Cross -- The Folkmote -- The
Sermons -- Jane Shore -- See-saw of Popery and Protestantism
-- London House -- The Charnel -- The Lollards' Tower -- St. Paul's
School -- Desecration of the Cathedral during the Commonwealth
-- The present Cathedral -- Sir Christopher Wren -- Statue of
Queen Anne.

As St. Paul's Churchyard is probably the oldest ground built upon in
London, we begin our perambulations in that quarter. The cross which
formerly stood north of the cathedral, and of which Stowe could not
tell the antiquity, is supposed by some to have originated in one of
those sacred stones which the Druids made use of in worship; but at
least it is more than probable that here was a burial-ground of the
ancient Britons; because when Sir Christopher Wren dug for a
foundation to his cathedral, he discovered abundance of ivory and
wooden pins, apparently of box, which are supposed to have fastened
their winding sheets. The graves of the Saxons lay above them, lined
with chalk-stones, or consisting of stones hollowed out: and in the
same row with the pins, but deeper, lay Roman horns, lamps,
lachrymatories, and all the elegancies of classic sculpture. Sir
Christoper dug till he came to sand, and sea-shells, and to the London
clay, which has since become famous in geology; so that the single
history of St. Paul's Churchyard carries us back to the remotest
periods of tradition; and we commence our book in the proper style of
the old Chroniclers, who were not content, unless they began with the
history of the world.

The Romans were thought to have built a Temple to Diana on the site of
the modern cathedral, by reason of a number of relics of horned
animals reported to have been dug up there. Sir Christopher Wren
asserts that there was no ground for the supposition. There was a
similar story of a temple of Apollo at Westminster, built on the site
of the present abbey, and said to have been destroyed by an
earthquake. "Earthquakes," observed Sir Christopher, "break not stones
to pieces; nor would the Picts be at that pains; but I imagine that
the monks, finding the Londoners pretending to a Temple of Diana,
where now St. Paul's stands (horns of stags and tusks of boars having
been dug up in former times, and it is said also in later years),
would not be behindhand in antiquity; but I must assert, that having
changed all the foundations of old St. Paul's, and upon that occasion
rummaged all the ground thereabouts, and being very desirous to find
some footsteps of such a temple, I could not discover any, and
therefore can give no more credit to Diana than to Apollo."[14]

Woodward, on the other hand, insisted on the Temple of Diana. He
asserted, that a variety of the relics alluded to, in his own
possession, were actually dug up on the spot, together with
sacrificing vessels sculptured with beasts of chase, and with figures
of Diana. In digging between the Deanery and Blackfriars a small brass
figure of the goddess had also been found.[15]

Woodward was an enthusiast, eager to find what he fancied. Wren was
willing to find also, but with cooler eyes. It is at the same time
worth observing, that though Sir Christopher appears to have rejected
the Pagan story with reason, he could not find it in his heart to
refuse credit to the gratuitous traditions of old writers in favour of
a Christian church "planted here by the Apostles themselves."[16] He
calls the traditions "authentic testimony."

It is barely possible that the relics mentioned by Woodward might have
been all dug up by the time Sir Christopher set about his inquiry; but
let them have been what they might, they would have proved nothing in
favour of a Roman Temple, because the Romans never buried under their
temples; neither did their legions remain long enough in this country
to see the character of the place altered. It was sufficiently
remarkable, that proofs had been discovered even of their burying
there at all; for, at Rome, none but very extraordinary persons were
suffered to be buried within the walls; and the Roman cemeteries in
England are proved to have been without them. It can only be accounted
for on the supposition that, as no great men are so great as the great
men of colonies, the Prefects and their officers at London decreed
themselves an honour, which was to be attained at Rome by nothing
short of the merits of a Fabricius or a Publicola.

The first authentic account of the existence of a Christian church on
this spot is that of Bede, who attributes the erection of it to King
Ethelbert, about the year 610, soon after his conversion by St.
Augustine. The building, which was probably of wood, was burned down
in 961, but was restored the same year--a proof that, notwithstanding
the lofty terms in which it is spoken of by the old historian, it
could not have been of any great extent. This second church lasted
till the time of William the Conqueror, when it, too, was destroyed by
a conflagration, which burned the greater part of the city. Bishop
Maurice, who had just been appointed to the see, now resolved to
rebuild the cathedral on a much grander scale than before, at his own
expense. To assist him in accomplishing this object, the King granted
him the stones of an old castle, called the Palatine Tower, which
stood at the mouth of the Fleet River, and which had been reduced to
ruins in the same conflagration. The Bishop's design was looked upon
as so vast, that "men at that time," says Stowe, "judged it wold never
have bin finished; it was then so wonderfull for length and
breadth."[17] This was in the year 1087; and the people had some
reason for their astonishment, for the building was not completed till
the year 1240, in the reign of Henry the Third. Some even extend the
date to 1315, which is two hundred and twenty-eight years after its
foundation; but this was owing rather to repairs and additions than to
anything wanting in the original edifice. The cathedral thus patched,
altered, and added to, over and over again, with different orders and
no orders of architecture, and partially burned, oftener than once,
remained till the Great Fire of London, when it was luckily rendered
incapable of further deformity, and gave way to the present.

It was, indeed, a singular structure, and used for singular purposes.

"The _exterior_ of the building," says an intelligent writer,
himself an architect, "presented a curious medley of the
architectural style of different ages. At the western front
Inigo Jones had erected a portico of the Corinthian order; thus
displaying a singular example of that bigotry of taste, which,
only admitting one mode of beauty, is insensible to the
superior claims of congruity. This portico, however, singly
considered, was a grand and beautiful composition, and not
inferior to any thing of the kind which modern times have
produced: fourteen columns, each rising to the lofty height of
forty-six feet, were so disposed, that eight, with two
pilasters placed in front, and three on each flank, formed a
square (oblong) peristyle, and supported an entablature and
balustrade, which was crowned with statues of kings,
predecessors of Charles the First, who claimed the honour of
this fabric. Had the whole front been accommodated to Roman
architecture, it might have deserved praise as a detached
composition; but though cased with rustic work, and decorated
with regular cornices, the pediment retained the original
Gothic character in its equilateral proportions, and it was
flanked by barbarous obelisks and ill-designed turrets."

[Illustration: WEST FRONT OF OLD ST. PAUL'S.]

"The whole of the exterior body of the church had been cased
and reformed in a similar manner, through which every detail of
antiquity was obliterated, and the general forms and
proportions only left. The buttresses were converted into
regular piers, and a complete cornice crowned the whole: of the
windows, some were barely ornamented apertures, whilst others
were decorated in a heavy Italian manner, with architrave
dressings, brackets, and cherubic heads. The transepts
presented fronts of the same incongruous style as the western
elevation, and without any of its beauties."[18]

In its original state, however, old St. Paul's must have been an
imposing building. Its extent at least was very great. The entire mass
measured 690 feet in length, by 130 in breadth, and it was surmounted
by a spire 520 feet high. The spire was of timber. It bore upon its
summit not only a ball and cross, but a large gilded eagle, which
served as a weathercock. But the church having been nearly burned to
the ground in June, 1561, owing to the carelessness of a plumber who
left a pan of coals burning near some wood-work while he went to
dinner, it was hastily restored without the lofty spire; so that in
Hollar's engraving, given by Dugdale, of the building as it appeared
in 1656, it stands curtailed of this ornament. Only the square tower,
from which the spire sprang up, remains. "The old cathedral," says Mr.
Malcolm, on the authority of a note with which he was furnished by the
Rev. Mr. Watts, of Sion College, "did not stand in the same direction
with the new, the latter inclining rather to the south-west and
north-east; and the west front of the Old Church came much farther
towards Ludgate than the present."[19]

It is of the Cathedral, as thus renovated, that Sir John Denham speaks
in the following passage of his Cooper's Hill:--

"That sacred pile, so vast, so high,
That whether it's a part of earth or sky,
Uncertain seems, and may be thought a proud
Aspiring mountain, or descending cloud;
Paul's, the late name of such a muse whose flight
Has bravely reach'd and soar'd above thy height;
Now shalt thou stand, though sword, or time, or fire,
Or zeal, more fierce than they, thy fall conspire,
Secure, whilst thee the best of poets sings,
Preserv'd from ruin by the best of kings."

"The best of poets" is his brother courtier Waller, who had some time
before written his verses "Upon his Majesty's repairing of St.
Paul's," in which he compares King Charles, for his regeneration of
the Cathedral, to Amphion and other "antique minstrels," who were said
to have achieved architectural feats by the power of music, and who,
he says,

"Sure were Charles-like kings,
Cities their lutes, and subjects' hearts their strings;
On which with so divine a hand they strook,
Consent of motion from their breath they took."

Jones's first labour, the removal of the various foreign encumbrances
that had so long oppressed and deformed the venerable edifice, Waller
commemorates by a pair of references to St. Paul's history, not
unhappily applied: he says the whole nation had combined with his
Majesty

"to grace
The Gentiles' great Apostle, and deface
Those state-obscuring sheds, that like a chain
Seem'd to confine and fetter him again;
Which the glad Saint shakes off at his command,
As once the viper from his sacred hand."

Denham's prediction did no credit to the prophetic reputation of
poetry. Of the fabric which was to be unassailable by zeal or fire the
poet himself lived to see the ruin, begun by the one and completed by
the other; and he himself, curiously enough, a short time before his
death, was engaged as the King's surveyor-general in (nominally at
least) presiding over the erection of the new Cathedral--the successor
of the "sacred pile," of which he had thus sung the immortality.

When Jones began the repairs and additions of which his portico formed
a part, in 1633, the rubbish that was removed was carried, Mr. Malcolm
informs us, to Clerkenwell fields, where, he suggests, "some curious
fragments of antiquity may still remain."[20] The very beauty of this
portico, surmounted with its strange pediment and figures, and
dragging at its back that heap of deformity, completed the monstrous
look of the whole building, like a human countenance backed by some
horned lump. But this was nothing to the moral deformities of the
interior. Old St. Paul's, throughout almost the whole period of its
existence, at least from the reign of Henry the Third, was a
thoroughfare, and a "den of thieves." The thoroughfare was occasioned
probably by the great circuit which people had been compelled to make
by the extent of the wall of the old churchyard--a circumference a
great deal larger than it is at present. There is a principle of
familiarity in the Catholic worship which, while it excites the
devotional tenderness of more refined believers, is apt to produce the
consequence, though not the feelings, of contempt among the vulgar.
Fear hinders contempt; but when license is mixed with it, and the fear
is not in action, the liberties taken are apt to be in proportion. We
have seen, in a Catholic chapel in London, a milk-maid come into the
passage, dash down her pails, and having crossed herself, and applied
the holy water with reverence, depart with the same air with which she
came in. The next thing to setting down the pails, under the
circumstances above mentioned, would have been to creep with them
through the church. Porters and loiterers would follow; and by degrees
the place of worship would become a place of lounging and marketing,
and intrigue, and all sorts of disorder. In the reign of Edward the
Third, the King complains to the Bishop that the "eating-room of the
canons" had "become the office and work-place of artisans, and the
resort of shameless women." The complaint turned out to be of no
avail; nor had the mandate of the Bishop a better result in the time
of Richard the Third, though it was accompanied with the penalty of
excommunication. An Act was passed to as little purpose in the reign
of Philip and Mary; and in the time of Elizabeth the new opinions in
religion seem to have left the place fairly in possession of its
chaos, as if in derision of the old. The toleration of the abuse thus
became a matter of habit and indifference; and a young theologian,
afterwards one of the witty prelates of Charles the Second (Bishop
Earle), did not scruple to make it the subject of what we should now
call a "pleasant article."

"It must appear strange," says a note in Brayley's _London and
Middlesex_ (vol. ii. p. 219), "to those who are acquainted with
the decent order and propriety of regulation now observed in
our cathedral churches, and other places of divine worship,
that ever such an extended catalogue of improper customs and
disgusting usages as are noticed in various works, should have
been formerly admitted to be practised in St. Paul's church,
and more especially that they should have been so long
habitually exercised as to be defended on the plea of
prescription.

"These nuisances had become so great, that in the time of
Philip and Mary the Common Council found it necessary to pass
an act, subjecting all future offenders to pains and penalties.
From that act, the church seems to have been not only made a
common passage-way for all--beer, bread, fish, flesh, fardels
of stuffs, &c., but also for mules, horses, and other beasts.
This statute, however, must have proved only a temporary
restraint (excepting, probably, as to the leading of animals
through the church); for in the reign of Elizabeth, we learn
from _Londinium Redivivum_ (vol. iii. p. 71), that idlers and
drunkards were indulged in lying and sleeping on the benches at
the choir door; and that other usages, too nauseous for
description, were also frequent."

Among the curious notices relating to the irreverent practices pursued
in this church in the time of Elizabeth, collected by Mr. Malcolm
from the manuscript presentments on visitations preserved at St.
Paul's, are the following:--

"In the upper quier wher the comon [communion] table dothe
stande, there is much unreverente people, _walking_ with _their
hatts on their heddes_, comonly all the service tyme, no man
reproving them for yt."

"Yt is a greate disorder in the churche, that porters,
butchers, and water-bearers, and who not, be suffered (in
special tyme of service) to carrye and recarrye whatsoever, no
man withstandinge them, or gainsaying them," &c.

"The notices of encroachments on St. Paul's, in the same reign,
are equally curious. The chantry and other chapels were
completely diverted from their ancient purposes; some were used
as receptacles for stores and lumber; another was a school,
another a glazier's shop; and the windows of all were, in
general, broken. Part of the vaults beneath the church was
occupied by a carpenter, the remainder was held by the bishop,
the dean and chapter, and the minor canons. One vault, thought
to have been used for a burial-place, was converted into a
wine-cellar, and a way had been cut into it through the wall of
the building itself. (This practice of converting church vaults
into wine-cellars, it may be remarked, is not yet worn out.
Some of the vaults of Winchester Cathedral are now, or were
lately, used for that purpose.) The shrowds and cloisters under
the convocation house, 'where not long since the sermons in
foul weather were wont to be preached,' were made 'a common
lay-stall for boardes, trunks, and chests, being lett oute unto
trunk-makers, where, by meanes of their daily knocking and
noyse, the church is greatly disturbed.' More than twenty
houses also had been built against the outer walls of the
cathedral; and part of the very foundations was cut away to
make offices. One of those houses had literally a closet dug in
the wall; from another was a way through a window into a
wareroom in the steeple; a third, partly formed by St. Paul's,
was lately used as a _play-house_; and the owner of the fourth
baked his _bread_ and _pies_ in an _oven_ excavated within a
buttress."[21]

The middle of St. Paul's was also the Bond Street of that period, and
remained so till the time of the Commonwealth. The loungers were
called Paul's Walkers.

"The young gallants from the inns of court, the western and the
northern parts of the metropolis, and those that had spirit
enough," says our author, "to detach themselves from the
counting-houses in the east, used to meet at the central point,
St. Paul's; and from this circumstance obtained the
appellations of _Paul's Walkers_, as we now say, _Bond-street
Loungers_. However strange it may seem, tradition says that the
great Lord Bacon used in his youth to cry, _Eastward ho!_ and
was literally a Paul's Walker."[22]

Lord Bacon had a taste for display, which was afterwards exhibited in
a magnificent manner, worthy of the grandeur of his philosophy; but
this, when he was young, might probably enough have been vented in
the shape of an exuberance, which did not yet know what to do with
itself. Who would think that the late Mr. Fox ever wore red-heeled
shoes, and was a "buck about town?"

But to conclude with these curious passages:--

"The Walkers in Paul's," continues our author, "during this and
the following reigns, were composed of a motley assemblage of
the gay, the vain, the dissolute, the idle, the knavish, and
the lewd; and various notices of this fashionable resort may be
found in the old plays and other writings of the time. Ben
Jonson, in his _Every man out of his Humour_, has given a
series of scenes in the interior of St. Paul's, and an
assemblage of a great variety of characters; in the course of
which the curious piece of information occurs, that it was
common to affix _bills_, in the form of advertisements, upon
the columns in the aisles of the church, in a similar manner to
what is now done in the Royal Exchange: those bills he
ridicules in two affected specimens, the satire of which is
admirable. Shakspeare also makes Falstaff say, in speaking of
Bardolph, 'I bought him in _Paul's_, and he'll buy me a horse
in Smithfield: if I could get me but a wife in the stews, I
were mann'd, hors'd, and wiv'd.'"

To complete these urbanities, the church was the resort of
pickpockets. Bishop Corbet, a poetical wit of the time of Charles the
First, sums up its character, as the "walke

"Where all our Brittaine sinners sweare and talk."[23]

Only one reformation had taken place in it since the complaint made by
Edward the Third: no woman, at the time of Earle's writing, was to be
found there; at least not in the crowd. "The visitants," he says, "are
all men without exception."[24] A commonwealth writer insinuates
otherwise; but the visitation was not public. The practice of "walking
and talking" in St. Paul's appears to have revived under James the
Second, probably in connection with Catholic wishes; for there was an
Act of William and Mary, by which transgressors forfeited twenty
pounds for every offence; and, what is remarkable, the Bishop
threatened to enforce this Act so late as the year 1725; "the custom,"
says Mr. Malcolm, "had become so very prevalent."[25]

A proverb of "dining with Duke Humphrey," has survived to the present
day, owing to a supposed tomb of Humphrey, the good Duke of
Gloucester, which was popular with the poorer frequenters of the
place. They had a custom of strewing herbs before it, and sprinkling
it with water. The tomb, according to Stow, was not Humphrey's, but
that of Sir John Beauchamp, one of the house of Warwick. Men who
strolled about for want of a dinner, were familiar enough with this
tomb; and were therefore said to dine with Duke Humphrey.

While some of the extraordinary operations above-mentioned were going
on (the intriguing, picking of pockets, &c.), the sermon was very
likely proceeding. It is but fair, however, to conclude, that in the
Catholic times, during the elevation of the host, there was a show of
respect. We have heard a gentleman say, who visited Spain in his
childhood, that he remembered being at the theatre during a fandango,
when a loud voice cried out "_Dios_" (God); and all the people in the
house, including the dancers, fell on their knees. A profound silence
ensued. After a pause of a few seconds, the people rose, and the
fandango went on as before. The little boy could not think what had
happened, but was told that the host had gone by. The Deity (for so it
was thought) had been sent for to the house of a sick man; and it was
to honour him in passing, that the theatre had gone down on their
knees. Catholics reform as well as other people, with the growth of
knowledge, especially when restrictions no longer make their
prejudices appear a matter of duty. We know not how it is in Spain at
this moment, with regard to the devout interval of the fandango; but
we know what would be thought of it by thousands of the offspring of
those who witnessed it on this occasion; and certainly in no Catholic
church now-a-days can be seen the abominations of old St. Paul's.

The passenger who now goes by the cathedral, and associates the idea
of the inside with that of respectful silence and the simplicity of
Protestant worship, little thinks what a noise has been in that spot,
and what gorgeous processions have issued out of it.

Old St. Paul's was famous for the splendour of its shrine, and for its
priestly wealth. The list of its copes, vestments, jewels, gold and
silver cups, candlesticks, &c., occupies thirteen folio pages of the
_Monasticon_. The side aisles were filled with chapels to different
saints and the Virgin; that is to say, with nooks partitioned off one
from another, and enriched with separate altars; and it is calculated,
that, taking the whole establishment, there could hardly be fewer than
two hundred priests. On certain holidays, this sacred multitude, in
their richest copes, together with the lord mayor, aldermen, and city
companies, and all the other parish priests of London, who carried a
rich silver cross for every church, issued forth from the cathedral
door in procession, singing a hymn, and so went through Cheapside and
Cornhill to Leadenhall, and back again. The last of these spectacles
was for the peace of Guisnes, in 1546; shortly after which Henry the
Eighth swept into his treasury the whole glories of Catholic
worship--copes, crosses, jewels, church-plate, &c.--himself being the
most bloated enormity that had ever misused them.

Among other retainers to the establishment, Henry suppressed a
singular little personage, entitled the Boy-Bishop. The Boy-Bishop
(_Episcopus Puerorum_) was a chorister annually elected by his fellows
to imitate the state and attire of a bishop, which he assumed on St.
Nicholas's day, the sixth of December, and retained till that of the
Innocents, December the twenty-eighth.

"This was done," says Brayley, "in commemoration of St.
Nicholas, who, according to the Romish Church, was so piously
fashioned, that even when a babe in his cradle he would fast
both on Wednesdays and Fridays, and at those times was 'well
pleased' to suck but once a-day. However ridiculous it may now
seem, the Boy-Bishop is stated to have possessed episcopal
authority during the above term; and the other children were
his prebendaries. He was not permitted to celebrate mass, but
he had full liberty to preach; and however puerile his
discourse might have been, we find they were regarded with so
much attention, that the learned Dean Colet, in his statutes
for St. Paul's school, expressly ordained that the scholars
shall, on 'every _Childermas_ daye, come to Paule's Churche,
and hear the Chylde Bishop's sermon, and after be at the hygh
masse, and each of them offer a penny to the Chylde Bishop; and
with them the maisters and surveyors of the scole.' Probably,"
continues Mr. Brayley, "these orations, though affectedly
childish, were composed by the more aged members of the church.
If the Boy-Bishop died within the time of his prelacy, he was
interred _in pontificalibus_, with the same ceremonies as the
real diocesan; and the tomb of a child-bishop in Salisbury
Cathedral may be referred to as an instance of such
interment."[26]

"From a printed church-book," says Mr. Hone, "containing the
service of the boy-bishops set to music, we learn that, on the
eve of Innocents'-day, the Boy-Bishop, and his youthful clergy,
in their copes, and with burning tapers in their hands, went in
solemn procession, chanting and singing versicles, as they
walked into the choir by the west door, in such order that the
dean and canons went foremost, the chaplains next, and the
Boy-Bishop with his priests in the last and highest place. He
then took his seat, and the rest of the children disposed
themselves on each side of the choir, upon the uppermost
ascent, the canons resident bearing the incense and the book,
and the petit-canons the tapers, according to the rubrick.
Afterwards he proceeded to the altars of the Holy Trinity and
All Saints, which he first censed, and next the image of the
Holy Trinity, his priests all the while singing. Then they all
chanted a service with prayers and responses, and, in the like
manner taking his seat, the Boy-Bishop repeated salutations,
prayers, and versicles; and in conclusion gave his benediction
to the people, the chorus answering _Deo Gratias_."[27]

The origin of customs is often as obscure as that of words, and may be
traced with probability to many sources. Perhaps the boy-bishop had a
reference, not only to St. Nicholas, but to Christ preaching when a
boy among the doctors, and to the divine wisdom of his recommendations
of a childlike simplicity. The school afterwards founded by Dean Colet
was in honour of "the child Jesus." There was a school attached to the
cathedral, of which Colet's was, perhaps, a revival, as far as
scholarship was concerned. The boys in the older school were not only
taught singing but acting, and for a long period were the most popular
performers of stage-plays. In the time of Richard the Second, these
Boy-Actors petitioned the King to prohibit certain ignorant and
"inexpert people from presenting the History of the Old Testament."
They began with sacred plays, but afterwards acted profane; so that
St. Paul's singing-school was numbered among the play-houses. This
custom, as well as that of the boy-bishop, appears to have been common
wherever there were choir-boys; and it doubtless originated, partly in
the theatrical nature of the catholic ceremonies at which they
assisted, and partly in the delight which the more scholarly of their
masters took in teaching the plays of Terence and Seneca. The annual
performance of a play of Terence, still kept up at Westminster school,
is supposed by Warton to be a remnant of it. The choristers of
Westminster Abbey, and of the chapel of Queen Elizabeth, (who took
great pleasure in their performances), were celebrated as actors,
though not so much so at those of St. Paul's. A set of them were
incorporated under the title of Children of the Revels, among whom are
to be found names that have since become celebrated as the
fellow-actors of Shakspeare--Field, Underwood, and others. It was the
same with Hart, Mohun, and others, who were players in the time of
Cibber. It appears that children with good voices were sometimes
_kidnapped_ for a supply.[28] Tusser, who wrote the Five Hundred
Points of Good Husbandry, is thought to have been thus pressed into
the service; and a relic of the custom is supposed to have existed in
that of pressing drummers for the army, which survived so late as the
accession of Charles the First. The exercise of the right of might
over children, and by people who wanted singers--an effeminate
press-gang--would seem an intolerable nuisance; but the children were
probably glad enough to be complimented by the violence, and to go to
sing and play before a court.

Ben Jonson has some pretty verses on one of these juvenile actors:

Weep with me, all you that read
This little story;
And know, for whom a tear you shed,
Death's self is sorry.

'Twas a child that so did thrive
In grace and feature,
As heaven and nature seemed to strive
Which owned the creature.

Years he numbered, scarce thirteen,
When fates turned cruel;
Yet three filled zodiacs had he been
The stage's jewel;

And did act (what now we moan)
Old men so duly,
As, sooth, the Parcæ thought him one,
He played so truly.

Till, by error of his fate,
They all consented;
But viewing him since (alas! too late)
They have repented;

And have sought (to give new birth)
In baths to steep him!
But being so much too good for earth,
Heaven vows to keep him.

This child, we see, was celebrated for acting old men. It is well
known that, up to the Restoration, and sometimes afterwards, boys
performed the parts of women. Kynaston, when a boy, used to be taken
out by the ladies an airing, in his female dress after the play. This
custom of males appearing as females gave rise, in Shakspeare's time,
to the frequent introduction of female characters disguised; thus
presenting a singular anomaly, and a specimen of the gratuitous
imaginations of the spectators in those days; who, besides being
contented with taking the bare stage for a wood, a rock, or a garden,
as it happened, were to suppose a boy on the stage _to pretend to be
himself_.

One of the strangest of the old ceremonies, in which the clergy of the
cathedral used to figure, was that which was performed twice a year,
namely, on the day of the Commemoration and on that of the Conversion
of St. Paul. On the former of these festivals, a fat doe, and on the
latter, a fat buck, was presented to the Church by the family of Baud,
in consideration of some land which they held of the Dean and Chapter
at West Lee in Essex. The original agreement made with Sir William Le
Baud, in 1274, was, that he himself should attend in person with the
animals; but some years afterwards it was arranged that the
presentation should be made by a servant, accompanied by a deputation
of part of the family. The priests, however, continued to perform
their part in the show. When the deer was brought to the foot of the
steps leading to the choir, the reverend brethren appeared in a body
to receive it, dressed in their full pontifical robes, and having
their heads decorated with garlands of flowers. From thence they
accompanied it as the servant led it forward to the high altar, where
having been solemnly offered and slain, it was divided among the
residentiaries. The horns were then fastened to the top of a spear,
and carried in procession by the whole company around the inside of
the church, a noisy concert of horns regulating their march. This
ridiculous exhibition, which looks like a parody on the pagan
ceremonies of their predecessors the priests of Diana, was continued
by the cathedral clergy down to the time of Elizabeth.

The modern passenger through St. Paul's Churchyard has not only the
last home of Nelson and others to venerate, as he goes by. In the
ground of the old church were buried, and here, therefore, remains
whatever dust may survive them, the gallant Sir Philip Sydney (the
_beau ideal_ of the age of Elizabeth), and Vandyke, who immortalised
the youth and beauty of the court of Charles the First. One of
Elizabeth's great statesmen also lay there--Walsingham--who died so
poor, that he was buried by stealth, to prevent his body from being
arrested. Another, Sir Christopher Hatton, who is supposed to have
danced himself into the office of her Majesty's Chancellor,[29] had a
tomb which his contemporaries thought too magnificent, and which was
accused of "shouldering" the altar. There was an absurd epitaph upon
it, by which he would seem to have been a _dandy_ to the last.

Stay and behold the mirror of a dead man's house,
Whose lively person would have made thee stay and wonder.

* * * * *

When Nature moulded him, her thoughts were most on Mars;
And all the heavens to make him goodly were agreeing;
Thence he was valiant, active, strong, and passing comely;
And God did grace his mind and spirit with gifts excelling.
Nature commends her workmanship to Fortune's charge,
Fortune presents him to the court and queen,
Queen Eliz. (O God's dear handmayd) his most miracle.
_Now hearken, reader, raritie not heard or seen_;
This blessed Queen, mirror of all that Albion rul'd,
Gave favour to his faith, and precepts to his hopeful time;
First trained him in the stately band of pensioners;

* * * * *

And for her safety made him Captain of the Guard.
Now doth she prune this vine, and from her sacred breast
Lessons his life, makes wise his heart for her great councells,
And so, _Vice-Chamberlain_, where foreign princes eyes
Might well admire her choyce, wherein she most excels.

He then aspires, says the writer, to "the highest subject's seat," and
becomes

Lord Chancelour (measure and conscience of a holy king:)
_Robe_, _Collar_, _Garter_, dead figures of great honour,
Alms-deeds with faith, honest in word, frank in dispence,
The poor's friend, not popular, the church's pillar.
This tombe sheweth one, the heaven's shrine the other.[30]

The first line in italics, and the poetry throughout, are only to be
equalled by a passage in an epitaph we have met with on a Lady of the
name of Greenwood, of whom her husband says:--

"Her graces and her qualities were such
That she might have married a bishop or a judge;
But so extreme was her condescension and humility,
That she married _me_, a poor doctor of divinity;
_By which heroic deed_, she stands confest,
Of all other women, the phoenix of her sex."

Sir Christopher is said to have died of a broken heart, because his
once loving mistress exacted a debt of him which he found it difficult
to pay. It was common to talk of courtiers dying of broken hearts at
that time; which gives one an equal notion of the Queen's power, and
the servility of those gentlemen. Fletcher, Bishop of London, father
of the great poet, was another who had a tomb in the old church, and
is said to have undergone the same fate. It was he that did a thing
very unlike a poet's father. He attended the execution of Mary Queen
of Scots, and said aloud, when her head was held up by the
executioner, "So perish all Queen Elizabeth's enemies!" He was then
Dean of Peterborough. The Queen made him a bishop, but suspended him
for marrying a second wife, which so preyed upon his feelings, that it
is thought, by the help of an immoderate love of smoking, to have
hastened his end--a catastrophe worthy of a mean courtier. He was
well, sick, and dead, says Fuller, in a quarter of an hour. Most
probably he died of apoplexy, the tobacco giving him the _coup de
grace_.[31]

Dr. Donne, the head of the metaphysical poets, so well criticised by
Johnson, was Dean of St. Paul's, and had a grave here, of which he has
left an extraordinary memorial. It is a wooden image of himself, made
to his order, and representing him as he was to appear in his shroud.
This, for some time before he died, he kept by his bed-side in an open
coffin, thus endeavouring to reconcile an uneasy imagination to the
fate he could not avoid. It is still preserved in the vaults under the
church, and is to be seen with the other curiosities of the cathedral.
We will not do a great man such a disservice as to dig him up for a
spectacle. A man should be judged of at the time when he is most
himself, and not when he is about to consign his weak body to its
elements.

Of the events that have taken place connected with St. Paul's, one of
the most curious was a scene that passed in the old cathedral between
John of Gaunt and the Anti-Wickliffites. It made him very unpopular at
the time. Probably, if he had died just after it, his coffin would
have been torn to pieces; but subsequently he had a magnificent tomb
in the church, on which hung his crest and cap of state, together with
his lance and target. Perhaps the merits of the friend of Wickliff and
Chaucer are now as much overvalued. The scene is taken as follows, by
Mr. Brayley, out of Fox's Acts and Monuments.

"One of the most remarkable occurrences that ever took place
within the old cathedral was the attempt made, in 1376, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London, under the
command of Pope Gregory the Eleventh, to compel Wickliff, the
father of the English Reformation, to subscribe to the
condemnation of some of his own tenets, which had been recently
promulgated in the eight articles that have been termed the
Lollards' Creed. The Pope had ordered the above prelates to
apprehend and examine Wickliff; but they thought it most
expedient to summon him to St. Paul's, as he was openly
protected by the famous John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; and
that nobleman accompanied him to the examination, together with
the Lord Percy, Marshall of England. The proceedings were soon
interrupted by a dispute as to whether Wickliff should sit or
stand; and the following curious dialogue arose on the Lord
Percy desiring him to be seated:--

"_Bishop of London._--'If I could have guessed, Lord Percy,
that you would have played the master here, I would have
prevented your coming.'

"_Duke of Lancaster._--'Yes, he shall play the master here for
all you.'

"_Lord Percy._--'Wickliff, sit down! You have need of a seat,
for you have many things to say.'

"_Bishop of London._--'It is unreasonable that a clergyman,
cited before his ordinary, should sit during his answer. He
shall stand!'

"_Duke of Lancaster._--'My Lord Percy, you are in the right!
And for you, my Lord Bishop, you are grown so proud and
arrogant, I will take care to humble your pride; and not only
yours, my lord, but that of all the prelates in England. Thou
dependest upon the credit of thy relations; but so far from
being able to help thee, they shall have enough to do to
support themselves.'

"_Bishop of London._--'I place no confidence in my relations,
but in God alone, who will give me the boldness to speak the
truth.'

"_Duke of Lancaster_ (_speaking softly to Lord
Percy_).--'Rather than take this at the Bishop's hands, I will
drag him by the hair of the head out of the court!'"[32]

Old St. Paul's was much larger than now, and the churchyard was of
proportionate dimensions. The wall by which it was bounded ran along
by the present streets of Ave Maria Lane, Paternoster Row, Old Change,
Carter Lane, and Creed Lane; and therefore included a large space and
many buildings which are not now considered to be within the precincts
of the cathedral. This spacious area had grass inside, and contained a
variety of appendages to the establishment. One of these was the cross
which we have alluded to at the beginning of this chapter, and of
which Stow did not know the antiquity. It was called PAUL'S CROSS, and
stood on the north side of the church, a little to the east of the
entrance of Cannon Alley. It was around Paul's Cross, or rather in the
space to the east of it that the citizens were wont anciently to
assemble in Folkmote, or general convention--not only to elect their
magistrates and to deliberate on public affairs, but also, as it would
appear, to try offenders and award punishments. We read of meetings of
the Folkmote in the thirteenth century; but the custom was
discontinued, as the increasing number of the inhabitants, and the
mixture of strangers, were found to lead to confusion and tumult. In
after times the cross appears to have been used chiefly for
proclamations, and other public proceedings, civil as well as
ecclesiastical; such as the swearing of the citizens to allegiance,
the emission of papal bulls, the exposing of penitents, &c., "and for
the defaming of those," says Pennant, "who had incurred the
displeasure of crowned heads." A pulpit was attached to it, it was not
known when, in which sermons were preached, called Paul's Cross
Sermons, a name by which they continued to be known when they ceased
in the open air. Many benefactors contributed to support these
sermons. In Stow's time the pulpit was an hexagonal piece of wood,
"covered with lead, elevated upon a flight of stone steps, and
surmounted by a large cross." During rainy weather the poorer part of
the audience retreated to a covered place, called the shrowds, which
are supposed to have abutted on the church wall. The rest, including
the lord mayor and aldermen, most probably had shelter at all times;
and the King and his train (for they attended also) had covered
galleries.[33] Popular preachers were invited to hold forth in this
pulpit, but the Bishop was the inviter. In the reign of James the
First, the lord mayor and aldermen ordered, that every one who should
preach there, "considering the journies some of them might take from
the universities, or elsewhere, should at his pleasure be freely
entertained for five days' space, with sweet and convenient lodging,
fire, candle, and all other necessaries, viz., from Thursday before
their day of preaching, to Thursday morning following."[34] "This good
custom," says Maitland, "continued for some time. And the Bishop of
London, or his chaplain, when he sent to any one to preach, did
actually signify the place where he might repair at his coming up, and
be entertained freely." In earlier times a kind of inn seems to have
been kept for the entertainment of the preachers at Paul's Cross,
which went by the name of the _Shunamites' House_.

"Before the cross," says Pennant, "was brought, divested of all
splendour, Jane Shore, the charitable, the merry concubine of
Edward the Fourth, and, after his death, of his favourite, the
unfortunate Lord Hastings. After the loss of her protectors,
she fell a victim to the malice of crooked-backed _Richard_. He
was disappointed (by her excellent defence) of convicting her
of witchcraft, and confederating with her lover to destroy him.
He then attacked her on the weak side of frailty. This was
undeniable. He consigned her to the severity of the church: she
was carried to the Bishop's palace, clothed in a white sheet,
with a taper in her hand, and from thence conducted to the
cathedral and the cross, before which she made a confession of
her only fault. Every other virtue bloomed in this ill-fated
fair with the fullest vigour. She could not resist the
solicitations of a youthful monarch, the handsomest man of his
time. On his death she was reduced to necessity, scorned by the
world, and cast off by her husband, with whom she was paired in
her childish years, and forced to fling herself into the arms
of Hastings."

"In her penance she went," says Holinshed, "in countenance and
pace demure, so womanlie, that albeit she were out of all
araie, save her kertle onlie, yet went she so faire and
lovelie, namelie, while the wondering of the people cast a
comlie rud in her cheeks (of which she before had most misse),
that hir great shame wan hir much praise among those that were
more amorous of hir bodie, than curious of hir soule. And manie
good folks that hated her living (and glad were to see sin
corrected), yet pitied they more hir penance, than rejoiced
therein, when they considered that the Protector procured it
more of a corrupt intent than any virtuous affection."

"Rowe," continues Pennant, "has flung this part of her sad
story into the following poetical dress; but it is far from
possessing the moving simplicity of the old historian."[35]

Submissive, sad, and lonely was her look;
A burning taper in her hand she bore;
And on her shoulders, carelessly confused,
With loose neglect her lovely tresses hung;
Upon her cheek a faintish flush was spread;
Feeble she seemed, and sorely smit with pain;
While, barefoot as she trod the flinty pavement,
Her footsteps all along were marked with blood.
Yet silent still she passed, and unrepining;
Her streaming eyes bent ever on the earth,
Except when, in some bitter pang of sorrow,
To heaven she seemed, in fervent zeal, to raise,
And beg that mercy man denied her here.

"The poet has adopted the fable of her being denied all
sustenance, and of her perishing with hunger, but that was not
a fact. She lived to a great age, but in great distress and
miserable poverty; deserted even by those to whom she had,
during prosperity, done the most essential services. She
dragged a wretched life even to the time of Sir Thomas More,
who introduces her story in his Life of Richard the Third. The
beauty of her person is spoken of in high terms; 'Proper she
was, and faire; nothing in her body that you would have
changed, but if you would have wished her somewhat higher. Thus
sai they that knew hir in hir youth. Albeit, some that now see
hir, for she yet liveth, deem hir never to have been well
visaged. Now is she old, leane, withered, and dried up: nothing
left but shrivelled skin and hard bone; and yet, being even
such, whoso well advise her visage, might gesse and devise,
which parts how filled, would make it a faire face.'"[36]

To these pictures, which are all drawn with spirit, may be added a
portrait in the notes to Drayton's _Heroical Epistles_, referring to
the one by Sir Thomas More.

"Her stature," says the comment, "was mean; her hair of a dark
yellow, her face round and full, her eye grey, delicate harmony
being betwixt each part's proportion, and each proportion's
colour; her body fat, white, and smooth; her countenance
cheerful, and like to her condition. That picture which I have
seen of her, was such as she rose out of her bed in the
morning, having nothing on but a rich mantle, cast under her
arm, over her shoulder, and sitting in a chair on which her
naked arm did lie. What her father's name was, or where she was
born, is not certainly known; but Shore, a young man of right
goodly person, wealth, and behaviour, abandoned her bed, after
the King had made her his concubine."[37]

Richard, in the extreme consciousness of his being in the wrong, made
a sad bungling business of his first attempts on the throne. The
penance of Jane Shore was followed by Dr. Shawe's sermon at the same
cross, in which the servile preacher attempted to bastardise the
children of Edward, and to recommend the "legitimate" Richard, as the
express image of his father. Richard made his appearance, only to
witness the sullen silence of the spectators; and the doctor, arguing
more weakness than wickedness, took to his house, and soon after
died.[38]

In the reign of the Tudors, Paul's Cross was the scene of a very
remarkable series of contradictions. The government, under Henry the
Eighth, preached for and against the same doctrines in religion. Mary
furiously attempted to revive them; and they were finally denounced by
Elizabeth. Wolsey began, in 1521, with fulminating, by command of the
Pope, against "one Martin Eleutherius" (Luther). The denouncement was
made by Fisher (afterwards beheaded for denying the King's supremacy);
but Wolsey sate by, in his usual state, censed and canopied, with the
pope's ambassador on one side of him, and the emperor's on the other.
During the sermon a collection of Luther's books was burnt in the
churchyard; "which ended, my Lord Cardinal went home to dinner with
all the other prelates."[39] About ten years afterwards the preachers
at Paul's Cross received an order from the King to "teach and declare
to the people, that neither the pope, nor any of his predecessors,
were anything more than the simple Bishops of Rome." On the accession
of Mary, the discourses were ordered to veer directly round, which
produced two attempts to assassinate the preachers in sermon-time; and
the moment Elizabeth came to the throne, the divines began
recommending the very opposite tenets, and the pope was finally
rejected. At this Cross Elizabeth afterwards attended to hear a
thanksgiving sermon for the defeat of the Invincible Armada; on which
occasion a coach was first seen in England--the one she came in. The
last sermon attended there by the sovereign was during the reign of
her successor; but discourses continued to be delivered up to the time
of the Civil Wars, when, after being turned to account by the Puritans
for about a year, the pulpit was demolished by order of Parliament.
The "willing instrument" of the overthrow was Pennington, the
lord-mayor. The inhabitants who look out of their windows now-a-days
on the northern side of St. Paul's may thus have a succession of
pictures before their mind's eye, as curious and inconsistent as those
of a dream--princes, queens, lord-mayors, and aldermen,

A court of cobblers, and a mob of kings,

Jane's penance, Richard's chagrin, Wolsey's exaltation, clergymen
preaching for and against the pope; a coach coming as a wonder, where
coaches now throng at every one's service; and finally, a puritanical
lord-mayor, who "blasphemed custard," laying the axe to the tree, and
cutting down the pulpit and all its works.

The next appendage to the old church, in point of importance, was the
Bishop's or London House, the name of which survives in that of London
House Yard. This, with other buildings, perished in the Great Fire;
and on the site of it were built the houses now standing between the
yard just mentioned and the present Chapter House. The latter was
built by Wren. The old one stood on the other side of the cathedral,
where the modern deanery is to be found, only more eastward. The
bishop's house was often used for the reception of princes. Edward the
Third and his queen were entertained there after a great tournament in
Smithfield; and there poor little Edward the Fifth was lodged,
previously to his appointed coronation. To the east of the bishop's
house, stretching towards Cheapside, was a chapel, erected by the
father of Thomas Becket, called Pardon-Church-Haugh, which was
surrounded by a cloister, presenting a painting of the Dance of Death
on the walls, a subject rendered famous by Holbein.[40]

Another chapel called the Charnel, a proper neighbour to this
_fresco_, stood at the back of the two buildings just mentioned. It
received its name from the quantity of human bones collected from St.
Paul's Churchyard, and deposited in a vault beneath. The Charnel was
taken down by the Protector Somerset about 1549, and the stones were
employed in the building of the new palace of Somerset House. On this
occasion it is stated that more than a thousand cart-loads of bones
were removed to Finsbury Fields where they formed a large mount, on
which three windmills were erected. From these Windmill Street in that
neighbourhood derives its name. The ground on which the chapel stood
was afterwards built over with dwellings and warehouses, having sheds
before them for the use of stationers. Immediately to the north of St.
Paul's School, and towards the spot where the churchyard looks into
Cheapside, was a campanile, or bell-house; that is to say, a belfry,
forming a distinct building from the cathedral, such as it is
accustomed to be in Italy. It was by the ringing of this bell that the
people were anciently called together to the general assemblage,
called the Folkmote. The campanile was very high, and was won at dice
from King Henry the Eighth by Sir Miles Partridge, who took it down
and sold the materials. On the side of the cathedral directly the
reverse of this (the south-west), and forming a part of the great pile
of building, was the parish church of St. Gregory, over which was the
Lollards' Tower, or prison, infamous, like its namesake at Lambeth,
for the ill-treatment of heretics.

"This," says Brayley, on the authority of Fox's Martyrology,
"was the scene of at least one 'foul and midnight murder,'
perpetrated in 1514, on a respectable citizen, named Richard
Hunne, by Dr. Horsey, chancellor of the diocese, with the
assistance of a bell-ringer, and afterwards defended by the
Bishop Fitz-James and the whole body of prelates, who protected
the murderers from punishment, lest the clergy should become
amenable to civil jurisdiction. Though the villains, through
this interference, escaped without corporal suffering, the King
ordered them to pay 1,500_l._ to the children of the deceased,
in restitution of what he himself styles the 'cruel
murder.'"[41]

The clergy, with almost incredible audacity, afterwards commenced a
process against the dead body of Hunne for heresy; and, having
obtained its condemnation, they actually burned it in Smithfield. The
Lollards' Tower continued to be used as a prison for heretics for some
time after the Reformation. Stow tells us that he recollected one
Peter Burchet, a gentleman of the Middle Temple, being committed to
this prison, on suspicion of holding certain erroneous opinions, in
1573. This, however, is, we believe, the last case of the kind that is
recorded.

It remains to say a word of St. Paul's School, founded, as we have
already mentioned, by Dean Colet, and destined to become the most
illustrious of all the buildings on the spot, in giving education to
Milton. We have dwelt more upon the localities of St. Paul's
Churchyard than it is our intention to do on others. The dignity of
the birth-place of the metropolis beguiled us; and the events recorded
to have taken place in it are of real interest. Milton was not the
only person of celebrity educated at this school. Bentley, his critic,
was probably induced by the like circumstance to turn his unfortunate
attention to the poet's epic in after life, and make those gratuitous
massacres of the text, which give a profound scholar the air of the
most presumptuous of coxcombs. Here also Camden received part of his
education; and here were brought up, Leland, his brother antiquary,
the Gales (Charles, Roger, and Samuel), all celebrated antiquaries;
Sir Anthony Denny, the only man who had the courage and honesty to
tell Henry the Eighth that he was dying; Halley, the astronomer;
Bishop Cumberland, the great grandfather of the dramatist; Pepys, who
has lately obtained so curious a celebrity, as an annalist of the
court of Charles the Second; and last, not least, one in whom a
learned education would be as little looked for as in Pepys, if we are
to trust the stories of the times, to wit, John Duke of Marlborough.
Barnes was laughed at for dedicating his _Anacreon_ to the duke, as
one to whom Greek was unheard of; and it has been related as a slur on
the great general (though assuredly it is not so), that having alluded
on some occasion to a passage in history, and being asked where he
found it, he confessed that his authority was the only historian he
was acquainted with, namely, William Shakspeare.

Less is known of Milton during the time he passed at St. Paul's
School, than of any other period of his life. It is ascertained,
however, that he cultivated the writing of Greek verses, and was a
great favourite with the usher, afterwards master, Alexander Gill,
himself a Latin poet of celebrity. At the back of the old church was
an enormous rose-window, which we may imagine the young poet to have
contemplated with delight, in his fondness for ornaments of that cast;
and the whole building was calculated to impress a mind, more
disposed, at that time of life, to admire as a poet, than to quarrel
as a critic or a sectary. Gill, unluckily for himself, was not so
catholic. Some say he was suspended from his mastership for severity;
a quality which he must have carried to a great pitch, for that age to
find fault with it; but from an answer written by Ben Johnson to a
fragment of a satire of Gill's, it is more likely he got into trouble
for libels against the court. Aubrey says, that the old doctor, his
father, was once obliged to go on his knees to get the young doctor
pardoned, and that the offence consisted in his having written a
letter, in which he designated King James and his son, as the "old
foole and the young one." There are letters written in early life from
Milton to Gill, full of regard and esteem; nor is it likely that the
regard was diminished by Gill's petulance against the Court. In one of
the letters, it is pleasant to hear the poet saying, "Farewell, and on
Tuesday next expect me in London, among the booksellers."[42]

The parliamentary soldiers annoyed the inhabitants of the churchyard,
by playing at nine-pins at unseasonable hours--a strange misdemeanour
for that "church militant." They hastened also the destruction of the
cathedral. Some scaffolding, set up for repairs, had been given them
for arrears of pay. They dug pits in the body of the church to saw the
timber in; and they removed the scaffolding with so little caution,
that great part of the vaulting fell in, and lay a heap of ruins. The
east end only, and a part of the choir continued to be used for public
worship, a brick wall being raised to separate this portion from the
rest of the building, and the congregation entering and getting out
through one of the north windows. Another part of the church was
converted into barracks and stables for the dragoons. As for Inigo
Jones's lofty and beautiful portico, it was turned into "shops," says
Maitland, "for milliners and others, with rooms over them for the
convenience of lodging; at the erection of which the magnificent
columns were piteously mangled, being obliged to make way for the ends
of beams, which penetrated their centres."[43] The statues on the top
were thrown down and broken to pieces.

We have noticed the lucky necessity for a new church, occasioned by
the Great Fire. An attempt was at first made to repair the old
building--the work, as we have already mentioned, being committed to
the charge of Sir John Denham (the poet), his Majesty's
surveyor-general. But it was eventually found necessary to commence a
new edifice from the foundation. Sir Christopher Wren, who
accomplished this task, had been before employed in superintending the
repairs, and was appointed head surveyor of the works in 1669, on the
demise of Denham. Unfortunately, he had great and ungenerous trouble
given him in the erection of the new structure; and, after all, he did
not build it as he wished. His taste was not understood, either by
court or clergy; he was envied (and towards the close of his life
ousted) by inferior workmen; was forced to make use of two orders
instead of one, that is to say, to divide the sides and front into two
separate elevations, instead of running them up and dignifying them
with pillars of the whole height; and during the whole work, which
occupied a great many years, and took up a considerable and anxious
portion of his time, not unattended with personal hazard, all the pay
which he was then, or ever to expect, was a pittance of two hundred
a-year. A moiety of this driblet was for some time actually suspended,
till the building should be finished; and for the arrears of it he was
forced to petition the government of Queen Anne, and then only
obtained them under circumstances of the most unhandsome delay. Wren,
however, was a philosopher and a patriot; and if he underwent the
mortification attendent on philosophers and patriots, for offending
the self-love of the shallow, he knew how to act up to the spirit of
those venerable names, in the interior of a mind as elevated and
well-composed as his own architecture. Some pangs he felt, because he
was a man of humanity, and could not disdain his fellow-creatures; but
he was more troubled for the losses of the art than his own. He is
said actually to have shed tears when compelled to deform his
cathedral with the side aisles--some say in compliance with the will
of the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, who anticipated the
use of them for the restoration of the old Catholic chapels. Money he
despised, except for the demands of his family, consenting to receive
a hundred a-year for rebuilding such of the city churches (a
considerable number) as were destroyed by the fire! And when finally
ousted from his office of surveyor-general, he said with the ancient
sage, "Well, I must philosophise a little sooner than I intended."
(_Nunc me jubet fortuna expeditius philosophari_). The Duchess of
Marlborough, in resisting the claims of one of her Blenheim surveyors,
said, "that Sir C. Wren was content to be dragged up in a basket three
times a-week to the top of St. Paul's, at a great hazard, for 200_l._
a-year." But, as a writer of his life has remarked, she was perhaps
"little capable of drawing any nice distinction between the feelings
of the hired surveyor of Blenheim, and those of our architect, in the
contemplation of the rising of the fabric which his vast genius was
calling into existence: her notions led her to estimate the matter by
the simple process of the rule of three direct; and on this principle
she had good reason to complain of the surveyor."[44] The same writer
tells us, that Wren's principal enjoyment during the remainder of his
life, consisted in his being "carried once a year to see his great
work;" "the beginning and completion of which," observes Walpole, "was
an event which, one could not wonder, left such an impression of
content on the mind of the good old man, that it seemed to recall a
memory almost deadened to every other use." The epitaph upon him by
his son, which Mr. Mylne, the architect of Blackfriars' bridge, caused
to be rescued from the vaults underneath the church, where it was
ludicrously inapplicable, and placed in gold letters over the choir,
has a real sublimity in it, though defaced by one of those plays upon
words, which were the taste of the times in the architect's youth, and
which his family perhaps had learnt to admire.

Subtus _conditur_
Hujus ecclesiæ et urbis _conditor_
Ch. Wren,
Qui vixit annos ultra nonaginta,
Non sibi sed bono publico.
Lector, si monumentum requiris,
Circumspice.

We cannot preserve the pun in English, unless, perhaps, by some such
rendering as, "Here found a grave the founder of this church;" or
"Underneath is founded the tomb," &c. The rest is admirable:

"Who lived to the age of upwards of ninety years,
Not for himself, but for the public good.
Reader, if thou seekest his monument,
Look around."

The reader _does_ look around, and the whole interior of the
cathedral, which is finer than the outside, seems like a magnificent
vault over his single body. The effect is very grand, especially if
the organ is playing. A similar one, as far as the music is concerned,
is observable when we contemplate the statues of Nelson and others.
The grand repose of the church, in the first instance, gives them a
mortal dignity, which the organ seems to waken up and revive, as if in
the midst of the

"Pomp and threatening harmony,"[45]

their spirits almost looked out of their stony and sightless eyeballs.
Johnson's ponderous figure looks down upon us with something of
sourness in the expression; and in the presence of Howard we feel as
if pomp itself were in attendance on humanity. It is a pity that the
sculpture of the monuments in general is not worthy of these emotions,
and tends to undo them.

A poor statue of Queen Anne, in whose reign the church was finished,
stands in the middle of the front area, with the figures of Britain,
France, Ireland, and America, round the base. Garth, who was a Whig,
and angry with the councils which had dismissed his hero Marlborough,
wrote some bitter lines upon it, which must have had double effect,
coming from so good-natured a man.

Near the vast bulk of that stupendous frame,
Known by the Gentiles' great apostle's name,
With grace divine great Anna's seen to rise,
An awful form that glads a nation's eyes:
Beneath her feet four mighty realms appear,
And with due reverence pay their homage there.
Britain and Ireland seem to own her grace,
And e'en wild India wears a smiling face.
But France alone with downcast eyes is seen,
The sad attendant on so good a queen.
Ungrateful country! to forget so soon
All that great Anna for thy sake has done,
When sworn the kind defender of thy cause,
Spite of her dear religion, spite of laws,
For thee she sheath'd the terrors of her sword,
For thee she broke her gen'ral--and her word:
For thee her mind in doubtful terms she told,
And learn'd to speak like oracles of old:
For thee, for thee alone, what could she more?
She lost the honour she had gain'd before;
Lost all the trophies which her arms had won,
(Such Cæsar never knew, nor Philip's son;)
Resign'd the glories of a ten years' reign,
And such as none but Marlborough's arm could gain:
For thee in annals she's content to shine,
Like other monarchs of the Stuart line.

Many irreverent remarks were also made by the coarser wits of the day,
in reference to the position of her Majesty, with her back to the
church and her face to a brandy shop, which was then kept in that part
of the churchyard. The calumny was worthy of the coarseness. Anne, who
was not a very clever woman, had a difficult task to perform; and
though we differ with her politics, we cannot, even at this distance
of time, help expressing our disgust at personalities like these,
especially against a female.

[Illustration: PAUL'S CROSS.]

FOOTNOTES:

[14] Parentalia, p. 290, quoted in the work next mentioned.

[15] Brayley's London and Middlesex, vol. i. p. 87.

[16] Parentalia, p. 27.

[17] Survey of London, p. 262. First edition.

[18] Fine Arts of the English School, quoted in Brayley, vol. ii. p.
217.

[19] Londinium Redivivum, iii., p. 134.

[20] Londinium Redivivum, iii., p. 81.

[21] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iii., pp. 71, 73.

[22] Moser, in the European Magazine, July, 1807.

[23] Poems. Gilchrist's edition, 1807, p. 5.

[24] Microcosmographie, quoted in Pennant.

[25] Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during the
Eighteenth Century, vol. i. p. 281.

[26] London and Middlesex, vol. ii., p. 229.

[27] Ancient Mysteries described, &c., 1823, p. 195.

[28] _Purvey'd_ is the word of Mr. Chalmers; who says, however, that
he knows not on what principle the right of "purveying such children"
was justified, "except by the maxim that the king had a right to the
services of all his subjects." See Johnson and Steeven's Shakspeare,
Prolegomena, vol. ii., p. 516.

[29]

"His bushy beard, and shoe-strings green,
His high-crown'd hat, and satin doublet,
Mov'd the stout heart of England's queen,
Though Pope and Spaniard could not trouble it."--GRAY.

[30] Maitland's History of London, vol. ii., p. 1170.

[31] The Bishop's second wife was a Lady Baker, who is said, by Mr.
Brayley, to have been young as well as beautiful, and probably did not
add to the prelate's repose.

[32] London and Middlesex, vol. ii., p. 231.

[33] The active habits of our ancestors enabled them to bear these
out-of-door sermons better than their posterity could; yet, as times
grew less hardy, they began to have consequences which Bishop Latimer
attributed to another cause. "The citizens of Raim," said he, in a
sermon preached in Lincolnshire, in the year 1552, "had their
burying-place without the city, which, no doubt, is a laudable thing;
and I do marvel that London, being so great a city, hath not a
burial-place without, for no doubt it is an unwholesome thing to bury
within the city, especially at such a time when there be great
sickness, and many die together. I think, verily, that many a man
taketh his death in Paul's Churchyard, and this I speak of experience;
for I myself, when I have been there on some mornings to hear the
sermons, have felt such an ill-savoured unwholesome savour, that I was
the worse for it a great while after; and I think no less, but it is
the occasion of great sickness and disease."--Brayley, vol. ii., p.
315. After all, the Bishop may have been right in attributing the
sickness to the cemetery. We have seen frightful probabilities of the
same kind in our own time; and nothing can be more sensible than what
he says of burial-grounds in cities.

[34] Maitland, vol. ii., p. 949.

[35] The reader, perhaps, will agree with us in thinking, that the
last three lines of this poetry are unworthy of the rest, and put Jane
in a theatrical attitude which she would not have effected.

[36] Some account of London, third edition, p. 394.

[37] Chalmers's British Poets, vol. iv., p. 91.

[38] "After which, once ended," says Stow, "the preacher gat him home,
and never after durst look out for shame, but kept him out of sight
like an owle; and when he once asked one that had been his olde
friende, what the people talked of him, all were it that his own
conscience well shewed him that they talked no good, yet when the
other answered him, that there was in every man's mouth spoken of him
much shame, it so strake him to the hart, that in a few daies after,
he withered, and consumed away."--Brayley, vol. i., p. 312.

[39] From a MS. in the British Museum, quoted by Brayley, vol. ii., p.
312.

[40] A Dance of Death (for the subject was often repeated) is a
procession of the various ranks of life, from the pope to the peasant,
each led by a skeleton for his partner. Holbein enlarged it by the
addition of a series of visits privately paid by Death to the
individuals. The figurantes, in his work, by no means go down the
dance "with an air of despondency." The human beings are unconscious
of their partners (which is fine); and the Deaths are as jolly as
skeletons well can be.

[41] Brayley, vol. ii., p. 320.

[42] See Todd's Milton, vol. vii.; Aubrey's Letters and Lives; and Ben
Jonson's Poems. Gill's specimen of a satire is very bad, and the great
laureate's answer is not much better. The first couplet of the latter,
however, is to the purpose:--

"Shall the prosperity of a pardon still
Secure thy railing rhymes, infamous Gill?"

[43] History of London, vol. ii., p. 1166.

[44] Life of Sir Christopher Wren, in the Library of Useful Knowledge,
No. 24, p. 27.

[45] Wordsworth.

CHAPTER II.

ST. PAUL'S AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

The Church of St. Faith -- Booksellers of the Churchyard -- Mr.
Johnson's -- Mr. Newberry's -- Children's Books -- Clerical Names
of Streets near St. Paul's -- Swift at the top of the Cathedral
-- Dr. Johnson at St. Paul's -- Paternoster Row -- Panyer's Alley
-- Stationers' Hall -- Almanacks -- Knight-Riders' Street -- Armed
Assemblies of the Citizens -- Doctor's Commons -- The Heralds'
College -- Coats of Arms -- Ludgate -- Story of Sir Stephen
Forster -- Prison of Ludgate -- Wyatt's Rebellion -- The Belle
Sauvage Inn -- Blackfriars -- Shakspeare's Theatre -- Accident at
Blackfriars in 1623 -- Printing House Square -- The Times
-- Baynard's Castle -- Story of the Baron Fitzwalter -- Richard
III. and Buckingham -- Diana's Chamber -- The Royal Wardrobe
-- Marriages in the Fleet -- Fleet Ditch -- The Dunciad.

We remember, in our boyhood, a romantic story of a church that stood
under St. Paul's. We conceived of it, as of a real good-sized church
actually standing under the other; but how it came there nobody could
imagine. It was some ghostly edification of providence, not lightly to
be inquired into; but as its name was St. Faith's, we conjectured that
the mystery had something to do with religious belief. The mysteries
of art do not remain with us for life, like those of Nature. Our
phenomenon amounted to this:

"The church of St. Faith," says Brayley, "was originally a
distinct building, standing near the east end of St. Paul's;
but when the old cathedral was enlarged, between the years 1256
and 1312, it was taken down, and an extensive part of the
vaults was appropriated to the use of the parishioners of St.
Faith's, in lieu of the demolished fabric. This was afterwards
called the church of St. Faith in the Crypts (_Ecclesia Sanctæ
Fidei in Cryptis_) and, according to a representation made to
the Dean and Chapter, in the year 1735, it measured 180 feet in
length, and 80 in breadth. After the fire of London, the parish
of St. Faith was joined to that of St. Augustine; and on the
rebuilding of the cathedral, a portion of the churchyard
belonging to the former was taken to enlarge the avenue round
the east end of St. Paul's, and the remainder was inclosed
within the cathedral railing."[46]

The parishioners of St. Faith have still liberty to bury their dead in
certain parts of the churchyard and the Crypts. Other portions of the
latter have been used as storehouses for wine, stationery, &c. The
stationers and booksellers of London, during the fire, thought they
had secured a great quantity of their stock in this place; but on the
air being admitted when they went to take them out, the goods had been
so heated by the conflagration of the church overhead, that they took
fire at last, and the whole property was destroyed. Clarendon says it
amounted to the value of two hundred thousand pounds.[47]

One of the houses on the site of the old episcopal mansion, now
converted into premises occupied by Mr. Hitchcock the linendraper, was
Mr. Johnson's the bookseller--a man who deserves mention for his
liberality to Cowper, and for the remarkable circumstance of his never
having seen the poet, though his intercourse with him was long and
cordial. Mr. Johnson was in connection with a circle of men of
letters, some of whom were in the habit of dining with him once a
week, and who comprised the leading polite writers of the
generation--Cowper, Darwin, Hayley, Dr. Aikin, Mrs. Barbauld, Godwin,
&c. Fuseli must not be omitted, who was at least as good a writer as a
painter. Here Bonnycastle hung his long face over his plate, as glad
to escape from arithmetic into his jokes and his social dinner as a
great boy; and here Wordsworth, and we believe Coleridge, published
their earliest performances. At all events they both visited at the
house.

But the most illustrious of all booksellers in our boyish days, not
for his great names, not for his dinners, not for his riches that we
know of, nor for any other full-grown celebrity, but for certain
little penny books, radiant with gold and rich with bad pictures, was
Mr. Newberry, the famous children's bookseller, "at the corner of St.
Paul's churchyard," next Ludgate Street. The house is still occupied
by a successor, and children may have books there as formerly--but not
the same. The gilding, we confess, we regret: gold, somehow, never
looked so well as in adorning literature. The pictures also--may we
own that we preferred the uncouth coats, the staring blotted eyes, and
round pieces of rope for hats, of our very badly drawn contemporaries,
to all the proprieties of modern embellishment? We own the superiority
of the latter, and would have it proceed and prosper; but a boy of our
own time was much, though his coat looked like his grandfather's. The
engravings probably were of that date. Enormous, however, is the
improvement upon the morals of these little books; and there we give
them up, and with unmitigated delight. The good little boy, the hero
of the infant literature in those days, stood, it must be
acknowledged, the chance of being a very selfish man. His virtue
consisted in being different from some other little boy, perhaps his
brother; and his reward was having a fine coach to ride in, and being
a King Pepin. Now-a-days, since the world has had a great moral
earthquake that set it thinking, the little boy promises to be much
more of a man; thinks of others, as well as works for himself; and
looks for his reward to a character for good sense and beneficence. In
no respect is the progress of the age more visible, or more
importantly so, than in this apparently trifling matter. The most
bigoted opponents of a rational education are obliged to adopt a
portion of its spirit, in order to retain a hold which their own
teaching must accordingly undo: and if the times were not full of
hopes in other respects, we should point to this evidence of their
advancement, and be content with it.

One of the most pernicious mistakes of the old children's books, was
the inculcation of a spirit of revenge and cruelty in the tragic
examples which were intended to deter their readers from idleness and
disobedience. One, if he did not behave himself, was to be
shipwrecked, and eaten by lions; another to become a criminal, who was
not to be taught better, but rendered a mere wicked contrast to the
luckier virtue; and, above all, none were to be poor but the vicious,
and none to ride in their coaches but little Sir Charles Grandisons,
and all-perfect Sheriffs. We need not say how contrary this was to the
real spirit of Christianity, which, at the same time, they so much
insisted on. The perplexity in after life, when reading of poor
philosophers and rich vicious men, was in proportion; or rather virtue
and mere worldly success became confounded. In the present day, the
profitableness of good conduct is still inculcated, but in a sounder
spirit. Charity makes the proper allowance for all; and none are
excluded from the hope of being wiser and happier. Men, in short are
not taught to love and labour for themselves alone or for their little
dark corners of egotism; but to take the world along with them into a
brighter sky of improvement; and to discern the want of success in
success itself, if not accompanied by a liberal knowledge.

The _Seven Champions of Christendom_, _Valentine and Orson_, and other
books of the fictitious class, which have survived their more rational
brethren (as the latter thought themselves), are of a much better
order, and, indeed, survive by a natural instinct in society to that
effect. With many absurdities, they have a general tone of manly and
social virtue, which may be safely left to itself. The absurdities
wear out and the good remains. Nobody in these times will think of
meeting giants and dragons; of giving blows that confound an army, or
tearing the hearts out of two lions on each side of him, as easily as
if he were dipping his hands into a lottery. But there are still
giants and wild beasts to encounter, of another sort, the conquest of
which requires the old enthusiasm and disinterestedness; arms and war
are to be checked in their career, and have been so, by that new might
of opinion to which every body may contribute much in his single
voice; and wild men, or those who would become so, are tamed, by
education and brotherly kindness, into ornaments of civil life.

The neighbourhood of St. Paul's retains a variety of appellations
indicative of its former connection with the church. There is Creed
Lane, Ave-Maria Lane, Sermon Lane[48], Canon Alley, Pater-Noster Row,
Holiday Court, Amen Corner, &c. Members of the Cathedral establishment
still have abodes in some of these places, particularly in Amen
Corner, which is enclosed with gates, and appropriated to the houses
of prebendaries and canons. Close to Sermon Lane is Do-little Lane; a
vicinity which must have furnished jokes to the Puritans. Addle Street
is an ungrateful corruption of Athelstan Street, so called from one of
the most respectable of the Saxon kings, who had a palace in it.

We have omitted to notice a curious passage in Swift, in which he
abuses himself for going to the top of St. Paul's. "To-day," says he,
writing to Stella, "I was all about St. Paul's, and up at the top like
a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountain, and two more; and spent seven
shillings for my dinner, like a puppy." "This," adds the doctor, "is
the second time he has served me so: but I will never do it again,
though all mankind should persuade me--unconsidering puppies!"[49] The
being forced by richer people than one's self to spend money at a
tavern might reasonably be lamented; but from the top of St. Paul's
Swift beheld a spectacle, which surely was not unworthy of his
attention; perhaps it affected him too much. The author of Gulliver
might have taken from it his notions of little bustling humankind.

Dr. Johnson frequently attended public worship in St. Paul's. Very
different must his look have been, in turning into the chancel, from
the threatening and trampling aspect they have given him in his
statue. We do not quarrel with his aspect; there is a great deal of
character in it. But the contrast, considering the place, is curious.
A little before his death, when bodily decay made him less patient
than ever of contradiction, he instituted a club at the Queen's Arms,
in St. Paul's Churchyard. "He told Mr. Hook," says Boswell, "That he
wished to have a _City Club_, and asked him to collect one; but, said
he, don't let them be patriots."[50] (This was an allusion to the
friends of his acquaintance Wilkes.) Boswell accompanied him one day
to the club, and found the members "very sensible well-behaved men:"
that is to say Hook had collected a body of decent listeners. This,
however, is melancholy. In the next chapter we shall see Johnson in
all his glory.

St. Paul's Churchyard appears as if it were only a great commercial
thoroughfare; but if all the clergy could be seen at once, who have
abodes in the neighbourhood, they would be found to constitute a
numerous body. If to the sable coats of these gentlemen be added those
of the practisers of the civil law, who were formerly allied to them,
and who live in Doctors' Commons, the churchyard increases the clerkly
part of its aspect. It resumes, to the imagination, something of the
learned and collegiate look it had of old. Paternoster Row is said to
have been so called on account of the number of Stationers or
Text-writers that dwelt there, who dealt much in religious books, and
sold horn-books, or A B C's, with the Paternoster, Ave-Maria, Creed,
Graces, &c. And so of the other places above-named. But it is more
likely that this particular street (as indeed we are told) was named
from the rosary or paternoster-makers; for so they were called, as
appears by a record of "one Robert Nikke, a paternoster-maker and
citizen, in the reign of Henry the Fourth."

It is curious to reflect what a change has taken place in this
celebrated _book-street_, since nothing was sold there but rosaries.
It is but rarely the word Paternoster-Row strikes us as having a
reference to the Latin Prayer. We think of booksellers' shops, and of
all the learning and knowledge they have sent forth. The books of
Luther, which Henry the Eighth burnt in the neighbouring churchyard,
were turned into millions of volumes, partly by reason of that
burning.

Paternoster-Row, however, has not been exclusively in possession of
the booksellers, since it lost its original tenants, the
rosary-makers. Indeed it would appear to have been only in
comparatively recent times that the booksellers fixed themselves
there. They had for a long while been established in St. Paul's
Churchyard, but scarcely in the Row, till after the commencement of
the last century.

"This street," says Maitland, writing in 1720, "before the fire
of London, was taken up by eminent mercers, silkmen, and
lacemen; and their shops were so resorted unto by the nobility
and gentry in their coaches, that ofttimes the street was so
stopped up, that there was no passage for foot passengers. But
since the said fire, those eminent tradesmen have settled
themselves in several other parts; especially in Ludgate
Street, and in Bedford Street, Henrietta Street, and King
Street, Covent Garden. And the inhabitants in this street are
now a mixture of tradespeople, such as tire-women, or
milliners, for the sale of top-knots, and the like dressings
for the females."

In a subsequent edition of his history, published in 1755, it is
added, "There are now many shops of mercers, silkmen, eminent
printers, booksellers, and publishers."[51] The most easterly of the
narrow and partly covered passages between Newgate Street and
Paternoster Row is that called Panyer's Alley, remarkable for a stone
built into the wall of one of the houses on the east side, supporting
the figures of a pannier or wicker basket, surmounted by a boy, and
exhibiting the following inscription:--

"When you have sought the city round,
Yet still this is the highest ground."

We cannot say if absolute faith is to be put in this asseveration; but
it is possible. It has been said that the top of St. Paul's is on a
level with that of Hampstead.

We look back a moment between Paternoster Row and the churchyard, to
observe, that the only memorial remaining of the residence of the
Bishop of London is a tablet in London-House Yard, let into the wall
of the public house called the Goose and Gridiron. The Goose and
Gridiron is said by tradition to have been what was called in the last
century a "music house;" that is to say, a place of entertainment with
music. When it ceased to be musical, a landlord, in ridicule of its
former pretensions, chose for his sign "a goose stroking the bars of a
gridiron with his foot," and called it the Swan and Harp.[52]

Between Amen Corner and Ludgate Street, at the end of a passage from
Ave-Maria Lane, "stood a great house of stone and wood, belonging in
old time to John, Duke of Bretagne, and Earl of Richmond, cotemporary
with Edward II. and III. After him it was possessed by the Earls of
Pembroke, in the time of Richard II. and Henry IV., and was called
Pembroke's Inn, near Ludgate. It then fell into the possession of the
title of Abergavenny, and was called Burgavenny House, under which
circumstances it remained in the time of Elizabeth. To finish the
anti-climax," says Pennant, "it was finally possessed by the Company
of Stationers, who rebuilt it of wood, and made it their Hall. It was
destroyed by the Great Fire, and was succeeded by the present plain
building."[53] Of the once-powerful possessors of the old mansion
nothing now is remembered, or cared for; but in the interior of the
modern building are to be seen, looking almost as if they were alive,
and as if we knew them personally, the immortal faces of Steele and
Richardson, Prior in his cap, and Dr. Hoadley, a liberal bishop. There
is also Mrs. Richardson, the wife of the novelist, looking as prim and
particular as if she had been just chucked under the chin; and Robert
Nelson, Esq., supposed author of the Whole Duty of Man, and prototype
of Sir Charles Grandison, as regular and passionless in his face as if
he had been made only to wear his wig. The same is not to be said of
the face of Steele, with his black eyes and social aspect; and still
less of Richardson, who, instead of being the smooth, satisfied-looking
personage he is represented in some engravings of him (which makes his
heartrending romance appear unaccountable and cruel), has a face as
uneasy as can well be conceived--flushed and shattered with emotion.
We recognise the sensitive, enduring man, such as he really was--a
heap of bad nerves. It is worth anybody's while to go to Stationers'
Hall, on purpose to see these portraits. They are not of the first
order as portraits, but evident likenesses. Hoadley looks at once
jovial and decided, like a good-natured controversialist. Prior is not
so pleasant as in his prints; his nose is a little aquiline, instead
of turned up; and his features, though delicate, not so liberal. But
if he has not the best look of his poetry, he has the worst. He seems
as if he had been sitting up all night; his eyelids droop: and his
whole face is used with rakery.

It is impossible to see Prior and Steele together, without regretting
that they quarrelled: but as they did quarrel, it was fit that Prior
should be in the wrong. From a Whig he had become a Tory, and showed
that his change was not quite what it ought to have been, by avoiding
the men with whom he had associated, and writing contemptuously of his
fellow wits. All the men of letters, whose portraits are in this hall,
were, doubtless, intimate with the premises, and partakers of
Stationers' dinners. Richardson was Master of the Company. Morphew, a
bookseller in the neighbourhood, was one of the publishers of the
_Tatler_; and concerts as well as festive dinners used to take place
in the great room, of both of which entertainments Steele was fond. It
was here, if we mistake not, that one of the inferior officers of the
Company, a humourist on sufferance, came in, one day, on his knees, at
an anniversary dinner when Bishop Hoadley was present, in order to
drink to the "Glorious Memory."[54] The company, Steele included, were
pretty far gone; Hoadley had remained as long as he well could; and
the genuflector was drunk. Steele, seeing the Bishop a little
disconcerted, whispered him, "Do laugh, my lord; pray laugh:--'tis
_humanity_ to laugh." The good-natured prelate acquiesced. Next day,
Steele sent him a penitential letter, with the following couplet:--

Virtue with so much ease on Bangor sits,
All faults he pardons, though he none commits.

The most illustrious musical performance that ever took place in the
hall was that of Dryden's Ode. A society for the annual commemoration
of St. Cecilia, the patroness of music, was instituted in the year
1680, not without an eye perhaps to the religious opinions of the heir
presumptive who was shortly to ascend the throne as James the Second.
An ode was written every year for the occasion, and set to music by
some eminent composer; and the performance of it was followed by a
grand dinner. In 1687, Dryden contributed his first ode, entitled, "A
Song for Saint Cecilia's Day," in which there are finer things than in
any part of the other, though as a whole it is not so striking. Ten
years afterwards it was followed by "Alexander's Feast," the dinner,
perhaps, being a part of the inspiration. Poor Jeremiah Clarke, who
shot himself for love, was the composer.[55] This is the ode with the
composition of which Bolingbroke is said to have found Dryden in a
state of emotion one morning, the whole night having been passed,
_agitante deo_, under the fever of inspiration.

From Stationers' Hall once issued all the almanacks that were
published, with all the trash and superstition they kept alive.
Francis Moore is still among their "living dead men." Francis must now
be a posthumous old gentleman, of at least one hundred and fifty years
of age. The first blunder the writers of these books committed, in
their cunning, was the having to do with the state of the weather;
their next was to think that the grandmothers of the last century were
as immortal as their title-pages, and that nobody was getting wiser
than themselves. The mysterious solemnity of their hieroglyphics,
bringing heaven and earth together, like a vision in the Apocalypse,
was imposing to the nurse and the child; and the bashfulness of their
bodily sympathies no less attractive. We remember the astonishment of
a worthy seaman, some years ago, at the claim which they put into the
mouth of the sign Virgo. The monopoly is now gone; almanacks have been
forced into improvement by emulation; and the Stationers (naturally
enough at the moment) are angry about it. This fit of ill humour will
pass; and a body of men, interested by their very trade in the
progress of liberal knowledge, will by and by join the laugh at the
tenderness they evinced in behalf of old wives' fables. It is
observable, that their friend Bickerstaff (Steele's assumed name in
the _Tatler_) was the first to begin the joke against them.

Knight-Riders' Street (Great and Little), on the south side of St.
Paul's Churchyard, is said to have been named from the processions of
Knights from the Tower to their place of tournament in Smithfield. It
must have been a round-about way. Probably the name originated in
nothing more than a sign, or from some reference to the Heralds'
College in the neighbourhood. The open space, we may here notice,
around the western extremity of the Cathedral, was anciently used by
the citizens for assembling together "to make shew of their arms," or
to hold what was called among the Scotch "a _weapon shaw_." A
complaint was made by the Lord Mayor and the Ward, in the reign of
Edward I., against the Dean and Chapter for having inclosed this
ground, which they insisted was "the soil and lay-fee of our lord the
King," by a mud wall, and covered part of it with buildings.[56] The
houses immediately to the west of Creed Lane and Ave-Maria Lane
probably occupy part of the space in question.

Behind Great Knight-Riders' Street is Doctors' Commons, so called from
the Doctors of Civil Law who dined together four days in each term.
The Court of Admiralty is also there. The Admiralty judge is preceded
by an officer with a silver oar. There is something pleasing in the
parade of a civil officer, thus announced by a symbol representing the
regulation of the most turbulent of elements.

The civil and ecclesiastical lawyers, who connect the law with the
church, had formerly much more to do than they have at present. The
proctors (or attorneys) are said to have been so numerous and so noisy
in the time of Henry VII., that the judge sometimes could not be heard
for them. They thrust themselves into causes without the parties'
consent, and shouldered the advocates out of their business. The
diminution of their body was owing to Cranmer. Doctors' Commons are of
painful celebrity in the annals of domestic trouble. We have hardly
perhaps among us a remnant of greater barbarism than "an action for
damages,"[57] whether considered with a view to recompense or
prevention. Doctors' Commons bind as well as set loose. "Hence
originates," says the facetious Mr. Malcolm, "the awful scrap of
parchment, bearing the talismanic mark of _John Cantuar_ (the
Archbishop of Canterbury), which constitutes thousands of Benedicts
the happiest or most miserable of married men: in short, it is the
grand lottery of life, in which, fortunately, there are far more
prizes than blanks."[58] The community ought to be thankful to Mr.
Malcolm for this last piece of information, as there is a splenetic
notion among them to the contrary.

A history deeply interesting to human nature might be drawn up from
the documents preserved in this place; for besides cases of personal
infidelity, here are to be found others of _infidelity religious_, of
blasphemy, simony, &c., together with romantic questions relative to
kindred and succession; and here are deposited those last specimens of
human strength or weakness--last wills and testaments, together with
cases in which they have been contested. It was these records that
furnished us with accounts of the latest days of Milton; and that set
the readers of Shakspeare speculating why he should make no mention of
his wife, except to leave her his "second best bed;"--a question most
unexpectedly as well as happily cleared up by Mr. Charles Knight, who
shows that the bequest was to the lady's honour. Of the practisers in
the civil courts, we can call to mind nothing more worthy of
recollection than the strange name of one of them, "Sir Julius Cæsar,"
and the ruinous volatility of poor Dr. King, the Tory wit, who is
conjectured to have been the only civilian that ever went to reside in
Ireland, "after having experienced the emoluments of a settlement in
Doctors' Commons." The doctor unfortunately practised too much with
the bottle, which hindered him from adhering long to anything.

Behind Little Knight-Riders' Street, to the east of Doctors' Commons,
is the Heralds' College. A gorgeous idea of colours falls on the mind
in passing it, as from a cathedral window,

"And shielded scutcheons blush with blood of queens and kings."
_Keats._

The passenger, if he is a reader conversant with old times, thinks of
bannered halls, of processions of chivalry, and of the fields of
Cressy and Poictiers, with their vizored knights, distinguished by
their coats and crests; for a coat of arms is nothing but a
representation of the knight himself, from whom the bearer is
descended. The shield supposes his body; there is the helmet for his
head, with the crest upon it; the flourish is his mantle; and he
stands upon the ground of his motto, or moral pretension. The
supporters, if he is noble, or of a particular class of knighthood,
are thought to be the pages that waited upon him, designated by the
fantastic dresses of bear, lion, &c., which they sometimes wore.
Heraldry is full of colour and imagery, and attracts the fancy like a
"book of pictures." The Kings at Arms are romantic personages, really
crowned, and have as mystic appellations as the kings of an old
tale--Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy. Norroy is King of the North,
and Clarencieux (a title of Norman origin) of the South. The heralds,
Lancaster, Somerset, &c., have simpler names, indicative of the
counties over which they preside; but are only less gorgeously dressed
than the kings, in emblazonment and satin; and then there are the four
pursuivants, Rouge Croix, Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, and Blue Mantle,
with hues as lively, and appellations as quaint, as the attendants on
a fairy court. For gorgeousness of attire, mysteriousness of origin,
and in fact for similarity of origin (a knave being a squire), a knave
of cards is not unlike a herald. A story is told of an Irish King at
Arms,[59] who, waiting upon the Bishop of Killaloe to summon him to
Parliament, and being dressed, as the ceremony required, in his
heraldic attire, so mystified the bishop's servant with his
appearance, that not knowing what to make of it, and carrying off but
a confused notion of his title, he announced him thus: "My lord, here
is the King of Trumps."

Mr. Pennant says, that the Heralds' College "is a foundation of great
antiquity, in which the records are kept of all the old blood in the
kingdom." But this is a mistake. Heralds, indeed, are of great
antiquity, in the sense of messengers of peace and war; but in the
modern sense, they are no older than the reign of Edward III., and
were not incorporated before that of the usurper Richard. The house
which they formerly occupied was a mansion of the Earls of Derby. It
was burnt in the Great Fire, and succeeded by the present building,
part of which was raised at the expense of some of their officers. As
to their keeping records of "all the old blood in the kingdom," they
may keep them, or not, as they have the luck to find them; but the
blood was old, before they had anything to do with it. Men bore arms
and crests when there were no officers to register them. This, as a
writer in the _Censura Literaria_ observes, justly diminishes the
pretension they set up, that no arms are of authority which have not
been registered among their archives.

"If this doctrine," says he, "were just, the consequence would
be, that arms of comparatively modern invention are of better
authority than those which a man and his ancestors have borne
from times before the existence of the College of Arms, and for
time immemorial, supported by the evidence of ancient seals,
funeral monuments, and other authentic documents. Surely this
is grossly absurd; and the more absurd, if we consider that the
heralds seem originally not to have been instituted for the
manufacturing of armorial ensigns, but for the recording those
ensigns which had been borne by men of honourable lineage, and
which might, therefore, be borne by their posterity. Perhaps it
would not be too much to presume, that it will be found on
inquiry, that there are no grants of arms by the English
Heralds of any very high antiquity; and that the most ancient
which can be produced, either in the original or in
well-authenticated copies, are of a date when the general use
of seals of arms, circumscribed with the names and titles of
the bearers, was wearing away."[60]

We learn from the same writer, that the value of "a painted shield of
parchment" is fifty pounds. Of the spirit in which these things have
been done, the reader may judge from a letter written by an applicant
to one of the most respectable names in the college list. His object
was to get the illegitimate coat of a female friend changed to one by
which it was to appear she was not illegitimate. He offers five pounds
for it; and adds, that there is another friend of his, "an alderman's
son, in Chester, whose great-grandfather was baseborn, whom I have
bine treating with severall tymes about the alteration of his coat,
telling him for 10li and not under, it may be accomplished; five he
is willing to give, but not above; if you please to accept of that
sume, you may writt me a line or two. I desire that you will send the
scroll down again, as soon as you can."[61]

The truth is, that, except as far as their records go, and as they
can be turned to account in questions of kindred and inheritance, the
heralds are of no importance in modern times. Nor have they anything
to do with the spirit and first principles of the devices, of which
they assume the direction. We think this is worth notice, because
heraldry itself, or at least the discussion of coats of arms, of which
most people are observed to be fonder than they choose to confess,
might be reconciled to the progress of knowledge, or made, at any
rate, the ground of a pleasing and not ungraceful novelty. To a coat
of arms no man, literally speaking, has pretensions, who is not the
representative of somebody that bore arms in the old English wars; but
when the necessity for military virtue decreased, arms gave way to the
gown; and _shields_ had honourable, but fantastic augmentations, for
the peaceful triumphs of lawyers and statesmen. Meanwhile commerce was
on the increase, and there came up a new power in the shape of pounds,
shillings, and pence, which was to be represented also by its coat of
_arms_; how absurdly, need not be added: though the individuals who
got their lions and their shields behind the counter, were often
excellent men, who might have cut as great a figure in battle as the
best, had they lived in other times. At length, not to have a military
coat was to be no gentleman; and then the heralds fairly sold
achievements at so much the head. They received their fees, put on
their spectacles, turned over their books like astrologers, and found
that you were deserving of a bear's paw, or might clap three puppies
on your coach. "Congreve," says Swift, in one of his letters to
Stella, "gave me a Tatler he had written out, as blind as he is, for
little Harrison. 'Tis about a scoundrel that was grown rich, and went
and bought a coat of arms at the heralds', and a set of ancestors at
Fleet Ditch." And this is the case at present. Numbers of persons do
not, however, stand on this ceremony with the heralds. Many are
content to receive their exploits, at half-a-guinea the set, from
pretenders who undertake to "procure arms;" and many more assume the
arms nearest to their name and family, or invent them at once;
naturally enough concluding, that they might as well achieve their own
glories, as buy them of an old gentleman or a pedlar.

Now arms were not originally given; they were assumed. Men in battle,
when armies fought pell-mell, and bodily prowess was more in request
than it is now, wished to have their persons distinguished; and
accordingly they put a device on their shield, or some towering symbol
on their helmet. This at once served to mark out the bearer, and to
express the particular sentiment or alliance upon which he was to be
understood as priding himself. The real spirit of heraldry consisted,
therefore, and must always consist, in distinguishing one person from
another, and in expressing his individual sentiments; and as the
adoption of some device is both an elegant exercise of the fancy, and
acts as a kind of memento to the conscience, tending to keep us to
what we profess, people who have no certain arms of their own, or who
do not care for them if they have, might not ungracefully or even
uselessly entertain themselves with doing, in their own persons, what
the old assumers of arms did in theirs; that is to say, invent their
own distinctions. The emblazonment might amuse their fancies, and be
put in books, or elsewhere, like other coats of arms; and a little
difference in the mode of it could easily set aside the interference
of the heralds. People might thus express their views in life, or
their particular tastes and opinions; and the "science of heraldry,"
which has been so much laughed at, not always with justice, be made to
accord with the progress of knowledge--or, at all events, with the
entertaining part of it.

As to coats of arms really ancient, or connected with old virtue, or
with modern, we have already shown that we are far from pretending to
despise anything which indulges the natural desire of mortality to
extend or to elevate its sense of existence. We have no respect for
shields of no meaning, or for bearers of better shields that disgrace
them; but we do not profess to look without interest on very old
shields, if only for the sake of their antiquity, much less when they
are associated with names,

Familiar in our mouths as household words.

The lions and stags, &c., of the Howards and Herberts, of the
Cavendishes, Russells, and Spencers, affect us more than those of
Cuvier himself, especially when we recollect they were borne by great
writers as well as warriors, men who advanced not only themselves but
their species in dignity. The most interesting coats of arms, next to
those which unite antiquity with ability (that is to say, duration
backward with duration and utility in prospect), are such as become
ennobled by genius, or present us with some pleasing device. Such is
the spear of Shakspeare, whose ancestors are thought to have won it
in Bosworth field;[62] the spread eagle of Milton--a proper epic
device; the flower given to Linnæus for a device when he was ennobled;
the philosophical motto of the great Bacon, _Mediocria firma_
(Mediocre things firm--the Golden Mean); the modest, yet
self-respecting one, first used, we believe, by Sir Philip Sydney,
_Vix ea nostra voco_ (I scarcely call these things one's own); and
those other mottoes, taken from favourite classics, which argue more
taste than antiquity. We are not sorry, however, for mere antiquity's
sake, to recognise the ship of the Campbells; the crowned heart (a
beautiful device) of Douglas; and even the checquers of the
unfortunate family of the Stuarts. They tell us of names and
connections, and call to mind striking events in history. Indeed, all
ancient names naturally become associated with history and poetry. The
most interesting coat in Scottish heraldry, if we are to believe
tradition, is that of Hay, Earl of Errol; whose ancestors, a couple of
peasants, with their father, rallied an army of their countrymen in a
narrow pass, and led them back victoriously against the Danes. Two
peasants are the supporters of the shield. But unquestionably the most
interesting sight in the whole circle of heraldry, British or foreign,
if we consider the rational popularity of its origin, and the immense
advance it records in the progress of what is truly noble, is that of
the plain English motto assumed by Lord Erskine, _Trial by Jury_. The
devices of the Nelsons and Wellingtons, illustrious as they are, are
nothing to this; for the world might relapse into barbarism, as it has
formerly done, notwithstanding the exploits of the greatest warriors;
but words like these are trophies of the experience of ages, and the
world could not pass them, and go back again, for very shame. It is
the fashion now-a-days to have painted windows; and a very beautiful
fashion it is, and extremely worthy of encouragement in this climate,
where the general absence of colours renders it desirable that they
should be collected wherever they can, so as to increase a feeling of
cheerfulness and warmth. When the sun strikes through a painted
window, it seems as if Heaven itself were recommending to us the
brilliance with which it has painted its flowers and its skies. It is
a pity we have no devices invented for themselves by the great men of
past times, otherwise what an illustrious window would they make! We
should like to have presented the reader with such of the escutcheons
above mentioned as have been created or modified in some respect by
their ennoblers; and to have shown him how different the old parts now
appear, with which the individuals had nothing to do, compared with
those of their own achievement, or adoption, even when nothing better
than a motto. Sir Philip's motto almost rejects his coat.[63] If all
persons, ambitious of good conduct and opinions, were to adopt our
suggestion, and assume a device of their own, windows of this kind
might abound among friends; and many of them would become as
interesting to posterity, as _such_ "coats of arms" would, above all
others, deserve to be.

The most eminent names in the Heralds' College are Camden, the great
antiquary; Dugdale (whose merits, however, are questionable); King, a
writer on political arithmetic; and Vanbrugh, the comic writer, who
wore a tabard for a short time, as Clarencieux. Gibbon had an
ancestor, a herald, who took great interest in the profession. He had
another progenitor, who, about the reign of James the First, changed
the scallop shells of the historian's coat "into three ogresses or
female cannibals, with a design of stigmatising three ladies, his
kinswomen, who had provoked him by an unjust lawsuit."[64] A good
account of heraldry, its antiquities and its freaks, is a desideratum,
and would make a very amusing book.

[Illustration: LUDGATE.]

We move westward from St. Paul's, because, though the metropolis
abounds with interest in every part of it, yet the course this way is
the most generally known; and readers may choose to hear of the most
popular thoroughfares first. The origin of the word Ludgate is not
known. The old opinion respecting King Lud has been rejected, and some
think it is the same word as Flud or Fludgate, meaning the Gate on the
Fleet, Floet, or Flood, F being dropt, as in _leer_ for Fleer, Lloyd
for Floyd or Fluyd, &c. It may be so; but it is not easy to see, in
that case, why Fleet Street should not have been called Lud Street.
Perhaps the old tradition is right, and some ancient Lud, or Lloyd,
was the builder of an "old original" gate, whether king or not. Its
successor (which formerly crossed the street by St. Martin's church),
was no older than the reign of King John. It was rebuilt in 1586, and
finally removed in 1760. Pennant says, he remembered it "a wretched
prison for debtors." The old chroniclers tell us a romantic story of a
lord-mayor, Sir Stephen Forster, who enlarged this prison, and added a
chapel to it. He had been confined in it himself, and, begging at the
grate, was asked by a rich widow what sum would purchase his liberty.
He said, twenty pounds. She paid it, took him into her service, and
afterwards became his wife. One of our old dramatists (Rowley), in
laying a scene in this prison, has made use of the name of Stephen
Forster in a different manner; and probably his story had a
foundation in truth. According to him, Stephen, who had been a
profligate fellow, was relieved by the son of his brother, with whom
he was at variance. Stephen afterwards becomes rich in his turn, and
seeing his brother become poor and thrust into the same prison,
forbids his nephew Robert, whom he had adopted on that condition, to
relieve his father. The nephew disobeys, and has the misfortune to
incur the hatred of both uncle and parent, for his connection with
either party, but ultimately finds his virtue acknowledged. The
following scene is one of those in which these old writers, in their
honest confidence in nature, go direct to the heart. The reader will
see the style of begging in those days. Robert Forster, who has been
cursed by his father, comes to Ludgate, and stands concealed outside
the prison, while his father appears above at the grate, "a box
hanging down."

_Forster._ Bread, bread, one penny to buy a loaf of bread, for
the tender mercy.

_Rob._ O me! my shame! I know that voice full well;
I'll help thy wants, although thou curse me still.

[_He stands where he is unseen by his father._

_Fors._ Bread, bread, some Christian man send back
Your charity to a number of poor prisoners.
One penny for the tender mercy-- [_Robert puts in money._
The hand of Heaven reward you, gentle sir!
Never may you want, never feel misery;
Let blessings in unnumbered measure grow,
And fall upon your head, where'er you go.

_Rob._ Oh, happy comfort! curses to the ground
First struck me; now with blessings I am crowned.

_Fors._ Bread, bread, for the tender mercy; one penny for a
loaf of bread.

_Rob._ I'll buy more blessings: take thou all my store:
I'll keep no coin and see my father poor.

_Fors._ Good angels guard you, sir; my prayers shall be,
That Heaven may bless you for this charity.

_Rob._ If he knew me sure he would not say so:
Yet I have comfort, if by any means
I get a blessing from my father's hands.[65]

The prison of Ludgate was anciently considered to be not so much a
place of confinement as a place of refuge, into which debtors threw
themselves to escape from their creditors--"a keep, not so much of the
wicked as of the wretched"--("non sceleratorum carcer, sed miserorum
custodia"), as it is expressed in a Latin speech which was addressed
by the inmates to King Philip of Spain, when he passed through the
city, in 1554, and which the celebrated Roger Ascham was employed to
compose. As it does not appear, however, that the persons who took up
their abode here were allowed to come out again until they had
discharged their debts, the distinction attempted to be drawn seems to
be a somewhat shadowy one. A writer, nevertheless, quoted by Maitland,
who in 1659 published a description of the house in which he had
himself been for a long time a resident, expresses great indignation
against the authorities for having "basely and injuriously caused to
be taken down" the old inscription, affixed by Sir Stephen Forster, of
_Free Water and Lodging_, "and set up another over the outward street
door with only these words engraven: _This is the_ PRISON _of_
LUDGATE."[66] The prison of Ludgate stood on the south side of the
street, and extended back till it almost joined a portion of the old
London Wall, which ran nearly parallel to Ludgate Hill. About the year
1764 this wall is described as being eight feet and a half thick.[67]
Bits of it (as before noticed) still remain in this neighbourhood.

At this gate a stop was put to the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt
against Queen Mary, at the time when her marriage with Philip was in
contemplation. Sir Thomas was son of the poet who had been a friend of
the Earl of Surrey, and a warm partisan of Anne Bullen. He led his
forces up the Strand and Fleet Street in no very hopeful condition,
after suffering a loss in his rear; and on arriving at Ludgate, found
it shut against him, and strongly manned. The disappointment is said
to have affected him so strongly, that he threw himself on a bench
opposite the Bell-Savage Inn, and mourned the rashness of his hopes.
He retired, only to find his retreat cut off at Temple Bar; and being
summoned by a herald to submit, requested it might be to a gentleman;
upon which his sword was received by a person of his own rank. He was
beheaded. It is worth observing, that Mary, alarmed at this
insurrection, had pretended, in a speech at Guildhall, that she would
give up the marriage, provided it were seriously and properly objected
to: she only called upon the citizens to stand by her against rebels.
When the rebels, however, were put down, the marriage, though
notoriously unpopular, was concluded.

The Bell-Savage is an inn of old standing. The name is now learnedly
written over the front--Belle Sauvage. The old sign was a bell with a
savage by it. Stow derived the name from Isabella Savage, who had
given the house to the company of Cutlers; and most likely this was
its origin; but as the inn was formerly one of those in which plays
were acted, and as the players had dealings with romance, and sign
painters varied their hieroglyphics according to the whim of the
moment, Pennant might have reasonably found one derivation in the
_Spectator_, without objecting to the other. A sight of the passage to
which he refers will leave the immediate derivation beyond all doubt.
"As for the Bell-Savage," says Addison (for the paper is his), "which
is the sign of a Savage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly very
much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I accidentally fell into the
reading of an old romance translated out of the French; which gives an
account of a very beautiful woman who was in a wilderness, and is
called in the French _la belle Sauvage_; and is everywhere translated
by our countrymen the Bell-Savage."[68] This was one of the inns at
which the famous Tarlton used to perform. London has a modern look to
the inhabitants; but persons who come from the country find as odd and
remote-looking things in it as the Londoners do in York or Chester;
and among these are a variety of old inns, with corridors running
round the yard. They are well worth a glance from anybody who has a
respect for old times. The play used to be got up in the yard, and the
richer part of the spectators occupied "the galleries."[69]

The wall in which Lud-gate stood was the occasion of the hill's
having two names, which is still the case, the upper part, between the
Bell-Savage and St. Paul's Churchyard, being called Ludgate Street,
and only the rest Ludgate Hill. This latter portion went anciently by
the name of Bowyers' Row, no doubt from its being principally
inhabited by persons of that trade. On Ludgate Hill lived the cobbler
whom Steele mentions as a curious instance of pride.[70] He had a
wooden figure of a beau, who stood before him in a bending posture,
humbly presenting him with his awl, or bristle, or whatever else his
employer chose to put in his hand, after the manner of an obsequious
servant. Steele seems to have thought the man mad; otherwise the
conceit would have been an agreeable one. Ludgate Street, as if to
keep up and augment the didactic reputation of the neighbourhood, was
not long since the head-quarters of the Society for the Diffusion of
Knowledge, at least as far as regarded their publications. And,
curiously enough, the house was next door to old "Newberry's."

Between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, in the district more properly
retaining the name, was the monastery of the Black Friars, an order of
Dominicans, in which parliaments were sometimes held. The Emperor
Charles V. was lodged in it when he visited Henry VIII., in 1522; and
in a hall of the same building, seven years after, the cause was tried
between Henry and his queen, Catherine. Shakspeare has given us the
opening scene. In Elizabeth's time, the desecrated tenements and
neighbourhood of Blackfriars became the resort of the world of
fashion--a court end of the city; and close at hand, on the site
retaining the name of Play-house Yard, was the famous Theatre in
Blackfriars, where Shakspeare's, Ben Jonson's, and Beaumont and
Fletcher's plays were performed, and where many of them came out. It
was what they called at that time a "private" theatre, the peculiarity
of which is not exactly understood. All that is known of it is, that
it was smaller than the public ones; but it was open to public
admission. Perhaps a private theatre meant a theatre more select than
the others, and frequented by politer company; for such, at any rate,
the present one appears to have been. It is conjectured also to have
been a winter theatre, and its performances took place by candlelight.
The gallants and ladies of the courts of Elizabeth and James took
their dinner at noon, and after riding or lute-playing till evening,
went to their snug little theatre in the neighbourhood, to laugh or
weep over the divine fancies of Shakspeare. Shakspeare himself must
often have been on the spot; a certainty which an intellectual
inhabitant will be glad to possess. The theatre, at one time, was
partly his property.

A part of the monastery of the Blackfriars was, in 1623, the scene of
a frightful accident, which made a great noise at the time. Mr.
Malcolm has enumerated several of the publications recording it; and
from these it appears that on Sunday, the 5th of November in that
year, a congregation of about three hundred individuals had assembled
in a small gallery over the gateway of the lodgings of the French
Ambassador in this building, in order to hear a sermon from a Jesuit,
named Father Drury, who enjoyed considerable reputation as a preacher.
Under the floor of the chamber where they were assembled was an empty
apartment, and under that another, making together a height of
twenty-two feet from the ground; and the floor itself, as it
afterwards turned out, was mainly supported by a single beam, which in
the centre was not more than three inches thick. The people had been
in their seats for about half-an-hour, when this beam suddenly gave
way, and the whole of them were instantly precipitated, mixed with the
timber, plaster, and rubbish of the floors, into the vacant depth
below. Drury, and another priest, named Redgate, were both killed, as
were also a Lady Webbe, and the daughter of a Lady Blackstone,
together with, it is supposed, between ninety and a hundred persons.
Many more were seriously injured. "Several people," says Mr. Malcolm,
"escaped in a very extraordinary manner, particularly Mrs. Lucy
Penruddock, who was preserved by a chair falling hollow over her; and
a young man, who lay on the floor, overwhelmed by people and rubbish,
yet untouched by them, through the resting of fragments on each other,
and thus leaving a space round him. In this horrible situation he had
the presence of mind to force his way through a piece of the ceiling,
and he shortly after had the indescribable happiness of assisting in
the liberation of others."[71] There were many persons, it would
appear, foolish and wicked enough to represent this calamity as a
token of the displeasure of heaven against the Roman Catholic faith.
The pamphlets noticed by Mr. Malcolm are some of those that were
published by the parties in a violent controversy which raged for
some time on the subject. The day on which this accident happened was
long remembered under the name of the Fatal Vespers; and the
circumstance that it was the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot was not
forgotten by the judgment-mongers. Most of the bodies of those who
were killed on this occasion were buried without either the ceremony
of a funeral service, or the decency of a coffin or winding-sheet, in
two large pits or trenches, dug, the one in the court before, and the
other in the garden behind the house, in which the accident had taken
place.

Printing-house Square, close to Playhouse-yard, marks out the site of
the ancient King's Printing-House, whence bibles, prayer-books, and
proclamations were issued. It was rebuilt in the middle of the last
century, and became, according to Maitland, "the completest
printing-house in the world." The king's printer now lives elsewhere;
but in the same spot is a house, which may be called the world's
printing-house, seeing the enormous multitude of newspapers which the
mighty giant of steam daily throws forth out of his iron lap, full of
interest to all quarters of the globe. We need not say that we allude
to the _Times_ newspaper. There is knowing, in this and other
instances, what bounds to put to human expectation, when mechanical
and intellectual force are thus joined in a common object.

On the other side of the way, in Bridge Street, stood, and stands now,
though hidden by the new houses, and much altered, the former palace
of Bridewell, now known as a house of industry and correction. In
ancient times the King used frequently to reside here; and when such
was the case, the courts of law sometimes attended him. The building,
having fallen into decay, was restored about the year 1522, by Henry
VIII.; and here the attendants of the Emperor Charles V. were lodged
while the emperor himself occupied the Blackfriars, a communication
being formed between the two palaces by a gallery carried over the
Fleet Ditch, and through the old city wall. Both Henry and Catherine,
also, were lodged here, while the cause between them was proceeding at
Blackfriars. In 1553 Edward VI. granted the palace, on the
solicitation of Bishop Ridley, for the purposes to which it has been
since applied; an act of benevolence which was recorded, with more
precision than elegance, in the following lines under a portrait of
his majesty, that used to hang near the pulpit in the old chapel:--

"This Edward of fair memory the sixth.
In whom with greatness, goodness was commixt,
Gave this Bridewell, a Palace in old times,
For a chastising house of vagrant crimes."

Bridewell having been burnt down in the Great Fire was rebuilt
immediately after that calamity, and it has since been frequently
repaired, and partially renovated. Henry the Eighth ("sturdy rogue!")
would have been a fit personage to lodge in it still, though under
somewhat different circumstances.

One of the steep and gloomy descents from Thames Street still
preserves the name of Castle Street; and immediately to the west of
this stood in ancient times, on the banks of the river, a large
building called Baynard's Castle. Baynard, by whom it was originally
erected in the eleventh century, was one of the Conqueror s Norman
followers. His descendant, William Baynard, however, soon after the
commencement of the next century, forfeited his inheritance to the
crown, by which it was bestowed upon the family of Clare. The
representative of this family, and the possessor of Baynard's Castle,
in the reign of King John, was the Baron Robert Fitzwalter, a portion
of whose history, as related by some of our old chroniclers, gives an
interest to the spot. Among the beauties of the time, one of the
fairest was Matilda, the daughter of Fitzwalter. The licentious
monarch, who may have seen her at some high festival held in this very
castle, was smitten, after his fashion, by her charms; but his suit
was rejected with indignation, both by herself and her father. His
"love" now turned into hatred and thirst of revenge; he soon after
resorted to open force, and having first driven Fitzwalter to seek
refuge in France, easily got the unhappy girl into his custody, and,
if we are to believe the story, despatched her by poison. He at the
same time ordered Castle Baynard to be demolished. The next year the
armies of the English and French Kings lay encamped during a truce on
the opposite sides of a river in France, when an English knight,
impatient, as it would seem, of the bloodless inactivity that
prevailed, thought fit to challenge any one of the enemy who chose to
come forth and break a lance with him. It was not long before a
champion appeared making his way across the water, who, unattended as
he was, had no sooner reached the land, than he mounted a horse and
rode up to meet his challenger. The duel took place in the sight of
King John and his troops, but it did not last long: for both the
English knight and his horse were thrown to the ground by the first
thrust of his antagonist's spear, which was also broken to shivers in
the shock. "By God's troth," exclaimed John, as he beheld this heroic
exploit, "he were a king indeed who had such a knight." The words were
caught by some of the bystanders, who had observed more narrowly than
the monarch the figure of the unknown victor, and who suspected him to
be no other than their old acquaintance, the Baron Fitzwalter. It was,
in fact, no other. The next day, the praise which the King had
bestowed upon his prowess being reported to him, he returned to the
English camp, and throwing himself at the feet of his sovereign, was
re-admitted to favour, and restored to all his former possessions and
honours. We may observe, however, that this narrative is scarcely
detailed with sufficient precision to entitle it to be received as a
piece of authentic history, and that especially it does not seem to be
very easy to reconcile some parts of it, as commonly given, with the
ascertained dates and course of the events of King John's reign. This
Robert Fitzwalter is placed by Matthew Paris at the head of his list
of the Barons, who, in 1215, came armed in a body to the King, at the
Temple, and made those demands which led to the concession of the
Great Charter at Runnymede. Indeed, in the short military contest
which preceded the King's submission, Fitzwalter was appointed by his
brother barons the commander-in-chief of their forces, and dignified
in that capacity with the title of Marshal of the Army of God and of
Holy Church. On his return to England, he is said to have rebuilt or
repaired his castle in London which the King had thrown down, and the
edifice continued for a long time to be the principal fortress within
the city. The family of Fitzwalter, in consequence of their possession
of Baynard's Castle, held the office of Chastilians and Bannerets, or
Banner-bearers of London; and the reader who is curious upon such
matters may consult Stow, or those who have copied him, for an account
of the rights, services, and ceremonial customs appertaining to that
dignity. The punishment of a person found guilty of treason within the
banneret's jurisdiction is worth noticing: he was to be tied to a post
in the Thames, at one of the wharfs, and left there for two ebbings
and two flowings of the tide. After this, there was certainly little
chance of his committing more treason.

[Illustration: BAYNARD'S CASTLE.]

It is not known how Baynard's Castle, and the privileges belonging to
the lordship, got out of the hands of this family; but in 1428, in the
reign of Henry the Sixth, the building, having been burned down, is
stated to have been restored by Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. After
the duke's death it came once more into the possession of the crown;
and here it was that the great council assembled in the beginning of
March, 1461, which proclaimed the Earl of March King, by the title of
Edward IV. It was here also, twenty-two years after, that the solemn
farce was enacted in which Richard III. assumed the royal dignity on
the invitation of Buckingham, and in obedience to the pretended wishes
of the citizens. Shakspeare has given this scene with an exact
conformity, in all the matters of fact, to the narratives of the old
chroniclers; the crafty Protector, it will be remembered, being made
to present himself in the gallery above, supported by a bishop on each
side, while Buckingham, the lord mayor, the aldermen, and the
citizens, occupy the court of the castle below. Baynard's Castle was
once more rebuilt in 1487, by Henry VII., with a view to its answering
better the purpose of a royal palace; and the King occasionally lodged
there. Some time after this we find the place in possession of the
Earls of Pembroke, who made it their common residence; and it was here
that the Earl of that name, on the 19th of July, 1553, about a
fortnight after the death of Edward VI., assembled the council of the
nobility and clergy, at which the determination was taken, on the
motion of Lord Arundel, to abandon the cause of Lady Jane Grey, and to
proclaim Queen Mary, which, accordingly, was instantly done in
different parts of the city. This is supposed to have been the
building which was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1666. It is
represented in an old print of London as a square pile surrounding a
court, and surmounted with numerous towers. A large gateway in the
middle of the south side led to the river by a bridge of two arches
and stairs. This ancient fortress was never rebuilt after the fire;
and its site has been since occupied by wharfs, timber-yards,
workshops, and common dwelling-houses. The ward, however, in which it
was situated, and which embraces also St. Paul's Churchyard, and
nearly all the localities we have as yet noticed, still retains the
name of the Ward of Baynard's Castle.

Upon Paul's Wharf Hill, to the north-east of Baynard's Castle, were a
number of houses within a great gate, which are said by Maitland to
have been designated, in the leases granted by the dean and chapter,
as the _Camera Dianæ_, or Diana's Chamber, and to have been so
denominated from a spacious building in the form of a labyrinth,
constructed here by Henry II. for the concealment of the fair Rosamond
Clifford. We need scarcely say that this tradition has all the air of
a fable. The author we have just named, however, assures us that "for
a long time there remained some evident testifications of tedious
turnings and windings, as also of a passage under ground from his
house to Castle Baynard; which was no doubt the King's way from thence
to the _Camera Dianæ_,"[72] or the chamber of his "brightest Diana."
What the testifications may in question really have amounted to, we
cannot pretend to say; but Diana, not being a family name, as in the
case of another royal favourite, Diana of Poitiers, seems a strange
one to have been given to the lady already christened by so poetical
an appellation as Rosamond, and so different in her reputation from
the chaste goddess. We should, for our parts, rather suppose that the
dean and chapter had been moved to call the place Diana's chamber by
some tradition, or a conceit of their own, connecting it with the
temple of that goddess, said to have formerly stood on the site of the
neighbouring cathedral; or if the name was really a very ancient one,
and in popular use, it may perhaps be taken as lending some slight
confirmation to the notion of the actual existence of that heathen
edifice, and may "help," as Iago phrases it, "to thicken other proofs
that also demonstrate thinly." Diana's Chamber, however, may have been
so called from its being hung with painted tapestry, representing some
story of the goddess. Inigo Jones, by the way, is said by Lord Orford
to be buried in the church of St. Bennet, Paul's Wharf, which stands
immediately to the south of the spot where we now are, at the corner
formed by the meeting of Thames Street and St. Bennet's Hill.

Another building which formerly existed in this neighbourhood was the
Royal Wardrobe. It occupied the site of the present Wardrobe Court,
immediately to the north of the church of St. Andrew's and gave to the
parish the name of St. Andrew's Wardrobe, by which it is still known.
This building was erected about the middle of the fourteenth century,
by Sir John Beauchamp, Knight of the Garter, a son of Guido, Earl of
Warwick, by whose heirs it was sold to Edward III. Mr. Malcolm has
printed some extracts from the Manuscript Account Book, since
preserved in the Harleian collection, of a keeper of this Wardrobe,
from the middle of April to Michaelmas 1481, (towards the close of the
reign of Edward IV.), which are interesting and valuable as memorials,
both of the prices and of the fashions of that time. During the
period, of less than six months, over which the accounts extend, the
sum of 1,174_l._ 5_s._ 2_d._ appears to have been received by the
keeper, for the use of his office. Of this the most considerable
portion seems to have been expended in the purchase of velvet and
silks from Montpellier. The velvets cost from 8_s._ to 16_s._ per
yard; black cloths of gold, 40_s._; what is called velvet upon velvet,
the same; damask, 8_s._; satins, 6_s._ 10_s._ and 12_s._, camlets,
30_s._ a-piece; and sarcenets for 4_s._ to 4_s._ 2_d._ Feather beds,
with bolsters, "for our sovereign lord the King," are charged 16_s._
8_d._ each. A pair of shoes, of Spanish leather, double soled, and not
lined, cost 1_s._ 4_d._; a pair of black leather boots, 6_s._ 8_d._;
hats 1_s._ a-piece; and ostrich feathers, each 10_s._ The keeper's
salary appears to have been 100_l._ per annum--that of his clerk 1_s._
a-day; and the wages of the tailors 6_d._ a-day each. The King
sometimes lodged at the Wardrobe; on one of which occasions the
washings of the sheets which had been used is charged at the rate of
3_d._ a pair. Candles cost 1_d._ a pound. All the money disbursed by
the keeper of the wardrobe, however, was not expended in decorating
the persons of his Majesty and the royal household. Among other items
we find 20_s._ paid to Piers Bauduyn (or Peter Baldwin, as we should
now call him), stationer, "for binding, gilding, and dressing of a
book called Titus Livius;" for performing the same offices to a Bible,
a Froisard, a Holy Trinity, and the Government of Kings and Princes,
16_s._ each; for three small French books, 6_s._ 8_d._; for the
Fortress of Faith, and Josephus 3_s._ 4_d._; and for what is
designated "the Bible Historical," 20_s._ So that in those days, we
see the binding a book was conceived to be a putting of it into
breeches, and the artist employed for that purpose looked upon as a
sort of literary tailor.

How impossible it would now be in a neighbourhood like this, for such
nuisances to exist, as a fetid _public_ ditch, and scouts of degraded
clergymen asking people to "walk in and be married!" Yet such was the
case a century ago. At the bottom of Ludgate Hill the little river
Fleet formerly ran, and was rendered navigable. Adjoining the site of
Fleet Market is Sea-coal Lane, so called from the barges that landed
coal there; and Turnagain Lane, at the bottom of which the unadvised
passenger found himself compelled by the water to retrace his steps.
The water gradually got clogged and foul; and the channel was built
over and made a street, as we have noticed in our introduction. But
even in the time we speak of, this had not been entirely done. The
ditch was open from Fleet Market to the river, occupying the site of
the modern Bridge Street; and in the market, before the door of the
Fleet prison, men plied in behalf of a clergyman, literally inviting
people to walk in and be married. They performed the ceremony inside
the prison, to sailors and others, for what they could get. It was the
most squalid of Gretnas, bearding the decency and common-sense of a
whole metropolis. The parties retired to a gin shop to treat the
clergyman; and there, and in similar houses, the register was kept of
the marriages. Not far from where the Fleet stood is Newgate; so that
the victims had their succession of nooses prepared, in case, as no
doubt it often happened, one tie should be followed by the other.
Pennant speaks of this nuisance from personal knowledge.

"In walking along the streets in my youth," he tells us, "on
the side next this prison, I have often been tempted by the
question, '_Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be
married_.' Along this most lawless space was frequently hung up
the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with _Marriages
performed within_, written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you
in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid,
profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid night-gown, with a
fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll
of tobacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hardwicke, put these
demons to flight, and saved thousands from the misery and
disgrace which would be entailed by these extemporary
thoughtless unions."

This extraordinary disgrace to the city, which arose most likely from
the permission to marry prisoners, and one great secret of which was
the advantage taken of it by wretched women to get rid of their debts,
was maintained by a collusion between the warden of the Fleet and the
disreputable clergymen he became acquainted with. "To such an extent,"
says Malcolm, "were the proceedings carried, that twenty and thirty
couple were joined in one day, at from ten to twenty shillings each;"
and "between the 19th Oct., 1704, and the 12th Feb., 1705, 2,954
marriages were celebrated (by evidence), besides others known to have
been omitted. To these neither licence nor certificate of banns were
required, and they concealed, by private marks, the names of those who
chose to pay them for it." The neighbourhood at length complained; and
the abuse was put an end to by the Marriage Act, to which it gave
rise.

Ludgate and Fleet ditch figure among the scenes of the Dunciad. It is
near Bridewell, on the site of the modern Bridge Street, that the
venal and scurrilous heroes of that poem emulate one another, at the
call of Dulness, in seeing who can plunge deepest into the mud and
dirt.

"This labour past, by Bridewell all descend,
(As morning prayer and flagellation end[73]),
To where Fleet ditch, with disemboguing streams,
Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames;
The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud
With deeper sable blots the silver flood.
Here strip, my children! here at once leap in;
Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin;
And who the most in love of dirt excel,
And dark dexterity of groping well."[74]

This part of the games being over,

"Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet,
Rolls the black troop and overshades the street;
Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,
In circling fences whiten all the ways:
So clouds replenished from some bog below,
Mount in dark volumes and descend in snow."

The "well-known Fleet" is the prison just mentioned, the side of
which appears to have been visible at that time in Ludgate Hill, and
where it was a joke (too often founded in truth) to suppose authors
incarcerated.

"Few sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet;
But fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet,"

says a prologue of Sheridan's. The Fleet having "rules," like the
King's Bench, authors were found in the neighbourhood also. Arthur
Murphy, provoked by the attacks of Churchill and Lloyd, describes them
as among the poor hacks,

"On Ludgate Hill who bloody murders write,
Or pass in Fleet Street supperless the night."

Booksellers' shops were then common as now in Fleet Street and the
Strand, in Paternoster Row, and St. Paul's Churchyard. This is
pleasant to think of; for change is not desirable without improvement.
One feels gratified, where difference is not demanded of us, in being
able to have the same association of ideas with such men as Pope and
Dryden, even if it be upon no higher ground than the quantity of books
in Paternoster Row, or the circumstance that Ludgate Hill still leads
into Fleet Street.

[Illustration: THE STONE IN PANYER ALLEY.]

FOOTNOTES:

[46] Brayley, vol. ii., p. 303.

[47] In his Life, vol. iii., p. 98. Edit. 1827.

[48] Unless, indeed, we are to suppose, as has been suggested, that
_Sermon_ Lane is a corruption of _Sheremoniers_ Lane, that is, the
lane of the money clippers, or such as cut and rounded the metal which
was to be coined or stamped into money. There was anciently a place in
this lane for melting silver, called the _Blackloft_--and the Mint was
in the street now called Old Change, in the immediate neighbourhood.
See Maitland, ii., 880 (edit. of 1756.)

[49] Letters to Stella, in the duodecimo edition of his works, 1775,
Letter vi., p. 43.

[50] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edition, vol. iv., p. 93.

[51] History of London, vol. ii., p. 925.

[52] The Tatler. With notes historical, biographical, and critical
8vo. 1797. Vol. iv., p. 206.

[53] Pennant's London, p. 377.

[54] Of William III.

[55] The genius of Clarke, which, agreeably to his unhappy end, was
tender and melancholy, was unsuited to the livelier intoxication of
Dryden's feast, afterwards gloriously set by Handel. Clarke has been
styled the musical Otway of his time. He was organist at St. Paul's,
and shot himself at his house in St. Paul's Churchyard. Mr. John
Reading, organist of St. Dunstan's, who was intimately acquainted with
him, was going by at the moment the pistol went off, and upon entering
the house "found his friend and fellow-student in the agonies of
death." Another friend of his, one of the lay vicars of the cathedral,
relates of him, that a few weeks before the catastrophe, Clarke had
alighted from his horse in a sequestered spot in the country, where
there was a pond surrounded by trees, and not knowing whether to hang
or drown himself, tossed up a piece of money to see which. The money
stuck in the earth edgeways. Of this new chance for life, poor Clarke,
we see, was unable to avail himself.

[56] See Maitland, vol. ii., p. 949.

[57] Since this was written, the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical
Court in Doctors' Commons on matters of divorce has been transferred
to a new "Court of Divorce and Matrimonial Causes," sitting at
Westminster.

[58] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 473.

[59] On the authority of Langton, Johnson's friend. See Memoirs,
Anecdotes, &c., by Letitia Matilda Hawkins, vol. i., p. 293.

[60] Censura Literaria, vol. iii., p. 254.

[61] Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale, by
Hamper. Lond. 1827. Our memorandum has omitted the page. The letter
was written to Dugdale by Randall Holme, a brother herald.

[62] Another opinion, however, is that the spear had been given to one
of his ancestors as having been a magistrate of some description. This
supposition seems to be supported by the grant of arms to John
Shakspeare in 1599, which has been printed by Mr. Malcolm. But
Shakspeares in Warwickshire are as plentiful as blackberries, and
perhaps the name originated in the stout arms of a whole tribe of
soldiers.

[63] _Vix ea nostra voco_--(as above translated). The effect is
stronger if the whole passage is called to mind. It is Ovid;

Nam genus, et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,
Vix ea nostra voco.--_Metamor_. lib. 13. v. 140.
For birth, and rank, and what our own good powers
Have earned us not, I scarcely call them ours.

Ovid, himself a man of birth, puts this sentiment in the mouth of
Ulysses, a king. But then he was a king whose talents were above his
royalty.

[64] Life of Gibbon, in the Autobiography, vol. i.

[65] Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, p. 147.

[66] Maitland, vol. i., p. 28.

[67] Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum, iv., p. 367.

[68] Spectator, vol. i., No. 28.

[69] Malone, in his Historical Account of the English Stage, has an
ingenious parallel between these inn-theatres and the construction of
the modern ones. "Many of our ancient dramatick pieces," he observes,
"were performed in the yards of carriers' inns, in which, in the
beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, the comedians, who then first
united themselves in companies, erected an occasional stage. The form
of these temporary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern
theatre. The galleries in both are ranged over each other on three
sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest of these
galleries answer to our present boxes; and it is observable, that
these, even in theatres which were built in a subsequent period
expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still retained their old name,
and were frequently called _rooms_ by our ancient writers. The yard
bears a sufficient resemblance to the pit, as at present in use. We
may suppose the stage to have been raised in this arena, on the fourth
side, with its back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for
admission was taken. Thus in fine weather, a play-house, not
incommodious, might have been formed." Reed's Edition of Johnson's and
Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. iii., p. 73.

[70] Tatler, No. 127.

[71] Londinium Redivivum, ii., 375.

[72] History of London, ii., 880.

[73] The whipping of the criminals in Bridewell took place after the
church service.

[74] Dunciad, book ii., v. 269.

CHAPTER III.

FLEET STREET.

Burning of the Pope -- St. Bride's Steeple -- Milton
-- Illuminated Clock -- Melancholy End of Lovelace the Cavalier
-- Chatterton -- Generosity of Hardham, of Snuff Celebrity
-- Theatre in Dorset Garden -- Richardson, his Habits and
Character -- Whitefriars, or Alsatia -- The Temple -- Its
Monuments, Garden, &c. -- Eminent names connected with it
-- Goldsmith dies there -- Boswell's first Visit there to Johnson
-- Johnson and Madame de Boufflers -- Bernard Lintot -- Ben
Jonson's Devil Tavern -- Other Coffee-houses and Shops
-- Goldsmith and Temple-bar -- Shire Lane, Bickerstaff, and the
Deputation from the Country -- The Kit-Kat Club -- Mrs. Salmon
-- Isaac Walton -- Cowley -- Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford, and
Ben Jonson -- Serjeant's Inn -- Clifford's Inn -- The Rolls -- Sir
Joseph Jekyll -- Church of St. Dunstan in the West -- Dryden's
House in Fetter Lane -- Johnson, the Genius Loci of Fleet Street
-- His Way of Life -- His Residence in Gough Square, Johnson's
Court, and Bolt Court -- Various Anecdotes of him connected with
Fleet Street, and with his favourite Tavern, the Mitre.

We are now in Fleet Street, and pleasant memories thicken upon us. To
the left is the renowned realm of Alsatia, the Temple, the Mitre, and
the abode of Richardson; to the right divers abodes of Johnson;
Chancery Lane, with Cowley's birth-place at the corner; Fetter Lane,
where Dryden once lived; and Shire or Sheer Lane, immortal for the
_Tatler_.

Fleet Street was, for a good period, perhaps for a longer one than can
now be ascertained, the great place for shows and spectacles. Wild
beasts, monsters, and other marvels, used to be exhibited there, as
the wax-work was lately; and here took place the famous ceremony of
burning the Pope, with its long procession, and bigoted
anti-bigotries. However, the lesser bigotry was useful, at that time,
in keeping out the greater. Roger North has left us a lively account
of one of these processions, in his _Examen_. It took place towards
the close of the reign of Charles the Second, when just fears were
entertained of his successor's design to bring in Popery. The day of
the ceremony was the birth-day of Queen Elizabeth, the 17th March.

"When we had posted ourselves," says North, "at windows
expecting the play to begin" (he had taken his stand in the
Green Dragon Tavern), "it was very dark; but we could perceive
the street to fill, and the hum of the crowd grew louder and
louder; and at length, with help of some lights below, we could
discern, not only upwards towards the bar, where the squib-war
was maintained, but downwards towards Fleet Bridge; the whole
street was crowded with people, which made that which followed
seem very strange; for about eight at night we heard a din from
below, which came up the street, continually increasing till we
could perceive a motion; and that was a row of stout fellows,
that came, shouldered together, cross the street, from wall to
wall on each side. How the people melted away, I cannot tell;
but it was plain those fellows made clear board, as if they had
swept the street for what was to come after. They went along
like a wave; and it was wonderful to see how the crowd made
way: I suppose the good people were willing to give obedience
to lawful authority. Behind this wave (which, as all the rest,
had many lights attending), there was a vacancy, but it filled
apace, till another like wave came up; and so four or five of
these waves passed, one after another; and then we discerned
more numerous lights, and throats were opened with hoarse and
tremendous noise; and with that advanced a pageant, borne along
above the heads of the crowd, and upon it sat an huge Pope, _in
pontificalibus_, in his chair, with a seasonable attendance for
state: but his premier minister, that shared most of his ear,
was Il Signior Diavolo, a nimble little fellow, in a proper
dress, that had a strange dexterity in climbing and winding
about the chair, from one of the Pope's ears to the other.

"The next pageant was a parcel of Jesuits; and after that (for
there was always a decent space between them) came another,
with some ordinary persons with halters, as I took it, about
their necks; and one with a stenterophonic tube, sounded
'Abhorrers! Abhorrers!' most infernally; and, lastly, came one,
with a single person upon it, which some said was the
phamphleteer, Sir Roger L'Estrange, some the King of France,
some the Duke of York; but, certainly, it was a very
complaisant, civil gentleman, like the former, that was doing
what everybody pleased to have him; and, taking all in good
part went on his way to the fire."

The description concludes with a brief mention of burning the
effigies, which, on these occasions, appear to have been of
pasteboard.[75]

One of the great figurers in this ceremony was the doleful image of
Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a magistrate, supposed to have been killed by
the Papists during the question of the plot. Dryden has a fine
contemptuous couplet upon it, in one of his prologues;--

"Sir Edmondbury first in woful wise,
Leads up the show, _and milks their maudlin eyes_."

We will begin with the left side, as we are there already; and first
let us express our thanks for the neat opening by which St. Bride's
church has been rendered an ornament to this populous thoroughfare.
The steeple is one of the most beautiful of Wren's productions, though
diminished, in consequence of its having been found to be too severely
tried by the wind. But a ray now comes out of this opening as we pass
the street, better even than that of the illuminated clock at night
time; for there, in a lodging in the churchyard, lived Milton, at the
time that he undertook the education of his sister's children. He was
then young and unmarried. He is said to have rendered his young
scholars, in the course of a year, able to read Latin at sight, though
they were but nine or ten years of age. As to the clock, which serves
to remind the jovial that they ought to be at home, we are loth to
object to anything useful; and in fact we admit its pretensions; and
yet as there is a time for all things, there would seem to be a time
for time itself; and we doubt whether those who do not care to
ascertain the hour beforehand, will derive much benefit from this
glaring piece of advice.

"At the west end of St. Bride's Church," according to Wood, was buried
Richard Lovelace, Esq., one of the most elegant of the cavaliers of
Charles the First, and author of the exquisite ballad beginning--

"When Love with unconfined wings
Hovers within my gates,
And my divine Althea brings
To whisper at my grates.

"When I lie tangled in her hair,
And fetter'd in her eye,
The birds that wanton in the air,
Know no such liberty.

* * * * *

"Stone walls do not a prison make,
Nor iron bars a cage,
Minds innocent and quiet take
That for an hermitage."

This accomplished man, who is said by Wood to have been in his youth
"the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld," and who
was lamented by Charles Cotton as an epitome of manly virtue, died at
a poor lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane, an object of
charity.[76] He had been imprisoned by the Parliament and lived
during his imprisonment beyond his income. Wood thinks that he did so
in order to support the royal cause, and out of generosity to
deserving men, and to his brothers. He then went into the service of
the French King, returned to England after being wounded, and was
again committed to prison, where he remained till the King's death,
when he was set at liberty. "Having then," says his biographer,
"consumed all his estate, he grew very melancholy (which brought him
at length into a consumption), became very poor in body and purse, and
was the object of charity, went in ragged clothes, (whereas, when he
was in his glory, he wore cloth of gold and silver,) and mostly lodged
in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars than
poorest of servants," &c.[77] "Geo. Petty, haberdasher in Fleet
Street," says Aubrey, "carried 20 shillings to him every Monday
Morning from Sir ---- Manny, and Charles Cotton, Esq., for ----
months: but was never repaid." As if it was their intention he should
be! Poor Cotton, in the excess of his relish of life, lived himself to
be in want; perhaps wanted the ten shillings that he sent. The
mistress of Lovelace is reported to have married another man,
supposing him to have died of his wounds in France. Perhaps this
helped to make him careless of his fortune: but it is probable that
his habits were naturally showy and expensive. Aubrey says he was
proud. He was accounted a sort of minor Sir Philip Sydney. We speak
the more of him, not only on account of his poetry (which, for the
most part, displays much fancy, injured by want of selectness), but
because his connection with the neighbourhood probably suggested to
Richardson the name of his hero in Clarissa. Grandison is another
cavalier name in the history of those times. It was the title of the
Duchess of Cleveland's father. Richardson himself was buried in St.
Bride's. He was laid, according to his wish, with his first wife, in
the middle aisle, near the pulpit. Where he lived, we shall see
presently.

Not far from Gunpowder Alley, in the burying-ground of the workhouse
in Shoe Lane, lies a greater and more unfortunate name than
Lovelace--Chatterton. But we shall say more of him when we come to
Brook Street, Holborn. We have been perplexed to decide, whether to
say all we have got to say upon anybody, when we come to the first
place with which he is connected, or divide our memorials of him
according to the several places. Circumstances will guide us; but upon
the whole it seems best to let the places themselves decide. If the
spot is rendered particularly interesting by the division, we may act
accordingly, as in the present instance. If not, all the anecdotes may
be given at once.

On the same side of the way as Shoe Lane, but nearer Fleet Market, was
Hardham's, a celebrated snuff-shop, the founder of which deserves
mention for a very delicate generosity. He was numberer at Drury Lane
Theatre, that is to say, the person who counted the number of people
in the house, from a hole over the top of the stage; a practice now
discontinued. Whether this employment led him to number snuffs, as
well as men, we cannot say, but he was the first who gave them their
distinctions that way. Lovers of

"The pungent grains of titillating dust"

are indebted to him for the famous compound entitled "37." "Being
passionately fond of theatrical entertainments, he was seldom," says
his biographer, "without embryo Richards and Hotspurs strutting and
bellowing in his dining-room, or in the parlour behind his shop. The
latter of these apartments was adorned with heads of most of the
persons celebrated for dramatic excellence; and to these he frequently
referred in the course of his instructions."

"There is one circumstance, however, in his private character,"
continues our authority, "which deserves a more honourable
rescue from oblivion. His charity was extensive in an uncommon
degree, and was conveyed to many of its objects in the most
delicate manner. On account of his known integrity (for he once
failed in business, more creditably than he could have made a
fortune by it,) he was often entrusted with the care of paying
little annual stipends to unfortunate women, and others who
were in equal want of relief; and he has been known, with a
generosity almost unexampled, to continue these annuities, long
after the sources of them had been stopped by the deaths or
caprices of the persons who at first supplied them. At the same
time he persuaded the receivers that their money was remitted
to them as usual, through its former channel. Indeed his purse
was never shut even to those who were casually recommended by
his common acquaintance."[78]

This admirable man died in 1772; and by his will bequeathed the
interest of 20,000_l._ to a female acquaintance, and at her decease
the principal, &c., to the poor of his native city, Chichester.

Returning over the way we come to Dorset Street and Salisbury Court,
names originating in a palace of the Bishop of Salisbury, which he
parted with to the Sackvilles. Clarendon lived in it a short time
after the Restoration. At the bottom of Salisbury Court, facing the
river, was the celebrated play-house, one of the earliest in which
theatrical entertainments were resumed at that period. The first
mention we find of it is in the following curious memorandum in the
manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels to King
Charles I. "I committed Cromes, a broker in Longe Lane, the 16th of
Febru., 1634, to the Marsalsey, for lending a church robe with the
name of _Jesus_ upon it to the players in Salisbury Court, to present
a Flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission,
and acknowledgment of his fault, I released him, the 17 Febru.,
1634."[79]

It is not certain, however, whether the old theatre in Salisbury
Court, and that in Dorset Garden, were one and the same; though they
are conjectured to have been so. The names of both places seem to have
been indiscriminately applied. Be this as it may, the house became
famous under the Davenants for the introduction of operas and of a
more splendid exhibition of scenery; but in consequence of the growth
of theatres in the more western parts of the town, it was occasionally
quitted by the proprietors, and about the beginning of the last
century abandoned. This theatre was the last to which people went in
boats.

In a house, "in the centre of Salisbury Square or Salisbury Court, as
it was then called," Richardson spent the greater part of his town
life, and wrote his earliest work, Pamela. Probably a good part of all
his works were composed there, as well as at Fulham, for the pen was
never out of his hand. He removed from this house in 1755, after he
had written all his works; and taking eight old tenements in the same
quarter, pulled them down, and built a large and commodious range of
warehouses and printing offices. "The dwelling-house," says Mrs.
Barbauld, "was neither so large nor so airy as the one he quitted, and
therefore the reader will not be so ready, probably, as Mr. Richardson
seems to have been, in accusing his wife of perverseness in not
liking the new habitation as well as the old."[80] This was the second
Mrs. Richardson. He calls her in other places his "worthy-hearted
wife;" but complains that she used to get her way by seeming to
submit, and then returning to the point, when his heat of objection
was over. She was a formal woman. His own manners were strict and
formal with regard to his family, probably because he had formed his
notions of life from old books, and also because he did not well know
how to begin to do otherwise (for he was naturally bashful), and so
the habit continued through life. His daughters addressed him in their
letters by the title of "Honoured Sir," and are always designating
themselves as "ever dutiful." Sedentary living, eternal writing, and
perhaps that indulgence in the table, which, however moderate, affects
a sedentary man twenty times as much as an active one, conspired to
hurt his temper (for we may see by his picture that he grew fat, and
his philosophy was in no respect as profound as he thought it); but he
was a most kind-hearted generous man; kept his pocket full of plums
for children, like another Mr. Burchell; gave a great deal of money
away in charity, very handsomely too; and was so fond of inviting
friends to stay with him, that when they were ill, he and his family
must needs have them to be nursed. Several actually died at his house
at Fulham, as at an hospital for sick friends.

It is a fact not generally known (none of his biographers seem to have
known of it) that Richardson was the son of a joiner, received what
education he had (which was very little, and did not go beyond
English), at Christ's Hospital.[81] It may be wondered how he could
come no better taught from a school which had sent forth so many good
scholars; but in his time, and indeed till very lately, that
foundation was divided into several schools, none of which partook of
the lessons of the others; and Richardson, agreeably to his father's
intention of bringing him up to trade, was most probably confined to
the writing-school, where all that was taught was writing and
arithmetic. It was most likely here that he intimated his future
career, first by writing a letter, at eleven years of age, to a
censorious woman of fifty, who pretended a zeal for religion; and
afterwards, at thirteen, by composing love-letters to their
sweethearts for three young women in the neighbourhood, who made him
their confidant. To these and others he also used to read books, their
mothers being of the party; and they encouraged him to make remarks;
which is exactly the sort of life he led with Mrs. Chapone, Miss
Fielding, and others, when in the height of his celebrity. "One of the
young women," he informs us, "highly gratified with her lover's
fervour, and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I have asked her
direction, 'I cannot tell you what to write, but (her heart on her
lips) you cannot write too kindly;' all her fear was only that she
should incur a slight for her kindness." This passage, with its pretty
breathless parenthesis, is in the style of his books. If the writers
among his female coterie in after-life owed their inspiration to him,
he only returned to them what they had done for himself. Women seem to
have been always about him, both in town and country; which made Mrs.
Barbauld say, very agreeably, that he "lived in a kind of
flower-garden of ladies." This has been grudged him, and thought
effeminate; but we must make allowance for early circumstances, and
recollect what the garden produced for us. Richardson did not pretend
to be able to do without female society. Perhaps, however, they did
not quiet his sensibility so much as they charmed it. We think, in his
Correspondence, a tendency is observable to indulge in fancies, not
always so paternal as they agree to call them; though doubtless all
was said in honour, and the ladies never found reason to diminish
their reverence. A great deal has been said of his vanity and the
weakness of it. Vain he undoubtedly was, and vanity is no strength;
but it is worth bearing in mind, that a man is often saved from
vanity, not because he is stronger than another, but because he is
less amiable, and did not begin, as Richardson did, with being a
favourite so early. Few men are surrounded, as he was, from his very
childhood, with females; and few people think so well of their species
or with so much reason. In all probability too, he was handsome when
young, which is another excuse for him. His vanity is more easily
excused than his genius accounted for considering the way in which he
lived. The tone of Lovelace's manners and language, which has created
so much surprise in an author who was a city printer, and passed his
life among a few friends between Fleet Street and a suburb, was
caught, probably, not merely from Cibber, but from the famous
profligate Duke of Wharton, with whom he became acquainted in the
course of his business. But the unwearied vivacity with which he has
supported it is wonderful. His pathos is more easily accounted for by
his nerves, which for many years were in a constant state of
excitement, particularly towards the close of his life; which
terminated in 1761, at the age of seventy-two, with the death most
common to sedentary men of letters, a stroke of apoplexy.[82] He was
latterly unable to lift a glass of wine to his mouth without
assistance.

At Fulham and Parson's Green (at which latter place he lived for the
last five or six years), Richardson used to sit with his guests about
him, in a parlour or summer-house, reading, or communicating his
manuscripts as he wrote them. The ladies made their remarks; and
alterations or vindications ensued. His characters, agreeably to what
we feel when we read of them (for we know them all as intimately as if
we occupied a room in their house), interested his acquaintances so
far that they sympathised with them as if they were real; and it is
well known that one of his correspondents, Lady Bradshaigh, implored
him to reform Lovelace, in order "to save a soul." In Salisbury Court,
Richardson, of course, had the same visitors about him; but the
"flower-garden" is not talked of so much there as at Fulham. In the
evening the ladies read and worked by themselves, and Richardson
retired to his study; a most pernicious habit for a man of his bad
nerves. He should have written early in the morning, taken good
exercise in the day, and amused himself in the evening. When he walked
in town it was in the park, where he describes himself (to a fair
correspondent who wished to have an interview with him, and who
recognised him from the description) as "short, rather plump, about
five feet five inches, fair wig, one hand generally in his bosom, the
other a cane in it, which he leans upon under the skirts of his coat,
that it may imperceptibly serve him as a support when attacked by
sudden tremors or dizziness, of a light brown complexion, teeth not
yet failing." "What follows," observes Mrs. Barbauld, "is very
descriptive of the struggle in his character, between innate
bashfulness and a turn for observation:"--"Looking directly forwards,
as passengers would imagine, but observing all that stirs on either
hand of him, without moving his short neck; a regular even pace,
stealing away ground rather than seeming to rid it; a grey eye, too
often overclouded by mistiness from the head, by chance lively, very
lively if he sees any he loves; if he approaches a lady, his eye is
never fixed first on her face, but on her feet, and rears it up by
degrees, seeming to set her down as so and so."[83]

Latterly Richardson attended little to business. He used even to give
his orders to his workmen in writing; a practice which Sir John
Hawkins is inclined to attribute to stateliness and bad temper, but
for which Mrs. Barbauld finds a better reason in his bad nerves. His
principal foreman also was deaf, as the knight himself acknowledges.
Richardson encouraged his men to be industrious, sometimes by putting
half-a-crown among the types as a prize to him who came first in the
morning, at others by sending fruit for the same purpose from the
country. Agreeably to his natural bashfulness, he was apt to be
reserved with strangers. Sir John Hawkins tells us, that he once
happened to get into the Fulham stage when Richardson was in it (most
likely he got in on purpose); and he endeavoured to bring the novelist
into conversation, but could not succeed, and was vexed at it. But Sir
John was one of that numerous class of persons who, for reasons better
known to others than to themselves,

"Deemen gladly to the badder end,"

as the old poet says; and Richardson probably knew this pragmatical
person, and did not want his acquaintance.

Johnson was among the visitors of Richardson in Salisbury Court. He
confessed to Boswell, that although he had never much sought after
anybody, Richardson was an exception. He had so much respect for him,
that he took part with him in a preposterous undervaluing of Fielding,
whom he described in the comparison as a mere writer of manners, and
sometimes as hardly any writer at all. And yet he told Boswell that he
had read his _Amelia_ through "without stopping:" and according to
Mrs. Piozzi she was his favourite heroine. In the comparison of
Richardson with Fielding, he was in the habit of opposing the nature
of one to the manners of the other; but Fielding's manners are only
superadded to his nature, not opposed to it, which makes all the
difference. As to Richardson, he was so far gone upon this point, in a
mixture of pique and want of sympathy, that he said, if he had not
known who Fielding was, "he should have taken him for an ostler."
Fielding, it is true, must have vexed him greatly by detecting the
pettiness in the character of Pamela. Richardson, as a romancer, did
not like to have the truth forced upon him, and thus was inclined to
see nothing but vulgarity in the novelist. This must have been
unpleasant to the Misses Fielding, the sisters, who were among the
most intimate of Richardson's friends. Another of our author's
visitors was Hogarth. It must not be forgotten that Richardson was
kind to Johnson in money matters; and to use Mrs. Barbauld's phrase,
had once "the honour" to be bail for him.

We conclude our notice, which, on the subject of so original a man,
has naturally beguiled us into some length, with an interesting
account of his manners and way of life, communicated by one of his
female friends to Mrs. Barbauld. "My first recollection of him," says
she, "was in his house in the centre of Salisbury Square, or Salisbury
Court as it was then called; and of being admitted as a playful child
into his study, where I have often seen Dr. Young and others; and
where I was generally caressed and rewarded with biscuits or _bonbons_
of some kind or other; and sometimes with books, for which he, and
some more of my friends, kindly encouraged a taste, even at that early
age, which has adhered to me all my long life, and continues to be the
solace of many a painful hour. I recollect that he used to drop in at
my father's, for we lived nearly opposite, late in the evening to
supper; when, as he would say, he had worked as long as his eyes and
nerves would let him, and was come to relax with a little friendly and
domestic chat. I even then used to creep to his knee and hang upon his
words, for my whole family doated on him; and once, I recollect that
at one of these evening visits, probably about the year 1753, I was
standing by his knee when my mother's maid came to summon me to bed;
upon which, being unwilling to part from him and manifesting some
reluctance, he begged I might be permitted to stay a little longer;
and, on my mother's objecting that the servant would be wanted to wait
at supper (for, in those days of friendly intercourse and _real_
hospitality, a decent maid-servant was the only attendant at _his own_
and many creditable tables, where, nevertheless, much company was
received), Mr. Richardson said, 'I am sure Miss P. is now so much a
woman, that she does not want anyone to attend her to bed, but will
conduct herself with so much propriety, and put out her own candle so
carefully, that she may henceforward be indulged with remaining with
us till supper is served.' This hint and the confidence it implied,
had such a good effect upon me that I believe I never required the
attendance of a servant afterwards while my mother lived; and by such
sort of ingenious and gentle devices did he use to encourage and draw
in young people to do what was right. I also well remember the happy
days I passed at his house at North End; sometimes with my mother, but
often for weeks without her, domesticated as one of his own children.
He used to pass the greatest part of the week in town; but when he
came down, he used to like to have his family flock around him, when
we all first asked and received his blessing, together with some small
boon from his paternal kindness and attention, for he seldom met us
empty-handed, and was by nature most generous and liberal.

"The piety, order, decorum, and strict regularity that
prevailed in his family were of infinite use to train the mind
to good habits and to depend upon its own resources. It has
been one of the means which, under the blessing of God, has
enabled me to dispense with the enjoyment of what the world
calls pleasures, such as are found in crowds, and actually to
relish and prefer the calm delights of retirement and books. As
soon as Mrs. Richardson arose, the beautiful Psalms in Smith's
Devotions were read responsively in the nursery, by herself and
daughters standing in a circle: only the two eldest were
allowed to breakfast with her and whatever company happened to
be in the house, for they were seldom without. After breakfast,
we younger ones read to her in turns the Psalms and Lessons for
the day. We were then permitted to pursue our childish sports,
or to walk in the garden, which I was allowed to do at
pleasure; for, when my father hesitated upon granting that
privilege for fear I should help myself to the fruit, Mrs.
Richardson said, 'No, I have so much confidence in her, that,
if she is put upon honour, I am certain that she will not touch
so much as a gooseberry.' A confidence I dare safely aver that
I never forfeited, and which has given me the power of walking
in any garden ever since, without the smallest desire to touch
any fruit, and taught me a lesson upon the restraint of
appetite, which has been useful to me all my life. We all dined
at one table, and generally drank tea and spent the evening in
Mrs. Richardson's parlour, where the practice was for one of
the young ladies to read while the rest sat with mute attention
round a large table, and employed themselves in some kind of
needle-work. Mr. Richardson generally retired to his study,
unless there was particular company.

"These are trifling and childish anecdotes, and savour, perhaps
you may think too much of egotism. They certainly can be of no
further use to you than as they mark the extreme benevolence,
condescension, and kindness of this exalted genius, towards
young people; for, in general society, I know _he_ has been
accused as being of few words and of a particularly reserved
turn. He was, however, all his lifetime the patron and
protector of the female sex. Miss M. (afterwards Lady G.)
passed many years in his family. She was the bosom friend and
contemporary of my mother; and was so much considered as
_enfant de famille_ in Mr. Richardson's house, that her
portrait is introduced into a family piece.

"He had many _protégees_;--a Miss Rosine, from Portugal, was
consigned to his care; but of her, being then at school, I
never saw much. Most of the ladies that resided much at his
house acquired a certain degree of fastidiousness and delicate
refinement, which, though amiable in itself, rather
disqualified them from appearing in general society to the
advantage that might have been expected, and rendered an
intercourse with the world uneasy to themselves, giving a
peculiar air of shyness and reserve to their whole address; of
which habits his own daughters partook, in a degree that has
been thought by some a little to obscure those really valuable
qualifications and talents they undoubtedly possessed. Yet this
was supposed to be owing more to Mrs. Richardson than to him;
who, though a truly good woman, had high and Harlowean notions
of parental authority, and kept the ladies in such order, and
at such a distance, that he often lamented, as I have been told
by my mother, that they were not more open and conversable with
him.

"Besides those I have already named, I well remember a Mrs.
Donellan, a venerable old lady, with sharp piercing eyes; Miss
Mulso, &c., &c.; Secker, Archbishop of Canterbury; Sir Thomas
Robinson (Lord Grantham), &c., &c., who were frequent visitors
at his house in town and country. The ladies I have named were
often staying at North End, at the period of his highest glory
and reputation; and in their company and conversation his
genius was matured. His benevolence was unbounded, as his
manner of diffusing it was delicate and refined."[84]

Richardson was buried in the nave of St. Bride's Church; and a stone
was placed over his remains, merely recording his name, the year of
his death, and his age. In this church were also interred Wynken de
Worde, the famous printer; the bowels of Sackville the poet, whom we
shall presently have occasion to mention again; and Sir Richard Baker,
the author of the well-known book of English Chronicles. De Worde
resided in Fleet Street.

Between Water Lane and the Temple, and leading out of Fleet Street by
a street formerly called Whitefriars, which has been rebuilt, and
christened Bouverie Street, is one of these precincts which long
retained the immunities derived from their being conventual
sanctuaries, and which naturally enough became as profane as they had
been religious. The one before us originated in a monastery of White
Friars, an order of Carmelites, which formerly stood in Water Lane,
and it acquired an infamous celebrity under the slang title of
Alsatia. The claims, however, which the inhabitants set up to protect
debtors from arrest, seem to have originated in a charter granted to
them by James I., in 1608. For some time after the Reformation and the
demolition of the old monastery, Whitefriars was not only a
sufficiently orderly district, but one of the most fashionable parts
of the city. Among others of the gentry, for instance, who had houses
here at this period, was Sir John Cheke, King Edward VI.'s tutor, and
afterwards Secretary of State. The reader of our great modern novelist
has been made almost as well acquainted with the place in its
subsequent state of degradation and lawlessness, as if he had walked
through it when its bullies were in full blow. The rags of their
Dulcineas hang out to dry, as if you saw them in a Dutch picture; and
the passages are redolent of beer and tobacco. The sanctuary of
Whitefriars is now extremely shrunk in its dimensions; and the
inhabitants retain but a shadow of their privileges. The nuisance,
however, existed as late as the time of William III., who put an end
to it; and the neighbourhood is still of more than doubtful virtue.
One alley, dignified by the title of Lombard Street, is of an infamy
of such long standing, that it is said to have begun its evil courses
long before the privilege of sanctuary existed, and to have maintained
them up to the present moment. The Carmelites complained of it, and
the neighbours complain still. In the Dramatis Personæ to Shadwell's
play called the _Squire of Alsatia_, we have a set of characters so
described as to bring us, one would think, sufficiently acquainted
with the leading gentry of the neighbourhood; such as--

"_Cheatley._ A rascal, who by reason of debts dares not stir
out of _White-fryers_, but there inveigles young heirs in tail,
and helps them to goods and money upon great disadvantages; is
bound for them, and shares for them till he undoes them. A
lewd, impudent, debauch'd fellow, very expert in the _cant_
about the town.

"_Shamwell._ Cousin to the Belfonds; an heir, who being ruined
by Cheatley, is made a decoy-duck for others: not daring to
stir out of Alsatia, where he lives: is bound with Cheatley
for heirs, and lives upon 'em a dissolute, debauched life.

"_Capt. Hackman._ A block-head bully of Alsatia; a cowardly,
impudent, blustering fellow; formerly a sergeant in Flanders,
run from his colours, retreated into White-fryers for a very
small debt, where by the Alsatians he is dubbed a Captain,
marries one that lets lodgings, sells cherry brandy, &c.

"_Scrapeall._ A hypocritical, repeating, praying,
psalm-singing, precise fellow, pretending to great piety, a
godly knave, who joins with Cheatley, and supplies young heirs
with goods and money."

But Sir Walter, besides painting the place itself as if he had lived
in it (vide _Fortunes of Nigel_, vol. ii.), puts these people in
action, with a spirit beyond anything that Shadwell could have done,
even though the dramatist had a bit of the Alsatian in himself--at
least as far as drinking could go, and a flood of gross conversation.

Infamous, however, as this precinct was, there were some good houses
in it, and some respectable inhabitants. The first Lord Sackville
lived there; another inhabitant was Ogilby, who was a decent man,
though a bad poet, and taught dancing; and Shirley another. It appears
also to have been a resort of fencing-masters, which probably helped
to bring worse company. They themselves, indeed, were in no good
repute. One of them, a man of the name of Turner, living in
Whitefriars, gave rise to a singular instance of revenge recorded in
the State Trials. Lord Sanquire, a Scotch nobleman, in the time of
James I., playing with Turner at foils, and making too great a show of
his wish to put down a master of the art (probably with the insolence
common to the nobility of that period), was pressed upon so hard by
the man, that he received a thrust which put out one of his eyes.
"This mischief," says Wilson, "was much regretted by Turner; and the
baron, being conscious to himself that he meant his adversary no good,
took the accident with as much patience as men that lose one eye by
their own default use to do for the preservation of the other." "Some
time after," continues this writer, "being in the court of the late
great Henry of France, and the King (courteous to strangers),
entertaining discourse with him, asked him, 'How he lost his eye:' he
(cloathing his answer in a better shrowd than a plain fencer's) told
him 'It was done with a sword.' The King replies, 'Doth the man live?'
and that question gave an end to the discourse, but was the beginner
of a strange confusion in his working fancy, which neither time nor
distance could compose, carrying it in his breast some years after,
till he came into England, where he hired two of his countrymen, Gray
and Carliel, men of low and mercenary spirits, to murther him, which
they did with a case of pistols in his house in Whitefriars many years
after."[85] For many years--read five--enough, however, to make such a
piece of revenge extraordinary. Gray and Carliel were among his
followers. Gray, however, did not assist in the murder. His mind
misgave him; and Carliel got another accomplice, named Irweng. "These
two, about seven o'clock in the evening (to proceed in the words of
Coke's report), came to a house in the Friars, which Turner used to
frequent, as he came to his school, which was near that place, and
finding Turner there, they saluted one another; and Turner, with one
of his friends, sat at the door asking them to drink; but Carliel and
Irweng, turning about to cock the pistol, came back immediately, and
Carliel, drawing it from under his coat, discharged it upon Turner,
and gave him a mortal wound near the left pap; so that Turner, after
having said these words, 'Lord, have mercy upon me! I am killed,'
immediately fell down. Whereupon Carliel and Irweng fled, Carliel to
the town, Irweng towards the river; but mistaking his way, and
entering into a court where they sold wood, which was no thoroughfare,
he was taken. Carliel likewise fled, and so did also the Baron of
Sanchar. The ordinary officers of justice did their utmost, but could
not take them; for, in fact, as appeared afterwards, Carliel fled into
Scotland, and Gray towards the sea, thinking to go to Sweden, and
Sanchar hid himself in England."[86]

James, who had shown such favour to the Scotch as to make the English
jealous, and who also hated an ill-natured action, when it was not to
do good to any of his favourites, thought himself bound to issue a
promise of reward for the arrest of Sanquire and the others. It was
successful; and all three were hung, Carliel and Irweng in Fleet
Street, opposite the great gate of Whitefriars (the entrance of the
present Bouverie Street), and Sanquire in Palace Yard, before
Westminster Hall. He made a singular defence, very good and penitent,
and yet remarkably illustrative of the cheap rate at which plebeian
blood was held in those times; and no doubt his death was a great
surprise to him. The people, not yet enlightened on these points,
took his demeanour in such good part, that they expressed great pity
for him, till they perceived that he died a Catholic!

This and other pretended sanctuaries were at length put down by an Act
of Parliament passed about the beginning of the last century. It is
curious that the once lawless domain of Alsatia should have had the
law itself for its neighbour; but Sir Walter has shown us, that they
had more sympathies than might be expected. It was a local realisation
of the old proverb of extremes meeting. We now step out of this old
chaos into its quieter vicinity, which, however, was not always as
quiet as it is now. The Temple, as its name imports, was once the seat
of the Knights Templars, an order at once priestly and military,
originating in the crusades, and whose business it was to defend the
Temple at Jerusalem. How they degenerated, and what sort of vows they
were in the habit of making, instead of those of chastity and
humility, the modern reader need not be told, after the masterly
pictures of them in the writer from whom we have just taken another
set of ruffians. The Templars were dissolved in the reign of Edward
II., and their house occupied by successive nobles, till it came into
the possession of the law, in whose hands it was confirmed "for ever"
by James I. We need not enter into the origin of its division into two
parts, the Inner and Middle Temple. Suffice to say, that the word
Middle, which implies a third Temple, refers to an outer one, or third
portion of the old buildings, which does not appear to have been ever
occupied by lawyers, but came into possession of the celebrated Essex
family, whose name is retained in the street where it was situated, on
the other side of Temple Bar. There is nothing remaining of the
ancient buildings but the church built in 1185, which is a curiosity
justly admired, particularly for its effigies of knights, some of
whose cross legs indicate that they had either been to the Holy Land,
or have been supposed to or vowed to go thither. One of the band is
ascertained to have been Geoffrey de Magnavile, Earl of Essex, who was
killed at Benwell in Cambridgeshire, in 1148. Among the others are
supposed to be the Marshals, first, second, and third Earls of
Pembroke, who all died in the early part of the thirteenth century.
But even these have not been identified upon any satisfactory grounds;
and with regard to some of the rest, not so much as a probable
conjecture has been offered.

[Illustration: TOMBS OF KNIGHTS IN TEMPLE CHURCH.]

As it is an opinion still prevailing, that these cross-legged knights
are Knights Templars, we have copied below the most complete
information respecting them which we have hitherto met with. And the
passage is otherwise curious.[87]

The two Temples, or law colleges, occupy a large space of ground
between Whitefriars and Essex Street; Fleet Street bounding them on
the north, and the river on the south. They compose an irregular mass
of good substantial houses, in lanes and open places, the houses being
divided into chambers, or floors for separate occupants, some of which
are let to persons not in the profession. The garden about forty years
ago was enlarged, and a muddy tract under it, on the side of the
Thames, converted into a pleasant walk. This garden is still not very
large, but it deserves its name both for trees and flowers. There is a
descent into it after the Italian fashion, from a court with a
fountain in it, surrounded with trees, through which the view of the
old walls and buttresses of the Middle Temple Hall is much admired.
But a poet's hand has touched the garden, and made it bloom with roses
above the real. It is the scene in Shakspeare, of the origin of the
factions of York and Lancaster.

PLANTAGENET.

"Since you are tongue-ty'd, and so loth to speak,
In dumb significence proclaim your thoughts;
Let him that is a true born gentleman,
And stands upon the honour of his birth,
If he suppose that I have pleaded truth,
From off this brier pluck a white rose with me.

SOMERSET.

Let him that is no coward nor no flatterer,
But dare maintain the party of the truth,
Pluck a red rose from off this thorn with me.

WARWICK.

I love no colours; and, without all colour
Of base insinuating flattery,
I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.

SUFFOLK.

I pluck this red rose with young Somerset;
And say withal I think he held the right."

There were formerly rooks in the Temple trees, a colony brought by Sir
Edward Northey, a well-known lawyer in Queen Anne's time, from his
grounds at Epsom. It was a pleasant thought, supposing that the
colonists had no objection. The rook is a grave legal bird, both in
his coat and habits; living in communities, yet to himself; and
strongly addicted to discussions of _meum_ and _tuum_. The
neighbourhood, however, appears to have been too much for him; for,
upon inquiring on the spot, we were told that there had been no rooks
for many years.

The oldest mention of the Temple as a place for lawyers has been
commonly said to be found in a passage of Chaucer, who is reported to
have been of the Temple himself. It is in his character of the
Manciple, or Steward, whom he pleasantly pits against his learned
employers, as outwitting even themselves:

"A gentle manciple was there of a temple,
Of which achatours (purchasers) mighten take ensample,
For to ben wise in buying of vitáille.
For whether that be paid, or took by taille,
Algate he waited so in his achate,
That he was ay before in good estate;
Now is not that of God a full fair grace,
That such a lewèd (ignorant) mannès wit shall pass
The wisdom of a heap of learned men?"[88]

Spenser, in his epic way, not disdaining to bring the homeliest images
into his verse, for the sake of the truth in them, speaks of--

---- "those _bricky_ towers
The which on Thames' broad aged back do ride,
Where now the studious lawyers have their bowers;
There whilom wont the Templar Knights to bide,
Till they decayed through pride."[89]

The "studious lawyers," in their towers by the water side, present a
quiet picture. Yet in those times, it seems, they were apt to break
into overt actions of vivacity, a little excessive, and such as the
habit of restraint inclines people to, before they have arrived at
years of discretion. In Henry VIII.'s time the gentlemen of the Temple
were addicted to "shove and slip-groats,"[90] which became forbidden
them under a penalty; and in the age in which Spenser wrote, so many
encounters had taken place, of a dangerous description, that Templars
were prohibited from carrying any other weapon into the hall (the
dining room), "than a dagger or knife,"--"as if," says Mr. Malcolm,
"those were not more than sufficient to accomplish unpremeditated
deaths."[91] We are to suppose, however, that gentlemen would not kill
each other, except with swords. The dagger, or carving knife, which it
was customary to carry about the person in those days, was for the
mutton.[92]

A better mode of recreating and giving vent to their animal spirits,
was the custom prevalent among the lawyers at that period of
presenting masques and pageants. They were great players, with a
scholarly taste for classical subjects; and the gravest of them did
not disdain to cater in this way for the amusement of their fellows,
sometimes for that of crowned heads. The name of Bacon is to be found
among the "getters up" of a show at Gray's Inn, for the entertainment
of the sovereign; and that of Hyde, on a similar occasion, in the
reign of Charles I.

A masque has come down to us written by William Browne, a disciple of
Spenser, expressly for the society of which he was a member, and
entitled the _Inner Temple Masque_. It is upon the story of Circe and
Ulysses, and is worthy of the school of poetry out of which he came.
Beaumont wrote another, called the _Masque of the Inner Temple and
Gray's Inn_. A strong union has always existed between the law and the
belles-lettres, highly creditable to the former, or rather naturally
to be expected from the mode in which lawyers begin their education,
and the diversity of knowledge which no men are more in the way of
acquiring afterwards. Blackstone need not have written his farewell to
the Muses. If he had been destined to be a poet, he could not have
taken his leave; and, as an accomplished lawyer, he was always within
the pale of the _literæ humaniores_. The greatest practical lawyers,
such as Coke and Plowden, may not have been the most literary, but
those who have understood the law in the greatest and best spirit
have; and the former, great as they may be, are yet but as servants
and secretaries to the rest. They know where to find, but the others
know best how to apply. Bacon, Clarendon, Selden, Somers, Cowper,
Mansfield, were all men of letters. So are the Broughams and Campbells
of the present day. Pope says, that Mansfield would have been another
Ovid. This may be doubted; but nobody should doubt that the better he
understood a poet, the fitter he was for universality of judgment. The
greatest lawyer is the greatest legislator.

The "pert Templar," of whom we hear so much between the reigns of the
Stuarts and the late King, came up with the growth of literature and
the coffee-houses. Every body then began to write or to criticise; and
young men, brought up in the mooting of points, and in the confidence
of public speaking, naturally pressed among the foremost. Besides, a
variety of wits had issued from the Temple in the reign of Charles
and his brother, and their successors in lodging took themselves for
their heirs in genius. The coffee-houses by this time had become cheap
places to talk in. They were the regular morning lounge and evening
resource; and every lad who had dipped his finger and thumb into
Dryden's snuff-box, thought himself qualified to dictate for life. In
Pope's time these pretensions came to be angrily rejected, partly,
perhaps, because none of the reigning wits, with the exception of
Congreve, had had a Temple education.

"Three college sophs, and three pert Templars came,
The same their talents, and their tastes the same;
Each prompt to query, answer, and debate,
And smit with love of poetry and prate."[93]

We could quote many other passages to the same purpose, but we shall
come to one presently which will suffice for all, and exhibit the
young Templar of those days in all the glory of his impertinence. At
present the Templars make no more pretensions than other well-educated
men. Many of them are still connected with the literature of the day,
but in the best manner and with the soundest views; and if there is no
pretension to wit, there is the thing itself. It would be endless to
name all the celebrated lawyers who have had to do with the Temple.
Besides, we shall have to notice the most eminent of them in other
places, where they passed a greater portion of their lives. We shall
therefore confine ourselves to the mention of such as have lived in it
without being lawyers, or thrown a grace over it in connection with
wit and literature.

Chaucer, as we have just observed, is thought, upon slight evidence,
to have been of the Temple. We know not who the Mr. Buckley was, that
says he saw his name in the record; and the name, if there, might have
been that of some other Chaucer. The name is said to be not unfrequent
in records under the Norman dynasty. We are told by Thynne, in his
_Animadversions_ on Speght's edition of the poet's works (published a
few years ago from the manuscript by Mr. Todd, in his _Illustrations
of Chaucer and Gower_), that "it is most certain to be gathered by
circumstances of records that the lawyers were not in the Temple until
towards the latter part of the reign of King Edward III., at which
time Chaucer was a grave man, holden in great credit, and employed in
embassy." "So that methinketh," adds the writer, "he should not be of
that house; and yet, if he then were, I should judge it strange that
he should violate the rules of peace and gravity in those years."

The first English tragedy of any merit, _Gorbuduc_, was written in the
Temple by Thomas Norton and Thomas Sackville, afterwards the
celebrated statesman, and founder of the title of Dorset. He was
author of a noble performance, the _Induction for the Mirrour of
Magistrates_, in which there is a foretaste of the allegorical _gusto_
of Spenser. Raleigh was of the Temple; Selden, who died in
Whitefriars; Lord Clarendon; Beaumont; two other of our old
dramatists, Ford and Marston (the latter of whom was lecturer of the
Middle Temple); Wycherly, whom it is said the Duchess of Cleveland
used to visit, in the habit of a milliner; Congreve, Rowe, Fielding,
Burke, and Cowper. Goldsmith was not of the Temple, but he had
chambers in it, died there, and was buried in the Temple Church. He
resided, first on the Library Staircase, afterwards in King's Bench
Walk, and finally at No. 2, Brick Court, where he had a first floor
elegantly furnished. It was in one of the former lodgings that, being
visited by Dr. Johnson, and expressing something like a shame-faced
hope that he should soon be in lodgings better furnished, "Johnson,"
says Boswell, "at the same time checked him, and paid him a handsome
compliment, implying that a man of talent should be above attention to
such distinctions. 'Nay, sir, never mind that: _Nil te quæsiveris
extra_.'[94] (It is only yourself that need be looked for). He died in
Brick Court. It is said that when he was on his deathbed, the
landing-place was filled with inquirers, not of the most mentionable
description, who lamented him heartily, for he was lavish of his money
as he went along Fleet Street. We are told by one of the writers of
the life prefixed to his works (probably Bishop Percy, who contributed
the greater part of it), that "he was generous in the extreme, and so
strongly affected by compassion, that he has been known at midnight to
abandon his rest in order to procure relief and an asylum for a poor
dying object who was left destitute in the streets." This, surely,
ought to be praise to no man, however benevolent: but it is, in the
present state of society. However, the offices of the good Samaritan
are now reckoned among the things that may be practised as well as
preached, without diminution of a man's reputation for common-sense;
and this is a great step. We will here mention, that Goldsmith had
another residence in Fleet Street. He wrote his Vicar of Wakefield in
Wine Office Court. Of the curious circumstances under which this
delightful novel was sold, various inaccurate accounts have been
given. The following is Boswell's account, taken from Dr. Johnson's
own mouth:--

"I received one morning," said Johnson, "a message from poor
Goldsmith, that he was in great distress, and as it was not in
his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as
soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to
him directly. I accordingly went to him as soon as I was
dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his
rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he
had already changed my guinea, and had a bottle of Madeira and
a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he
would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which
he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel
ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it,
and saw its merit; told the landlady I should soon return, and
having gone to a bookseller, sold it for sixty pounds. I
brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not
without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him
so ill."[95]

Johnson himself lived for some time in the Temple. It was there that
he was first visited by his biographer, who took rooms in Farrar's
Buildings in order to be near him. His appearance and manners on this
occasion, especially as our readers are now of the party, are too
characteristic to be omitted. "His chambers," says Boswell, "were on
the first floor of No. 1, Middle Temple Lane--and I entered them with
an impression given me by the Rev. Dr. Blair, of Edinburgh, who had
been introduced to him not long before, and described his having
'found the giant in his den,' an expression which, when I came to be
pretty well acquainted with Johnson, I repeated to him, and he was
diverted at this picturesque account of himself....

"He received me very courteously; but it must be confessed that
his apartment, and furniture, and morning dress, were
sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very
rusty; he had on a little shrivelled unpowdered wig, which was
too small for his head; his shirt-neck and knees of his
breeches were loose; his black worsted stockings ill-drawn up;
and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But
all these slovenly particularities were forgotten the moment he
began to talk. Some gentlemen, whom I do not recollect, were
sitting with him; and when they went away, I also rose; but he
said to me, 'Nay, don't go.'--'Sir,' said I, 'I am afraid that
I intrude upon you. It is benevolent to allow me to sit and
hear you.' He seemed pleased with this compliment which I
sincerely paid him, and answered, 'Sir, I am obliged to any man
who visits me.'"[96] (He meant that it relieved his
melancholy.)"

It was in a dress of this sort, and without his hat, that he was seen
rushing one day after two of the highest-bred visitors conceivable, in
order to hand one of them to her coach. These were his friend
Beauclerc, of the St. Albans family, and Madame de Boufflers, mother
(if we mistake not) of the Chevalier de Boufflers, the celebrated
French wit. Her report, when she got home, must have been
overwhelming; but she was clever and amiable, like her son, and is
said to have appreciated the talents of the great uncouth. Beauclerc,
however, must repeat the story:--

"When Madame de Boufflers," says he, "was first in England, she
was desirous to see Johnson. I accordingly went with her to his
chambers in the Temple, where she was entertained with his
conversation for some time. When our visit was over, she and I
left him, and were got into Inner Temple Lane, when all at once
I heard a noise like thunder. This was occasioned by Johnson,
who, it seems, on a little recollection, had taken it into his
head that he ought to have done the honours of his literary
residence to a foreign lady of quality; and eager to show
himself a man of gallantry, was hurrying down the stairs in
violent agitation. He overtook us before we reached the
Temple-gate, and brushing in between me and Madame de
Boufflers, seized her hand and conducted her to the coach. His
dress was a rusty-brown morning suit, a pair of old shoes by
way of slippers, a little shrivelled wig sticking on the top of
his head, and the sleeves of his shirt and the knees of his
breeches hanging loose. A considerable crowd of people gathered
round, and were not a little struck by his singular
appearance."[97]

It was in the Inner Temple Lane one night, being seized with a fit of
merriment at something that touched his fancy, not without the
astonishment of his companions, who could not see the joke, that
Johnson went roaring all the way to the Temple-gate; where, being
arrived, he burst into such a convulsive laugh, says Boswell, that in
order to support himself he "laid hold of one of the posts at the side
of the foot-pavement, and sent forth peals so loud, that in the
silence of the night, his voice seemed to resound from Temple-bar to
Fleet-ditch. This most ludicrous exhibition," continues his follower,
"of the awful, melancholy, and venerable Johnson, happened well to
counteract the feelings of sadness which I used to experience when
parting from him for a considerable time. I accompanied him to his
door, where he gave me his blessing."[98]

Between the Temple-gates, at one time, lived Bernard Lintot, who was
in no better esteem with authors than the other great bookseller of
those times, Jacob Tonson. There is a pleasant anecdote of Dr. Young's
addressing him a letter by mistake, which Bernard opened, and found it
begin thus:--"That Bernard Lintot is so great a scoundrel."--"It must
have been very amusing," said Young, "to have seen him in his rage: he
was a great sputtering fellow."[99]

Between the gates and Temple-bar, but nearer to the latter, was the
famous Devil Tavern, where Ben Jonson held his club. Messrs. Child,
the bankers, bought it in 1787, and the present houses were erected on
its site. We believe that the truly elegant house of Messrs. Hoare,
their successors, does not interfere with the place on which it stood.
We rather think it was very near to Temple-bar, perhaps within a house
or two. The club-room, which was afterwards frequently used for balls,
was called the Apollo, and was large and handsome, with a gallery for
music. Probably the house had originally been a private abode of some
consequence. The _Leges Conviviales_, which Jonson wrote for his club,
and which are to be found in his works, are composed in his usual
style of elaborate and compiled learning, not without a taste of that
dictatorial self-sufficiency, which, notwithstanding all that has been
said by his advocates, and the good qualities he undoubtedly
possessed, forms an indelible part of his character. "Insipida
poemata," says he, "nulla _recitantur_" (Let nobody repeat to us
insipid poetry); as if all that he should read of his own must
infallibly be otherwise. The club at the Devil does not appear to have
resembled the higher one at the Mermaid, where Shakspeare and Beaumont
used to meet him. He most probably had it all to himself. This is the
tavern mentioned by Pope:--

"And each true Briton is to Ben so civil,
He swears the Muses met him at the Devil."

It was in good repute at the beginning of the last century. "I dined
to-day," says Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, "with Dr. Garth
and Mr. Addison at the Devil Tavern, near Temple-bar, and Garth
treated: and it is well I dine every day, else I should be longer
making out my letters; for we are yet in a very dull state, only
inquiring every day after new elections, where the Tories carry it
among the new members six to one. Mr. Addison's election has passed
easy and undisputed; and I believe if he had a mind to be chosen king,
he would hardly be refused."[100] Yet Addison was a Whig. Addison had
not then had his disputes with Pope and others; and his intercourse,
till his sincerity became doubted, was very delightful. It is
impossible to read of those famous wits dining together and not
lingering upon the occasion a little, and wishing we could have heard
them talk. Yet wits have their uneasiness, because of their wit. Swift
was probably not very comfortable at this dinner. He was then
beginning to feel awkward with his Whig friends; and Garth, in the
previous month of September, had written a defence of Godolphin, the
ousted Minister, which was unhandsomely attacked in the _Examiner_ by
their common acquaintance Prior, himself formerly a Whig.

There was a multitude of famous shops and coffee-houses in this
quarter, all of which make a figure in the _Tatler_ and other works,
such as Nando's coffee-house; Dick's (still extant as Richard's); the
Rainbow (which is said to have been indicted in former times for the
_nuisance_ of selling coffee); Ben Tooke's (the bookseller); Lintot's;
and Charles Mather's, _alias_ Bubble-boy, the Toyman, who, when Sir
Timothy Shallow accuses him of selling him a cane "for ten pieces,
while Tom Empty had as good a one for five," exclaims, "Lord! Sir
Timothy, I am concerned that you, whom I took to understand canes
better than anybody in town, should be so overseen! Why, Sir Timothy,
yours is a true _jambee_, and esquire Empty's only a plain
dragon."[101]

The fire of London stopped at the Temple Exchange coffee-house; a
circumstance which is recorded in an inscription, stating the house to
have been the last of the houses burnt, and the first restored. The
old front of this house was taken down about a century ago; but on its
being rebuilt, the stone with the inscription was replaced.

But we must now cross over the way to Shire Lane, which is close to
Temple Bar on the opposite side.

Here, "in ancient times," says Maitland, writing in the middle of the
last century, "were only posts, rails, and a chain, such as are now at
Holborn, Smithfield, and Whitechapel bars. Afterwards there was a
house of timber erected across the street, with a narrow gateway, and
an entry on the south side of it under the house." The present gate
was built by Wren after the great fire, but although the work of so
great a master, is hardly worth notice as a piece of architecture. It
must be allowed that Wren could do poor things as well as good, even
when not compelled by a vestry. As the last of the city gates,
however, we confess we should be sorry to see it pulled down, though
we believe there is a general sense that it is in the way. If it were
handsome or venerable we should plead hard for it, because it would
then be a better thing than a mere convenience. The best thing we know
of it is a jest of Goldsmith's; and the worst, the point on which the
jest turned. Goldsmith was coming from Westminster Abbey, with Dr.
Johnson, where they had been looking at the tombs in Poets' Corner,
and Johnson had quoted a line from Ovid:--

"Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis."
(Perhaps, some day, our names may mix with theirs.)

"When we got to Temple Bar," says Johnson, "Goldsmith stopped me,
pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered to me ('in
allusion,' says Boswell, 'to Dr. Johnson's supposed political
opinions, and perhaps to his own,')

"'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur _istis_.'"
(Perhaps, some day, our names may mix with _theirs_.)

These heads belonged to the rebels who were executed for rising in
favour of the Pretender. The brutality of such spectacles, which
outrage the last feelings of mortality, and as often punish honest
mistakes as anything else, is not likely to be repeated. Yet such an
effect has habit in reconciling men's minds to the most revolting, and
sometimes the most dangerous customs, that here were two Jacobites,
one of whom made a jest of what we should now regard with horror.
However, Johnson must often have felt bitterly as he passed there; and
the jesting of such men is frequently nothing but salve for a wound.

Shire Lane still keeps its name, and we hope, however altered and
improved, it will never have any other; for here, the upper end, is
described as residing, old Isaac Bickerstaff, the Tatler, the more
venerable but not the more delightful double of Richard Steele, the
founder of English periodical literature. The public-house called the
Trumpet, now known as the Duke of York, at which the Tatler met his
club, is still remaining. At his house in the lane he dates a great
number of his papers, and receives many interesting visitors; and here
it was that he led down into Fleet Street that immortal deputation of
"twaddlers" from the country, who, as a celebrated writer has
observed, hardly seem to have settled their question of precedence to
this hour.[102]

In Shire Lane is said to have originated the famous Kit-Kat Club,
which consisted of "thirty-nine distinguished noblemen and gentlemen,
zealously attached to the Protestant succession of the house of
Hanover." "The club," continues a note in Spence by the editor, "is
supposed to have derived its name from Christopher Katt, a
pastry-cook, who kept the house where they dined, and excelled in
making mutton-pies, which always formed a part of their bill of fare;
these pies, on account of their excellence, were called Kit-Kats. The
summer meetings were sometimes held at the Upper Flask on Hampstead
Heath."[103]

"You have heard of the Kit-Kat Club," says Pope to Spence. "The
master of the house where the club met was Christopher Katt;
Tonson was secretary. The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of
Berwick were entered of it, Jacob said he saw they were just
going to be ruined. When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded
emblem on the top of his chair, Jacob complained to his
friends, and said a man who would do that, would cut a man's
throat. So that he had the good and the forms of the society
much at heart. The paper was all in Lord Halifax's handwriting
of a subscription of four hundred guineas for the encouragement
of good comedies, and was dated 1709, soon after they broke up.
Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Manwaring, Stepney,
Walpole, and Pulteney, were of it; so was Lord Dorset and the
present Duke. Manwaring, whom we hear nothing of now, was the
ruling man in all conversations; indeed, what he wrote had very
little merit in it. Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Essex were
also members. Jacob has his own, and all their pictures, by Sir
Godfrey Kneller. Each member gave his, and he is going to build
a room for them at Barn Elms."[104]

It is from the size at which these portraits were taken (a
three-quarter length), that the word Kit-Kat came to be applied to
pictures. The society afterwards met in higher places; but humbleness
of locality is nothing in these matters. The refinement consists in
the company, and in whatever they choose to throw a grace over,
whether venison or beef. The great thing is, not the bill of fare,
but, as Swift called it, the "bill of company."

We cross to the south side of the street again, and come to Mrs.
Salmon's. It is a curious evidence of the fluctuation of the great
tide in commercial and growing cities, that, a century ago, this
immortal old gentlewoman, renowned for her wax-work, gives as a reason
for removing from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Fleet Street, that it was
"a more convenient place for the coaches of the quality to stand
unmolested."[105] Some of the houses in this quarter are of the
Elizabethan age, with floors projecting over the others, and looking
pressed together like burrows. The inmates of these humble tenements
(unlike those of great halls and mansions) seem as if they must have
had their heights taken, and the ceiling made to fit. Yet the builders
were liberal of their materials. Over the way, near the west corner of
Chancery Lane, stood an interesting specimen of this style of
building, in the house of the famous old angler, Isaac Walton.

Walton's was the second house from the lane, the corner house being an
inn, long distinguished by the sign of the Harrow. He appears to have
long lived here, carrying on the business of a linen-draper about the
year 1624. Another person, John Mason, a hosier, occupied one-half of
the tenement. Walton afterwards removed to another house in Chancery
Lane, a few doors up from Fleet Street, on the west side, where he
kept a sempster's, or milliner's shop.

A great deal has been said lately of the merits and demerits of
angling, and Isaac has suffered in the discussion, beyond what is
agreeable to the lovers of that gentle pleasure. Unfortunately the
brothers of the angle do not argue ingenuously. They always omit the
tortures suffered by the principal party, and affect to think you
affected if you urge them; whereas their only reason for avoiding the
point is, that it is not to be defended. If it is, we may defend, by
an equal abuse of reason, any amusement which is to be obtained at
another being's expense; and an evil genius might angle for ourselves,
and twitch us up, bleeding and roaring, into an atmosphere that would
stifle us. But fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of
suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not
suffer, more than it is convenient to him to fancy. Now it is a poor
sport that depends for its existence on the want of a voice in the
sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman. Angling, in short, is
not to be defended on any ground of reflection; and this is the worst
thing to say of Isaac; for he was not unaware of the objections to his
amusement, and he piqued himself upon being contemplative.

Anglers have been defended upon the ground of their having had among
them so many pious men; but unfortunately men may be selfishly as well
as nobly pious; and even charity itself may be practised, as well as
cruelty deprecated, upon principles which have a much greater regard
to a man's own safety and future comfort, than anything which concerns
real Christian beneficence. Doubtless there have been many good and
humane men anglers, as well as many pleasant men. There have also been
some very unpleasant ones--Sir John Hawkins among them. They make a
well-founded pretension to a love of nature and her scenery; but it is
a pity they cannot relish it without this pepper to the poor fish.
Walton's book contains many passages in praise of rural enjoyment,
which affect us almost like the fields and fresh air themselves,
though his brethren have exalted it beyond its value; and his lives of
his angling friends, the Divines, have been preposterously over-rated.
If angling is to be defended upon good and manly grounds, let it; it
is no longer to be defended on any other. The best thing to be said
for it (and the instance is worthy of reflection) is, that anglers
have been brought up in the belief of its innocence, and that an
inhuman custom is too powerful for the most humane. The inconsistency
is to be accounted for on no other grounds; nor is it necessary or
desirable that it should be. It is a remarkable illustration of what
Plato said, when something was defended on the ground of its being a
trifle, because it was a custom. "But custom," said he, "is no
trifle." Here, among persons of a more equivocal description, are some
of the humanest men in the world, who will commit what other humane
men reckon among the most inhuman actions, and make an absolute
pastime of it. Let one of their grandchildren be brought up in the
reverse opinion, and see what he will think of it. This, to be sure,
might be said to be only another instance of the effect of education;
but nobody, the most unprejudiced, thinks it a bigotry in Shakspeare
and Steele to have brought us to feel for the brute creation in
general; and whatever we may incline to think for the accommodation of
our propensities, there will still remain the unanswered and always
avoided argument, of the dumb and torn fish themselves, who die
agonised, in the midst of our tranquil looking on, and for no
necessity.

John Whitney, author of the _Genteel Recreation, or the Pleasures of
Angling_, a poem printed in the year 1700, recommends the lovers of
the art to bait with the eyes of fish, in order to decoy others of the
same species. A writer in the _Censura Literaria_ exclaims, "What a
Nero of Anglers doth this proclaim John Whitney to have been! and how
unworthy to be ranked as a lover of the same pastime, which had been
so interestingly recommended by Isaac Walton, in his _Contemplative
Man's Recreation_."[106]

But Isaac's contemplative man can content himself with impaling live
worms, and jesting about the tenderness with which he treats
them--using the worm, quoth Isaac, "as if you loved him." Doubtless
John thought himself as good a man as Isaac. He poetizes, and is
innocent with the best of them, and probably would not have hurt a
dog. However, it must be allowed that he had less imagination than
Walton, and was more cruel, inasmuch as he could commit a cruelty that
was not the custom. Observe, nevertheless, that it was the customary
cruelty which led to the new one. Why must these contemplative men
commit any cruelty at all? The writer of the article in the _Censura_
was, if we mistake not, one of the kindest of human beings, and yet he
could see nothing erroneous in torturing a worm. "A good man," says
the Scripture, "is merciful to his beast." Therefore "holy Mr.
Herbert" very properly helps a horse out of a ditch, and is the better
for it all the rest of the day. Are we not to be merciful to fish as
well as beasts, merely because the Scripture does not expressly state
it? Such are the inconsistencies of mankind, during their very
acquirement of beneficence.

On the other side of the corner of Chancery Lane was born a man of
genius and benevolence, who would not have hurt a fly--Abraham Cowley.
His father was a grocer; himself, one of the kindest, wisest, and
truest gentlemen that ever graced humanity. He has been pronounced by
one, competent to judge, to have been "if not a great poet, a great
man." But his poetry is what every other man's poetry is, the flower
of what was in him; and it is at least so far good poetry, as it is
the quintessence of amiable and deep reflection, not without a more
festive strain, the result of his sociality. Pope says of him--

"Forgot his epic, nay pindaric art;
Yet still we love the language of his heart."[107]

His prose is admirable, and his character of Cromwell a masterpiece of
honest enmity, more creditable to both parties than the zealous
royalist was aware. Cowley, notwithstanding the active part he took in
politics, never ceased to be a child at heart. His mind lived in books
and bowers--in the sequestered "places of thought;" and he wondered
and lamented to the last, that he had not realised the people he found
there. His consolation should have been, that what he found in himself
was an evidence that the people exist.

Chancery Lane, "the most ancient of any to the west," having been
built in the time of Henry the Third, when it was called New Lane,
which was afterwards altered to Chancellor's Lane, is the greatest
legal thoroughfare in England. It leads from the Temple, passes by
Sergeants' Inn, Clifford's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, and the Rolls, and
conducts to Gray's Inn. Of the world of vice and virtue, of pain and
triumph, of learning and ignorance, truth and chicanery, of impudence,
violence, and tranquil wisdom, that must have passed through this
spot, the reader may judge accordingly. There all the great and
eloquent lawyers of the metropolis must have been, at some time or
other, from Fortescue and Littleton, to Coke, Ellesmere, and Erskine.
Sir Thomas More must have been seen going down with his weighty
aspect; Bacon with his eye of intuition; the coarse Thurlow; and the
reverend elegance of Mansfield. In Chancery Lane was born the
celebrated Lord Strafford, who was sent to the block by the party he
had deserted, the victim of his own false strength and his master's
weakness. It is a curious evidence of the secret manners of those
times, which are so often contrasted with the licence of the next
reign, that Clarendon, in speaking of some love-letters of this lord,
a married man, which transpired during his trial, calls them "things
of levity." What would he have said had he found any love letters
between Lady Carlisle and Pym? Of Southampton Buildings, on the site
of which lived Shakspeare's friend, Lord Southampton, we shall speak
immediately; and we shall notice Lincoln's Inn when we come to the
Western portion of Holborn. But we may here observe, that on the wall
of the Inn, which is in Chancery Lane, Ben Jonson is said to have
worked, at the time he was compelled to assist his father-in-law at
his trade of bricklaying. In the intervals of his trowel, he is said
to have handled his Horace and Virgil. It is only a tradition, which
Fuller has handed down to us in his _Worthies_; but tradition is
valuable when it helps to make such a flower grow upon an old wall.

Sergeants' Inn, the first leading out of Chancery Lane, near Fleet
Street, has been what its name implies for many generations. It was
occasionally occupied by the Sergeants as early as the time of Henry
the Fourth, when it was called Farringdon's Inn, though they have
never, we believe, held possession of the place but under tenure to
the bishops of Ely, or their lessees. Pennant confounds this inn with
another of the same name, now no longer devoted to the same purpose,
in Fleet Street.[108] Sergeants' Inn in Fleet Street was reduced to
ruins in the great fire, but was soon after rebuilt in a much more
uniform style than before. It continued after this to be occupied by
the lawyers in 1730, when the whole was taken down, and the present
court erected. The office of the Amicable Annuitant Society, on the
east side of the court, occupies the site of the ancient hall and
chapel. All the judges, as having been Sergeants-at-law before their
elevation to the bench, have still chambers in the inn in Chancery
Lane. The windows of this house are filled with the armorial bearings
of the members, who, when they are knighted, are emphatically _equites
aurati_ (knights made golden), at least as far as rings are concerned,
for they give rings on the occasion, with mottoes expressive of their
sentiments upon law and justice. As to the _equites_, learned
"knights" or horsemen (till "knight" be restored to its original
meaning--servant) will never be anything but an anomaly, especially
since the brethren no longer even ride to the Hall as they used. The
arms of the body of Sergeants are a golden shield with an ibis upon
it; or, to speak scientifically, "Or, an Ibis proper;" to which Mr.
Jekyll might have added, for motto, "_In medio tutissimus_." The same
learned punster made an epigram upon the oratory and scarlet robes of
his brethren, which may be here repeated without offence, as the
Sergeants have had among them some of the best as well as most
tiresome of speakers:

"The Sergeants are a grateful race;
Their dress and language show it;
Their purple robes from Tyre we trace,
Their arguments go to it."

One of the customs which used to be observed so late as the reign of
Charles I. in the creation of sergeants, was for the new dignitary to
go in procession to St. Paul's, and there to choose his pillar, as it
was expressed. This ceremony is supposed to have originated in the
ancient practice of the lawyers taking each his station at one of the
pillars in the cathedral, and there waiting for clients. The legal
sage stood, it is said, with pen in hand, and dexterously noted down
the particulars of every man's case on his knee.

Clifford's Inn, leading out of Sergeants' Inn into Fleet Street and
Fetter Lane, is so called from the noble family of De Clifford, who
granted it to the students-at-law in the reign of Edward III. The word
inn (Saxon, chamber), though now applied only to law places, and the
better sort of public-houses in which travellers are entertained,
formerly signified a great house, mansion, or family palace. So
Lincoln's Inn, the mansion of the Earls of Lincoln; Gray's Inn, of the
Lords Gray, &c. The French still use the word _hôtel_ in the same
sense. Inn once made as splendid a figure in our poetry, as the
palaces of Milton:

"Now whenas Phoebus, with his fiery waine,
Unto his inne began to draw apace;"[109]

says Spenser; and his disciple Browne after him:

"Now had the glorious sun tane up his inne."[110]

There are three things to notice in Clifford's Inn: its little bit of
turf and trees; its quiet; and its having been the residence of Robert
Pultock, author of the curious narrative _Peter Wilkins_, with its
Flying Women. Who he was, is not known; probably a barrister without
practice; but he wrote an amiable and interesting book. As to the
sudden and pleasant quiet in this little inn, it is curious to
consider what a small remove from the street produces it. But even in
the back room of a shop in the main street, the sound of the carts and
carriages becomes wonderfully deadened to the ear; and a remove, like
Clifford's Inn, makes it remote or nothing.

The garden of Clifford's Inn forms part of the area of the ROLLS, so
called from the records kept there, in rolls of parchment. It is said
to have been the house of an eminent Jew, forfeited to the crown; that
is to say, it was most probably taken from him, with all that it
contained, by Henry III., who made it a house for converts from the
owner's religion. These converted Jews, most likely none of the best
of their race (for board and lodging are not arguments to the
scrupulous), appear to have been so neglected, that the number of them
soon came to nothing, and Edward III. gave the place to the Court of
Chancery to keep its records in. There is a fine monument in the
chapel to a Dr. Young, one of the Masters, which, according to Vertue,
was executed by Torregiano, who built the splendid tomb in Henry
VII.'s Chapel. Sir John Trevor, infamous for bribery and corruption,
also lies here. "Wisely," says Pennant, "his epitaph is thus confined:
'Sir J. T. M.R. 1717.' "Some other Masters," he adds, "rest within the
walls; among them Sir John Strange, but without the quibbling line,

'Here lies an honest lawyer, that is Strange.'"

Another Master of the Rolls, who did honour to the profession, was Sir
Joseph Jekyll, recorded by Pope as an

... "odd old Whig,
Who never changed his principles or wig."

When Jekyll came into the office, many of the houses were rebuilt, and
to the expense of ten of them he added, out of his own purse, as much
as 350_l._ each house; observing, that "he would have them built as
strong and as well as if they were his own inheritance."[111] The
Master of the Rolls is a great law dignitary, a sort of under-judge in
Chancery, presiding in a court by himself, though his most ostensible
office is to take care of the records in question. He has a house and
garden on the spot, the latter secluded from public view. The house,
however, has not been used as a residence by the present holder of the
office or his predecessor.

Between Chancery and Fetter Lane is the new church of St. Dunstan's in
the West--a great improvement upon the old one, though a little too
plain below for the handsome fretwork of its steeple. The old building
was eminent for the two wooden figures of wild men, who, with a
gentleness not to be expected of them, struck the hour with a little
tap of their clubs. At the same time they moved their arms and heads,
with a like avoidance of superfluous action. These figures were put up
in the time of Charles II., and were thought not to confer much honour
on the passengers who stood "gaping" to see them strike. But the
passengers might surely be as alive to the puerility as any one else.
An absurdity is not the least attractive thing in this world. They who
objected to the gapers, probably admired more things than they laughed
at. It must be remembered also, that when the images were set up,
mechanical contrivances were much rarer than they are now. Two
centuries ago, St. Dunstan's Churchyard, as it was called, being the
portion of Fleet Street in front of the church, was famous for its
booksellers' shops. The church escaped the great fire, which stopped
within three houses of it, and consequently was one of the most
ancient sacred edifices in London. It was supposed to have been built
about the end of the fourteenth century, but had undergone extensive
repairs. Besides the clock with the figures, it was adorned by a
statue of Queen Elizabeth, which stood in a niche over the east end,
and had been transferred thither about the middle of last century from
the west side of old Ludgate, which was then removed.

The only repute of Fetter Lane in the present days is, or was, for
sausages. But at one time it is said to have had the honour of
Dryden's presence. The famous Praise God Barebones also, it seems,
lived here, in a house for which he paid forty pounds a year, as he
stated in his examination on a trial in the reign of Charles II.[112]
He paid the above rent, he says "except during the war:" that is, we
suppose, during the confusion of the contest between the King and the
Parliament, when probably this worthy contrived to live rent free. In
this neighbourhood also dwelt the infamous Elizabeth Brownrigg, who
was executed in 1767 for the murder of one of her apprentices. Her
house, with the cellar in which she used to confine her starved and
tortured victims, and from the grating of which their cries of
distress were heard, was one of those on the east side of the lane,
looking into the long and narrow alley behind, called Flower-de-Luce
Court. It was some years ago in the occupation of a fishing-tackle
maker.

Johnson once lived in Fetter Lane, but the circumstances of his abode
there have not transpired. We now, however, come to a cluster of his
residences in Fleet Street, of which place he is certainly the great
presiding spirit, the _Genius loci_. He was conversant for the greater
part of his life with this street, was fond of it, frequented its
Mitre Tavern above any other in London, and has identified its name
and places with the best things he ever said and did. It was in Fleet
Street, we believe, that he took the poor girl up in his arms, put her
to bed in his own house, and restored her to health and her friends;
an action sufficient to redeem a million of the asperities of temper
occasioned by disease, and to stamp him, in spite of his bigotry, a
good Christian. Here, at all events, he walked and talked, and
shouldered wondering porters out of the way, and mourned, and
philosophised, and was "a good-natured fellow" (as he called himself),
and roared with peals of laughter till midnight echoed to his roar.

"We walked in the evening," says Boswell, "in Greenwich Park.
He asked me, I suppose by way of trying my disposition, 'Is not
this very fine?' Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of
nature, and being more delighted with the busy hum of men, I
answered, 'Yes, sir; but not equal to Fleet Street.' _Johnson._
'You are right, sir.'"[113]

Boswell vindicates the tastes here expressed by the example of a "very
fashionable baronet," who, on his attention being called to the
fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, "This may be very
well, but I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse." The
baronet here alluded to was Sir Michael le Fleming, who, by way of
comment on his indifference to fresh air, died of an apoplectic fit
while conversing with Lord Howick (the late Earl Grey), at the
Admiralty.[114] However, Johnson's _ipse dixit_ was enough. He wanted
neither Boswell's vindication, nor any other. He was melancholy, and
glad to be taken from his thoughts; and London furnished him with an
endless flow of society.

Johnson's abodes in Fleet Street were in the following order:--First,
in Fetter Lane, then in Boswell Court, then in Gough Square, in the
Inner Temple Lane, in Johnson's Court, and finally, and for the
longest period, in Bolt Court, where he died. His mode of life, during
a considerable portion of his residence in these places, is described
in a communication to Boswell by the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, assistant
preacher at the Temple, who was intimate with Johnson for many years,
and who spoke of his memory with affection.

"About twelve o'clock," says the doctor, "I commonly visited
him, and found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he
drank very plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning
visitors, chiefly men of letters; Hawkesworth, Goldsmith,
Murphy, Langton, Steevens, Beauclerk, &c., &c., and sometimes
learned ladies; particularly, I remember, a French lady of wit
and fashion doing him the honour of a visit. He seemed to me to
be considered as a kind of public oracle, whom everybody
thought they had a right to visit and consult; and, doubtless,
they were well rewarded. I never could discover how he found
time for his compositions. He declaimed all the morning, then
went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly staid late, and
then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he
loitered a great while, but seldom took supper. I fancy he must
have read and wrote chiefly in the night; for I can scarcely
recollect that he ever refused going with me to a tavern, and
he often went to Ranelagh, which he deemed a place of innocent
recreation.

"He frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to the poor,
who watched him between his house and the tavern where he
dined. He walked the streets at all hours, and said he was
never robbed, for the rogues knew he had little money, nor had
the appearance of having much.

"Though the most accessible and communicative man alive, yet
when he suspected that he was invited to be exhibited, he
constantly spurned the invitation.

"Two young women from Staffordshire visited him when I was
present, to consult him on the subject of Methodism, to which
they were inclined. 'Come (said he), you pretty fools, dine
with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will talk over that
subject'; which they did, and after dinner he took one of them
on his knees, and fondled them for half an hour together."[115]

This anecdote is exquisite. It shows, that however impatient he was of
having his own superstitions canvassed, he was loth to see them
inflicted on others. He is here a harmless Falstaff, with two innocent
damsels on his knees, in lieu of Mesdames Ford and Page.

In Gough Square, Johnson wrote part of his Dictionary. He had written
the Rambler and taken his high stand with the public before. "At this
time," says Barber, his servant, "he had little for himself, but
frequently sent money to Mr. Shiels when in distress." (Shiels was one
of his amanuenses in the dictionary.) His friends and visitors in
Gough Square are a good specimen of what they always were--a
miscellany creditable to the largeness of his humanity. There was
Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Miss Carter, Mrs. Macauley (two ladies who must
have looked strangely at one another), Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua)
Reynolds, Langton, Mrs. Williams (a poor poetess whom he maintained in
his house), Mr. Levett (an apothecary on the same footing), Garrick,
Lord Orrery, Lord Southwell, and Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow
chandler on Snow-hill--"not in the learned way," said Mr. Barber, "but
a worthy good woman." With all his respect for rank, which doubtless
he regarded as a special dispensation of Providence, his friend
Beauclerk's notwithstanding,[116] Johnson never lost sight of the
dignity of goodness. He did not, however, confine his attentions to
those who were noble or amiable; though we are to suppose, that
everybody with whom he chose to be conversant had some good quality or
other; unless, indeed, he patronised them as the Duke of Montague did
his ugly dogs, because nobody would if he did not. The great secret,
no doubt, was, that he was glad of the company of any of his
fellow-creatures who would bear and forbear with him, and for whose
tempers he did not care as much as he did for their welfare. And he
was giving alms; which was a catholic part of religion, in the proper
sense of the word.

"He nursed," says Mrs. Thrale, in her superfluous style,
"_whole nests_ of people in his house, where the lame, the
blind, the sick, and the sorrowful found a sure retreat from
all the evils whence his little income could secure them, and
commonly spending the middle of the week at our house, he kept
his numerous family in Fleet Street upon a settled allowance;
but returned to them every Saturday to give them three good
dinners and his company, before he came back to us on the
Monday night, treating them with the same, or perhaps more,
ceremonious civility, than he would have done by as many people
of fashion, making the Holy Scripture thus the rule of his
conduct, and only expecting salvation as he was able to obey
its precepts."[117]

Johnson's female inmates were not like the romantic ones of
Richardson.

"We surely cannot but admire," says Boswell, "the benevolent
exertions of this great and good man, especially when we
consider how grievously he was afflicted with bad health, and
how uncomfortable his home was made by the perpetual jarring of
those whom he charitably accommodated under his roof. He has
sometimes suffered me to talk jocularly of his group of
females, and call them his _seraglio_. He thus mentions them,
together with honest Levitt, in one of his letters to Mrs.
Thrale: 'Williams hates everybody; Levett hates Desmoulins, and
does not love Williams; Desmoulins hates them both; Poll loves
none of them.'"[118]

[Illustration: JOHNSON'S HOUSE IN BOLT COURT.]

Of his residence in Inner Temple Lane we have spoken before. He lived
there six or seven years, and then removed to Johnson's Court, No. 7,
where he resided for ten. Johnson's Court is in the neighbourhood of
Gough Square. It was during this period that he accompanied his friend
Boswell to Scotland, where he sometimes humorously styled himself
"Johnson of that _ilk_" (that same, or Johnson of Johnson), in
imitation of the local designations of the Scottish chiefs. In 1776,
in his sixty-seventh year, still adhering to the neighbourhood, he
removed into Bolt Court, No. 8, where he died eight years after, on
the 13th December, 1784. In Bolt Court he had a garden, and perhaps in
Johnson's Court and Gough Square: which we mention to show how
tranquil and removed these places were, and convenient for a student
who wished, nevertheless, to have the bustle of London at hand.
Maitland (one of the compilers upon Stow), who published his history
of London in 1739, describes Johnson and Bolt Courts as having "good
houses, well inhabited;" and Gough Square he calls fashionable.[119]

Johnson was probably in every tavern and coffee-house in Fleet Street.
There is one which has taken his name, being styled, _par excellence_,
"Doctor Johnson's Coffee-house." But the house he most frequented was
the Mitre tavern, on the other side of the street, in a passage
leading to the Temple. It was here, as we have seen, that he took his
two innocent theologians, and paternally dandled them out of their
misgivings on his knee. The same place was the first of the kind in
which Boswell met him. "We had a good supper," says the happy
biographer, "and port wine, of which he then sometimes drank a
bottle." (At intervals he abstained from all fermented liquors for a
long time.) "The orthodox, high-church sound of the Mitre, the figure
and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordinary power
and precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding
myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations,
and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had before
experienced."[120] They sat till between one and two in the morning.
He told Boswell at that period that "he generally went abroad at about
four in the afternoon, and seldom came home till two in the morning. I
took the liberty to ask if he did not think it wrong to live thus, and
not to make more use of his great talents. He owned it was a bad
habit."

The next time, Goldsmith was with them, when Johnson made a remark
which comes home to everybody, namely, that granting knowledge in some
cases to produce unhappiness, "knowledge _per se_ was an object which
every one would _wish_ to attain, though, perhaps, he might not take
the trouble necessary for attaining it." One of his most curious
remarks followed, occasioned by the mention of Campbell, the author
of the _Hermippus Redivivus_, on which Boswell makes a no less curious
comment. "Campbell," said Johnson, "is a good man, a pious man. I am
afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years; but
he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that
he has good principles." On which, says Boswell in a note, "I am
inclined to think he was misinformed as to this circumstance. I own I
am jealous for my worthy friend Dr. John Campbell. For though _Milton_
could without remorse absent himself from public worship, _I_
cannot."[121]

It was at their next sitting in this house, at which the Rev. Dr.
Ogilvie, a Scotch writer, was present, that Johnson made his famous
joke, in answer to that gentleman's remark, that Scotland has a great
many "noble wild prospects." _Johnson._ "I believe, sir, you have a
great many. Norway, too, has noble, wild prospects; and Lapland is
remarkable for prodigious, noble, wild prospects. But, sir, let me
tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high
road that leads him to England!" "This unexpected and pointed sally,"
says Boswell, "produced a roar of applause. After all, however" (he
adds), "those who admire the rude grandeur of nature, cannot deny it
to Caledonia."[122]

Johnson had the highest opinion of a tavern, as a place in which a man
might be comfortable, if he could anywhere. Indeed, he said that the
man who could not enjoy himself in a tavern, could be comfortable
nowhere. This, however, is not to be taken to the letter. Extremes
meet; and Johnson's uneasiness of temper led him into the gayer
necessities of Falstaff. However, it is assuredly no honour to a man,
not to be able to "take his ease at his inn." "There is no private
house," said Johnson, talking on this subject, "in which people can
enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern. Let there be ever so
great a plenty of good things, ever so much grandeur, ever so much
elegance, ever so much desire that everybody should be easy, in the
nature of things it cannot be: there must always be some degree of
care and anxiety. The master of the house is anxious to entertain his
guests; the guests are anxious to be agreeable to him; and no man, but
a very impudent dog indeed, can as freely command what is in another
man's house as if it were his own. Whereas, at a tavern, there is a
general freedom from anxiety. You are sure you are welcome; and the
more noise you make, the more trouble you give, the more good things
you call for, the welcomer you are. No servants will attend you with
the alacrity which waiters do, who are incited by the prospect of an
immediate reward in proportion as they please. No, sir, there is
nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much
happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn." He then repeated
with great emotion Shenstone's lines:--

"Whoe'er has travelled life's dull round,
Where'er his stages may have been,
May sigh to think he still has found
The warmest welcome at an inn."[123]

"Sir John Hawkins," says Boswell in a note on this passage, "has
preserved very few _memorabilia_ of Johnson." There is, however, to be
found in his bulky tome, a very excellent one upon this subject. "In
contradiction to those who, having a wife and children, prefer
domestic enjoyments to those which a tavern affords, I have heard him
assert, that _a tavern chair was the throne of human felicity_. 'As
soon' (said he), 'as I enter the door of a tavern, I experience an
oblivion of care, and a freedom from solicitude: when I am seated, I
find the master courteous, and the servants obsequious to my call,
anxious to know and ready to supply my wants: wine there exhilarates
my spirits, and prompts me to free conversation, and an interchange of
discourse with those whom I most love; I dogmatise, and am
contradicted; and in this conflict of opinion and sentiments I find
delight.'"

The following anecdote is highly to Johnson's credit, and equally
worthy of every one's attention. "Johnson was known to be so rigidly
attentive to the truth," says Boswell, "that even in his common
conversation the slightest circumstance was mentioned with exact
precision. The knowledge of his having such a principle and habit made
his friends have a perfect reliance on the truth of everything that he
told, however it might have been doubted if told by many others. As an
instance of this I may mention an odd incident, which he related as
having happened to him one night in Fleet Street. 'A gentlewoman'
(said he) 'begged I would give her my arm to assist her in crossing
the street, which I accordingly did; upon which she offered me a
shilling, supposing me to be the watchman. I perceived that she was
somewhat in liquor.' This, if told by most people, would have been
thought an invention; when told by Johnson, it was believed by his
friends, as much as if they had seen what passed."[124]

The gentlewoman, however, might have taken him for the watchman
without being in liquor, if she had no eye to discern a great man
through his uncouthness. Davies, the bookseller, said, that he
"laughed like a rhinoceros." It may be added he walked like a whale;
for it was rolling rather than walking. "I met him in Fleet Street,"
says Boswell, "walking, or rather, indeed, moving along; for his
peculiar march is thus described in a very just and picturesque
manner, in a short life of him published very soon after his
death:--'When he walked the streets, what with the constant roll of
his head, and the concomitant motion of his body, he appeared to make
his way by that motion independent of his feet.' That he was often
much stared at," continues Boswell, "while he advanced in this manner,
may be easily believed; but it was not safe to make sport of one so
robust as he was. Mr. Langton saw him one day, in a fit of absence, by
a sudden start, drive the load off a porter's back, and walk forwards
briskly, without being conscious of what he had done. The porter was
very angry, but stood still, and eyed the huge figure with much
earnestness, till he was satisfied that his wisest course was to be
satisfied and take up his burden again."[125]

There is another remark on Fleet Street and its superiority to the
country, which must not be passed over. Boswell, not having Johnson's
reasons for wanting society, was a little over-weening and gratuitous
on this subject; and on such occasions the doctor would give him a
knock. "It was a delightful day," says the biographer; "as we walked
to St. Clement's Church, I again remarked that Fleet Street was the
most cheerful scene in the world; 'Fleet Street,' said I, 'is in my
mind more delightful than Tempè.' _Johnson._--'Ay, sir, but let it be
compared with Mull.'"[126]

The progress of knowledge, even since Johnson's time, has enabled us
to say, without presumption, that we differ with this extraordinary
person on many important points, without ceasing to have the highest
regard for his character. His faults were the result of temperament;
perhaps his good qualities and his powers of reflection were, in some
measure, so too; but this must be the case with all men. Intellect
and beneficence, from whatever causes, will always command respect;
and we may gladly compound, for their sakes, with foibles which belong
to the common chances of humanity. If Johnson has added nothing very
new to the general stock, he has contributed (especially by the help
of his biographer) a great deal that is striking and entertaining. He
was an admirable critic, if not of the highest things, yet of such as
could be determined by the exercise of a masculine good sense; and one
thing he did, perhaps beyond any man in England, before or since--he
advanced, by the powers of his conversation, the strictness of his
veracity, and the respect he exacted towards his presence, what may be
called the personal dignity of literature. The consequence has been,
not exactly what he expected, but certainly what the great interests
of knowledge require; and Johnson has assisted men, with whom he
little thought of co-operating, in setting the claims of truth and
beneficence above all others.

East from Fetter Lane, on the same side of the street, is Crane
Court--the principal house in which, facing the entry, was that in
which the Royal Society used to meet, and where they kept their museum
and library before they removed to their late apartments in Somerset
House. The society met in Crane Court up to a period late enough to
allow us to present to our imaginations Boyle and his contemporaries
prosecuting their eager inquiries and curious experiments in the early
dawn of physical science, and afterwards Newton presiding in the
noontide glory of the light which he had shed over nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[75] See Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. x., p. 372.
"Abhorrers" were addressers on the side of the court, who had avowed
"abhorrence" of the proceedings of the Whigs. The word was a capital
one to sound through a trumpet.

[76] Aubrey says that his death took place in a cellar in Long Acre;
and adds; "Mr. Edm. Wylde, &c., had made a collection for him, and
given him money." But Aubrey's authority is not valid against Wood's.
He is to be read like a proper gossip, whose accounts we may pretty
safely reject or believe, as it suits other testimony.

[77] Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, fol. vol. ii., p. 145.

[78] Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Reed's edition, 1782, vol. i., p.
207.

[79] Malone in the Prolegomena to Shakspeare, as above, vol, iii., p.
287.

[80] Correspondence of Samual Richardson, &c., by Anna Letitia
Barbauld, vol. i., p. 97.

[81] Our authority (one of the highest in this way) is Mr. Nichols, in
his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, vol. iv., p. 579.

[82]

"---- Apoplexy cramm'd intemperance knocks
Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox;"--

says Thomson, in his Castle of Indolence. It was the death which the
good-natured, indolent poet probably expected for himself, and which
he would have had, if a cold and fever had not interfered; for there
is an apoplexy of the head alone, as well as of the whole body; and
men of letters who either exercise little, or work overmuch, seem
almost sure to die of it, or of palsy; which is a disease analogous.
It is the last stroke, given in the kind resentment of nature, to the
brains which should have known better than bring themselves to such a
pass. In the biography of Italian literati, "Mori' d' apoplessia"--(he
died of apoplexy)--is a common verdict.

[83] Correspondence, as above, vol. i., p. 177.

[84] Correspondence, &c., by Mrs. Barbauld, vol.i., p. 183.

[85] Life and Reign of King James I., quoted in Howell's State Trials,
vol. ii., p. 745.

[86] State Trials, _ut supra_, p. 762.

[87] "It is an opinion which universally prevails with regard to those
cross-legged monuments," says Dr. Nash, "that they were all erected to
the memory of Knights Templars. Now to me it is very evident that not
one of them belonged to that order; but, as Mr. Habingdon, in
describing this at Alve church, hath justly expressed it, to Knights
of the Holy Voyage. For the order of Knights Templars followed the
rule of the Canons regular of St. Austin, and, as such, were under a
vow of celibacy. Now there is scarcely one of these monuments which is
certainly known for whom it is erected; but it is as certain, that the
person it represented was a married man. The Knights Templars always
wore a white habit, with a red cross on the left shoulder. I believe,
not a single instance can be produced of either the mantle or cross
being carved on any of these monuments, which surely would not have
been omitted, as by it they were distinguished from all other orders,
had these been really designed to represent Knights Templars. Lastly,
this order was not confined to England only, but dispersed itself all
over Europe: yet it will be very difficult to find one cross-legged
monument anywhere out of England; whereas they would have abounded in
France, Italy, and elsewhere, had it been a fashion peculiar to that
famous order. But though, for these reasons, I cannot allow the
cross-legged monuments to have been for Knights Templars, yet they had
some relation to them, being the memorials of those zealous devotees,
who had either been in Palestine, personally engaged in what was
called the Holy War, or had laid themselves under a vow to go thither,
though perhaps they were prevented from it by death. Some few, indeed,
might possibly be erected to the memory of persons who had made
pilgrimages there merely out of private devotion. Among the latter,
probably, was that of the lady of the family of Mepham, of Mepham in
Yorkshire, to whose memory a cross-legged monument was placed in a
chapel adjoining to the one collegiate church of Howden, in Yorkshire,
and is at this day remaining, together with that of her husband on the
same tomb. As this religious madness lasted no longer than the reign
of Henry III. (the tenth and last crusade being published in the year
1268), and the whole order of Knights Templars was dissolved by Edward
II., military expeditions to the Holy Land, as well as devout
pilgrimages there, had their period by the year 1312; consequently
none of those cross-legged monuments are of a later date than the
reign of Edward II., or beginning of Edward III., nor of an earlier
than that of King Stephen, when these expeditions first took place in
this kingdom."--_History and Antiquities of Worcestershire_, fol. vol.
i., p. 31. Since Dr. Nash wrote, however, it has been denied that even
the cross legs had any thing to do with crusades.

[88] Prologue to the Canterbury Tales. We quote no edition, because
where we could we have modernised the spelling; which is a justice to
this fine old author in a quotation, in order that nobody may pass it
over. With regard to Chaucer being of the Temple, and to his beating
the Franciscan in Fleet Street, all which is reported, depends upon
the testimony of a Mr. Buckley, who, according to Speght, had seen a
Temple record to that effect.

[89] Prothalamion.

[90] "Shove-groat, named also Slyp-groat, and Slide-thrift, are sports
occasionally mentioned by the writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, and probably were analogous to the modern pastime called
Justice Jervis, or Jarvis, which is confined to common pot-houses, and
only practised by such as frequent the tap-rooms."--_Strutt's Sports
and Pastimes of the People of England_, 1828, chap, i., sect. xix. It
is played with halfpence, which are jerked with the palm of the hand
from the edge of a table, towards certain numbers described upon it.

[91] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 290.

[92] Sir John Davies, who was afterwards Lord Chief Justice of the
King's Bench, and wrote a poem on the Art of Dancing (so lively was
the gravity of those days!) "bastinadoed" a man at dinner in the
Temple Hall, for which he was expelled. The man probably deserved it,
for Davies had a fine nature; and he went back again by favour of the
excellent Lord Ellesmere.

[93] Dunciad, book ii.

[94] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit., 8vo. 1816, vol. iv., p.
27.

[95] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit. 1816, vol. i., p. 398.

[96] Boswell's Life of Johnson, eighth edit. 1816, vol. i., p. 378.

[97] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 421.

[98] Ibid., vol. ii., p. 271.

[99] Spence's Anecdotes, Singer's edit. p. 355.

[100] Swift's Works, _ut supra_, vol. iv., p. 41.

[101] _Tatler_, No. 142. According to the author of a lively rattling
book, conversant with the furniture of old times, Arbuthnot was a
great amateur in sticks. "My uncle," says he, "was universally allowed
to be as deeply skilled in caneology as any one, Dr. Arbuthnot not
excepted, whose science on important questions was quoted even after
his death; for his collection of the various headed sticks and canes,
from the time of the first Charles, taken together, was
unrivalled."--_Wine and Walnuts_, vol. i., p. 242.

[102] Tatler, No. 86.

[103] Spence's Anecdotes, by Singer, p. 337.

[104] Ibid.

[105] Tatler, as above, vol. iv., p. 600.

[106] Censura Literaria, vol. iv., p. 345.

[107] Imitations of Horace, Ep. i., book ii.

[108] Pennant, _ut supra_, p. 172.

[109] Faerie Queen, book vi., canto iii.

[110] Britannia's Pastorals, book i., song iii.

[111] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii., p. 279.

[112] See Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, vol. iii., 453.

[113] Boswell, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 441.

[114] Malone, on the passage in Boswell, ibid.

[115] Boswell, vol. ii., p. 117.

[116] Beauclerk, of the St. Alban's family, was a descendant of
Charles II., whom he resembled in face and complexion, for which
Johnson by no means liked him the less.

[117] Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, &c. Allman, 1822, p. 69.

[118] Boswell, vol. iii., p. 398.

[119] Johnson's Court runs into Gough Square, "a place lately built
with very handsome houses, and well inhabited by persons of
fashion."--_Maitland's History and Survey of London_, by Entick,
folio, 1756 p. 961.

[120] Boswell, vol. i., p. 384.

[121] Boswell, vol. i., p. 400.

[122] Id., p. 408.

[123] Boswell, vol. ii., p. 469.

[124] Boswell, vol. ii., p. 455.

[125] Ibid., vol. iv., p. 77.

[126] Ibid., vol. iii., p. 327.

CHAPTER IV.

THE STRAND.

In going through Fleet Street and the Strand, we seldom think that the
one is named after a rivulet, now running under ground, and the other
from its being on the banks of the river Thames. As little do most of
us fancy that there was once a line of noblemen's houses on the one
side, and that, at the same time, all beyond the other side, to
Hampstead or Highgate, was open country, with the little hamlet of St.
Giles's in a copse. So late as the reign of Henry VIII. we have a
print containing the vill a of Charing. Citizens used to take an
evening stroll to the well now in St. Clement's Inn.

In the reign of Edward III. the Strand was an open country road, with
a mansion here and there, on the banks of the river Thames, most
probably a castle or stronghold. In this state it no doubt remained
during the greater part of the York and Lancaster period. From Henry
VII.'s time the castles most likely began to be exchanged for mansions
of a more peaceful character. These gradually increased; and in the
reign of Edward VI. the Strand consisted, on the south side, of a line
of mansions with garden walls; and on the north, of a single row of
houses, behind which all was field. The reader is to imagine wall all
the way from Temple Bar to Whitehall, on his left hand, like that of
Kew Palace, or a succession of Burlington Gardens; while the line of
humbler habitations stood on the other side, like a row of servants in
waiting.

As wealth increased, not only the importance of rank diminished, and
the nobles were more content to recollect James's advice of living in
the country (where, he said, they looked like ships in a river,
instead of ships at sea), but the value of ground about London,
especially on the river side, was so much augmented, that the
proprietors of these princely mansions were not unwilling to turn the
premises into money. The civil wars had given another jar to the
stability of their abodes in the metropolis; and in Charles the
Second's time the great houses finally gave way, and were exchanged
for streets and wharfs. An agreeable poet of the last century lets us
know that he used to think of this great change in going up the
Strand.

"Come, Fortescue, sincere, experienc'd friend,
Thy briefs, thy deeds, and e'en thy fees suspend;
Come, let us leave the Temple's silent walls;
Me, business to my distant lodging calls;
Through the long Strand together let us stray;
With thee conversing, I forget the way.
Behold that narrow street which steep descends,
Whose building to the slimy shore extends;
Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its fame:
The street alone retains the empty name.
Where Titian's glowing paint the canvass warmed,
And Raphael's fair design with judgment charmed,
Now hangs the bellman's song; and pasted here
The coloured prints of Overton appear.
Where statues breathed, the works of Phidias' hands,
A wooden pump, or lonely watch-house stands.
There Essex's stately pile adorned the shore,
There Cecil's, Bedford's, Villiers',--now no more."[127]

As the aspect in this quarter is so different from what it was, and
the quarter is one of the most important in the metropolis, we may add
what Pennant has written on the subject:--

"In the year 1353, that fine street the Strand was an open
highway, with here and there a great man's house, with gardens
to the water's side. In that year it was so ruinous, that
Edward III., by an ordinance, directed a tax to be raised upon
wool, leather, wine, and all goods carried to the staple at
Westminster, from Temple Bar to Westminster Abbey, for the
repair of the road; and that all owners of houses adjacent to
the highway should repair as much as lay before their doors.
Mention is also made of a bridge to be erected near the royal
palace at Westminster, for the conveniency of the said staple;
but the last probably meant no more than stairs for the landing
of the goods, which I find sometimes went by the name of a
bridge.

"There was no continued street here till about the year 1533;
before that it entirely cut off Westminster from London, and
nothing intervened except the scattered houses, and a village,
which afterwards gave name to the whole. St. Martin's stood
literally in the fields. But about the year 1560 a street was
formed, loosely built, for all the houses on the south side had
great gardens to the river, were called by their owners' names,
and in after times gave name to the several streets that
succeeded them, pointing down to the Thames; each of them had
stairs for the conveniency of taking boat, of which many to
this day bear the names of the houses. As the court was for
centuries either at the palace at Westminster, or Whitehall, a
boat was the customary conveyance of the great to the presence
of their sovereign. The north side was a mere line of houses
from Charing-cross to Temple Bar; all beyond was country. The
gardens which occupied part of the site of Covent Garden were
bounded by fields, and St. Giles's was a distant country
village. These are circumstances proper to point out, to show
the vast increase of our capital in little more than two
centuries."[128]

The aspect of the Strand, on emerging through Temple Bar, is very
different from what it was forty years ago. "A stranger who had
visited London in 1790, would on his return in 1804," says Mr.
Malcolm, "be astonished to find a spacious area (with the church
nearly in the centre) on the site of Butcher Row, and some other
passages undeserving of the name of streets, which were composed of
those wretched fabrics, overhanging their foundations, the receptacles
of dirt in every corner of their projecting stories, the bane of
ancient London, where the plague, with all its attendant horrors,
frowned destruction on the miserable inhabitants, reserving its forces
for the attacks of each returning summer."[129]

The site of Butcher Row, thus advantageously thrown open, is called
Pickett Street, after the alderman who projected the improvements.
Unfortunately they turned out to be on too large a scale; that is to
say, the houses were found to be too large and expensive for the right
side of the Strand in this quarter; the tide of traffic between the
city and Westminster flowing the other side of the way. The
consequence is, that the houses are under-let, and that something of
the old squalid look remains in the turning towards Clement's Inn, in
spite of the pillared entrance.

Butcher Row, however squalid, contained houses worth eating and
drinking in. Johnson frequented an eating-house there; and, according
to Oldys, it was "in returning from the Bear and Harrow in Butcher
Row, through Clare Market, to his lodgings in Duke Street, that Lee,
the dramatic poet, overladen with wine, fell down (on the ground, as
some say--according to others, on a bulk), and was killed, or stifled
in the snow. He was buried in the parish church of St. Clement Danes,
aged about thirty-five years."[130] "He was a very handsome as well as
ingenious man," says Oldys, "but given to debauchery, which
necessitated a milk diet. When some of his university comrades visited
him, he fell to drinking out of all measure, which, flying up into his
head, caused his face to break out into those carbuncles which were
afterwards observed there; and also touched his brain, occasioning
that madness so much lamented in so rare a genius. Tom Brown says, he
wrote, while he was in Bedlam, a play of twenty-five acts; and Mr.
Bowman tells me that, going once to visit him there, Lee showed him a
scene, 'in which,' says he, 'I have done a miracle for you.' 'What's
that?' said Bowman. 'I have made you a good priest.'"

Oldys mentions another of his mad sayings, but does not tell us with
whom it passed.

"I've seen an unscrewed spider spin a thought,
And walk away upon the wings of angels!"

"What say you to that, doctor?" "Ah, marry, Mr. Lee, that's
superfine indeed. The thought of a winged spider may catch
sublime readers of poetry sooner than his web, but it will need
a commentary in prose to render it intelligible to the
vulgar."[131]

Lee's madness does not appear to have been melancholy, otherwise these
anecdotes would not bear repeating. There are various stories of the
origin of it; but, most probably, he had an over-sanguine
constitution, which he exasperated by intemperance. Though he died so
young, the author of _A Satyr on the Poets_ gives us to understand
that he was corpulent.

"Pembroke loved tragedy, and did provide
For the butchers' dogs, and for the whole Bank-side:
The bear was fed; but dedicating Lee
Was thought to have a greater paunch than he."[132]

This Pembroke, who loved a bear-garden, was the seventh earl of that
title. His daughter married the son of Jefferies. Lee, on a visit to
the earl at Wilton, is said to have drunk so hard, that "the butler
feared he would empty the cellar." The madness of Lee is almost
visible in his swelling and overladen dramas; in which, however, there
is a good deal of true poetic fire, and a vein of tenderness that
makes us heartily pity the author.

The social Boswell, in speaking of Johnson's eating-house in Butcher
Row, does not approve of establishments of that sort. We shall see, by
and by, that he was wrong.

"Happening to dine," says he, "at Clifton's eating-house in
Butcher Row, I was surprised to see Johnson come in and take
his seat at another table. The mode of dining, or rather being
fed, at such houses in London, is well known to many to be
peculiarly unsocial, as there is no ordinary or united company,
but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to
hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded
man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this
churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman
got into a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind
being black. 'Why, sir (said Johnson), it has been accounted
for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the
posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created
two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that, by the
heat of the sun, the skin is scorched, and so acquires a sooty
hue. This matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but
has never been brought to any certain issue.' What the Irishman
said is totally obliterated from my mind; but I remember that
he became very warm and intemperate in his expressions; upon
which Johnson rose, and quietly walked away. When he had
retired, his antagonist took his revenge, as he thought, by
saying, 'He has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of
pomposity unworthy of a man of genius.'"[133]

The ungainly figure might have been pardoned by the Irishman; who, we
suppose, was equally fiery and elegant. As to Johnson's pompous
manner, the most excusable part of it originated, doubtless, in his
having decided opinions. The rest may have been an instinct of
self-defence, arising from the "ungainly figure," not without a sense
of the dignity of his calling. He certainly lost nothing by it, upon
the whole. At all events, one is willing to think the best of what was
accompanied by so much excellence. Affectation it was not; for nobody
despised pretension of any kind more than he did. Johnson was a sort
of born bishop in his way, with high judgments and cathedral notions
lording it in his mind; and _ex cathedrâ_ he accordingly spoke.

In Butcher Row, one day, Johnson met, in advanced life, a
fellow-collegian, of the name of Edwards, whom he had not seen since
they were at the university. Edwards annoyed him by talking of their
age. "Don't let us discourage one another," said Johnson. It was this
Edwards, a dull but good man, who made that _naïve_ remark, which was
pronounced by Burke and others to be an excellent trait of
character:--"You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson," said he: "I have
tried in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how,
cheerfulness was always breaking in."[134]

Before we come to St. Clement's, we arrive, on the left-hand side of
the way, at Essex Street; a spot once famous for the residence of the
favourite Earl of Essex. We have mentioned an Outer Temple, which
originally formed a companion to the Inner and Middle Temples, the
whole constituting the tenements of the knights. This Outer Temple
stretched beyond Temple Bar into the ground now occupied by Essex
Street and Devereux Court; and after being possessed (Dugdale
supposes) by the Prior and Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, was
transferred by them, in the time of Edward III., to the Bishops of
Exeter, who occupied it till the reign of Henry VI., and called it
Exeter House. Sir William Paget (afterwards Lord Paget) then had it,
and did "re-edify the same," calling it Paget Place. After this it was
occupied by the Duke of Norfolk, who was executed for his dealings
with Mary, Queen of Scots; then by Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the
favourite, who called it Leicester House, and bequeathed it to his
"son, Sir Robert;" and then by the other favourite, Leicester's
son-in-law, Essex, from whom it retained the name of Essex House. It
was occasionally tenanted by men of rank till some time after the
Restoration, when it was pulled down, and the site converted into the
present street and court. The only remnant of it supposed to exist is
the present Unitarian Chapel, which, before it became such, was
called Essex House, and latterly contained an auction room.[135]

The repose enjoyed in this precinct since the Restoration has been
like silence after a succession of storms, for the house was of a
turbulent reputation. The first bishop who had it after the Templars,
being a favourite of Edward II., was seized by the mob, hurried to
Cheapside, where they beheaded him, and then carried back a corpse,
and buried in a heap of sand at his door. Lord Paget got into trouble,
together with his friend the Duke of Somerset, who was accused of
intending to assassinate Northumberland and others at this house.
Norfolk possessed it while he formed his designs on Mary, Queen of
Scots, for which he was brought to the scaffold; Leicester was always
having some ill design or other--perhaps poisoned a visitor or so
occasionally (for he is said to have thought nothing of that gentle
expediency); and Essex made the house famous by standing a siege in it
against the troops of his mistress. The siege was not long, nor any of
his actions in the business very wise, though he was a man of an
exalted nature. Essex got into his troubles partly from heat and
ambition, partly from the inferior and more cunning nature of some of
his rivals at court. There is no doubt that all these causes, together
with his confidence in Elizabeth's inability to proceed to
extremities, conspired to lead him into rebellion. His first offence
that we hear of, next to a general petulance of manner, which the
Queen's own mixture of fondness and petulance was calculated enough to
provoke, was a quarrel with some young lords for her favour; the
second, his joining the expedition to Cadiz without leave; and the
third, his marriage with the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham: for
Elizabeth never thought it proper that her favourites should be
married to any thing but her "fair idea."

His next dispute with her, which was on the subject of an assistant in
the affairs of Ireland, to which he was going as lord deputy,
terminated in the singular catastrophe of his receiving from her a box
on the ear, with the encouraging addition of bidding him "Go, and be
hanged." It is said to have been occasioned by his turning his back
upon her. He clapped his hand to his sword, and swore he would not
have put up with such an insult from her father. His fall is generally
dated from this circumstance, and it is thought he never forgave it.
But surely this is not a correct judgment: for the blow which might
have been intolerable from the hand of a king, implied, in its very
extravagance, something not without flattery and self-abasement from
that of a princess. It was as if Elizabeth had put herself into the
situation of a termagant wife. The quarrel preceded the violence.
Essex went to Ireland against the rebels, but apparently with great
unwillingness, calling it, in a letter to the Queen, the "cursedest of
all islands," and insinuating that the best thing that could happen
both to please her and himself was the loss of his life in battle. The
conclusion of this letter is a remarkable instance of the mixture of
romance with real life in those days. It is in verse, terminating with
the following pastoral sentiment. Essex wishes he could live like a
hermit, "in some unhaunted desert most obscure"--

"From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure,
Then wake again, and yield God every praise,
Content with hips and hawes, and bramble-berry;
In contemplation parting out his days,
And change of holy thoughts to make him merry.
Who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush,
Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush.

Your Majesty's exiled servant,
"ROBERT ESSEX."

Think of this being a letter from a lord lieutenant of Ireland to his
sovereign! Warton says, from the evidence of some sonnets preserved in
the British Museum, that although Essex was "an ingenious and elegant
writer of prose," he was no poet. There is an ungainliness in the
lines we have just quoted, and he was probably too much given to
action to be a poet; but there is something in him that relished of
the truth and directness of poetry, when he had to touch upon any
actual emotion. Poetry is nothing but the voluntary power to get at
the inner spirit of what is felt, with imagination to embody it. It
was supposed that Essex's enemies first got him into the office of
lord lieutenant, and then took advantage of his impatience under it
to ruin him. He was accused of tampering with the rebels, and
meditating his return into England with the troops under his charge;
with a view to which object he is said to have described his army as a
force with which he "would make the earth to tremble as he went." He
came over, with the passion of an injured man, and presented himself
before the Queen, who gave him a tolerable reception, but afterwards
confined him to the house of the lord keeper. It was then, according
to his confession before his death, that he first contemplated violent
measures against the throne, though always short of treason. Before
his liberation, he was soured by his ineffectual attempts to renew his
facility of admission to the presence chamber; and he let fall an
expression which his enemies greedily seized at, to wit, that the
"Queen grew old and cankered, and that her mind was become as crooked
as her carcase." This was exactly in his style, which was off-hand and
energetic, with a gusto of truth in it. Meantime he began to have his
friends about him more than ever, and to affect a necessity for it;
and a summons being sent him to attend the council, he was driven by
anger and fear to decline it, and to fortify himself in his house. His
chief and most generous companion on this occasion was Henry, Earl of
Southampton, the friend of Shakspeare. There was some little
resistance; and the Lord Keeper, with the Lord Chief Justice and the
Earl of Worcester, coming to summon him to his allegiance, he locked
them up in a room, on pretence of taking care of their persons, and
then sallied through Fleet Street into the city, where he expected a
rising in his favour; for he was the most popular noble, perhaps, that
England had ever seen, and the city had been disgusted by repeated
levies on its purse, under pretence of invasions from Spain: though,
according to Essex, Spain had never been so much in favour. The
levies, in truth, were made against himself. He was disappointed:
heard himself proclaimed a traitor by sound of trumpet in Gracechurch
Street, and after a little more scuffling on the part of his
adherents, returned by water from Queenhithe, and surrendered himself;
being partly moved, he said, by the "cries of ladies." It is clear
that he did not know what to be at. He expected, most likely, every
moment, that the Queen's tenderness would interfere, fearful of seeing
her once beloved favourite in danger. But the Cecils and others aided
her good sense in keeping her quiet. Essex had certainly acted in a
way incompatible with the duty of a subject, and such as no sovereign
could tolerate. He was tried in Westminster Hall, and convicted of an
intention to seize the court and the Tower, to surprise the Queen in
her apartments, and then to summon a parliament for a "redress of
grievances;" which, he said, should give his enemies "a fair trial."
Southampton was acquitted, no doubt from a sense that he intended
nothing but a romantic adherence to his friend.

How a man of Essex's understanding could give into these preposterous
attempts, it would be difficult to conceive, if every day's experience
did not show how powerful a succession of little circumstances is to
bring people into situations which themselves might have least looked
for. Essex evidently expected pardon to the last. When Lord Grey's
name was read over among the peers who were to try him, he smiled and
jogged the elbow of Southampton, for offending whom Grey had been
punished. He was at his ease throughout the trial. He said to the
Attorney-General (Coke), who had told him in the course of his speech
that he should be "Robert the Last" of an earldom, instead of "Robert
the First" of a kingdom--"Well, Mr. Attorney, I thank God you are not
my judge this day, you are so uncharitable."

"_Coke._ Well, my lord, we shall prove you anon, what you are;
which your pride of heart, and aspiring mind, hath brought you
unto.

_Essex._ Ah, Mr. Attorney, lay your hand upon your heart, and
pray to God to forgive us _both_."[136]

And when sentence was passed, though it is not true that he refused to
ask for mercy, for he did it after the best fashion of his style,
"kneeling (he said) upon the very knees of his heart," yet he seemed
to threaten Elizabeth, in a tender way, with his resolution to die.
She left him, like a politic sovereign, to his fate; but is thought
never to have recovered it, as a friend. The romantic story of her
visiting the Countess of Nottingham, who had kept back a ring which
Essex sent her after his condemnation, of her shaking her on her
deathbed, and crying out that "God might forgive, but she could not,"
is more and more credited as documents transpire. The ring, it is
said, had been given to Essex, with a promise that it should serve him
in need under any circumstances, if he did but send it. It is supposed
that the non-appearance of it hurt the proud heart of Elizabeth, and
finally allowed her to let him die. Yet she was a great sovereign, and
might have suffered the law to take its course, with whatever sorrow.
She was jealous of her reputation with the old and cool-headed lords
about her. When the death, however, had taken place, she might have
fancied otherwise. Something preyed strongly on her mind towards her
decease, which happened within two years after his execution. She
refused to go to bed for ten days and nights before her death, lying
upon the carpet with cushions about her, and absorbed in the
profoundest melancholy. To be sure, this may have been disease. A
princess like Elizabeth, possessed of sovereign power, which had been
sharply exercised on some doubtful occasions, might have had
misgivings when going to die. Two certain causes of regret she must
have had for Essex. She must have been well aware that she had
alternately encouraged and irritated him over much; and she must have
known that he was a better man than many who assisted in his
overthrow, and that if he had been less worthy of regard, he probably
would have survived her, as they did.

It may easily be imagined that Essex was a man for whom a strong
affection might be entertained. He excited interest by his character,
and could maintain it by his language. In everything he did there was
a certain excess, but on the liberal side. When a youth, he plunged
into the depths of rural pleasures and books; he was lavish of his
money and good words for his friends; he said everything that came
uppermost, but then it was worth saying, only his enemies were not as
well pleased with it as his friends, and they never forgot it: in
fine, he was romantic, brave, and impassioned. He is so like a _preux
chevalier_, that till we call to mind other gallant knights who have
not been handsome, we are somewhat surprised to hear that he was not
well made, and that nothing is said of his face but that it looked
reserved--a seeming anomaly, which deep thought sometimes produces in
the countenances of open-hearted men. These were no hindrances,
however, to the admiration entertained of him by the ladies; and he
was so popular with authors and with the public, that Warton says he
could bring evidence of his scarcely ever quitting England or even the
metropolis, on the most frivolous enterprise, without a pastoral or
other poetical praise of him, which was sold and sung in the streets.
He was the friend of Spenser, most likely of Shakspeare too. being
the friend of Southampton. Spenser was well acquainted with Essex
House. In his '_Prothalamion_,' published in 1596, he has left
interesting evidence of his having visited Leicester there; and he
follows up the record with a panegyric on Leicester's successor, which
was probably his first hint to Essex that he was still in want of such
assistance as he had received from his father-in-law. The two passages
taken together render the hint rather broad, and such as would make
one a little jealous for the dignity of the great poet, were not the
manners of that time different in this respect from what they are now.
Speaking of the Temple, in the lines quoted in our last chapter, he
goes on to say--

"Next whereunto there stands a stately place,
Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace
Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell.
Whose want too well now feels my friendless case:
But, ah! here fits not well
Olde woes, but ioyes, to tell
Against the bridale daye, which is not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.

Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer,
Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder,
Whose dreadful name late through all Spaine did thunder,
And Hercules' two pillars standing near
Did make to quake and feare:
Faire branch of honour, flower of chevalrie;
That fillest England with thy triumph's fame,
Joy have thou of thy noble victorie."

Essex no doubt took the poet at his word, both for his panegyric and
his hint: for it was he that gave Spenser his funeral in Westminster,
and he was not of a spirit to treat a great poet, as poets have
sometimes been treated--with neglect in their lifetime, and
self-complacent monuments to them after their death.

We shall close this notice (in which we have endeavoured to
concentrate all the interest we could) of the once great and applauded
Essex, whose memory long retained its popularity, and gave rise to
several tragedies, with a letter of his to the Lord Keeper Egerton, in
which there is one of his finest sentiments expressed with his most
passionate felicity. Egerton's eldest son had accompanied Essex into
Ireland, and died there, which is the subject of the letter. As
Spenser's death also happened just before the earl set out for that
country, at a moment when he might have been of political as well as
poetical use to him (for Spenser was a politician, and had been
employed in the affairs of Ireland), Mr. Todd thinks, that among the
friends alluded to, part of the regret may have been for him:

"Whatt can you receave from a cursed country butt vnfortunate
newes? whatt can be my stile (whom heaven and earth are agreed
to make a martyr) butt a stile of mourning? nott for myself
thatt I smart, _for I wold I had in my hart the sorow of all my
frends_, but I mourn that my destiny is to overlive my deerest
frendes. Of yr losse yt is neither good for me to write nor
you to reade. But I protest I felt myself sensibly dismembered,
when I lost my frend. Shew yr strength in lyfe. Lett me, yf yt
be God's will, shew yt in taking leave of the world, and
hasting after my frends. Butt I will live and dy

"More yr lp's then any
"man's living,
"ESSEX."

"_Arbrachan, this last day of August_" [1599].

"Little,"[137] says Mr. Todd, "did the generous but unfortunate
Essex then imagine, that the learned statesman, to whom this
letter of condolence was addressed, would be directed very soon
afterwards to issue an order for his execution. The original
warrant, to which the name of Elizabeth is prefixed, is now in
the possession of the Marquis of Stafford; and the queen has
written her name, not with the firmness observable in numerous
documents existing in the same and other collections, but with
apparent tremor and hesitation."

In Essex House was born another Robert, Earl of Essex, son of the
preceding, well known in history as general of the Parliament. He was
a child when his father died; and was in the hands, first, of his
grandmother, Lady Walsingham, and, secondly, of Henry Saville
(afterwards Sir Henry), under whose severe discipline he was educated
at Eton. We mention these circumstances, because they tended to keep
him in that Presbyterian interest, which his father patronised out of
a love of toleration and popularity. Perhaps, also, they did him no
good with his wives; for he married two, and was singularly
unfortunate in both. To the first, Lady Frances Howard, he was
betrothed when a boy. He travelled, returned, and married her, with
little love on his own side, and none on hers. Her connection with
Car, Earl of Somerset, and all the infamy, crime, and wretchedness it
brought upon her, are well known. Her best excuse, which is the
ordinary one in cases of great wickedness (and it is a comfort to
human nature that it is so), is, that she was a great fool. Her
dislike of her first husband was not, perhaps, the least excusable
part of her conduct, first, because she was a child like himself when
they were betrothed; and secondly, because his second wife appears to
have liked him no better. The latter was divorced also. After this,
Essex took to a country retirement, and subsequently to an active part
in the Civil Wars, during which his love of justice and affability to
his inferiors rendered him extremely popular. He was of equivocal
service, however, to the Parliament. He was a better general than
politician, not of a commanding genius in any respect, and was
suspected, not without reason, of an overweening desire to accommodate
matters too much, partly out of ignorance of what the nature of the
quarrel demanded, and partly from an affectation of playing the part
of an amicable dictator for his own aggrandisement. So the Parliament
got rid of him by the famous self-denying ordinance. Clarendon says,
that when he resigned his commission, the whole Parliament went the
day following to Essex House, to return him thanks for his great
services; but a late historian of the commonwealth says, there is no
trace of this compliment on the journals.[138] Next year they attended
him to his grave. Essex's character was a prose-copy of his father's,
with the love and romance left out.

Dr. Johnson, the year before he died, founded in Essex Street one of
his minor clubs. The Literary Club did not meet often enough for his
want of society, was too distant, and perhaps had now become too much
for his conversational ambition. He wanted a mixture of inferior
intellects to be at ease with. Accordingly, this club, which was held
at the Essex Head, then kept by a servant of Mr. Thrale, was of a more
miscellaneous nature than the other, and made no pretension to
expense. One cannot help smiling at the modest and pensive tone of the
letter which Johnson sent to Sir Joshua, inviting him to join it. "The
terms are lax, and the expenses light. We meet thrice a-week; and he
who misses, forfeits two-pence."[139] This stretch of philosophy seems
to have startled the fashionable painter, who declined to become a
member. When we find, however, in the list the names of Brocklesby,
Horsley, Daines Barrington, and Windham, Boswell has reason to say
that Sir John Hawkins's charge of its being a "low ale-house
association" appears to be sufficiently obviated. But the names might
have been subscribed out of civility without any further intention.
The club, nevertheless, was in existence when Boswell wrote, and went
on, he says, happily. Johnson said of him, when he was proposed,
"Boswell is a very _clubable_ man."

In Devereux Court, through which there is a passage round into the
Temple, is the Grecian Coffee House, supposed to be the oldest in
London. We should rather say the revival of the oldest, for the
premises were burnt down and rebuilt. The Grecian was the house from
which Steele proposed to date his learned articles in the _Tatler_.

In this court are the premises of the eminent tea-dealers, Messrs.
Twining, the front of which, surmounted with its stone figures of
Chinese, has an elegant appearance in the Strand. We notice the house,
not only on this account, but because the family have to boast of a
very accomplished scholar, the translator of the _Poetics_ of
Aristotle. Mr. Twining was contemporary with Gray and Mason at
Cambridge; and besides his acquirements as a linguist (for, in
addition to his knowledge of Greek and Latin, he wrote French and
Italian with idiomatic accuracy), was a musician so accomplished as to
lead the concerts and oratorios that were performed during term-time,
when Bate played the organ and harpsichord. He was also a lively
companion, full of wit and playfulness, yet so able to content himself
with country privacy, and so exemplary a clergyman, that for the last
forty years of his life he scarcely allowed himself to be absent from
his parishioners more than a fortnight in a year.

The church of St. Clement Danes, which unworthily occupies the open
part of the Strand, to the west of Essex Street, was the one most
frequented by Dr. Johnson. It is not known why this church was called
St. Clement _Danes_. Some think because there was a massacre of the
Danes thereabouts; others because Harold Harefoot was buried there;
and others, because the Danes had the quarter given them to live in,
when Alfred the Great drove them out of London, the monarch at the
same time building the church, in order to assist their conversion to
Christianity. The name _St. Clement_ has been derived with probability
from the patron saint of Pope Clement III., a great friend of the
Templars, to whom the church at one time belonged. St. Clement's was
rebuilt towards the end of the century before last by Edward Pierce,
under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, but is a very incongruous
ungainly edifice. Its best aspect is at night-time in winter, when
the deformities of its body are not seen, and the pale steeple rises
with a sort of ghastliness of grandeur through the cloudy atmosphere.
The chimes may still be heard at midnight, as Falstaff describes
having heard them with Justice Shallow. If they did not execute one of
Handel's psalm-tunes, we should take them to be the very same he
speaks of, and conclude that they had grown hoarse with age and
sitting-up; for to our knowledge they have lost some of their notes
these twenty years, and the rest are falling away. A steeple should
set a better example.

A few years back, when the improvements on the north side, in this
quarter, had not been followed by those on the south, Gay's picture of
the avenue between the church and the houses was true in all its
parts. We remember the "combs dangling in our faces," and almost
mourned their loss for the sake of the poet.

"Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,
Whose straiten'd bounds encroach upon the Strand;
Where the low penthouse bows the walker's head,
And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread;
Where not a post protects the narrow space,
And, strung in twines, combs dangle in thy face;
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care,
Stand firm, look back, be resolute, beware.
Forth issuing from steep lanes, the collier's steeds
Drag the black load; another cart succeeds;
Team follows team, crowds heap'd on crowds appear,
And wait impatient till the road grow clear."

Everybody can testify to the truth of this description. A little
patience, however, is well repaid by the sight of the noble creatures
dragging up the loads. The horses of the colliers and brewers of
London are worth notice at all times for the magnificence of their
_build_. Gay proceeds to other particulars, now no longer to be
encountered. He cautions you how you lose your sword; and adds a
pleasant mode of theft, practised in those times:--

"Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn:
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy, whose hands, to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."[140]

Clement's Inn is named from the church. The device over the gate, of
an anchor and the letter C, is supposed to allude to the martyrdom of
St. Clement, who is said to have been tied to an anchor and thrown
into the sea, by order of the Emperor Trajan.

"The hall is situated on the south side of a neat but small
quadrangle. It is a Tuscan diminutive building, with a very
large Corinthian door, and arched windows, erected in 1715.
Another irregular area is surrounded by convenient houses, in
which are the possessor's chambers. Part of this is a pretty
garden, with a kneeling African, of considerable merit,
supporting a dial, on the eastern side."[141]

In Knox's _Elegant Extracts_ are some lines on this negro, which have
often been repeated:--

"In vain, poor sable son of woe,
Thou seek'st the tender tear;
For thee in vain with pangs they flow;
For mercy dwells not here.

From cannibals thou fledst in vain;
Lawyers less quarter give;
The first won't eat you till you're slain,
The last will do't alive."

This inn, like all the other inns of court, is of great antiquity.
Dugdale states it to have been an inn of Chancery in the reign of
Edward II. Some have conjectured, according to Mr. Moser, "that near
this spot stood an inn, as far back as the time of King Ethelred, for
the reception of penitents who came to St. Clement's Well; that a
religious house was in process of time established, and that the
church rose in consequence." Be this as it may, the holy brotherhood
was probably removed to some other institution; the Holy Lamb, an inn
on the west side of the lane, received the guests; and the monastery
was converted, or rather perverted, from the purposes of the gospel to
those of the law, and was probably, in this profession, considered as
a house of considerable antiquity in the days of Shakspeare; for he,
who with respect to this kind of chronology may be safely quoted,
makes in the second act of Henry IV. one of his justices a member of
that society:--

"He must to the Inns of Court. I was of Clement's once myself,
where they talk of Mad Shallow still."

A pump now covers St. Clement's Well. Fitzstephen, in his description
of London, in the reign of Henry II., speaks of certain "excellent
springs at a small distance" from the city, "whose waters are sweet,
salubrious, and clear, and whose runnels murmur o'er the shining
stones: among these," he continues, "Holywell, Clerkenwell, and St.
Clement's Well may be esteemed the principal, as being much the most
frequented, both by the scholars from the school (Westminster) and the
youth from the city, when on a summer's evening they are disposed to
take an airing."

Six hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fitzstephen wrote. It
is pleasant to think that the well has lasted so long, and that the
place is still quiet.

The Clare family, who have left their name to Clare Market, appear to
have occupied Clement's Inn during part of the reign of the Tudors.
From their hands it reverted to those of the law. It is an appendage
to the Inner Temple. We are not aware of any greater legal personage
having been bred there, than the one just mentioned. Shallow takes
delight in his local recollections, particularly of this inn. In one
of the masterly scenes of this kind, Falstaff's corroboration of a
less pleasant recollection, and Shallow's anger against the cause of
it, after such a lapse of time, are very ludicrous.

"_Shallow._ Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all
night in the windmill in St. George's Fields?

"_Fals._ No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

"_Shal._ Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

"_Fals._ She lives, Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ She never could away with me.

"_Fals._ Never, never; she would always say she could not abide
Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ By the mass. I could anger her to the heart. She was
then a bonaroba. Doth she hold her own well?--and had Robin
Nightwork by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's Inn.

"_Silence._ That's fifty-five years ago.

"_Shal._ Ha, Cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ah, Sir John, said I well?

"_Fals._ We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have; our watchword was, _Hem, boys_! Come, let's
to dinner: come, let's to dinner: Oh, the days that we have
seen! Come, come."[142]

The sites of Arundel, Norfolk, Surrey, and Howard Streets (the last of
which crosses the others), were formerly occupied by the house and
grounds originally constituting the town residence of the Bishop of
Bath and Wells, then of the Lord High Admiral Seymour, and afterwards
of the Howards Earls of Arundel, from whom it came into possession of
the Duke of Norfolk. It was successively called Bath's Inn (Hampton
Place, according to some, but we know not why), Seymour Place, Arundel
House, and Norfolk House. It was a wide low house, but according to
Sully, who lodged in it when he was ambassador to James I., very
convenient, on account of the multitude of rooms on the same floor.

In this house the Lord High Admiral, Thomas Seymour, brother of the
Protector Somerset, in the reign of Edward VI., contrived to place the
Princess (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth, with a design of possessing her
person, and sharing her succession to the Crown. No doubt is
entertained of these views by the historians. Elizabeth was not averse
to him, though he had lately married the Queen Dowager (Catherine
Parr); and some gossipping stories transpired of the evidences of
their good-will. Catherine's death increased the suspicion, and she
herself expressed it on her death-bed. Seymour's ambition, however,
shortly brought him to the scaffold, and saved us from a King Thomas
I., who would probably, as Pennant thinks, have been a very bad one.

We have mentioned the Countess of Nottingham who withheld from
Elizabeth the ring sent her by Essex. It was in this house she died.
Her husband was a Howard, and, probably, she was on a visit there. We
take an opportunity, therefore, of relating the particulars of that
romantic story, as collected by the accurate Dr. Birch, and repeated
in the _Memoirs of the Peers of England during the reign of James I._
"The following curious story," says the compiler of this work, "was
frequently told by Lady Elizabeth Spelman, great grand-daughter of Sir
Robert Carey, brother of Lady Nottingham, and afterwards Earl of
Monmouth, whose curious memoirs of himself were published a few years
ago by Lord Corke."

"When Catherine, Countess of Nottingham, was dying (as she did,
according to his lordship's own account, about a fortnight
before Queen Elizabeth), she sent to her Majesty to desire that
she might see her, in order to reveal something to her Majesty
without the discovery of which she could not die in peace. Upon
the Queen's coming, Lady Nottingham told her, that, while the
Earl of Essex lay under sentence of death, he was desirous of
asking her Majesty's mercy, in the manner prescribed by
herself, during the height of his favour; the Queen having
given him a ring, which being sent to her as a token of his
distress, might entitle him to her protection. But the earl,
jealous of those about him, and not caring to trust any of them
with it, as he was looking out of his window one morning, saw a
boy, with whose appearance he was pleased; and engaging him by
money and promises, directed him to carry the ring, which he
took from his finger and threw down, to Lady Scroope, a sister
of the Countess of Nottingham, and a friend of his lordship,
who attended upon the Queen; and to beg of her that she would
present it to her Majesty. The boy, by mistake, carried it to
Lady Nottingham, who showed it to her husband, the admiral, an
enemy of Lord Essex, in order to take his advice. The admiral
forbid her to carry it, or return any answer to the message;
but insisted upon her keeping the ring.

"The Countess of Nottingham, having made this discovery, begged
the Queen's forgiveness; but her Majesty answered, '_God may
forgive you, but I never can_,' and left the room with great
emotion. Her mind was so struck with the story that she never
went into bed, nor took any sustenance from that instant, for
Camden is of opinion, that her chief reason for suffering the
earl to be executed, was his supposed obstinacy in not applying
to her for mercy."[143]

"In confirmation of the time of the countess's death,"
continues the compiler, "it now appears from the parish
register of Chelsea, extracted by Mr. Lysons (_Environs of
London_, vol. ii., p. 120), that she died at Arundel House,
London, February 25, and was buried the 28th, 1603. Her funeral
was kept at Chelsea, March 21st; and Queen Elizabeth died three
days afterwards."

Clarendon gives a singular character of this house and its master when
it was in possession of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. He says that
the earl

"Seemed to live, as it were, in another nation, his house being
a place to which all people resorted, who resorted to no other
place; strangers, or such as affected to look like strangers,
and dressed themselves accordingly. He was willing to be
thought a scholar, and to understand the most mysterious parts
of antiquity, because he made a wonderful and costly purchase
of excellent statues whilst in Italy and in Rome (some whereof
he could never obtain permission to remove out of Rome, though
he had paid for them), and had a rare collection of medals. As
to all parts of learning, he was almost illiterate, and thought
no other part of history so considerable as what related to his
own family, in which, no doubt, there had been some very
memorable persons. It cannot be denied that he had in his own
person, in his aspect and countenance, the appearance of a
great man, which he preserved in his gait and motion. He wore
and affected a habit very different from that of the time, such
as men had only beheld in pictures of the most considerable
men; all which drew the eyes of most, and the reverence of
many, towards him, as the image and representative of the
ancient nobility, and native gravity of the nobles, when they
had been most venerable; but this was only his outside, his
nature and true humour being much disposed to levity and
delights, which indeed were very despicable and childish."

The marbles here mentioned, now at Oxford, were collected at Arundel
House. This character from the pen of Clarendon has been thought too
severe. Perhaps the earl had given the noble historian a repulse when
he was nothing but plain Mr. Hyde; for personal resentments of this
sort are apparent in his writings. The last Duke of Norfolk but one,
who wrote anecdotes on the Howard family, asks how the man who
collected the Oxford marbles could be the slave of such family
self-love as Clarendon describes, and how it was that he held the
first places in the state, and the most important commissions abroad.
It is well-known, however, that a man may do all this, and yet be more
fortunate than wise. Arundel was certainly proud, if not dull; and the
proudest men are not apt to be the brightest. It was he that, in a
dispute with Lord Spenser, in the Upper House, when the latter spoke
of the treason of the earl's ancestors, said, "My lord, my lord, while
my ancestors were plotting treason, yours were keeping sheep." He
little thought that his marbles would help to bring about a time, when
an historian, by no means indifferent to rank and title, should regard
a romantic poem as the "brightest jewel" in a ducal coronet, and that
coronet be a Spenser's.[144]

At the south-west corner of Norfolk Street lived at one time the
famous Penn, who from being a coxcomb in his youth became a Quaker and
a founder of a state. However, his coxcombry was a falling-off from
early seriousness. His father was a rough admiral, who could not for
the life of him conceive why his son should relapse into a preciseness
so unlike the rest of the world, and so unfitted to succeed at court.
Voltaire says,[145] that young Penn (for he was little more than
twenty years of age) appeared suddenly before his father in a Quaker
dress, and to the old man's astonishment and indignation said, without
moving his hat, "Friend Penn, how dost thee do?" But, according to
more serious biographers, the change was not so sudden. The hat,
however, was a great matter of contention between them, the admiral
wishing to stipulate that his son should uncover to the King (Charles
II.), the King's brother, and himself; but Penn having recourse to
"fasting and supplication," found that his hat was not to be moved.
These were the weaknesses of a young enthusiast. His enthusiasm
remained for greater purposes; but he is understood to have grown
wiser with regard to the rest, though he continued a Quaker for life.
Penn, though a legislator, never seems to have given up a taste for
good living. His appearance in the portraits of him, notwithstanding
his garb, is fat and festive; and he died of apoplexy.

In the same house, we believe, that had been occupied by Penn[146],
resided an author who must not be passed over in a work of this kind;
to wit, the indefatigable and honest antiquary, Dr. Birch. He came of
a Quaker stock. Birch astonished his friends by going a great deal
into company; but the secret of his uniting sociality with labour, was
his early rising. This, which appears to be one of the main secrets of
longevity, ought to have kept him older, for he died at the age of
sixty-one: but he was probably festive as well social, and should have
taken more exercise. Being a bad horseman, he was thrown on the
Hampstead road, and killed on the spot; but the doctors were uncertain
whether apoplexy had not a hand in the disaster. In speaking of Birch,
nobody should omit a charming billet, written to him by his first
wife, almost in the article of death. The death took place within a
year after their marriage, and was accelerated by childbed.

"This day I return you, my dearest life, my sincere hearty
thanks for every favour bestowed on your most faithful and
obedient wife.

"_July 31, 1729._" "HANNAH BIRCH."[147]

In Norfolk Street, for upwards of thirty years, lived Dr. Brocklesby,
the friend and physician of Dr. Johnson. Physicians of this class may,
_par excellence_, be styled the friends of men of letters. They
partake of their accomplishments, understand their infirmities,
sympathise with their zeal to do good, and prolong their lives by the
most delicate and disinterested attentions. Between no two professions
has a more liberal and cordial intimacy been maintained than between
literature and medicine. Brocklesby was an honour to the highest of
his calling.

"In the course of his practice," we are told that "his advice,
as well as his purse, was ever accessible to the poor, as well
as to men of merit who stood in need of either. Besides giving
his advice to the poor of all descriptions, which he did with
an active and unwearied benevolence, he had always upon his
list two or three poor widows, to whom he granted small
annuities; and who, on the quarter-day of receiving their
stipends, always partook of the hospitalities of his table. To
his relations, who wanted his assistance in their business or
professions, he was not only liberal, but so judicious in his
liberalities as to supersede the necessity of a repetition of
them. To his friend Dr Johnson (when it was in agitation
amongst his friends to procure an enlargement of his pension,
the better to enable him to travel for the benefit of his
health), he offered an establishment of one hundred pounds per
year during his life; and upon Dr. Johnson's declining it
(which he did in the most affectionate terms of gratitude and
friendship), he made him a second offer of apartments in his
own house, for the more immediate benefit of medical advice. To
his old and intimate friend Edmund Burke, he had many years
back bequeathed by will the sum of one thousand pounds; but
recollecting that this event might take place (which it
afterwards did) when such a legacy could be of no service to
him, he, with that judicious liberality for which he was always
distinguished, gave it to him in advance, '_ut pignus
amicitæ_:' it was accepted as such by Mr. Burke, accompanied
with a letter, which none but a man feeling the grandeur and
purity of friendship like him could dictate."[148]

If it be dangerous in the present condition of society, to incur
pecuniary obligations, particularly for those who are more qualified
to think than to act, and who may ultimately startle to find
themselves in positions in which they can neither prove the benefit
done them, nor the good feelings which allowed them to receive it,
nobody can doubt the generosity of such a man as Brocklesby; who, so
far from being a mere patron, jealous of being obliged himself, was
equally as prepared to receive kindness as to show it. Proposing just
before he died to go down to Burke's house at Beaconsfield, and
somebody hinting to him the danger of being fatigued, and of lying out
of his own bed, he replied with his usual calmness, "My good friend,
I perfectly understand your hint, and am thankful to you for it; but
where's the difference, whether I die _at a friend's house_, at an
inn, or in a postchaise? I hope I am every way prepared for such an
event, and perhaps it is as well to elude the expectation of it." This
was said like a man, and a friend. Brocklesby was not one who would
cant about giving trouble at such a moment--the screen of those who
hate to be troubled; neither would he grudge a friend the melancholy
satisfaction of giving him a bed to die in. He better understood the
first principles which give light and life to the world, and left
jealousy and misgiving to the vulgar.

Dr. Brocklesby died at his house in the street above mentioned, and
was buried in the churchyard. Lee was buried, "at St. Clement Danes;"
probably, therefore, in the churchyard also. There are now in that
spot some trees, by far the best things about the church. The reader
may imagine them to shade the places where the poet and the physician
lie.

Arundel or Norfolk House, after the great fire, became the temporary
place of meeting for the Royal Society, previously to its return to
Gresham College. It was pulled down on their leaving it, the century
before last, and the streets before mentioned built in its room. They
appear to have been favourite places of residence with persons
connected with the drama. Congreve lived in Surrey Street, Mountford
the player in Norfolk Street, Mrs. Bracegirdle in Howard Street, and
Mrs. Barry somewhere near her.

Congreve died where he had lived (Jan. 29, 1728-9), after having been
for several years afflicted with blindness and gout; of which,
however, he seems to have made the best he could, by the help of good
sense and naturally good spirits. If his wits ever failed him, it was
in the propensity to a love of rank and fashion, which, in spite of
all that he had seen in the world, never forsook him. It originated
probably in the need he thought he had of them, when he first set out
in life. The finest sense of men of his cast does not rise above a
graceful selfishness. It was most probably in Surrey Street (for he
had come to the "verge of life"), that he had a visit paid him by
Voltaire, who has recorded the disgust given him by an ebullition of
his foppery: for the Frenchman had a great admiration of him as a
writer. "Congreve spoke of his works," says Voltaire, "as of trifles
that were beneath him; and hinted to me, in our first conversation,
that I should visit him upon no other foot than upon that of a
gentleman, who led a life of plainness and simplicity. I answered,
_that had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman_, I should
never have come to see him; and I was very much disgusted at so
unseasonable a piece of vanity."[149] Our readers will admire the
fineness of this rebuke.

But the most glaring instance of this propensity was his leaving the
bulk of his fortune to a duchess, when he had poor relations in want
of it.

"Having lain in state," says Johnson, "in the Jerusalem
Chamber, he was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument
is erected to his memory by Henrietta, Duchess of Marlborough,
to whom, for reasons either not known or not mentioned, he
bequeathed a legacy of about ten thousand pounds, the
accumulation of attentive parsimony, which, though to her
superfluous and useless, might have given great assistance to
the ancient family from which he descended; at that time, by
the imprudence of his relation, reduced to difficulties and
distress."[150]

"Congreve," says Dr. Young, "was very intimate for years with
Mrs. Bracegirdle, who lived in the same street--his house very
near hers; until his acquaintance with the young Duchess of
Marlborough. He then quitted that house. The duchess showed me
a diamond necklace (which Lady Di. used afterwards to wear),
that cost seven thousand pounds, and was purchased with the
money Congreve left her. How much better would it have been to
have given it to poor Mrs. Bracegirdle!"[151]

Yet this dramatist, throughout his life, had had the good word of
everybody. All parties praised him: all parties kept him in office (he
had some places that are said to have produced him twelve hundred a
year): Pope dedicated his _Iliad_ to him; called him, after his death,
_Ultimus Romanorum_; and added that "Garth, Vanbrugh, and he were the
three most honest-hearted, real good men of the Kit-Kat Club!"[152]

The secret of this is, that Congreve loved above all things to be at
ease, and spoke politicly of everybody. He had a bad opinion of
mankind, as we may see by his comedies; and he made the best of it, by
conversing with them as if he took heed of their claws. The only
person, we believe, that he ever opposed, was Collier, who attacked
the stage with more spirit than elegance, and who was at enmity with
the whole world of wit and fashion. We are far from thinking with
Collier, that the abuses of the stage outweigh the benefit it does to
the world; nor do we think the world by any means so bad as Congreve
supposed it, nor himself either: but it is useful to know the
tendencies of those who have a habit of thinking otherwise.

Congreve's bequest created a good deal of gossip. Curll, the principal
scandal-monger of those times, got up a catch-penny life of him,
professing to be written by "Charles Wilson, Esq.," but supposed to be
the work of Oldmixon. There is no relying upon Charles Wilson; but,
from internal evidence, we may take his word occasionally; and we may
believe him when he says that the duchess and her friends were alarmed
at the threatened book. The picture which he draws of her manner has
also an air like a woman of quality. She had demanded a sight of the
documents on which the book was founded; and being refused, asked what
authority they had, and what pieces contained in it were genuine.
"Upon being civilly told there would be found several essays, letters,
and characters of that gentleman's writing," says Mr. Wilson, "she,
with a most affected, extraordinary, dramatic drawl, cried out, 'Not
one single sheet of paper, I dare to swear.'"[153] Mr. Wilson's own
grand air in return is very amusing. He speaks of Arbuthnot's coming
with "expresses," probably to Curll's; and adds, that if he be
despatched with any more, "he may, if he please, come to me, who am as
easily to be found in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, _when in
town_, as he is in Burlington Gardens.--Cha. Wilson."

Mr. Wilson's book opens with a copy of the will, in which 500_l._ are
left among the Congreves; about 500_l._ more to friends and domestics,
&c. (not omitting 200_l._ to Mrs. Bracegirdle); and all the rest (with
power to annul or increase the complimentary part of the legacies) to
the Duchess of Marlborough. We know not that anybody could have
brought forward grounds for objecting to this will, had the duchess
been poor herself; for his relations may or may not have had claims
upon him--relations, as such, not being of necessity friends, though
it is generally fit that they should partake of the family prosperity.
We except, of course, a man's immediate kindred, particularly those
whom he has brought into the world. But here was a woman, rolling in
wealth, and relatives neither entirely forgotten, nor yet, it seems,
properly assisted. The bequest must, therefore, either have been a
mere piece of vanity, or the consequence of habitual subjection to a
woman's humours. The duchess was not ungrateful to his memory. She
raised him, as we have seen, a monument; and it is related in Cibber's
_Lives of the Poets_,[154] we know not on what authority, that she
missed his company so much, as to cause "an image of him to be placed
every day on her toilet-table, to which she would talk as to the
living Mr. Congreve, with all the freedom of the most _polite_ and
_unreserved_ conversation." There is something very ludicrous in this
way of putting a case, which might otherwise be affecting. It is as if
there had been a sort of polite mania on both sides.

Congreve's plays are exquisite of their kind, and the excessive
heartlessness and duplicity of some of his characters are not to be
taken without allowance for the _ugly ideal_. There is something not
natural, both in his characters and wit; and we read him rather to see
how entertaining he can make his superfine ladies and gentlemen, and
what a pack of sensual busybodies they are, like insects over a pool,
than from any true sense of them as "men and women." As a companion he
must have been exquisite to a woman of fashion. We can believe that
the duchess, in ignorance of any tragic emotion but what was mixed
with his loss, would really talk with a waxen image of him in a
peruke, and think the universe contained nothing better. It was
carrying wit and politeness beyond the grave. Queen Constance in
Shakspeare makes grief put on the pretty looks of her lost child: the
Duchess of Marlborough made it put on a wig and jaunty air, such as
she had given her friend in his monument in Westminster Abbey. No
criticism on his plays could be more perfect. Congreve's serious
poetry is a refreshment, from its extreme insipidity and common-place.
Everybody is innocent in some corner of the mind, and has faith in
something. Congreve had no faith in his fellow-creatures, but he had a
scholar's (not a poet's) belief in nymphs and weeping fauns; and he
wrote elegies full of them, upon queens and marquisses. If it be true
that he wrote the character of Aspasia (Lady Elizabeth Hastings), in
the _Tatler_ (No. 42), he had indeed faith in something better; for in
that paper is not only given an admiring account of a person of very
exalted excellence, but the author has said of her one of the finest
things that a sincere heart could utter; namely, that "to love her was
a liberal education." We cannot help thinking, however, that the
generous and trusting hand of Steele is very visible throughout this
portrait; and in the touch just mentioned, in particular.

The engaging manners of Mrs. Bracegirdle gave rise to a tragical
circumstance in Howard Street--the death of Mountford her
fellow-player. Mrs. Bracegirdle, one of the most popular actresses of
that time, was a brunette, not remarkable for her beauty, but so much
so for the attractiveness superior to beauty, that Cibber calls her
the "darling of the stage," and says it was a kind of fashion for the
young men about town to have a tenderness for her. This general regard
she preserved by setting a value on herself, not so common with
actresses at that time as it has been since. Accordingly, some made
honourable proposals, which were then still more remarkable. In Rowe's
poems, there is a bantering epistle to an Earl of S----, advising him
not to care for what people might think, but to pursue his
inclinations to that effect. Among others a Captain Hill made
desperate love, professing the same intentions; but he was a man of
bad character, and the lady would have nothing to say to him. The
captain, like a proper coxcomb, took it into his head that nothing
could have prevented his success, but some other person; and he fixed
upon Mountford as the happy man. Mountford was the best lover and
finest gentleman then on the stage, as Mrs. Bracegirdle was the most
charming heroine; but it does not appear that Hill had any greater
ground for his suspicion than their frequent performance in the same
play, which, however, to a jealous man, must have been extremely
provoking. They used to act Alexander and Statira together. In
Mountford's Alexander, according to Cibber, there were seen "the
great, the tender, the penitent, the despairing, the transported, and
the amiable, in the highest perfection;" and "if anything," he said,
"could excuse that desperate extravagance of love, that almost frantic
passion," it was when Mrs. Bracegirdle was the Statira. Imagine a
dark-souled fellow in the pit thinking himself in love with this
Statira, and that the passion between her and the Alexander was real.
This play was acted a few nights before the catastrophe which we are
about to relate.

Hill was intimate with another man of bad character, Lord Mohun; who
agreed to assist him in carrying off Mrs. Bracegirdle. The captain had
often said that he would be "revenged" upon Mountford; and dining with
Lord Mohun on the day when they attempted the execution of their plot,
he said, further, that he would "stab" him "if he resisted;" upon
which Mohun said that he would "stand by his friend."

Mohun and Hill met at the playhouse at six o'clock, changed clothes
there, and waited some time for Mrs. Bracegirdle; but not finding her
come, they took a coach which they had ordered to be ready, drove
towards her lodgings in Howard Street, and then back to Drury Lane,
where they directed the coach to stop near Lord Clare's house (by the
present Craven Buildings). Mrs. Bracegirdle had been supping at a Mr.
Page's, in Princess Street, Drury Lane. She came out, accompanied by
her mother, brother, and Mr. Page, and was seized by Hill, who, with
the aid of a number of soldiers, endeavoured to force her into the
coach. In the coach was Lord Mohun, with seven or eight pistols. Old
Mrs. Bracegirdle threw her arms round her daughter's waist; her other
friends, and at length the passengers, interfered; and our heroine
succeeded in getting into her lodgings in Howard Street, Hill and
Mohun following them on foot. When they all came to the door, Hill
would have spoken with Page, but the latter refused; and the door was
shut. A witness, at the trial of Lord Mohun, deposed, that they
knocked several times at the door, and then the captain entreated to
beg pardon of Mrs. Bracegirdle for having affronted her, but in vain.

Hill and Mohun remained in the street. They sent to a tavern for a
bottle of wine, and perambulated before the door with drawn swords.
Mrs. Browne, the mistress of the house, came out to know what they did
there; upon which Hill said that he would light upon Mountford some
day or other, and that he would be revenged on him. The people
in-doors, upon this, sent to Mountford's house in Norfolk Street, to
inform his wife; and she despatched messengers to all the places where
he was likely to be found, to warn him of his danger, but they could
not meet with him. Meanwhile the constables and watchmen come up and
ask the strangers what they mean. They say they are drinking a bottle
of wine. Lord Mohun adds that he is ready to put up his sword,
remarking, withal, that he is a "peer of the realm." Upon asking why
the other gentleman did not put up his, his lordship tells them, that
his friend had lost the scabbard. The watchmen, like "ancient and
quiet watchmen," go away to the tavern to "examine who they are;" and
in the meantime Mountford makes his appearance coming up the street.
Mountford lived in Norfolk Street, but he turned out of the path that
led to his own house, and was coming towards Mrs. Bracegirdle's--whether
to her house, or to any other, does not appear. By this time two hours
had elapsed. Mrs. Browne, who seems to have remained watching at the
door, caught sight of Mountford, and hastened to warn him how he
advanced. She was either not quick enough, or Mountford (which appears
most likely) pressed on in spite of what she said, and, according to
her statement, the following dialogue took place between him and Lord
Mohun:--

"Your humble servant, my lord."

"Your servant, Mr. Mountford. I have a great respect for you,
Mr. Mountford, and would have no difference between us; but
there is a thing fallen out between Mr. Hill and Mrs.
Bracegirdle."

"My lord, has my wife disobliged your lordship? if she has, she
shall ask your pardon. But Mrs. Bracegirdle is no concern of
mine: I know nothing of this matter; I come here by accident.
But I hope your lordship will not vindicate Hill in such
actions as these are."

Upon this, according to Mrs. Browne's statement, Hill bade Mountford
draw; which the other said he would; but whether he received his wound
before or after she could not tell, owing to its being night-time.

Another female witness, who lived next door, gives the dialogue as
follows. Lord Mohun begins:--

"Mr. Mountford, your humble servant. I am glad to see you"
(embracing him).

"Who is this? my Lord Mohun?"

"Yes, it is."

"What bringeth your lordship here at this time of night?"

"I suppose you were sent for, Mr. Mountford?"

"No, indeed; I came by chance."

"You have heard of the business of Mrs. Bracegirdle?"

_Hill_ (interfering). "Pray, my lord, hold your tongue, This is
not a convenient time to discuss this business." (On saying
which, the witness adds, that he would have drawn Mohun away.)

_Mountford._ "I am very sorry, my lord, to see that your
lordship should assist Captain Hill in so ill an action as
this: pray let me desire your lordship to forbear."

As soon as he had uttered these words Hill, according to the witness,
came up and struck Mountford a box on the ear; upon which the latter
demanded with an oath, "what that was for;" and then she gives a
confused account of the result, which was the receipt of a mortal
wound by the poor actor. It was agreed that Mountford's sword was not
drawn in the first instance, and that Hill's was; and the question was
settled by the dying deposition of Mountford, who stated several times
over, that Lord Mohun offered him no violence, but that Hill struck
him with his left hand, and then ran him through the body, before he
had time to draw in defence.

Mountford died next day. Hill fled at the time, and we hear no more of
him. Mohun was tried for his life, but acquitted, for want of
evidence, of malice prepense. The truth is, he was a great fool, and
Hill appears to have been another. The captain himself, probably, did
not know what he intended, though his words would have hung him had he
been caught. They were a couple of box-lobby swaggerers, who had
heated themselves with wine; and Hill, who told the constables "they
might knock him down if they liked," and was for drawing Mohun away on
Mountford's appearance, was most likely overcome with rage and
jealousy at hearing the latter speak of him with rebuke. Mohun was at
that time very young. He never ceased, however, hankering after this
sort of excitement to his dulness, till he got killed in a duel about
an estate with the Duke of Hamilton, who was at the same time mortally
wounded. Swift, in a letter about it, calls Mohun a "dog." Pennant
says, that when his body was taken home bleeding (to his house in
Gerrard Street), "Lady Mohun was very angry at its being flung upon
the best bed."[155]

In front of the spot now occupied by St. Mary-le-Strand, commonly
called the New Church, anciently stood a cross, at which, says Stowe,
"in the year 1294, and other times, the justices itinerant sat without
London." In the place of this cross was set up a May-pole, by a
blacksmith named John Clarges, whose daughter Ann became the wife of
Monk, Duke of Albemarle. It was for a long time in a state of decay,
and having been taken down in 1713, a new one was erected opposite
Somerset House. This second May-pole had two gilt balls and a vane on
the summit, and was decorated on holidays with flags and garlands.
The races in the "Dunciad" take place

"Where the tall May-pole overlook'd the Strand."

It was removed in 1718, probably being thought in the way of the new
church, which was then being finished. Sir Isaac Newton begged it of
the parish, and afterwards sent it to the Rector of Wanstead, who set
it up in Wanstead Park to support the then largest telescope in
Europe. The gift of John Clarges came a day too late. In old times,
May had been a great holiday in the streets of London. We shall speak
further of it when we come to the parish of St. Andrew Undershaft, so
called from a May-pole higher than the church. But though the holiday
returned with the Restoration, it never properly recovered the disuse
occasioned by the civil wars, and the contempt thrown on it by the
spirit of puritanism. We gained too many advantages by the
thoughtfulness generated in those times to quarrel with their
mistakes; and have no doubt that the progress of knowledge to which
they gave an impulse, will bring back the advantages they omitted by
the way.[156]

The New Church, or, more properly, the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand,
was built by Gibbs, the architect of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. It was
one of the "fifty," improperly so called, that are said to have been
built in the reign of Queen Anne; for though fifty were ordered, the
number was not completed. The old church in this quarter, which stood
at a little distance to the south, was removed by the Protector
Somerset, to make way for Somerset House, and has never been restored.
The parishioners went to the neighbouring churches. The New Church is
in the pretty, over-ornamented style, very different from that of St.
Martin's with its noble front: and though far better than St.
Clement's, and as superior to many places of worship built lately[157]
as art is superior to ignorance, yet it surely is not worthy of its
advantageous situation. It is one of those toys of architecture which
have been said to require glass cases. For the superfluous height of
the steeple, Gibbs offered an excuse. A column was to have been
erected near the church in honour of Queen Anne, but, as the Queen
died, she was no longer thought deserving the column, and the
architect was ordered to make a steeple with the materials, whereas he
had intended only a belfry. Now, to render the steeple fitting, the
church should have had a wider base; but the structure was already
begun, and there was no changing the plan of it. It might be still
argued, that the steeple should not have been made so high: but then,
what was to be done with the stones? This, in the mouth of parish
virtù, was a triumphant reply. After all, however, the artist need not
have spoilt his church with ornament. He said, that being situated in
a very public place, "the parishioners" spared no cost to beautify it;
but to beautify a church is not to make it a piece of confectionery.[158]

Somerset House occupies the site of a princely mansion built by
Somerset the Protector, brother of Lady Jane Seymour, and uncle to
King Edward VI. His character is not sufficiently marked to give any
additional interest to the spot. He was great by accident; lost and
gained his greatness, according as others acted upon it; and
ultimately resigned it on the scaffold. The house he left became the
property of the Crown, and was successively in possession of Queen
Elizabeth and of the queens of James I., Charles I., and Charles II.

The rooms in this house witnessed many joyous scenes and many anxious
ones. Somerset had not long inhabited it when he was taken to the
scaffold. Elizabeth, in her wise economy, lent it to her cousin Lord
Hunsdon, whom she frequently visited within its walls.

During its occupation by James's queen, Anne of Denmark (from whose
family it was called Denmark House), Wilson says, that a constant
masquerade was going on, the Queen and her ladies, "like so many
sea-nymphs, or nereids," appearing in various dresses, "to the
ravishment of the beholders."[159]

Here began the struggle for mastery between Charles I. and Henrietta
Maria, which terminated in favour of the latter, though the King
behaved himself manfully at first. Henrietta had brought over with her
a meddling French household which, after repeated grievances, his
Majesty was obliged to send "packing." He summoned them all together
one evening in the house, and addressed them as follows:--

"Gentlemen and ladies,

"I am driven to that extremity, as I am personally come to
acquaint you, that I very earnestly desire your return into
France. True it is, the deportment of some amongst you hath
been very inoffensive to me; but others again have so dallied
with my patience, and so highly affronted me, as I cannot, and
will not, longer endure it."[160]

"The King's address, implicating no one, was immediately
followed by a volley of protestations of innocence. An hour
after he had delivered his commands, Lord Conway announced to
the foreigners, that early in the morning carriages and carts
and horses would be ready for them and their baggage. Amidst a
scene of confusion, the young Bishop (he was scarcely of age)
protested that this was impossible; that they owed debts in
London, and that much was due to them. On the following day,
the _procureur-general_ of the Queen flew to the keeper of the
great seal at the privy council, requiring an admission to
address his Majesty, then present at his council, on matters
important to himself and the Queen. This being denied, he
exhorted them to maintain the Queen in all her royal
prerogatives; and he was answered, 'So we do.'

"Their prayers and disputes served to postpone their departure.
Their conduct during this time was not very decorous. It
appears, by a contemporary letter-writer, that they flew to
take possession of the Queen's wardrobe and jewels. They did
not leave her a change of linen, since it was with difficulty
her Majesty procured one. Everyone now looked to lay his hand
on what he might call his own. Everything he could touch was a
perquisite. One extraordinary expedient was that of inventing
bills to the amount of ten thousand pounds, for articles and
other engagements in which they had entered for the service of
the Queen, which her Majesty acknowledged, but afterwards
confessed that the debts were fictitious."[161]

"In truth," continues the writer, "the breaking up of this French
establishment was ruinous to the individuals who had purchased their
places at the rate of life annuities." Charles now grew indignant, and
sent the following letter to Buckingham:--

"Steenie,[162]

"I have receaved your letter by Dic Greame (Sir Richard
Grahame). This is my answer: I command you to send all the
French away to-morrow out of the towne, if you can by fair
meanes (but stike not long in disputing), otherways force them
away, dryving them away lyke so manie wilde beastes, until ye
have shipped them, and so the devil goe with them. Let me heare
no answer, but of the performance of my command. So I rest,
"Your faithful, constant, loving friend,
"C. R."
"Oaking,
"The seventh of August, 1626."

"This order put an end to the delay, but the King paid the
debts, the fictitious ones and all--at the cost, as it appears,
of fifty thousand pounds. Even the haughty beauty, Madame St.
George, was presented by the king on her dismission with
several thousand pounds and jewels."

Still the French could not go quietly. "The French bishop," says
D'Israeli, "and the whole party having contrived all sorts of delays
to avoid the expulsion, the yeomen of the guard were sent to turn them
out of Somerset House, whence the juvenile prelate, at the same time
making his protest and mounting the steps of the coach, took his
departure 'head and shoulders.' In a long procession of near forty
coaches, _after four days' tedious travelling_, they reached _Dover_;
but the spectacle of these impatient foreigners so reluctantly
quitting England, gesticulating their sorrows or their quarrels,
exposed them to the derision, and stirred up the prejudices, of the
common people. As Madame St. George, whose vivacity is always
described as extremely French, was stepping into the boat, one of the
mob could not resist the satisfaction of flinging a stone at her
French cap. An English courtier who was conducting her, instantly
quitted his charge, ran the fellow through the body, and quietly
returned to the boat. The man died on the spot, but no further notice
appears to have been taken of the inconsiderate gallantry of the
English courtier."

Henrietta had a magnificent Catholic chapel in Somerset House, and a
cloister of Capuchins. The former has given occasion to some
interesting descriptions of papal show and spectacle in the
commentaries just quoted.[163]

Cromwell's body lay in state at Somerset House, as Monk's did
afterwards, probably on that account.

Pepys, the prince of gossips, gives an edifying picture of the
presence chamber in this palace, when the queens of the two Charleses
were there together, a little after the Restoration:

"Meeting Mr. Pierce the chyrurgeon," says he, "he took me into
Somerset House, and there carried me into the Queene-mother's
presence chamber, where she was with our own queene sitting on
her left hand, whom I did never see before, and though she be
not very charming, yet she hath a good, modest, and innocent
look, which is pleasing. Here I also saw Madame Castlemaine;
and, which pleased me most, Mr. Crofts, the King's bastard, a
most pretty sparke of about fifteen years old, who, I perceive,
do hang much upon my Lady Castlemaine, and is always with her;
and, I hear, the queenes both are mighty kind to him. By and
by, in comes the King, and anon the duke and his duchesse; so
that they being all together, was such a sight, as I never
could almost have happened to see, with so much ease and
leisure. They staid till it was dark and then went away; the
King and his Queene, and my Lady Castlemaine and young Crofts,
in one coach, and the rest in other coaches. Here were great
stores of great ladies, but very few handsome. The King and
Queene were very merry; and he would have made the
Queene-mother believe that his Queene was with child, and said
that she said so, and the young Queene answered, 'You lye;'
which was the first English word that I ever heard her say:
which made the King good sport."[164]

After this we shall not wonder at the following:--

"30th (Dec., 1662). Visited Mrs. Ferrer and staid talking with
her a good while, there being a little proud, ugly, talking
little lady there, that was much crying up the Queene-mother's
court at Somerset House above our own Queene's; there being
before her no allowance of laughing and the mirth that is at
others; and, indeed, it is observed that the greatest court
now-a-days is there."[165]

The following print represents Old Somerset House, as it appeared in
the reign of Charles II. We have seen, but in vain endeavoured to
procure for this book, a scarce one by Hollar, in which the towers in
the back ground mark out the front in the Strand, and a tall May-pole
to the right was the May-pole of John Clarges. The front, looking on
the river, was added by Charles II. Inigo Jones was the architect. In
Hollar's print it gives us a taste of the banqueting room at Whitehall
in its elevation, and in the harmonies of the windows and pilasters.
Below is a portico; and there is another to the right. The chapel,
with an enclosure to the left, was the Catholic one; the houses by it,
the cloisters of the Capuchins. There was a figure walking in the
chapel garden, whom, by his gesticulating arm, we might imagine to be
the queen's confessor, studying his to-morrow's sermon, or thinking
how he shall get the start of the king's chaplain in saying grace. A
curious scene of this kind is worth extracting. "Once," Mr. D'Israeli
informs us, "when the king and queen were dining together in the
presence, Hacket being to say grace, the queen's confessor would have
anticipated him, and an indecorous race was run between the Catholic
priest and the Protestant chaplain, till the latter shoved him aside,
and the king pulling the dishes to him, the carvers performed their
office. Still the confessor, standing by the queen, was on the watch
to be before Hacket for the after-grace, but Hacket again got the
start. The confessor, however, resounded the grace louder than the
chaplain, and the king, in great passion, instantly rose, taking the
queen by the hand." The bowling-green that we read of is probably
between the two rows of trees to the right, in front of the right
portico (the left, if considered from the house). The garden is in the
most formal style of the parterre, where

---- "each alley has its brother,
And half the platform just reflects the other;"

a style, however, not without its merits, particularly in admitting so
many walks among the flowers, and inviting a pace up and down between
the trees. Milton, though he made a different garden for his Eden,
spoke of "trim gardens," as enjoyed by "retired leisure." In this
back front were the apartments of the court. The scene we have just
been reading in Pepys must have passed in one of them. Here Charles
the First's widow lived with her supposed husband, the Earl of St.
Albans; though she was not so constant to the place as Waller
prophesied she would be. She had been used to too much power as a
queen, and found she had too little as a dowager. Poor Catherine
remained as long as she could. She lived here till she returned to
Portugal, in the reign of William III. Speaking of Waller, we must not
quit the premises without noticing a catastrophe that befel him at the
water-gate, or Somerset-stairs (also, by the way, the work of Inigo
Jones). Waller, according to Aubrey, had but "a tender weak body, but
was always very temperate." ---- (we know not who this is) "made him
damnable drunk at Somerset House, where, at the water stayres, he fell
down, and had a cruel fall. 'Twas a pity to use such a sweet swan so
inhumanly."[166] Waller, who, notwithstanding his weak body, lived to
be old, was a water-drinker; but he had a poet's wine in his veins,
and was excellent company. Saville said, "that nobody should keep him
company without drinking, but Ned Waller."

[Illustration: OLD SOMERSET HOUSE, FROM THE RIVER.]

Subsequently to Catherine's departure, old Somerset House was chiefly
used as a residence for princes from other countries when on a visit.
It was pulled down towards the end of the last century, and the
present structure erected by Sir William Chambers, but left
unfinished. The unfinished part, which is towards the east, is now in
a state of completion, as the King's College. The only memorial
remaining of the old palace and its outhouses is in the wall of a
house in the Strand, where the sign of a lion still survives a number
of other signs, noticed in a list made at the time, and common at that
period to houses of all descriptions.

The area of New Somerset House occupies a large space of ground, the
basement of the back-front being in the river. Three sides of it are
appropriated to a variety of public offices, connected with trade,
commerce, and civil economy; and the front was lately dignified by the
occupancy of the Royal and Antiquarian Societies and the Royal Academy
of Painting. The structure was an ambitious one on the part of the
architect, and upon the whole is elegant but timid. There is a look of
fragility in it. It has the extent, but not the majesty, of a
national emporium. Rules are violated in some instances for the sake
of trifles, as is the case of pillars "standing on nothing and
supporting nothing;" and in others, it would seem out of a dread of
the result, as in the instance of the huge basement over the water,
supporting a cupola, which is petty in the comparison. Sir William did
well in wishing to have an imposing front towards the river; but he
might have had another towards the Strand, nobler than the present
one. The lower part is nothing better than a pillared coachway.
However, the front of the story is, perhaps, the best part of the
whole building. It present a graceful harmony in the proportions.

The Royal Society, which originated in the college rooms of Dr.
Wilkins, afterwards bishop of Chester, met, when it was incorporated,
at Old Gresham College in Aldersgate Street; then at Arundel House (on
account of the fire); then returned to Gresham College; and, after a
variety of other experiments upon lodging, was settled by the late
king in New Somerset House. This society, on its foundation, was much
ridiculed by the wits. Though its ends were great, it naturally busied
itself with little things; pragmatical and pedantic persons naturally
enough got mixed up with it; some of its members had foibles of
enthusiasm and pedantry, which were easily confounded with their
capacities; and the jokes were most likely encouraged by the king
(Charles II.), who, though fond of scientific experiments, and wearing
a grave face in presence of the learned body (of which he declared
himself a member), was not a man to forego such an opportunity of
jesting. Wilkins wrote a book to show that a man might go to the moon;
and the ethical common-places of Boyle (who was as great a natural
philosopher as he was a poor moralist) were the origin of Swift's
_Essays on the Tritical Faculties of the Mind_. Then there was the
good Evelyn with his hard words, wondering sentimentally at every
thing; and jolly Pepys marvelling like Sancho Panza. The readers of
Pepys' _Diary_ have been surprised at his not liking _Hudibras_.
Perhaps one reason was, that Butler was the greatest of the jesters
against the society. It was impossible not to laugh at the jokes, in
which he charges them with attempting to

"Search the moon by her own light;
To take an inventory of all
Her real estate and personal;--
To measure wind, and weigh the air,
And turn a circle to a square;
And in the braying of an ass,
Find out the treble and the bass;
If mares neigh _alto_, and a cow
In double diapason low."[167]

Evelyn got angry, and pretended to be calm. Cowley expressed his anger
with a generous indignation. The following passage in his _Ode to the
Society_ concludes with a fine, appropriate simile. "Mischief and true
dishonour," says he,

---- "fall on those
Who would to laughter and to scorn expose
So virtuous and so noble a design,
So human for its use, for knowledge so divine.
The things which these proud men despise and call
Impertinent, and vain, and small,
Those smallest things of Nature let me know,
Rather than all their greatest actions do!
Whoever would deposed Truth advance
Into the throne usurped from it,
Must feel at first the blows of Ignorance,
And the sharp points of envious Wit.
So, when, by various turns of the celestial dance
In many thousand years
A star, so long unknown, appears,
Though Heaven itself more beauteous by it grow,
It troubles and alarms the world below,
Does to the wise a star, to fools a meteor, show."[168]

Perhaps a part of the jealousy against the Royal Society arose from a
notion which has since become not uncommon, that bodies of this
nature, incorporated by kings, are calculated rather to limit inquiry,
than to enlarge it. Without stopping to discuss this point, we shall
merely observe, that the real greatness of all such bodies, like those
of nations themselves, must arise from the greatness of individuals;
and that whether the bodies give any lustre to them or not, there is
no denying that the individuals give lustre to the bodies. When Sir
Isaac Newton became president, jesting ceased.

It is pleasant to think, while passing Somerset House, in the midst of
the noise of a great thoroughfare, that philosophical speculation is,
perhaps, going on within those graceful walls; that in the midst of
all sorts of new things, sight is not lost of the venerable beauties
of old; and that art, as well as philosophy, is considering what it
shall do for our use and entertainment. The Antiquarian Society
originated as far back as the sixteenth century (about the year 1580),
and held its first sittings in a room in the Herald's College; but it
did not receive a charter till the year 1751. Neither Elizabeth nor
James would give it one, fearful, perhaps, of bringing up discussions
on matters connected with politics and religion. Elizabeth has now
become one of the most interesting of its heroines. There is no
society, we think, more likely to increase with age, and to outgrow
half-witted objection. The growth of time adds daily to its stock; and
as reflecting men become interested in behalf of ages to come, they
naturally turn with double sympathy towards the periods that have gone
by, and to the multitudes of beating hearts that have become dust. We
should like to see the society in a venerable building of its own,
raised in some quiet spot, with trees about it, and with painted
windows reflecting light through old heraldry.

The Royal Academy of Painters, now removed to Trafalgar Square, first
met in Saint Martin's Lane, under the title of the Society of Artists
of Great Britain. They had a division among them, which gave rise to
the establishment as it now stands; and are a flourishing body, we
believe, in point of funds. Of the deceased members who have done them
honour, we shall speak when we come to their abodes.

The Turk's Head Coffeehouse, near Somerset House, was frequented by
Dr. Johnson.

In a lodging opposite Somerset House, died the facetious Dr. King,
whom we have mentioned in speaking of Doctors' Commons. He had been
residing in the house of a friend in the garden-grounds between
Lambeth and Vauxhall, where he stuck so close to his books and bottle,
that he began to decline with the autumn, and shut himself up from his
friends. Lord Clarendon, who resided in Somerset House, and was his
relation, sent his sister to fetch him to a lodging he had prepared
for him over the way, where he died before the lapse of many hours,
while all the world were busy with the meats and mince-pies he had so
often celebrated; for it was Christmas-day. Dr. King was the author of
an _Art of Cookery_, in which he pleasantly bantered a learned
Kitchener of his time; though no man had a livelier relish of their
subjects than he. But he wished the relish to be lively in others. At
least, he wished them to be _leviter in modo_, if _graviter in re_.
Though occasionally coarse, he had the right style of banter, and was
of use to the Tories. In return, they would have been of use to him,
if his habits would have let them. Swift procured him the place of
Gazetteer; but he soon got rid of it.

The precinct called the Savoy was anciently the seat of Peter, Earl of
Savoy, who came into England to visit his niece Eleanor, Queen to
Henry III. It is not known whether the house was built or appointed
for him, but on his death it became the property of the queen, who
gave it to her second son Edmund, afterwards Earl of Lancaster; and
from his time the Savoy was reckoned part and parcel of the earldom
and honour of Lancaster, afterwards the duchy. Henry VII. converted
the palace into an hospital for the poor; and it remained so till the
time of Charles II.; though the master and other officers, by an abuse
which grew into a custom, appear to have had no regular inmates,
except themselves. The poor were to apply, as it might happen; and
what they got depended on the generosity of the master. In answer to a
question put by Government in the reign of Queen Anne, it was stated
by the lawyer and four chaplains, that "the statutes relating to the
reception of the poor had not been observed within the memory of
man."[169] Charles II. put wounded soldiers and sailors into the
hospital; and since his time it appears to have been used for the
reception of soldiers and prisoners. Latterly, it was a prison for
deserters.

[Illustration: THE SAVOY PALACE, FROM THE RIVER.]

The Savoy was the scene of a conference in Charles II.'s reign,
between the Church and the Presbyterians, in which possession was
proved to be nine points of the Gospel, as well as law. The
Presbyterians thought so when it was their turn to rule, and would
have thought so again; and the progress of genuine Christianity has
been a gainer by the mild sway of the Church of England.

In the chapel was buried old Gawen Douglas, the Chaucer of Scotland;
and Anne Killegrew, celebrated by Dryden's ode for her poetry and
painting. She was the daughter of one of the masters, Dr. Henry
Killegrew, brother of the famous jester, and himself a man of talent.

Mrs. Anne Killegrew,

A grace for beauty, and a muse for wit,

had probably the honour, some day, of dining with her washerwoman's
daughter, in the guise of Duchess of Albemarle; for John Clarges, the
blacksmith, who lived in the Savoy, had a wife who was a washerwoman,
and the washerwoman had a daughter, who took linen to Monk, when he
was in the Tower, and married him. It is not commonly known that the
validity of this marriage was contested. Upon the trial of an action
at law between the representatives of Monk and Clarges, some curious
particulars, says an article in the _Gentleman's Magazine_, came out
respecting the family of the duchess.

"It appeared that she was the daughter of John Clarges, a
farrier, in the Savoy, and farrier to Colonel Monk, in 1632.
She was married in the church of St. Lawrence Pountney, to
Thomas Ratford, son of Thomas Ratford, late a farrier, servant
to Prince Charles, and resident in the Mews. She had a daughter
who was born in 1634, and died in 1638. Her husband and she
'lived at the Three Spanish Gypsies, in the New Exchange, and
sold wash-balls, powder, gloves, and such things, and she
taught girls plain work. About 1647, she, being a sempstress to
Colonel Monk, used to carry him linen.' In 1648 her father and
mother died. In 1649, she and her husband 'fell out and
parted.' But no certificate from any parish register appears,
reciting his burial. In 1652, she was married in the church of
St. George, Southwark, to 'General George Monk;' and in the
following year was delivered of a son, Christopher, (afterwards
the second and last Duke of Albemarle), who was suckled by
Honour Mills, who sold apples, herbs, oysters, &c. One of the
plaintiff's witnesses swore, 'that a little before the
sickness, Thomas Ratford demanded and received of him the sum
of twenty shillings; that his wife saw Ratford again after the
sickness, and a second time after the Duke and Duchess of
Albemarle were dead.' A woman swore, 'she saw him on the day
his wife (then called Duchess of Albemarle) was put into her
coffin, which was after the death of the duke her second
husband, who died the 3rd of January, 1669-70.' And a third
witness swore, that he saw Ratford about July, 1660.' In
opposition to this evidence, it was alleged, that 'all along,
during the lives of Duke George and Duke Christopher, this
matter was never questioned,' that the latter was universally
received as only son of the former, and that 'this matter had
been thrice before tried at the bar of the King's Bench, and
the defendant had three verdicts.' A witness swore that he owed
Ratford five or six pounds, which he had never demanded. And a
man, who had married a cousin to the Duke of Albemarle, _had
been told by his wife_, that Ratford _died five or six years_
before the duke married. Lord Chief Justice Holt told the jury,
'If you are certain that Duke Christopher was born while Thomas
Ratford was living, you must find for the plaintiff. If you
believe he was born after Ratford was dead, or that nothing
appears what became of him after Duke George married his wife,
you must find for the defendant.' A verdict was given for the
defendant, who was only son to Sir Thomas Clarges, knight,
brother to the illustrious duchess in question, who was created
a baronet October 30, 1674, and was ancestor to the baronets of
his name."[170]

It does not appear on which of these accounts the jury found a verdict
for the defendant--whether because Ratford was dead, or because
nothing had been heard of him; so that the duchess, after all, might
have been no duchess. However, she carried it with as high a hand as
if she had never been anything else, and Monk had been a blacksmith.
There are some amusing notices of her in Pepys.

"8th (March, 1661-2). At noon, Sir W. Batten, Col. Slingsby,
and I, by coach to the Tower, to Sir John Robinson's, to
dinner, where great good cheer. High company, and among others
the Duchess of Albemarle, who is ever a plain homely
dowdy."[171]

"9th (Dec. 1665). My Lord Brouncker and I dined with the Duke
of Albemarle. At table, the duchess, a very ill-looked woman,
complaining of her lord's going to sea next year, said these
cursed words:--'If my lord had been a coward, he had gone to
sea no more; it may be then he might have been excused, and
made an ambassador,' (meaning my Lord Sandwich). This made me
mad, and I believe she perceived my countenance change, and
blushed herself very much. I was in hopes others had not minded
it, but my Lord Brouncker, after we came away, took notice of
the words to me with displeasure."[172]

Lord Sandwich, the famous admiral, who has such light repute with
posterity, was a relation of Pepys, and much connected with him in
affairs. There does not appear to have been the least foundation for
the duchess's charge; except, perhaps, that Sandwich had brains enough
to know the danger which he braved, while Monk knew nothing but how to
fight and lie.

"4th (Nov. 1666)." Pepys says that Mr. Cooling tells him, "the
Duke of Albemarle is grown a drunken sot, and drinks with
nobody but Troutbecke, whom nobody else will keep company with.
Of whom he told me this story; that once the Duke of Albemarle
in his drink taking notice, as of a wonder, that Nan Hide
should ever come to be Duchess of York: 'Nay,' says Troutbecke,
'ne'er wonder at that, for if you will give me another bottle
of wine, I will tell you as great, if not greater, miracle.'
And what was that, but that our dirty Besse (meaning his
duchess) should come to be Duchess of Albemarle."[173]

"4th (April, 1667). I find the Duke of Albemarle at dinner with
sorry company, some of his officers of the army; dirty dishes
and a nasty wife at table, and bad meat, of which I made but an
ill dinner. Colonel Howard asking how the Prince (Rupert) did
(in the last fight); the Duke of Albemarle answering, 'Pretty
well,' the other replied, 'but not so well as to go to sea
again.'--'How!' says the duchess, 'what should he go for, if he
were well, for there are no ships for him to command? And so
you have brought your hogs to a fair market,' said she."[174]

"29th (March 1667-8). I do hear by several, that Sir W. Pen's
going to sea do dislike the Parliament mightily, and that they
have revived the Committee of Miscarriages, to find something
to prevent it; and that he being the other day with the Duke of
Albemarle, to ask his opinion touching his going to sea, the
duchess overheard and came into him; and asked W. Pen how he
durst have the confidence to go to sea again to the endangering
of the nation, when he knew himself such a coward as he was;
which, if true, is very severe."[175]

The habit of charging cowardice against the first officers of the
time, which was not confined to the Duchess, is characteristic of the
grossness of that period, the refinements of which were entirely
artificial and modish. No people talked or acted more grossly than the
finest gentlemen of the day, or believed more ill of one another; and
it was not to be expected that the uneducated should be behindhand
with them.

The Duchess of Albemarle is supposed to have had a considerable hand
in the Restoration. She was a great loyalist, and Monk was afraid of
her; so that it is likely enough she influenced his gross
understanding, when it did not exactly know what to be at. Aubrey
says, that her mother was one of the "five women barbers." How these
awful personages came up we know not--but he has quoted a ballad upon
them:--

"Did you ever hear the like,
Or ever hear the fame,
Of five women barbers,
That lived in Drury Lane?"[176]

After all, the father, John Clarges, must have been a man of
substance in his trade, to be enabled to set up the enormous May-pole
which we see in the picture. But this did not prevent the daughter
from growing up vulgar and foul-mouthed, and a very different person
from the _Belles Ferronières_ of old.

The Savoy, on the one side, with its Gothic gate and flint wall, and
the splendid mansion called Exeter House on the other, appear in
former times to have narrowed the highway hereabouts, as much as
Exeter 'Change did lately.

At the corner of Beaufort Buildings flourished Mr. Lillie, the
perfumer so often mentioned in the _Tatler_. He was secretary to Mr.
Bickerstaff's Court of Honour, in Shire Lane, where people had actions
brought against them for pulling out their watches while their
superiors were talking; and for brushing feathers off a gentleman's
coat, with a cane "value fivepence." Lillie published two volumes of
Contributions, of which the _Tatler_ had made no use. We believe they
had no merit. In Beaufort Buildings lived Aaron Hill, and at one time
Fielding.

Southampton Street, a little to the west, on the other side of the
way, has been much inhabited by wits and theatrical people. Congreve
once lived there, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Garrick. It was called
Southampton Street from the noble family of that title, who are allied
to the Bedford family, the proprietors.

On the ground of Cecil and Salisbury Streets, opposite Southampton
Street, stood the mansion of Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury,
the cunning son of a wise father. It was he who, contriving to keep up
to the last his interest with the queen Elizabeth, and to oust his
rivals, Essex and others, was the first to make secret terms with her
successor James, and to prepare the way for his reception in England:
of which, perhaps, Elizabeth was aware, when she lay moaning on the
ground.

Where the Adelphi now stands, was Durham Place, originally a palace of
the Bishops of Durham, who resigned it to Henry VIII. Henry made it
the scene of magnificent tournaments. The Lord High Admiral Seymour
caused the Mint to be established in this house, with a view to coin
money for his designs on the throne. It was afterwards inhabited by
Dudley, Earl of Northumberland, who here married his son to Lady Jane
Grey. But its most illustrious tenant was Raleigh, to whom it was
lent by Queen Elizabeth, and who lived in it during the attempt made
at Essex House. The four turrets of the mansion, under the roof of
which lived and speculated that romantic but equivocal person, have
been marked out in an engraving from Hollar. Durham Place, though it
got into royal hands during the fluctuation of religious opinions,
never seems to have been reckoned out of the pale of the bishopric of
Durham; for Lord Pembroke bought it of that see in 1640, and pulled it
down for the erection of houses on its site.

"Be it known," says the lively Pennant, speaking of the word
'place,' as applied to great mansions, and interpreted by him
to mean palace, "that the word is only applicable to the
habitations of princes, or princely persons, and that it is
with all the impropriety of vanity bestowed on the houses of
those who have luckily acquired money enough to pile on one
another a greater quantity of stones or bricks than their
neighbours. How many imaginary _parks_ have been formed within
precincts where deer were never seen! And how many houses
misnamed _halls_, which never had attached to them the
privilege of a manor."[177]

This is true; but unless the words _palazzo_ and _piazza_ are
traceable to the same root, palatium (as perhaps they are), _place_
does not of necessity mean _palace_; and palace certainly does not
mean exclusively the habitation of princes or princely persons (that
is to say, supposing princeliness to exclude riches,) for in Italy,
whence it comes, any large mansion may be called a palace; and many
old palaces there were built by merchants. Palatium, it is true, with
the old Romans, though it may have originally meant any house on Mount
Palatine, yet in consequence of that place becoming the court end of
the city, and containing the imperial palace, may have come ultimately
to mean only a princely residence. Ovid uses it in that sense in his
_Metamorphoses_.[178] But custom is everything in these matters. Place
is now used as a variety of term, either for a large house or street.
Perhaps in both cases it ought to imply something of the look of a
palace, or at least an openness of aspect analogous to that of a
_square_--square in England, corresponding with _place_, _piazza_, and
_plaça_ on the Continent. The Piazza in Covent Garden, properly means
the place itself, and not the portico.

"To the north of Durham Place, fronting the street," says
Pennant, "stood the _New Exchange_, which was built under the
auspices of our monarch in 1608, out of the rubbish of the old
stables of _Durham House_. The King, Queen, and Royal Family,
honoured the opening with their presence, and named it
Britaine's Burse. It was built somewhat on the model of the
Royal Exchange, with cellars beneath, a walk above, and rows of
shops over that, filled chiefly with milliners, sempstresses,
and the like. This was a fashionable place of resort. In 1654,
a fatal affair happened here. Mr. Gerard, a young gentleman, at
that time engaged in a plot against Cromwell, was amusing
himself in a walk beneath, when he was insulted by _Don
Pantaleon de Saa_, brother to the Ambassador of Portugal, who,
disliking the return he met with, determined on revenge. He
came there the next day with a set of bravoes, who, mistaking
another gentleman for Mr. Gerard, instantly put him to death,
as he was walking with his sister in one hand and his mistress
in the other. _Don Pantaleon_ was tried, and with impartial
justice condemned to the axe. Mr. Gerard, who about the same
time was detected in the conspiracy, was likewise condemned to
die. By singular chance, both the rivals suffered on the
scaffold, within a few hours of each other: Mr. Gerard with
intrepid dignity; the _Portuguese_ with all the pusillanimity
of an assassin.

"Above stairs," continues Pennant, "sat, in the character of a
milliner, the reduced Duchess of Tyrconnel, wife to Richard
Talbot, Lord Deputy of Ireland, under James II.; a bigoted
Papist, and fit instrument of the designs of the infatuated
prince, who had created him Earl before his abdication, and
after that, Duke of Tyrconnel. A female, suspected to have been
his duchess, after his death, supported herself for a few days
(till she was known and otherwise provided for) by the little
trade of this place; but had delicacy enough to wish not to be
detected. She sat in a white mask, and a white dress, and was
known by the name of the White Widow. This Exchange has long
since given way to a row of good houses, with uniform front,
engraved in Mr. Nichols's _Progresses of Queen Elizabeth_,
which form a part of the street."[179]

The houses in the quarter behind these, built by the Earl of Pembroke,
made way, sixty years back, for the present handsome set of buildings
called the Adelphi, from the Messrs. Adam, brothers, who built
it.[180] The principal front faces the Thames, and is almost the only
public walk left for the inhabitants of London on the river side. The
centre house was purchased when new, by Garrick in 1771, and was his
town house for the rest of his life. He died there about nine years
after; but Mrs. Garrick possessed it till a late period. Mrs. Garrick
had been a dancer in her youth, with a name as vernal as need
be--Mademoiselle Violette: she died a venerable old lady, at the age
of ninety odd. Boswell has recorded a delightful day spent with
Johnson and others at her house, the first time she re-opened it after
Garrick's death. Sir Joshua Reynolds was there, Mrs. Carter, Mrs.
Boscawen, and others. "She looked well," says Boswell; "talked of her
husband with complacency; and while she cast her eyes at his portrait,
which was hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the
most agreeable object to her.'"[181] It is no dishonour to her, that
her constitution was too good for her melancholy. She spoke
enthusiastically of her husband to the last, and used to decide on
theatrical subjects, by right of being his representative.

On the same terrace had lived their common friend Beauclerc. On coming
away after the party just mentioned, Boswell tells us that Johnson and
he stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the
Thames; "and I said to him," says Boswell, "with some emotion, that I
was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the
buildings behind us, Beauclerc and Garrick." "Ay, sir," said he
tenderly, "and two such friends as cannot be supplied."[182]

When Beauclerc was labouring under the illness that carried him off,
Johnson said to Boswell, in a faltering voice, that he "would walk to
the extent of the diameter of the earth to save him." It does not
appear what Beauclerc had in his nature to excite this tenderness; but
it is observable, that Johnson had a kind of speculative regard for
rakes and men of the town, if he thought them not essentially vicious.
He seemed willing to regard them as evidences of the natural virtue of
all men, bad as well as good, and of the excuse furnished for
irregularity by animal spirits. It is not impossible even that he
might have thought them rather conventionally than abstractedly
vicious. He had a similar regard for Hervey, a great rake, who was
very kind to him. "Sir," said he, "if you call a dog 'Hervey,' I shall
love him." At the same time it is not to be forgotten, that these
rakes were fine gentlemen and men of birth; representatives, in some
respect, of the license assumed by authority. Beauclerc, however, like
Hervey, had a taste for better things than he practised, and could
love scrupulous men. Boswell has given an interesting account of his
first intimacy with Johnson. Langton and Beauclerc had become intimate
at Oxford. "Their opinions and mode of life," we are told, "were so
different, that it seemed utterly impossible they should at all
agree;" but Beauclerc "had so ardent a love of literature, so acute an
understanding, such elegance of manners, and so well discerned the
excellent qualities of Mr. Langton, a gentleman eminent not only for
worth and learning, but for an inexhaustible fund of entertaining
conversation, that they became intimate friends."

"Johnson, soon after this acquaintance began, passed a
considerable time at Oxford. He at first thought it strange
that Langton should associate so much with one who had the
character of being loose, both in his principles and practice,
but by degrees, he himself was fascinated. Mr. Beauclerc's
being of the St. Albans family, and having, in some
particulars, a resemblance to Charles the Second, contributed,
in Johnson's imagination, to throw a lustre upon his other
qualities; and, in a short time, the moral, pious Johnson, and
the gay, dissipated Beauclerc were companions. 'What a
coalition!' said Garrick, when he heard of this: 'I shall have
my old friend to bail out of the round-house.' But I can bear
testimony that it was a very agreeable association. Beauclerc
was too polite, and valued learning and wit too much, to offend
Johnson by sallies of infidelity or licentiousness; and Johnson
delighted in the good qualities of Beauclerc, and hoped to
correct the evil. Innumerable were the scenes in which Johnson
was amused by these young men. Beauclerc could take more
liberty with him than any body with whom I ever saw him; but,
on the other hand, Beauclerc was not spared by his respectable
companion, when reproof was proper. Beauclerc had such a
propensity to satire, that at one time, Johnson said to him,
'You never open your mouth but with intention to give pain, and
you have often given me pain, not from the power of what you
said, but from seeing your intention.' At another time,
applying to him, with a slight alteration, a line of Pope, he
said--

'Thy love of folly, and thy scorn of fools'--

Every thing thou dost shows the one, and every thing thou
say'st the other.' At another time he said to him, 'Thy body is
all vice, and thy mind all virtue.' Beauclerc not seeming to
relish the compliment, Johnson said, 'Nay, sir, Alexander the
Great, marching in triumph into Babylon, could not have desired
to have had more said to him.'"[183]

The streets in the Adelphi--John, Robert, Adam, &c.--are named from
the builders. In this instance, the names are well bestowed; but the
"fond attempt," on the part of bricklayers and builders in general to
give a "deathless lot" to their names in the same way, is very idle.
Wherever we go now-a-days, among the new buildings, especially in the
suburbs, we meet with names that nobody knows anything about, nor ever
will know. Probably, as knowledge increases, this custom will go out.
With this exception, streets in the British metropolis have hitherto
been named after royalty or nobility, or from local circumstances, or
from saints. Saints went out with popery. The reader of the
_Spectator_ will recollect the dilemma which Sir Roger de Coverley
underwent in his youth, from not knowing whether to ask for Marylebone
or Saint Marylebone. In Paris they have streets named after men of
letters. There is the _Quai de Voltaire_; and one of the most
frequented thoroughfares in that metropolis, for it contains the
Post-Office, is _Jean Jacques Rousseau Street_. It is not unlikely
that a similar custom will take place in England before long. A
nobleman, eminent for his zeal in behalf of the advancement of
society, has called a road in his neighbourhood, Addison Road.[184]

In John Street, Adelphi, are the rooms of the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. This society
originated in 1753, at the suggestion of Mr. Shipley, an artist, and,
as the title implies, is very miscellaneous in its object; perhaps too
much so to make sufficient impression. It gives rewards for
discoveries of all sorts, and for performances of youth in the fine
arts. It is, however, one of those combinations of zealous and
intelligent men, which have marked the progress of latter times, and
which will have an incalculable effect on posterity. Its great room is
adorned with the celebrated pictures of Mr. Barry, which he painted in
order to refute the opinion that Englishmen had no genius for the
higher department of art, no love of music, &c., nor a proper relish
of anything, "even life itself." The statement of these positions was
not so discreet as the paintings were clever. Mr. Barry was one of
those impatient, self-willed men who, with a portion of genuine power,
think it greater than it is, and will not take the pains to make
themselves masters of their own weapons. His pictures in the Adelphi,
which are illustrations of the progress of society, are striking,
ingenious, with great elegance here and there, and now and then an
evidence of the highest feeling; as in the awful pity of the
retributive angel who presides over the downfall of the wicked and
tyrannical. But the colouring is bad and "foxy;" his Elysium is
deformed with the heterogeneous dresses of all ages, William Penn
talking in a wig and hat with Lycurgus, &c. (which, however
philosophically such things might be regarded in another world, are
not fitly presented to the eye in this); and by way of disproving the
bad taste of the English in music, he has put Dr. Burney in a coat and
toupee, floating among the water nymphs! The consequence is, that
although these pictures are, perhaps, the best ever exhibited together
in England by one artist, they fall short of what he intended to
establish by them, as far as England is concerned.

Between Adam Street and George Street, on the other side of the
Strand, is Bedford Street, the site of an old mansion of the Earls and
Dukes of Bedford.

With George Street commence the precincts of an ancient "Inn," or
palace, originally belonging to the Bishops of Norwich; then to
Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk; then to the Archbishops of York,
from whom it was called York House; then to the Crown, who let it to
Lord Chancellor Egerton and to Bacon; then to the Duke of Buckingham,
the favourite, who rebuilt it with great magnificence, and at whose
death it was let to the Earl of Northumberland; and finally to the
second Duke of Buckingham, who pulled it down and converted it into
the present streets and alleys, the names of which contain his
designation at full length, even to the sign of the genitive case, for
there is an "_Of_ Alley:" so that we have George, Villiers, Duke, Of,
Buckingham.

Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, was the man who, on his marriage with Henry
VIII.'s sister, appeared at a tournament on a horse that had a cloth
half frieze and half gold, with that touching motto--

Cloth of gold, do not thou despise,
Though thou be matched with cloth of frize:
Cloth of frize, be not thou too bold,
Though thou be matched with cloth of gold.

Bacon belongs to Gray's Inn, and the second Duke of Buckingham to
Wallingford House, where he chiefly resided (on the site of the
present Admiralty): but the reader, who should go down Buckingham
Street, and contemplate the spot which Inigo Jones and the trees have
beautified, will not fail to be struck with the many different spirits
that have passed through this spot--the romantic Suffolk; the correct
Egerton; the earth-moving Bacon; the first Buckingham with a spirit
equal to his fortunes; the second, witty but selfish, who lavished
them away; and all the visitors, of so many different qualities, which
these men must have had, crowding or calmly moving to the gate across
the water, in quiet or in jollity, clients, philosophers, poets,
courtiers, mistresses, gallant masques, the romance of Charles the
First's reign, and the gaudy revelry of Charles II. A little spot
remains, with a few trees, and a graceful piece of art, and the river
flowing as calmly as meditation.

[Illustration: WATER-GATE OF YORK HOUSE.]

The only vestige now remaining of the splendid mansion of the
Buckinghams is the Water-Gate at the end of Buckingham Street, called
York Stairs,[185] and built by Inigo Jones. It has been much admired,
and must have admitted, in its time, the entrance of many
extraordinary persons.

York Buildings affords us another name, not unworthy to be added to
the most useful and delightful of these, Richard Steele, who lived
here just before he retired into Wales. The place in his time was
celebrated for a concert-room. We must not omit the termination of a
curious dispute at the gate of York House, to which Pepys was a
witness.

"30th (September 1661). This morning up _by moonshine_, at five
o'clock," (here was one of the great secrets of the animal
spirits of those times), "to Whitehall, to meet Mr. More at the
Privy Seale, and there I heard of a fray between the two
embassadors of Spaine and France, and that this day being the
day of the entrance of an embassador from Sweeden, they
intended to fight for the precedence. Our King, I heard,
ordered that no Englishman should meddle in the business, but
let them do what they would. And to that end, all the soldiers
in town were in arms all the day long, and some of the train
bands in the city, and a great bustle through the city all the
day. Then we took coach (which was the business I came for) to
Chelsey, to my Lord Privy Seale, and there got him to seal the
business. Here I saw by daylight two very fine pictures in the
gallery, that a little while ago I saw by night; and did also
go all over the house, and found it to be the prettiest
contrived house that ever I saw in my life. So back again; and
at Whitehall light, and saw the soldiers and people running up
and down the streets. So I went to the Spanish embassador's and
the French, and there saw great preparations on both sides; but
the French made the most noise and ranted most, but the other
made no stir almost at all; so that I was afraid the other
would have too great a conquest over them. Then to the wardrobe
and dined there; and then abroad, and in Cheapside hear, that
the Spanish hath got the best of it, and killed three of the
French coach-horses and several men, and is gone through the
city next to our King's coach; at which, it is strange to see
how all the city did rejoice. And, indeed, we do naturally all
love the Spanish and hate the French. But I, as I am in all
things curious, presently got to the water side, and there took
oars to Westminster Palace, and ran after them through all the
dirt, and the streets full of people; till at last, in the
Mews, I saw the Spanish coach go with fifty drawn swords at
least to guard it, and our soldiers shouting for joy. And so I
followed the coach, and then met it at York House, where the
embassador lies; and there it went in with great state. So then
I went to the French house, where I observe still, that there
is no men in the world of a more insolent spirit where they do
well, nor before they begin a matter, and more abject if they
do miscarry, than these people are; for they all look like dead
men, and not a word among them, but shake their heads. The
truth is, the Spaniards were not only observed to fight more
desperately, but also they did outwitt them; first in lining
their own harnesse with chains of iron that they could not be
cut, then in setting their coach in the most advantageous
place, and to appoint men to guard every one of their horses,
and others for to guard the coach, and others the coachman.
And, above all, in setting upon the French horses and killing
them, for by that means the French were not able to stir. There
were several men slaine of the French, and one or two of the
Spaniards, and one Englishman by a bullet. Which is very
observable, the French were at least four to one in number, and
had near one hundred cases of pistols among them, and the
Spaniards had not one gun among them, which is for their honour
for ever, and the others' disgrace. So having been very much
daubed with dirt, I got a coach and home; where I vexed my wife
in telling her of this story, and pleading for the Spaniards
against the French."[186]

In James the Second's time, the French embassy had the house of their
rival, and drew the town to see Popish devices in wax-work.

"The fourth of April," says Evelyn (1672), "I went to see the
fopperies of the Papists at Somerset House and York House,
where now the French ambassador had caused to be represented
our Blessed Saviour at the Pascal Supper with his disciples, in
figures and puppets made as big as the life, of wax-work,
curiously clad and sitting round a large table, the room nobly
hung, and shining with innumerable lamps and candles; this was
exposed to all the world; all the city came to see it: such
liberty had the Roman Catholicks at this time obtained."[187]

They have obtained more liberty since, and can dispense with these
"fopperies." At least they would do well to think so.

Hungerford Market takes its name from an old Wiltshire family, who had
a mansion here in the time of Charles II., which they parted with,
like others, to the encroachments of trade. It used to be an
inconvenient and disagreeable place, little frequented, but has lately
been converted into a handsome market, and put an end to the monopoly
of Billingsgate.

No. 7 in Craven Street is celebrated as having been, at one time, the
residence of Franklin. What a change along the shore of the Thames in
a few years (for two centuries are less than a few in the lapse of
time), from the residence of a set of haughty nobles, who never dreamt
that a tradesman could be anything but a tradesman, to that of a
yeoman's son, and a printer, who was one of the founders of a great
state!

[Illustration: OLD NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.]

Northumberland House is the only one remaining of all the great
mansions which lorded it on the river side. It was built by Henry
Howard, Earl of Northampton, son of the famous Henry Howard, Earl of
Surrey, the poet; but a very unworthy son, except in point of
capacity. He was one of those men, who, wanting a sense of moral
beauty, are in every other respect wise in vain, and succeed only to
become despised and unhappy. He was the grossest of flatterers; paid
court to the most opposite rivals, in the worst manner; and seems to
have stuck at nothing to obtain his ends. His perception of what was
great, extrinsically, led him to build this princely abode; and his
worship of success and court favour degraded him into an accomplice of
Carr, Earl of Somerset. It is thought by the historians, that he died
just in time to save him from the disgraceful consequences of the
murder of Sir Thomas Overbury.[188]

Northumberland House was built upon the site of the old hospital of
St. Mary Roncesvaux--Osborne says, with Spanish gold. "Part of the
present mansion," says the _Londinium Redivivum_, "is from the designs
of Bernard Jansen, and the frontispiece or gateway from those of
Gerard Christmas. This gateway cannot possibly be described correctly,
as the ornaments are scattered in the utmost profusion, from the base
to the attic, which supports a copy of Michael Angelo's celebrated
lion. Double ranges of grotesque pilasters inclose eight niches on the
sides, and there are a bow window and an open arch above the gate. The
basement of the whole front contains fourteen niches, with ancient
weapons crossed within them; and the upper stories have twenty-four
windows, in two ranges, with pierce battlements. Each wing terminates
in a cupola, and the angles have rustic quoins. The quadrangle within
the gate is in a better style of building, but rather distinguished by
simplicity than grandeur; and the garden next the Thames, with many
trees, serves to screen the mansion from those disagreeable objects
which generally bound the shores of the river in this vast trading
city."

"Northumberland House was discovered to be on fire, March 18,
1780, at five o'clock in the morning, which raged from that
hour till eight, when the whole front next the Strand was
completely destroyed. Dr. Percy's apartments were consumed; but
great part of his library escaped the general ruin."[189]

We have been the more particular in laying this extract before our
readers, because, though the house still exists, the public see little
of it. All they behold, indeed, is the screen or advanced guard, which
is no very fine sight, and only serves to narrow the way. Of the
quadrangle inside the public know nothing; and thousands pass every
day without suspecting that there is such a thing as a tree on the
premises.

The Percys had this house in consequence of a marriage with the
daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, who was Northampton's nephew. During
the Earl's possession it was called Suffolk House, and furnished an
escape to a person of the name of Emerson from one of the mad pranks
of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, who was for fighting everybody. His
lordship had had sundry fits of ague, which brought him at last to be
"so lean and yellow, that scarce any man," he says, "did know him."

"It happened," he continues, "during this sickness, that I
walked abroad one day towards Whitehall, where, meeting with
one Emerson, who spoke very disgraceful words of Sir Robert
Harley, being then my dear friend, my weakness could not hinder
me to be sensible of my friend's dishonour; shaking him,
therefore, by a long beard he wore, I stept a little aside, and
drew my sword in the street; Captain Thomas Scrivan, a friend
of mine, not being far off on one side, and divers friends of
his on the other side. All that saw me wondered how I could go,
being so weak and consumed as I was, but much more that I would
offer to fight; howsoever, Emerson, instead of drawing his
sword, ran away into Suffolk House, and afterwards informed the
Lords of the Council of what I had done; who, not long after
sending for me, did not so much reprehend my taking part with
my friend, as that I would adventure to fight, being in such a
bad condition of health."[190]

The disgraceful words spoken by Emerson were very likely nothing at
all, except to his lordship's ultra-chivalrous fancy; but this is a
curious scene to imagine at the entrance of the present quiet
Northumberland House--Emerson slipping into the gate with horror in
his looks, and the lean and yellow ghost of the knight-errant behind
him, sword in hand.

Mr. Malcolm has spoken of the apartments of Dr. Percy. This was Dr.
Percy, Bishop of Dromore, who gave an impulse to the spirit of the
modern muse by his _Reliques of Ancient English Poetry_. He was a
kinsman of the Northumberland family. We believe it was in
Northumberland House that his friend Goldsmith, stammering out a fine
speech of thanks to a personage in a splendid dress whom he took for
the Duke, was informed, when he had done, that it was his Grace's
"gentleman."

A little way up Catherine Street is Exeter Street, where Johnson first
lodged when he came to town. His lodgings were at the house of Mr.
Morris, a stay-maker. He dined at the Pine-apple in New Street, "for
eightpence, with very good company." Several of them, he told Boswell,
had travelled. "They expected to meet every day; but did not know one
another's names." The rest of his information is a curious and
interesting specimen of his disposition. "It used," said he, "to cost
the rest a shilling, for they drank wine: but I had a cut of meat for
sixpence, and bread for a penny, and gave the waiter a penny; so that
I was quite as well served, nay, better than the rest, for they gave
the waiter nothing." Johnson drank at this time no fermented liquors.
Boswell supposes that he had gained a knowledge of the art of living
in London from an Irish painter, whom he knew at Birmingham, and of
whom he gave this account.

"Thirty pounds a year," according to this economical
philosopher, "was enough to enable a man to live there without
being contemptible. He allowed ten pounds for clothes and
linen. He said a man might live in a garret at eighteen pence a
week; few people would inquire where he lodged: and if they
did, it was easy to say, 'Sir, I am to be found at such a
place.' By spending three pence at a coffee-house, he might be
for some hours every day in very good company; he might dine
for sixpence, breakfast on bread and milk for a penny, and do
without supper. _On clean shirt day_ he went abroad and paid
visits."[191]

The Strand end of Catherine Street is mentioned in Gay's "Trivia" for
a notoriety which it now unfortunately shares with too many places to
render it remarkable. His picture of one of the women he speaks of
possesses a literal truth, the characteristic of the whole of this
curious poem.

"'Tis she who nightly strolls with sauntering pace;
No stubborn stays her yielding shape embrace;
Beneath the lamp her tawdry ribands glare,
The new scower'd manteau, and the slattern air;
High draggled petticoats her travels show,
And hollow cheeks with artful blushes glow.
In riding-hood, near tavern door she plies,
Or muffled pinners hide her livid eyes.
With empty band-box she delights to range,
And feigns a distant errand from the 'Change."

Gay contents himself with a picture, and a warning. In our times, we
have learnt to pity the human beings, and to think what can be done to
remedy the first causes of the evil.

The houses between Catherine Street and Burleigh Street stand upon
ground formerly occupied by Wimbledon House, a mansion built by Sir
Edward Cecil, whom Charles I. created Viscount Wimbledon. It was
burnt down; and Stow says, that the day before, his lordship's country
house at Wimbledon was blown up.

The late Lyceum was built about the year 1765, as an academy and
exhibition-room, in anticipation of the royal one then contemplated.
It did not succeed; and part of it was converted into a theatre for
musical performances. It then became a place of exhibition for large
panoramic pictures, among which we remember with pleasure the battle
pieces of Robert Ker Porter (Seringapatam, Acre, &c.) A species of
entertainment then took place in it, which has justly been called
"useful and liberal," presenting, on a regular stage, pictures or
scenes of famous places, while a person read accounts of them from a
desk. We remember the Ægyptiana, or description of Ægypt, and, if we
mistake not, an attempt, not quite so well founded, to illustrate the
scenes of Milton's Allegro and Penseroso. Neither of the attempts met
with success; but the former, perhaps, might be tried again with
advantage, now that information and the thirst for it have so
wonderfully increased. The panorama, however, may have realised all
that can be done in this way. Visitors to those admirable contrivances
may be almost said to become travellers; and a reader at hand might
disturb them, like an impertinence. We recollect being so early one
morning at a panorama, that we had the place to ourselves. The room
was without a sound, and the scene Florence; and when we came out, the
noise and crowd of the streets had an effect on us, as if we had been
suddenly transported out of an Italian solitude. The Lyceum has since
been handsomely rebuilt as a new English Opera House, under the
management of Mr. Arnold, who has done much to cultivate a love of
music in this country. Over the former theatre, we believe, was a room
built by him for the members of the famous Beef-Steak Club, equally
celebrated for loving their steaks and roasting one another.[192]

The little crowded nest of shop-counters and wild beasts, called
Exeter Change, which has lately been pulled down, took its name from a
mansion belonging to the Bishop of Exeter, whether on the south or
north side of the street does not appear. It is not necessary that the
spot should have been the same. Any connection with a large mansion,
or its neighbourhood, is sufficient to give name to a new house.
Pennant thinks, we know not on what authority, that the great Lord
Burleigh had a mansion on the spot; and he adds, that he died here.
Exeter Change was supposed to have been built in the reign of William
and Mary, as a speculation. The lower story, at the beginning of the
last century, was appropriated to the shops of milliners; and
upholsterers had the upper. In the year 1721, the town were invited to
this place to look at a _bed_.

"Mr. Normond Cony," saith the historian, "exhibited a singular
bed for two shillings and sixpence each person, the product of
his own ingenuity; the curtains of which were woven in the most
ingenious manner, with feathers of the greatest variety and
beauty he could procure; the ground represented white damask,
mixed with silver and ornaments of various descriptions,
supporting vases of flowers and fruits. Each curtain had a
purple border a foot in breadth, branched with flowers shaded
with scarlet, the valence and bases the same. The bed was
eighteen feet in height; and from the description must have
been a superior effort of genius, equally original with the
works of the South Sea Islanders, whose cloaks, mantles, and
caps, grace the collection formed by Captain Cook, now
preserved in the British Museum."[193]

This was a gentle exhibition enough. Sixty years ago, instead of the
bed, was presented the right honourable body of Lord Baltimore, a
personage who ran away with young ladies against their will. The body
lay "in state," previously to its interment at Epsom. Lord Baltimore
was succeeded by the wild beasts, who kept possession in their narrow
unhealthy cages till the death of the poor elephant in 1826, which
conspiring with the new spirit of improvement to call final attention
to this excresence in the Strand, it was adjudged to be rooted out.
The death of this unfortunate animal, who seems to have had just
reason enough to grow mad, had its proper effect, in exciting the
public to guard against similar evils; nor is it likely that these
intelligent and noble creatures, nor indeed any others, will undergo
such a monstrous state of existence again.

[Illustration: EXETER CHANGE.]

Passing one day by Exeter Change, we beheld a sight strange enough to
witness in a great thoroughfare--a fine horse startled, and pawing the
ground, at the roar of lions and tigers. It was at the time, we
suppose, when the beasts were being fed.

FOOTNOTES:

[127] Gay's Trivia, or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, book
ii.

[128] Pennant, _ut supra_, p. 139.

[129] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iii., p. 397.

[130] Biographia Dramatica, from Oldys's MS. Notes on Langbaine.

[131] Censura Literaria, vol. i., p. 176.

[132] State Poems, vol. ii., p. 143,

[133] Boswell, vol. i., p. 383.

[134] Boswell, vol. iii., p. 331.

[135] Dugdale's Antiquities of Westminster. Heraldic MS. in the
Museum, quoted in Londinium Redivivum (vol. ii., p. 282). Brydges's
Collins's Peerage. Belsham's Life of Lindsey. We have been thus minute
in tracing the occupancies of this house, from the interest excited by
some of the members connected with it. Pennant says, upon the
authority of the Sydney Papers, that Leicester bequeathed it to his
son-in-law, which appears probable, since the latter possessed it.
Perhaps the herald was confused by the name of Robert, which belonged
both to son and son-in-law.

[136] Howell's State Trials, vol. i., p. 1343.

[137] Todd's edit. of Spenser, vol. i., p. cxli.

[138] Godwin's History or the Commonwealth, vol. i., p. 410.

[139] Boswell, vol. iv., p. 276.

[140] Trivia; or the Art of Walking the Streets of London, book iii.
Of a similar, and more perplexing facetiousness was the trick of
extracting wigs out of hackney coaches. "The thieves," says the
_Weekly Journal_ (March 30, 1717), "have got such a villanous way now
of robbing gentlemen, that they cut holes through the backs of hackney
coaches, and take away their wigs, or fine head-dresses of
gentlewomen; so a gentleman was served last Sunday in Tooley Street,
and another but last Tuesday in Fenchurch Street; wherefore this may
serve as a caution to gentlemen and gentlewomen that ride single in
the night-time, to sit on the fore-seat, which will prevent that way
of robbing."--Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London
during the Eighteenth Century, second edit., vol. i., p. 104.

[141] Londinium Redivivum, vol. ii.

[142] Second Part of Henry IV. act 3. sc. 2.

[143] Birch's Negotiations, pp. 206, 207, quoted in the work above
mentioned, p. 189. Whenever we quote from any authorities but the
original, we beg the reader to bear in mind, first, that we always
notice our having done so; and, secondly, that we make a point of
comparing the originals with the report. Both Monmouth and Birch, for
example, have been consulted in the present instance.

[144] We allude to the celebrated saying of Gibbon respecting the
Fairy Queen.

[145] In his Letters on the English Nation. But we quote from memory.

[146] We conclude so from our authorities in both instances. Mr.
Malcolm's Londinium Redivivum, vol. iii., p. 398.

[147] See his life in Chalmers's General Biographical Dictionary, vol.
v., p. 280.

[148] General Biographical Dictionary, 8vo., 1812, vol. vii.

[149] Letters on the English Nation.

[150] Life, in Chalmers's English Poets, p. 26.

[151] Spence's Anecdotes, p. 376.

[152] Idem, p. 46.

[153] Memoirs of the Life, Writings, &c., of William Congreve, Esq.,
1730, p. xi. Curll discreetly omits his name in the titlepage. [On
reconsidering this interview (though we have no longer the book by us,
and therefore speak from memory) we are doubtful, whether the lady was
not Mrs. Bracegirdle, instead of the duchess.]

[154] Lives of the Poets, &c., by Mr. Cibber and others, 1753.

[155] Pennant's London, _ut supra_, p. 124. Swift's Letters to Stella.
The particulars of the case are taken from Howell's State Trials. vol.
xii., p. 947.

[156] "Captain Baily, said to have accompanied Raleigh in his last
expedition to Guiana, employed four hackney coaches, with drivers in
liveries, to ply at the May-pole in the Strand, fixing his own rates,
about the year 1634. Baily's coaches seem to have been the first of
what are now called hackney-coaches; a term at that time applied
indiscriminately to all coaches let for hire." The favourite
Buckingham, about the year 1619, introduced the sedan. The
post-chaise, invented in France, was introduced by Mr. Tull, son of
the well-known writer on husbandry. The stage first came in about the
year 1775; and mail-coaches appeared in 1785.--See a note to the
_Tatler_, as above, vol. iv., p. 415.

[157] This was written in 1834.

[158] The faults of the New Church are, that it is too small for the
steeple; that it is divided into two stories, which make it still
smaller; that the entablature on the north and south parts is too
frequently interrupted; that pediments are "affectedly put over each
projection;" in a word, that a little object is cut up into too many
little parts, and rendered fantastic with embellishment. See the
opinions of Gwynn, Ralph, and Malton, quoted in Brayley's London and
Middlesex, vol. iv., p. 199.

[159] Life of James I. quoted in Pennant, p. 155.

[160] L'Estrange's Life of Charles I., quoted in D'Israeli's
Commentaries on the Life and Reign of Charles I., vol. ii., p. 218.

[161] L'Estrange's Life of Charles I.

[162] Steenie--a familiarisation of Stephen. The name was given
Buckingham by James I., in reference to the beauty of St. Stephen,
whose face, during his martyrdom, is described in the New Testament as
shining like that of an angel.

[163] See the account of the Paradise of Glory, in vol. ii., p. 225.

[164] Memoirs of Samuel Pepys, Esq., 2nd edition, vol. i., p. 309.

[165] Id., p. 357.

[166] Lives and Letters, as above.

[167] See three Poems in his Genuine Remains.--_Chalmers's British
Poets_, vol. viii., p. 187.

[168] British Poets, vol. vii., p. 101.

[169] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv., p. 410.

[170] Gentleman's Magazine for 1793, p. 88.

[171] Memoirs and Correspondence, as above, vol. i., p. 182.

[172] Vol. ii., p. 348.

[173] Memoirs and Correspondence, as above, vol. iii., p. 75.

[174] Id., p. 185.

[175] Vol. iv., p. 81.

[176] Granger's Biographical History of England, 1824, vol. v., p.
356.

[177] Pennant, _ut supra_, p. 144.

[178] Where he likens Jupiter's house in the Milky Way to the palace
of Augustus:--

"Hic locus est, quem, si verbis audacia detur,
Haud timeam magni dixisse Palatia coeli."
Lib. i. v. 175.

Which Sandys, by a felicitous conceit in the taste of his age (and of
Ovid too), has transferred to the palace of Charles the First, and
rendered still more applicable to the Milky Way:--

"This glorious roofe I would not doubt to call,
Had I but boldness giv'n me, Heaven's _White-Hall_"

[179] Pennant, p. 147.

[180] It was a joke, probably invented, against a late festive
alderman, that some lover of Terence, at a public dinner, having
toasted two royal brothers, who were present, under the title of the
Adelphi (the Greek word for "brothers"), the Alderman said, that as
they were on the subject of streets, "he would beg leave to propose
'Finsbury Square.'"

[181] Boswell, iv., p. 102.

[182] Id., p. 106.

[183] Boswell, vol. i., p. 225.

[184] Near Holland House, Kensington. Addison died in that house.

[185] "York Stairs," says the author of the 'Critical Reviews of
Public Buildings,' quoted in 'Brayley's London and Middlesex,' "form
unquestionably the most perfect piece of building that does honour to
Inigo Jones: it is planned in so exquisite a taste, formed of such
equal and harmonious parts, and adorned with such proper and elegant
decorations, that nothing can be censured or added. It is at once
happy in its situation beyond comparison, and fancied in a style
exactly suited to that situation. The rock-work, or rustic, can never
be better introduced than in buildings by the side of water; and,
indeed, it is a great question whether it ought to have been made use
of anywhere else. On the side next the river appear the arms of the
Villiers family; and on the north front is inscribed their motto:
_Fidei Coticula Crux_,--The Cross is the touch-stone of faith. On this
side is a small terrace, planted with lime-trees; the whole supported
by a rate raised upon the houses in the neighbouring streets; and
being inclosed from the public, forms an agreeable promenade for the
inhabitants."

[186] Diary, vol. i., p. 221.

[187] "Memoirs of John Evelyn, Esq." Second edit. vol. ii., p. 364.

[188] In 1596, Northampton writes thus to Lord Burghley (Essex's great
enemy), upon presenting to him a _devotional_ composition. "The weight
of your lordship's piercing judgment held me in so reverend an awe, as
before I were encouraged by two or three of my friends, who had a
taste, I durst not present this treatise to your view: but since their
partiality hath made me thus bold, my own affection to sanctify this
labour to yourself hath made me impudent."

Yet in the year succeeding, our authority observes, he has the
following passage in a letter to Essex:--"Some friend of mine means
this day, before night, to merit my devotion and uttermost gratitude
by seeking to do good to you; the success whereof my prayers in the
meantime shall recommend to that best gale of wind that may favour it.
Your lordship, by your last purchase, hath almost enraged the
dromedary that would have won the Queen of Sheba's favour by bringing
pearls. If you could once be as fortunate in dragging old Leviathan
(Burghley) and his cub, _tortuosum colubrum_ (Sir Robert Cecil), as
the prophet termeth them, out of this den of mischievous device, the
better part of the world would prefer your virtue to that of
Hercules." See "Memoirs of the Peers of James I." p. 240. Such "wise
men" are the worst of fools. And here he was acting, as such men are
apt to do, like one of the commonest fools, in saying such
contradictory things under his own hand.

[189] Vol. iv., p. 308.

[190] "Life of Edward Lord Herbert of Cherbury," in the
"Autobiography," p. 110.

[191] Boswell, vol. i., p. 81.

[192] The author of a "History of the Clubs of London" (vol. ii. p.
3.), says that this is not the Beef-Steak Club of which Estcourt, the
comedian, was steward, and Mrs. Woffington president. He derives its
origin from an accidental dinner taken by Lord Peterborough in the
scenic room of Rich the Harlequin, over Covent Garden Theatre. The
original gridiron, on which Rich broiled the Peer's beef-steak, is
still preserved, as the palladium of the club; and the members have it
engraved on their buttons. It has generally, we believe, admitted the
leading men of the day, of whatever description, provided they can
joke and bear joking. The author just mentioned says, that Lord
Sandwich's and Wilkes's days are generally quoted as the golden period
of the society.

[193] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv., p. 302.

CHAPTER V.

LINCOLN'S INN, AND THE NEIGHBOURHOOD.

Lincoln's Inn, upon the side of Chancery Lane, presents a long, old
front of brick, more simple than clean. It is saturated with the
London smoke. Within is a handsome row of buildings, and a garden, in
which Bickerstaff describes himself as walking, by favour of the
Benchers, who had grown old with him.[194] It will be recollected that
Bickerstaff lived in Shire Lane, which leads into this inn from
Temple-bar. The garden-wall on the side next Chancery Lane is said by
Aubrey to have been the scene of Ben Jonson's performance as a
bricklayer. We have spoken of it in our remarks on that lane; but
shall now add the particulars. "His mother, after his father's death,"
says Aubrey, "married a bricklayer; and 'tis generally said that he
wrought for some time with his father-in-law, and particularly on the
garden-wall of Lincoln's Inn, next to Chancery Lane." Aubrey's report
adds, that "a knight, or bencher, walking through and hearing him
repeat some Greek names out of Homer, discoursing with him, and
finding him to have a wit extraordinary, gave him some exhibition to
maintain him at Trinity College in Cambridge."[195] Fuller says, that
he had been there before at St. John's, and that he was obliged by the
family poverty to return to the bricklaying.[196] "And let them not
blush," says this good-hearted writer, "that have, but those who have
not a lawful calling. He helped in the building of the new structure
of Lincoln's Inn, where, having a trowell in his hand, he had a book
in his pocket." A late editor of Ben Jonson rejects these literary
accounts of the poet's bricklaying as "figments."[197] And he brings
his author's own representations to prove that he left the business,
not for the University, but the continent. As this writer has nothing,
however, to oppose to what Aubrey and Fuller believed respecting the
rest, the reports, so far, are worth as much as they were before.
Nobody was more likely than Ben Jonson to carry a Greek or Latin book
with him on such occasions: nor, as far as that matter goes, to let
others become aware of it.

Pennant's sketch of Lincoln's Inn continues to be the best,
notwithstanding all that has been said of it since his time. He begins
with observing, that "the gate is of brick, but of no small ornament
to the street." This is the gate in Chancery Lane.

"It was built," he continues, "by Sir Thomas Lovel, once a
member of this inn, and afterwards treasurer of the household
to Henry VII. The other parts were rebuilt at different times,
but much about the same period. None of the original building
is left, for it was formed out of the house of the Black
Friars, which fronted Holborn end of the palace of Ralph Nevil,
Chancellor of England, and Bishop of Chichester, built by him
in the reign of Henry III., on a piece of ground granted to him
by the king. It continued to be inhabited by some of the
successors in the see. This was the original site of the
Dominicians or Black Friars, before they removed to the spot
now known by that name. On part of the ground, now covered with
buildings, Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, built an Inne, as it
was in those days called, for himself, in which he died in
1312. The ground did belong to the Black Friars; and was
granted by Edward I. to that great Earl. The whole has retained
his name. One of the Bishops of Chichester, in after times, did
grant leases of the buildings to certain students of the law,
reserving to themselves a rent, and lodgings for themselves
whenever they came to town. This seems to have taken place
about the time of Henry VII."

"The chapel," continues our author, "was designed by Inigo
Jones; it is built upon massy pillars, and affords, under its
shelter, an excellent walk. This work evinces that Inigo never
was designed for a Gothic architect. The Lord Chancellor holds
his sittings in the great hall. This, like that of the Temple,
had its revels, and great Christmasses. Instead of the Lord of
Misrule, it had its King of the Cocknies. They had also a Jack
Straw; but in the time of Queen Elizabeth he, and all his
adherents, were utterly banished. I must not omit, that in the
same reign sumptuary laws were made to regulate the dress of
the members of the house; who were forbidden to wear long hair,
or great ruffs, cloaks, boots, or spurs. In the reign of Henry
VIII. beards were prohibited at the great table, under pain of
paying double commons. His daughter, Elizabeth, in the first
year of her reign, confined them to a fortnight's growth, under
penalty of 3s. 4d.: but the fashion prevailed so strongly, that
the prohibition was repealed, and no manner of size limited to
that venerable excrescence."[198]

'Tis merry in the hall,
When beards wag all,

says the proverb; but the lawyers in those days had already so many
refreshments to their solemnity, in masks and revels, that it was
thought necessary to provide for decency of mastication in ordinary.
Attempts to regulate trifles of this sort, however, have always been
found more difficult than any others, the impertinence of the
interference being in proportion. Think of the officers watching the
illegal growth of the beard; the vexation of the "dandies," who wanted
their beards out of doors; and the resentment of the unservile part of
the elders! He that parted with his beard, rather than his three and
fourpence, would be looked upon as an alien.

In the hall of Lincoln's Inn is Hogarth's celebrated failure of "Paul
preaching before Felix." It seems hard upon a great man to exhibit a
specimen of what he could not do. However, the subject does not appear
to have been of the society's choosing. A bequest had been made them
which produced a commission to Hogarth, probably in expectation that
he would illustrate some of the consequences of good laws in his usual
manner.

Old Fortescue was of Lincoln's Inn; Spelman, the great antiquary; Sir
Thomas More; Cromwell; Sir Mathew Hale; Lord Chancellor Egerton,
otherwise known by his title of Lord Ellesmere; Shaftesbury, the
statesman; and Lord Mansfield. Dr. Donne also studied there for a
short time, but left the Inn to enjoy an inheritance, and became a
clergyman. However, he returned to it in after life as preacher of the
lecture; which office he held about two years, to the great
satisfaction of his hearers. Tillotson was another preacher. It is
difficult to present to one's imagination the venerable judges in
their younger days; to think of Hale as a gay fellow (which he was
till an accident made him otherwise); or fancy that Sir Thomas More
had any other face but the profound and ponderous one in his pictures.
His face, indeed, must have been full of meaning enough at all times;
for at twenty-one he was a stirring youth in Parliament; and at twenty
he took to wearing a hair-shirt, as an aid to his meditations. It is
interesting to fancy him passing us in the Inn square, with a glance
of his deep eye; we (of posterity) being in the secret of his
hair-shirt, which the less informed passengers are not.

The account of Hale's change of character, on his entrance into
Lincoln's Inn, merits to be repeated.

"At Oxford," says his biographer, "he fell into many levities
and extravagances, and was preparing to go along with his
tutor, who went chaplain to Lord Vere, into the Low Countries,
with a resolution of entering himself into the Prince of
Orange's army, when he was diverted from his design by being
engaged in a lawsuit with Sir William Whitmore, who laid claim
to part of his estate. Afterwards, by the persuasions of
Serjeant Glanville, who happened to be his counsel in this
case, and had an opportunity of observing his capacity, he
resolved upon the study of the law, and was admitted of
Lincoln's Inn, November 8, 1629. Sensible of the time he had
lost in frivolous pursuits, he now studied at the rate of
sixteen hours a-day, and threw aside all appearance of vanity
in his apparel. He is said, indeed, to have neglected his dress
so much, that, being a strong and well-built man, he was once
taken by a press-gang, as a person very fit for sea-service,
which pleasant mistake made him regard more decency in his
clothes for the future, though never to any degree of
extravagant finery. What confirmed him still more in a serious
and regular way of life was an accident, which is related to
have befallen one of his companions. Hale, with other young
students of the Inn, being invited out of town, one of the
company called for so much wine, that notwithstanding all Hale
could do to prevent it, he went on in his excess till he fell
down in a fit, seemingly dead, and was with some difficulty
recovered. This particularly affected Hale, in whom the
principles of religion had been early implanted; and,
therefore, retiring into another room, and falling down upon
his knees, he prayed earnestly to God, both for his friend,
that he might be restored to life again, and for himself, that
he might be forgiven for being present and countenancing so
much excess; and he vowed to God, that he would never again
keep company in that manner, nor drink a health while he lived.
His friend recovered; and from this time Mr. Hale forsook all
his gay acquaintance, and divided his whole time between the
duties of religion, and the studies of his profession."

Cromwell is supposed to have been about two years in Lincoln's Inn,
and while he was there attended to anything but the law, the future
devout Protector being, in fact, nothing more or less than a gambler
and debauchee. However, he is supposed to have run all his round of
dissipation in that time. Mansfield's residence in Lincoln's Inn, when
Mr. Murray, gave rise to a singular reference in Pope. It is in the
translation of Horace's ode, "Intermissa Venus diu," where the poet
says to the goddess--

"I am not now, alas! the man
As in the gentle reign of my Queen Anne.
To _number five_ direct your doves,
There spread round Murray all your blooming loves;
Noble and young, who strikes the heart
With every sprightly, every decent part;
Equal the injured to defend,
To charm the mistress, or to fix the friend."

This _number five_ to which Venus is to go with her doves, points out
Murray's apartments in Lincoln's Inn. Pope, as we have mentioned
elsewhere, thought that nature intended his noble acquaintance for an
Ovid; a notion partly suggested, perhaps, by Ovid's having been a
lawyer. It was during his residence in Lincoln's Inn, that the future
Lord Chief Justice is said to have drunk the Pretender's health on his
knees; which he very likely did. The charge was brought up twenty
years afterwards, to ruin his prospects under the Hanover succession;
but it came to nothing. One dynasty has no dislike to a strong
prejudice in favour of a preceding dynasty, when the latter has ceased
to be formidable. The propensity to adhere to royalty is looked upon
as a good symptom; and the event generally answers the expectation.
The favourite courtiers under the house of Brunswick have come of
Jacobite families.

A century ago, according to a passage in Gay, Lincoln's Inn and the
neighbourhood were dangerous places to walk through at night.

"Where Lincoln's Inn, wide space, is railed around,
Cross not with venturous step; there oft is found
The lurking thief, who while the daylight shone,
Made the wall echo with his begging tone:
That crutch, which late compassion moved, shall wound
Thy bleeding head, and fell thee to the ground.
Though thou art tempted by the linkman's call,
Yet trust him not along the lonely wall;
In the midway he'll quench the flaming brand,
And share the booty with the pilfering band.
Still keep the public streets, where oily rays,
Shot from the crystal lamp, o'erspread the ways."

The wall here mentioned is probably that which was not long since
displaced by the new one, and the elegant structure that now adorns
the east side of Lincoln's Inn Fields.

Lincoln's Inn Fields, now a handsome square, set more agreeably than
most others, with grass plat and underwood, were first disposed into
their present regular appearance by Inigo Jones, under the auspices of
a committee of gentry and nobility, one of whom was Bacon. Inigo built
some of the houses, and gave to the ground-plot of the square the
exact dimensions of the base of one of the pyramids of Egypt. He could
not have hit upon a better mode of conveying to the imagination a
sense of those enormous structures. If the passenger stops and
pictures to himself one of the huge slanting sides of the pyramid, as
wide as the whole length of the square, leaning away up into the
atmosphere, with an apex we know not how high, it will indeed seem to
him a kind of stone mountain.

The houses in Lincoln's Inn Fields built by Inigo Jones are in Arch
Row (the western side), and may still be distinguished. Pennant speaks
of one of them as being "Lindesey House, once the seat of the Earls of
Lindesey, and of their descendants, the Dukes of Ancaster." They are
probably still a great deal more handsome inside, and more convenient,
than any of the flimsy modern houses preferred to them; but London has
grown so large, that everybody who can afford it lives at the
fashionable outskirts for the fresh air. It is probable that Inigo's
houses created an ambition of good building in this quarter. Pepys
speaks of a Mr. Povey's house in Lincoln's Inn Fields as a miracle of
elegance and comfort. His description of it is characteristic of the
snug and wondering Pepys.

"Thence (that is to say, from chapel and the ladies) with Mr.
Povey home to dinner; where extraordinary cheer. And after
dinner up and down to see his house. And in a word, methinks,
for his perspective in the little closet; his room floored
above with woods of several colours, like, but above the best
cabinet-work I ever saw; his grotto and vault, with his bottles
of wine, and a well therein to keep them cool; his furniture of
all sorts; his bath at the top of the house, good pictures, and
his manners of eating and drinking; do surpass all that ever I
did see of one man in all my life."[199]

The Country and City Mouse, in Pope's imitation of Horace, go

To a tall house near Lincoln's Inn,

which had

Palladian walls, Venetian doors,
Grotesco roofs, and stucco floors.

The house of a late architect (Sir John Soane) is observable in
Holborn Row (the north side of the square), and has a singular but
pleasing effect, though not quite desirable perhaps in this northern
climate, where light and sun are in request. It presents a case of
stone, added to the original front, and comprising a balcony and
arcade. Shrubs and plate-glass complete the taste of its appearance.
On the opposite side of the way (called Portugal Row, most likely from
our connection with Portugal in Charles the Second's time), the
inhabitant of the above house had the pleasure, we believe, of
contemplating his own work in the handsome front and portico of
Surgeon's College. This mode of giving a new front to a house, and
fetching it out into a portico, is an ingenious way of getting up an
ornament to the metropolis at little expense. Surgeons' College,
instead of being two or three old houses with a new face, looks like a
separate building. In Portugal Row sometime lived Sir Richard
Fanshawe, in whose quaint translation of the Camoens there is
occasionally more genuine poetry, than in the less unequal version of
Mickle. This accomplished person was recalled from an embassy in
Spain, on the ground that he had signed a treaty without authority;
which was fact; but the suspicious necessity of finding some
honourable way of removing Lord Sandwich from his command in the navy,
induced Lady Fanshawe and others to conclude that he was sacrificed to
that convenience. He died on the intended day of his return, of a
violent fever, aggravated, not improbably, perhaps caused, by this
awkward close of his mission: for such things have been, with men of
sensitive imaginations. His wife, a very frank and cordial woman, has
left interesting memoirs of him, in which she countenances a clamour
of that day, that Lord Sandwich was a coward. She adds, "He neither
understood the custom of the (Spanish) court, nor the language, nor
indeed anything but a vicious life; and thus (addressing her children)
was he shuffled into your father's employment, to reap the benefit of
his five years' negotiation."[200] We quote this passage here, because
Lord Sandwich was himself an inhabitant of Lincoln's Inn Fields. His
want of courage (a charge shamefully bandied to and fro between
officers at that time) is surely not to be taken for granted upon the
word of his enemies, considering the testimonies borne in his favour
by the Duke of York and others, and his numerous successes against the
enemy. It is possible, however, that the pleasures of Charles's court
might have done him no good. Sandwich had been one of Cromwell's
council. He appears afterwards to have been a gallant of Lady
Castlemaine's; was a great courtier; and probably had as little
principle as most public men of that age. Pepys, who was his relation,
describes him as being a lute-player.

On Lady Fanshawe's return to England, she took a house for twenty-one
years in Holborn Row (the north side of the Fields), where the
contemplation of the houses opposite must have been very sad. Her
account of the circumstances under which she returned is of a
melancholy interest.

"I had not," she says, "God is my witness, above twenty-five
doubloons by me at my husband's death, to bring home a family
of three score servants, but was forced to sell one thousand
pounds' worth of our own plate, and to spend the Queen's
present of two thousand doubloons in my journey to England, not
owing nor leaving one shilling debt in Spain, I thank God; nor
did my husband leave any debt at home, which every ambassador
cannot say. Neither did these circumstances following prevail
to mend my condition, much less found I that compassion I
expected upon the view of myself, that had lost at once my
husband, and fortune in him, with my son, but twelve months
old, in my arms, four daughters, the eldest but thirteen years
of age, with the body of my dear husband daily in my sight for
near six months together, and a distressed family, all to be by
me in honour and honesty provided for; and, to add to my
afflictions, neither persons sent to conduct me, nor pass, nor
ship, nor money to carry me one thousand miles, but some few
letters of compliment from the chief ministers, bidding 'God
help me!' as they do to beggars, and they might have added,
'they had nothing for me,' with great truth. But God did hear,
and see, and help me, and brought my soul out of trouble; and,
by his blessed providence, I and you live, move, and have our
being, and I humbly pray God that that blessed providence may
ever relieve our wants, Amen."[201]

Lady Fanshawe was no coward, whatever her foes may have been. During a
former voyage with her husband to Spain, when she had been married
about six years, the vessel was attacked by a Turkish galley, on which
occasion she has left the following touching account of her
behaviour:--

"When we had just passed the straits, we saw coming towards us,
with full sails, a Turkish galley well manned, and we believed
we should be all carried away slaves, for this man had so laden
his ship with goods from Spain, that his guns were useless,
though the ship carried sixty guns; he called for brandy, and
after he had well drunken, and all his men, which were near two
hundred, he called for arms, and cleared the deck as well as he
could, resolving to fight rather than lose his ship, which was
worth thirty thousand pounds; this was sad for us passengers,
but my husband bid us be sure to keep in the cabin, and not
appear--the women--which would make the Turks think we were a
man-of-war, but if they saw women they would take us for
merchants and board us. He went upon the deck, and took a gun
and bandoliers, and sword, and, with the rest of the ship's
company, stood upon deck, expecting the arrival of the Turkish
man-of-war. This beast, the captain, had locked me up in the
cabin; I knocked and called long to no purpose, until at length
the cabin-boy came and opened the door; I, all in tears,
desired him to be so good as to give me his blue thrum cap he
wore, and his tarred coat, which he did, and I gave him
half-a-crown, and putting them on, and flinging away my
night-clothes, I crept up softly, and stood upon the deck by my
husband's side, as free from sickness and fear, as, I confess,
from discretion; but it was the effect of that passion which I
could never master.

"By this time the two vessels were engaged in parley, and so
well satisfied with speech and sight of each other's forces,
that the Turks' man-of-war tacked about, and we continued our
course. But when your father saw it convenient to retreat,
looking upon me, he blessed himself, and snatched me up in his
arms, saying, 'Good God, that love can make this change!' and
though he seemingly chid me, he would laugh at it as often as
he remembered that voyage."

We now come to an event, uniting the most touching circumstances of
private life with the loftiest utility of public, and the benefits of
which we are this day enjoying, perhaps in every one of our comforts.
In this square, now possessed by inhabitants who can think and write
as they please on all subjects, and the centre of which is adorned
with roses and lilacs, was executed the celebrated patriot, Lord
Russell. We should ill perform any part of the object of this work, if
we did not dwell at some length upon a scene so interesting, and upon
the circumstances that led to it.

Lord Russell (sometimes improperly called Lord William Russell, for he
had succeeded to the courtesy-title by the decease of his elder
brothers,) was son of William, Earl of Bedford, by Lady Ann Carr,
daughter of Carr, Earl of Somerset; and he was beheaded in the year
1683, the last year but two of the reign of King Charles II., for an
alleged conspiracy to seize the King's guards and put him to death.
The conspiracy was called the Rye House Plot, but incorrectly as far
as Lord Russell was concerned; for it is not proved that he ever heard
of the house which occasioned the name; and he was condemned upon
allegations which would have destroyed him, had no such place existed.
The Rye House was a farm near Hoddesdon, in Hertfordshire, belonging
to one of the alleged conspirators, and it had a bye-road near it
through which Charles was accustomed to pass in returning from the
races at Newmarket. It was said that the King was to have been
assassinated in this road, but that a fire at Newmarket, which put the
town into confusion, hastened his return to London before the
conspirators had time to assemble.

Charles II., and his brother, the Duke of York, afterwards James II.,
in the prosecution of those designs against the liberty and religion
of the state, which are now acknowledged by all historians, had lately
succeeded in producing a strong re-action against the party opposed to
them. This party, the Whigs, in their dread of arbitrary power and
popery, had attempted with great pertinacity to exclude the Duke of
York, an avowed papist, from the succession. They had indicted him as
a popish recusant: they had listened, with too great credulity, to the
story of a Popish Plot, for which several persons were executed: and
while these strong measures were going forward, to which the general
dread of popery encouraged them, they were inquiring into the King's
illegal connections with France, and putting the last sting to his
vexation by refusing him money. Charles's gambling and debaucheries
kept him in a perpetual state of poverty. He was always endeavouring
to raise money upon every shift he could devise, and misappropriating
all he obtained, which completed the ingloriousness of his reign by
rendering him a pensioner of France. He had a strong party of
corruptionists in the House of Commons; but the public feeling against
the Duke gave the elections a balance the other way; and the poor King
was compelled, from time to time, to purchase what money he wanted, by
the surrender of a popular right.

Driven thus from loss to loss, and not knowing where the diminution of
his resources would end, Charles at length expressed himself willing
to limit the powers of a Popish successor, though he would not consent
to exclude him. The Whigs, strong in their vantage-ground, and backed
by the voice of the country, rejected what they would formerly have
agreed to, and insisted on the exclusion. And here the reaction
commenced in Charles's favour. The Whigs had allied themselves to the
dissenters, whose toleration they advocated in proportion as they
opposed that of the Catholics. It was a contradiction natural enough
at that time, when the remembrance of Protestant martyrdom was still
lively, and the growth of philosophy had not neutralised the papal
spirit, or, at least, was not yet understood to have done so; but by
means of this alliance between the Whigs and Presbyterians Charles
succeeded in awakening the fears of the orthodox. A secret treaty with
the French King enabled him to reckon for a time on being able to
dispense with the contributions of Parliament; and when the latter
again pressed the exclusion bill, he dissolved them, with high
complaints of their inveteracy against government, and artful
insinuations of the favour they showed the dissenters. This
declaration was read in all the churches and chapels, and produced the
reaction he looked for. The Whig leaders, withdrawing into retirement,
seemed to give up the contest for the present; but this was no signal
to power to abstain from pursuing them. Charles, to secure himself a
Parliament that should give him money without inquiry, and to indulge
his brother in his love of revenge (not omitting a portion on his own
account), set himself heartily about influencing the elections for a
new House of Commons. The dissenters were persecuted all over the
country; the Whig newspapers put down; one man, for his noisy zeal
against Popery, put to death by means of the most infamous witnesses,
who had sworn on the other side; and Shaftesbury's life was aimed at,
but saved by the contrivances of the city authorities. The liberties
of the city were then assailed, with but too great success, by means
of judges placed on the bench for that purpose. Other corrupt law
officers were brought into action; a servile lord-mayor was induced to
force two sheriffs upon the city, in open defiance of law and a
majority; in short, every obstacle was removed which accompanied the
existence of properly constituted authorities, and of that late
anti-popery spirit of the nation, which was now comparatively silent,
for fear of being confounded with disaffection to the church.

For an account of what took place upon this corruption of church and
bench, and neutralisation of the popular spirit, we shall now have
recourse to the pages of the latest writer on the subject; who, though
a descendant of Lord Russell, has stated it with a truth and
moderation worthy of the best spirit of his ancestor. The narrative of
the execution we shall take from an eye-witness, and intersperse such
remarks as a diligent inquiry into the conduct and character of Lord
Russell has suggested to our own love of truth.

"The election of the sheriffs," says our author, "seemed to
complete the victory of the throne over the people. It was
evident, from the past conduct of the court, that they would
now select whom they pleased for condemnation.

"Lord Russell received the news with the regret which, in a
person of his temper, it was most likely to produce. Lord
Shaftesbury, on other hand, who was provoked at the apathy of
his party, received with joy the news of the appointment of the
sheriffs, thinking that his London friends, seeing their necks
in danger, would join with him in raising an insurrection. He
hoped at first to make use of the names of the Duke of Monmouth
and Lord Russell, to catch the idle and unwary by the respect
paid to their characters; but when he found them too cautious
to compromise themselves, he endeavoured to ruin their credit
with the citizens. He said that the Duke of Monmouth was a tool
of the court; that Lord Essex had also made his bargain, and
was to go to Ireland; and that, between them, Lord Russell was
deceived. It is a strong testimony to the real worth of Lord
Russell, that, when he made himself obnoxious, either to the
court or to the more violent of his own party, the only charge
they ever brought against him was, that of being deceived,
either by a vain air of popularity or too great a confidence in
his friends.

"Lord Shaftesbury, finding himself deserted, then attempted to
raise an insurrection, by means of his own partisans in the
city. The Duke of Monmouth, at various times, discouraged these
attempts. On one of these occasions, he prevailed on Lord
Russell, who had come to town on private affairs, to go with
him to a meeting, at the house of Sheppard, a wine-merchant.

"Lord Shaftesbury, being concealed in the city at this time,
did not dare to appear himself at this meeting, but sent two of
his creatures, Rumsey and Ferguson. Lord Grey and Sir Thomas
Armstrong were also there; but nothing was determined at this
meeting.

"Soon after this, Lord Shaftesbury, finding he could not bring
his friends to rise with the speed he wished, and being in fear
of being discovered if he remained in London any longer, went
over to Holland. He died in January, 1683.

* * * * *

"After Shaftesbury was gone, there were held meetings of his
former creatures in the chambers of one West, an active,
talking man, who had got the name of being an atheist. Colonel
Rumsey, who had served under Cromwell, and afterwards in
Portugal; Ferguson, who had a general propensity for plots;
Goodenough, who had been under-sheriff; and one Holloway, of
Bristol, were the chief persons at these meetings. Lord Howard
was, at one time, among them. Their discourse seems to have
extended itself to the worst species of treason and murder; but
whether they had any concerted plan for assassinating the King
is still a mystery. Amongst those who were sounded in this
business was one Keeling, a vintner, sinking in business, to
whom Goodenough often spoke of their designs. This man went to
Legge, then made Lord Dartmouth, and discovered all he knew.
Lord Dartmouth took him to Secretary Jenkins, who told him he
could not proceed without more witnesses. It would also seem
that some promises were made to him, for he said in a tavern,
in the hearing of many persons, that 'he had considerable
proffers made him of money, and a place worth 100_l._ or 80_l._
per annum, to do something for them;' and he afterwards
obtained a place in the Victualling office, by means of Lord
Halifax. The method he took of procuring another witness was,
by taking his brother into the company of Goodenough, and
afterwards persuading him to go and tell what he had heard at
Whitehall.

"The substance of the information given by Josiah Keeling, in
his first examination, was, that a plot had been formed for
enlisting forty men, to intercept the King and Duke on their
return from Newmarket, at a farm-house called Rye, belonging to
one Rumbold, a maltster; that this plan being defeated by a
fire at Newmarket, which caused the King's return sooner than
was expected, the design of an insurrection was laid; and, as
the means of carrying this project into effect, they said that
Goodenough had spoken of 4,000 men and 20,000_l._ to be raised
by the Duke of Monmouth and other great men. The following day,
the two brothers made oath, that Goodenough had told them, that
Lord Russell had promised to engage in the design, and to use
all his interest to accomplish the killing of the King and the
Duke. When the Council found that the Duke of Monmouth and Lord
Russell were named, they wrote to the King to come to London,
for they would not venture to go farther without his presence
and leave. In the meantime, warrants were issued for the
apprehension of several of the conspirators. Hearing of this,
and having had private information from the brother of Keeling,
they had a meeting, on the 18th of June, at Captain Walcot's
lodging. At this meeting were present Walcot, Wade, Rumsey,
Norton, the two Goodenoughs, Nelthrop, West, and Ferguson.
Finding they had no means either of opposing the King or flying
into Holland, they agreed to separate, and shift each man for
himself.

"A proclamation was now issued for seizing on some who could
not be found; and amongst these, Rumsey and West were named.
The next day West delivered himself, and Rumsey came in a day
after him. Their confessions, especially concerning the
assassinations at the Rye-house, were very ample. Burnet says,
they had concerted a story to be brought out on such an
emergency.

"In this critical situation, Lord Russell, though perfectly
sensible of his danger, acted with the greatest composure. He
had long before told Mr. Johnson, that 'he was very sensible he
should fall a sacrifice; arbitrary government could not be set
up in England without wading through his blood.' The day before
the King arrived, a messenger of the Council was sent to wait
at his gate, to stop him if he had offered to go out; yet his
back-gate was not watched, so that he might have gone away, if
he had chosen it. He had heard that he was named by Rumsey; but
forgetting the meeting at Sheppard's, he feared no danger from
a man he had always disliked, and never trusted. Yet he thought
proper to send his wife amongst his friends for advice. They
were at first of different minds; but as he said he apprehended
nothing from Rumsey, they agreed that his flight would look too
like a confession of guilt. This advice coinciding with his own
opinion, he determined to stay where he was. As soon as the
King arrived, a messenger was sent to bring him before the
Council. When he appeared there, the King told him, that nobody
suspected him of any design against his person; but that he had
good evidence of his being in designs against his government.
He was examined upon the information of Rumsey, concerning the
meeting at Sheppard's, to which Rumsey pretended to have
carried a message, requiring a speedy resolution, and to have
received for answer that Mr. Trenchard had failed them at
Taunton. Lord Russell totally denied all knowledge of this
message. When the examination was finished, Lord Russell was
sent a close prisoner to the Tower. Upon his going in, he told
his servant Taunton that he was sworn against, and they would
have his life. Taunton said, he hoped it would not be in the
power of his enemies to take it. Lord Russell answered, 'Yes;
the devil is loose!'

"From this moment he looked upon himself as a dying man, and
turned his thoughts wholly upon another world. He read much in
the Scriptures, particularly in the Psalms; but whilst he
behaved with the serenity of a man prepared for death, his
friends exhibited an honourable anxiety to preserve his life.
Lord Essex would not leave his house, lest his absconding might
incline a jury to give more credit to the evidence against Lord
Russell. The Duke of Monmouth sent to let him know he would
come in and run fortunes with him, if he thought it could do
him any service. He answered, it would be of no advantage to
him to have his friends die with him.

"A committee of the Privy Council came to examine him. Their
inquiries related to the meeting at Sheppard's, the rising at
Taunton, the seizing of the guards, and a design for a rising
in Scotland. In answer to the questions put to him, he
acknowledged he had been at Sheppard's house divers times, and
that he went there with the Duke of Monmouth; but he denied all
knowledge of any consultation tending to an insurrection, or to
surprise the guards. He remembered no discourse concerning any
rising in Taunton; and knew of no design for a rising in
Scotland. He answered his examiners in a civil manner, but
declined making any defence till his trial, when he had no
doubt of being able to prove his innocence. The charge of
treating with the Scots, as a thing the council were positively
assured of, alarmed his friends; and Lady Russell desired Dr.
Burnet to examine who it could be that had charged him; but
upon inquiry, it appeared to be only an artifice to draw
confession from him; and notwithstanding the power which the
court possessed to obtain the condemnation of their enemies, by
the perversion of law, the servility of judges, and the
submission of juries, Lord Russell might still have contested
his life with some prospect of success, had not a new
circumstance occurred to cloud his declining prospects. This
was the apprehension and confession of Lord Howard. At first,
he had talked of the whole matter with scorn and contempt; and
solemnly professed that he knew nothing which could hurt Lord
Russell. The King himself said, he found Lord Howard was not
amongst them, and he supposed it was for the same reason which
some of themselves had given for not admitting Oates into their
secrets, namely, that he was such a rogue they could not trust
him. But when the news was brought to Lord Howard that West had
delivered himself, Lord Russell, who was with him, observed him
change colour, and asked him if he apprehended any thing from
him? He replied that he had been as free with him as any man.
Hampden saw him afterwards under great fears, and desired him
to go out of the way, if he thought there was matter against
him, and he had not strength of mind to meet the occasion. A
warrant was now issued against him on the evidence of West, and
he was taken, after a long search, concealed in a chimney of
his own house. He immediately confessed all he knew and more.

* * * * *

"Hampden and Lord Russell were imprisoned upon Lord Howard's
information; and, four days afterwards, Lord Russell was
brought to trial: but, in order to possess the public mind with
a sense of the blackness of the plot, Walcot, Hone, and Rouse
were first brought to trial, and condemned upon the evidence of
Keeling, Lee, and West, of a design to assassinate the
King."[202]

It is not necessary to enter at large into the trial. We shall give
the main points of it, on which sentence was founded; but when it is
considered that the bench had lately had an accession of accommodating
judges; that Jeffries was one of the counsel for the prosecution; that
the jury, illegally returned, were not allowed to be challenged; that
the witnesses were perjured, contradicted themselves, and swore to
save their lives; that one of them (Lord Howard) was a man of such
infamous character, that the King said, "he would not hang the worst
dog he had, upon his evidence;" that nevertheless the testimonies of
the most honourable men against him were not held to injure his
evidence, and that a crowd of them in Lord Russell's favour were of as
little avail in giving the prisoner the benefit of a totally different
reputation, it will be allowed, that our pages need not be occupied
with details, which in fact had nothing to do with his condemnation.

The ground on which Lord Russell was sentenced to death was, that he
had violated the law in conspiring the death of the King. He argued,
that granting the charge to be true (which he denied), it was not that
of conspiring the death of the King, but "a conspiracy to levy war;"
that this was not treason within the statute (which it was not); and
that if it had been, a statute of Charles II. made the accusation null
and void, because the time had expired to which the operation of it
was limited. The lawyers, who in fact had been compelled by their
imperfect enactment to lay the charge on the ground of conspiring the
King's death, had so worded the statute of Charles, that, like the
oracles of old, it was capable of a double construction. But not to
observe that the prisoner ought to have had the benefit of the doubt
(and it has been generally thought that the statute was clearly the
other way), they could never get rid of the necessity of assuming that
the King's death was intended; whereas, nothing can be more plain, not
only from their own enactments, but from all history, that an
insurrection, though against a King himself, may have no such object;
so that here was a man to be sacrificed to the _spirit_ of the law
(which by its very nature should have saved him,) while the court, in
this and a thousand other instances, was violating the letter of it.

"Of the Rye House Plot," says Mr. Fox, "it may be said, much
more truly than of the Popish, that there was in it some truth,
mixed with much falsehood. It seems probable, that there was
among some of the accused a notion of assassinating the King;
but whether this notion was ever ripened into what may be
called a design, and much more, whether it were ever evinced by
such an overt act as the law requires for conviction, is very
doubtful. In regard to the conspirators of higher ranks, from
whom all suspicion of participation in the intended
assassination has been long since done away, there is
unquestionable reason to believe that they had often met and
consulted, as well for the purpose of ascertaining the means
they actually possessed, as for that of devising others, for
delivering their country from the dreadful servitude into which
it had fallen; and thus far their conduct appears clearly to
have been laudable. If they went further, and did anything
which could be really construed into an actual conspiracy to
levy war against the King, they acted, considering the
disposition of the nation at that time, very indiscreetly. But
whether their proceedings had ever gone this length, is far
from certain. Monmouth's communications with the King, when we
reflect on all the circumstances of those communications,
deserve not the smallest attention; nor, indeed, if they did,
does the letter which he afterwards withdrew prove anything
upon this point. And it is an outrage to common-sense to call
Lord Grey's narrative, written as he himself states in his
letter to James II., while the question of his pardon was
pending, an authentic account. That which is most certain in
this affair is, that they had committed no overt act,
indicating the imagining the King's death, even according to
the most strained construction of the statute of Edward III.;
much less was any such act legally proved against them. And the
conspiracy to levy war was not treason, except by a recent
statute of Charles II., the prosecutions upon which were
expressly limited to a certain time, which in these cases had
elapsed; so that it is impossible not to assent to the opinion
of those who have ever stigmatised the condemnation and
execution of Russell as a most flagrant violation of law and
justice."[203]

The truth respecting Lord Russell seems to be, that he was a man of
the highest character and the best intentions, who suffered himself,
not very discreetly, to listen to projects which he disapproved, in
the hope of seeing better ones substituted. There can be no doubt that
he wished to make changes in an illegal government, short of
interfering with the King's possession of the throne. He had a right,
by law, to endeavour it. He had openly shown himself anxious to do so;
and the doubt can be as little, that the Duke of York, from that
moment marked him out for his revenge. Russell implied as much in the
paper he gave the sheriff; showing, indeed, such a strong sense of it,
as (considering the truly Christian style of the paper in general) is
very affecting. It has been justly said of him, that he was a man
rather eminent for his virtues than his talents. We cannot help
thinking that the paucity of words, to which he repeatedly alludes
himself, and which was very evident during his trial, did him serious
injury, both then and before. We mean, that if he had had a greater
confidence, he might have advocated his cause to very solid advantage,
perhaps to his entire acquittal. It is touching to observe, in the
account of his behaviour after sentence, how the excitement of the
occasion loosened his tongue, and inspired him with some turns of
thought, more lively, perhaps, than he had been accustomed to. His
character has been respectfully treated by all parties since the
Revolution, and his death lamented. A startling charge, however, was
brought against him and Sidney, in consequence of the discovery of a
set of papers belonging to Barillon, the French Ambassador of that
time, in which Sidney's name appears set down for five hundred pounds
of secret service money from the French Government, and Russell is
described as having interviews with Barillon's agent, Rouvigny,
tending to prevent a war disagreeable both to Louis and the English
patriots. The vague allusions of some modern writers, together with an
unsupported assertion of Ralph Montague, the intriguing English
Ambassador in France, that money was to be distributed in Parliament
"by means of William Russell, and other discontented people," have
tended to lump together in the public mind the two charges occasioned
by these documents. But they are quite distinct. Lord Russell had
nothing to do with the money-list, in which the name of Sidney
appears. The amount of the matter is this. Charles II. was always
pretending to go to war with France, chiefly to get money for his
debaucheries, and partly to raise an army which he might turn against
the constitution. The nation, in their hatred of Louis's
anti-protestant bigotry, and their old and less warrantable propensity
to fight with those whom they publicly considered as their natural
enemies (a delusion, we trust, now going by), were always in a state
to be deceived by Charles on this point; and the patriots were as
regularly perplexed how to agree to the wishes of the King and people,
knowing as they did, the former's insincerity, loth to give him more
money to squander, and yet anxious to show their dislike of an
arbitrary neighbour, and afraid of his being in collision with their
prince. Their greatest fear, however, was upon this last point: it was
very strong at the juncture in question; and therefore, when Louis
gave them to understand, through his agent, that he himself was
desirous of avoiding a war, Russell certainly does appear to have
allowed the agent to talk with him on the subject, and to have
expressed a willingness to influence the votes of Parliament
accordingly. There was a further understanding that Louis was to
complete the mutual favour, by assisting to obtain a dissolution of
Parliament, in case the peace should continue; for the patriots
expected very different things from a dissolution at that time (1678),
than what it produced afterwards. Russell's noble biographer justly
observes, that for the truth of these statements we are to trust
Rouvigny's report, coming through the hands of Barillon: but granting
them to be true, he thinks there was nothing criminal in the
intercourse. He observes, that, in the first place, Russell was
Rouvigny's kinsman by marriage, being first cousin to his wife, which
accounts for the commencement of the intercourse; and, secondly,

"The imminent danger," he says, "which threatened us from the
conduct of France abetting the designs of Charles, cannot, at
this day, be properly estimated. At the very time when
Parliament was giving money for a war, Lord Danby was writing,
by his master's order, to beg for money as the price of peace.
We shall presently see, that five days after the House of
Commons had passed the act for a supply, Lord Danby wrote to
Paris, that Charles expected six millions yearly from France.
Had Louis been sincere in the project of making Charles
absolute, there can be no doubt that it might have been easily
accomplished. Was not this sufficient to justify the popular
party in attempting to turn the battery the other way? The
question was not, whether to admit foreign interference, but
whether to direct foreign interference, already admitted, to a
good object. The conduct of Lord Russell, therefore, was not
criminal; but it would be difficult to acquit him of the charge
of imprudence. The object of Louis must have been, by giving
hopes to each party in turn, to obtain the command of both.
Charles, on the other hand, was ready to debase himself to the
lowest point, to maintain his alliance with France; any
suspicion, therefore, of a connection between Louis and the
popular party would have rendered him more and more dependent;
till the liberties of England might at last have been set up to
auction at Versailles."[204]

This is impartial. But surely an imprudence so extremely dangerous,
and an intercourse on any terms with an envoy's agent, the nature of
which it must have been necessary to conceal, partook of a
disingenuousness and selfwill that cannot be held innocent. That Lord
Russell had the best intentions is granted; but his principles were
specially opposed by the doctrine of "doing evil, that good might
come;" and if it be argued that good men are sometimes defeated in
their intentions by not imitating the less scrupulous conduct of evil
ones, it is to be replied, that there is no end of the re-actions
consequent on such imitations, nor any bounds, on the other hand, to
be put to the good consequences of a perfect example, even should its
very perfection retard them. Good causes are not lost for want of
passion and energy, but for that defect of faith and openness, which
is the worst destroyer of both, and the loss of which is the worst
hazard produced by a defect of example. We should be surprised that
the patriots, while they were about it, did not denounce Charles's
anti-constitutional behaviour more than they did, and openly demand
their rights as a matter of course; but it is easy to account for it
upon the supposition that they were hampered with court connections,
and not sure of one another.

The worst thing to be said of Lord Russell (for as to the letters he
wrote for pardon, they must be considered as obtained from him by his
friends and a tender wife) is, that when Lord Stafford, the victim of
a plot charged on the papists, was sentenced to death, Russell opposed
the King's privilege of dispensing with a barbarous part of the
execution; so unworthy the rest of their character can men be rendered
by party feeling, and so little do they foresee what they may
themselves require in a day of adversity. When Charles II. was applied
to on the same point in behalf of Lord Russell, he is reported to have
said, "Lord Russell shall find I am possessed of that prerogative,
which in the case of Lord Stafford he thought fit to deny me." The
sarcasm (if made--for there is no real authority for it) was cruel;
but it is not to be denied, that Lord Stafford, a man old and feeble,
whose protestations of innocence called forth tears from the
spectators when he was on the scaffold, might have thought Russell's
conduct equally so. Let us congratulate ourselves, that the fiery
trials which men of all parties have gone through, have enabled us to
benefit by their experience, to be grateful for what was noble in
them, and to learn (with modesty) how to avoid what was infirm.

Lord Russell, besides the general regard of posterity, has left two
glorious testimonies to his honour--his behaviour in his last days,
and the inextinguishable grief of one of the best of women. The
latter, the celebrated Lady Rachael Russell, the daughter of Charles's
best servant, Southampton, threw herself at the King's feet, "and
pleaded," says Hume, "with many tears, the merit and loyalty of her
father, as an atonement for those errors into which honest, however
mistaken, principles had seduced her husband. These supplications were
the last instance of female weakness (if they deserve the name) which
she betrayed. Finding all applications vain, she collected courage,
and not only fortified herself against the fatal blow, but endeavoured
by her example to strengthen the resolution of her unfortunate
lord."[205]

Echard says, that Charles refused her a reprieve of six weeks. If so,
he probably feared some desperate attempt in Russell's favour; which,
in fact, was proposed, as we shall see; and it is possible, that
remembering what had happened to Charles I., and conscious of his own
deserts, he might really have thought that Lord Russell would
willingly have seen him put to death; for Rapin tells us that he said,
in answer to Lady Rachael, "How can I grant that man six weeks, who,
if it had been in his power, would not have granted me six
hours?"[206] And Lord Dartmouth in his notes upon Burnet, tells us
that when his (Dartmouth's) father represented to the King the
obligations which a pardon would lay upon a great family, and the
regard that was due to Southampton's daughter and her children, the
King answered, "All that is true; but it is as true, that if I do not
take his life, he will soon have mine;" "which," says Dartmouth,
"would admit of no reply."[207] Some, however, have said, that the
King would have granted Russell his life, if he had not been afraid of
his brother, the Duke of York; and as an instance of what was thought
of the characters of these two princes, whether the story is true or
not, it was added, that Charles did not like to hear any discourses
about the pardon, because he could not grant it; whereas James would
hear anything, though he resolved to grant nothing.

Every other effort was made to save the life of Russell.

"Money," says Burnet, "was offered to the Lady Portsmouth, and
to all that had credit, and that without measure. He was
pressed to send petitions and submissions to the King and to
the Duke; but he left it to his friends to consider how far
these might go, and how they were to be worded. All that he was
brought to was, to offer to live beyond sea, in any place that
the King should name; and never to meddle any more in English
affairs. But all was in vain. Both King and Duke were fixed in
their resolutions; but with this difference, as Lord Rochester
afterwards told me, that the Duke suffered some, among whom he
was one, to argue the point with him, but the King could not
bear the discourse. Some said, that the Duke moved that he
might be executed in Southampton Square before his own house,
but that the King rejected that as indecent. So Lincoln's Inn
Fields was appointed for the place of his execution."[208]

As a last resource Lord Cavendish offered to attack the coach on
either side with a troop of horse, and take his friend out of it; but
Russell would not consent to bring any one into jeopardy on his
behalf.

It has been said that Lincoln's Inn Fields was chosen, in order that
the people might witness the triumph of the Court, in seeing him led
through the city; but others have reasonably observed upon this, that
as he was to be taken from Newgate, the desire of making him a
spectacle to the citizens would have been better gratified by his
being carried to the old place of execution, the Tower. It is most
probable, that Lincoln's Inn Fields was selected, as being the nearest
feasible spot to the great town property of the Bedford family;
Bloomsbury lying opposite, and Covent garden on one side.

The following is the letter addressed to the King by Russell's father,
followed by that of Russell himself, which Burnet has mentioned as
being drawn from him by his friends.

"To the King's most Excellent Majesty.
"The humble petition of William, Earl of Bedford:
"Humbly sheweth;

"That could your petitioner have been admitted into your
presence, he would have laid himself at your royal feet, in
behalf of his unfortunate son, himself, and his distressed and
disconsolate family, to implore your royal mercy, which he
never had the presumption to think could be obtained by any
indirect means. But shall think himself, wife, and children,
much happier to be left but with bread and water, than to lose
his dear son for so foul a crime as treason against the best of
princes; for whose life he ever did, and ever shall pray, more
than for his own.

"May God incline your Majesty's heart to the prayers of an
afflicted old father, and not bring grey hairs with sorrow to
my grave.

"BEDFORD."

"To the King's most Excellent Majesty.
"The humble petition of William Russell:
"Most humbly sheweth;

"That your petitioner does once more cast himself at your
Majesty's feet, and implores, with all humility, your mercy and
pardon, still avowing that he never had the least thought
against your Majesty's life, nor any design to change the
government; but humbly and sorrowfully confesses his having
been present at those meetings, which he is convinced were
unlawful, and justly provoking to your Majesty; but being
betrayed by ignorance and inadvertence, he did not decline them
as he ought to have done, for which he is truly and heartily
sorry; and, therefore, humbly offers himself to your Majesty,
to be determined to live in any part of the world which you
shall appoint, and never to meddle any more in the affairs of
England, but as your Majesty shall be pleased to command me.

"May it therefore please your Majesty to extend your royal
favour and mercy to your petitioner, by which he will be for
ever engaged to pray for your Majesty, and to devote his life
to your service.

"WILLIAM RUSSELL."

The third is to the Duke of York. It is certainly to be regretted,
that these letters were drawn from a patriot, willing, there is no
doubt, to have endured all extremities without compromising the
dignity of conscious right: but the reader will bear in mind what has
been said of them; and we shall see presently what the writer said of
the present one.

"May it please your Highness;

"The opposition I have appeared in to your Highness's interest
has been such, as I have scarce the confidence to be a
petitioner to you, though in order to the saving of my life.
Sir, God knows what I did did not proceed from any personal
ill-will, or animosity to your royal Highness, but merely
because I was of opinion, that it was the best way for
observing the religion established by law, in which, if I was
mistaken, yet I acted sincerely, without any ill end in it. And
as for any base design against your person, I hope your Royal
Highness will be so just to me as not to think me capable of so
vile a thought. But I am now resolved, and do faithfully engage
myself, that if it shall please the King to pardon me, and if
your Royal Highness will interpose in it, I will in no sort
meddle any more, but will be readily determined to live in any
part of the world which his Majesty shall prescribe, and will
never fail in my daily prayers, both for his Majesty's
preservation and honour, and your Royal Highness's happiness,
and will wholly withdraw myself from the affairs of England,
unless called by his Majesty's orders to serve him, which I
shall never be wanting to do, to the uttermost of my power. And
if your Royal Highness will be so gracious to me, as to move on
my account, as it will be an engagement upon me, beyond what I
can in reason expect, so it will make the deepest impressions
on me possible; for no fear of death can work so much with me,
as so great an obligation will for ever do upon me. May it
please your Royal Highness, your Royal Highness's most humble
and most obedient servant,

"W. RUSSELL."
"Newgate, July 16th, 1683."

Burnet says of this last letter, which he tells us was written at the
"earnest solicitations" of Lady Rachael, that as Russell was folding
it up, he said to him, "This will be printed, and will be selling
about the streets as my submission, when I am led out to be hanged."

All efforts failed, and the patriot and husband composed himself to
die. The touching particulars of his last days we shall extract from
the account of his friend Bishop Burnet. It is one that, as it
contains no disputed points, may be safely relied on; and indeed, if
we had not wished to show how interested we are in the case of this
advancer of public right, and how anxious to spare no proper trouble
for our readers, we might safely have copied the whole case from the
lively pages of that historian, whose writings, whatever may have been
his faults of partizanship and complexion, have risen in value, in
proportion as documents come to light. A great modern statesman,
equally qualified to judge of it, both as a politician and a man,
alludes with interesting emotion to Burnet's account of his last
hours. Speaking of the dying behaviour of Russell and Sidney, he says,
"In courage they are equal, but the fortitude of Russell, who was
connected with the world by private and domestic ties, which Sidney
was not, was put to the severer trial; and the story of the last days
of this excellent man's life fills the mind with such a mixture of
tenderness and admiration, that I know not any scene in history that
more powerfully excites our sympathy, or goes more directly to the
heart."[209]

"The last week of his life," says Burnet, "he was shut up all
the morning as he himself desired. And about noon I came to
him, and staid with him till night. All the while he expressed
a very Christian temper, without sharpness or resentment,
vanity or affectation. His whole behaviour looked like a
triumph over death. Upon some occasions, as at table, or when
his friends came to see him, he was decently cheerful. I was by
him when the sheriffs came to show him the warrant for his
execution. He read it with indifference; and when they were
gone he told me it was not decent to be merry with such a
matter, otherwise he was near telling Rich (who, though he was
now on the other side, yet had been a member of the House of
Commons, and had voted for the exclusion), that they should
never sit together in that house any more to vote for the bill
of exclusion. The day before his death he fell a bleeding at
the nose; upon that he said to me pleasantly, I shall not now
let blood to divert this: that will be done to-morrow. At night
it rained hard, and he said, such a rain to-morrow will spoil a
great show, which was a dull thing in a rainy day. He said, the
sins of his youth lay heavy upon his mind; but he hoped God had
forgiven them, for he was sure he had forsaken them, and for
many years he had walked before God with a sincere heart. If in
his public actings he had committed errors, they were only the
errors of his understanding; for he had no private ends, nor
ill designs of his own in them; he was still of opinion that
the King was limited by law, and that when he broke through
those limits, his subjects might defend themselves and restrain
him. He thought a violent death was a very desirable way of
ending one's life; it was only the being exposed to be a little
gazed at, and to suffer the pain of one minute, which, he was
confident, was not equal to the pain of drawing a tooth. He
said he felt none of those transports that some good people
felt; but he had a full calm in his mind, no palpitation at
heart, nor trembling at the thoughts of death. He was much
concerned at the cloud that seemed to be now over his country;
but he hoped his death would do more service than his life
could have done.

"This was the substance of the discourse between him and me.
Tillotson was oft with him that last week. We thought the party
had gone too quick in their consultations, and too far; and
that resistance in the condition we were then in was not
lawful. He said he had leisure to enter into discourses of
politics; but he thought a government limited by law was only a
name, if the subjects might not maintain those limitations by
force; otherwise all was at the discretion of the Prince: that
was contrary to all the notions he had lived in of our
government.[210] But, he said, there was nothing among them but
the embryos of things that were never like to have any effect,
and they were now quite dissolved. He thought it was necessary
for him to leave a paper behind him at his death: and, because
he had not been accustomed to draw such papers, he desired me
to give him a scheme of the heads fit to be spoken to, and of
the order in which they should be laid; which I did. And he was
three days employed for some time in the morning to write out
his speech. He ordered four copies to be made of it, all which
he signed; and gave the original with three of the copies to
his lady, and kept the other to give to the sheriffs on the
scaffold. He writ it with great ease, and the passages that
were tender he writ in papers apart, and showed them to his
lady and to myself, before he writ them out fair. He was very
easy when this was ended. He also writ a letter to the King, in
which he asked pardon for every thing he had said or done
contrary to his duty, protesting he was innocent as to all
designs against his person or government, and that his heart
was ever devoted to that which he thought was his Majesty's
true interest. He added that, though he thought he had met with
hard measures, yet he forgave all concerned in it, from the
highest to the lowest; and ended, hoping that his Majesty's
displeasure at him would cease with his own life, and that no
part of it should fall on his wife and children. The day before
his death he received the sacrament from Tillotson with much
devotion: and I preached two short sermons to him, which he
heard with great affection; and we were shut up till towards
the evening. Then he suffered his children that were very
young, and some few of his friends, to take leave of him; in
which he maintained his constancy of temper, though he was a
very fond father. He also parted from his lady with a composed
silence; and as soon as she was gone, he said to me, 'The
bitterness of death is passed;' for he loved and esteemed her
beyond expression, as she well deserved it in all respects. She
had the command of herself so much that at parting she gave him
no disturbance. He went into his chamber about midnight, and I
stayed all night in the outward room. He went not to bed till
about two in the morning, and was fast asleep at four, when,
according to his order, we called him. He was quickly dressed,
but would lose no time in shaving, for, he said, he was not
concerned in his good looks that day."

* * * * *

"Lord Russell," continues Burnet, "seemed to have some
satisfaction to find that there was no truth in the whole
contrivance of the Rye Plot; so that he hoped that infamy,
which now blasted their party, would soon go off. He went into
his chamber six or seven times in the morning, and prayed by
himself, and then came out to Tillotson and me; he drank a
little tea and some sherry. He wound up his watch, and said,
now he had done with time, and was going to eternity. He asked
what he should give the executioner: I told him ten guineas: he
said, with a smile, it was a pretty thing to give a fee to have
his head cut off. When the sheriffs called him about ten
o'clock, Lord Cavendish was waiting below to take leave of him.
They embraced very tenderly. Lord Russell, after he had left
him, upon a sudden thought came back to him, and pressed him
earnestly to apply himself more to religion, and told him what
great comfort and support he felt from it now in his extremity.
Lord Cavendish had very generously offered to manage his
escape, and to stay in prison for him while he should go away
in his clothes; but he would not hearken to the motion. The
Duke of Monmouth had also sent me word to let him know, that if
he thought it could do him any service, he would come in and
run fortunes with him. He answered, it would be of no advantage
to him to have his friends die with him. Tillotson and I went
in the coach with him to the place of execution. Some of the
crowd that filled the streets wept, while others insulted; he
was touched by the tenderness that the one gave him, but did
not seem at all provoked by the other. He was singing psalms a
great part of the way, and said, he hoped to sing better very
soon.[211] As he observed the great crowds of people all the
way, he said to us, 'I hope I shall quickly see a much better
assembly.' When he came to the scaffold, he walked about it
four or five times. Then he turned to the sheriffs, and
delivered his paper. He protested that he had always been far
from any designs against the King's life or government. He
prayed God would preserve both, and the Protestant religion. He
wished all Protestants might love one another, and not make way
for Popery by their animosities."

Of the paper given by Russell to the sheriffs, Burnet has given the
following honest abridgment. This testament to patriotism made a great
sensation. To posterity, who have so benefited by its spirit, it is
surely still of great interest.

"The substance of the paper he gave them," says Burnet, "was,
first, a profession of his religion, and of his sincerity in
it; that he was of the Church of England, but wished all would
unite together against the common enemy; that churchmen would
be less severe, and dissenters less scrupulous. He owned he had
a great zeal against Popery, which he looked on as an
idolatrous and bloody religion; but that, though he was at all
times ready to venture his life for his religion or his
country, yet that would never have carried him to a black or
wicked design. No man ever had the impudence to move to him
anything with relation to the King's life: he prayed heartily
for him, that in his person and government he might be happy,
both in this world and the next. He protested that in the
prosecution of the Popish Plot he had gone on in the sincerity
of his heart, and that he never knew of any practice with the
witnesses. He owned he had been earnest in the matter of the
exclusion, as the best way, in his opinion, to secure both the
King's life and the Protestant religion, and to that he imputed
his present sufferings; but he forgave all concerned in them,
and charged his friends to think of no revenges. He thought his
sentence was hard, upon which he gave an account of all that
had passed at Shepherd's. From the heats that were in choosing
the sheriffs, he concluded that matter would end as it now did,
and he was not much surprised to find it fall upon himself; he
wished it might end in him; killing by forms of law was the
worst sort of murder. He concluded with some very devout
ejaculations.

"After he had delivered this paper, he prayed by himself; then
Tillotson prayed with him. After that he prayed again by
himself, and then undressed himself and laid his head on the
block, without the least change of countenance; and it was cut
off at two strokes."

The following additional particulars are from Burnet's "Journal:"--

"When my lady went, he said he wished she would give over
beating every bush, and running so about for his preservation.
But when he considered that it would be some mitigation of her
sorrow afterwards, that she left nothing undone that could have
given any probable hopes, he acquiesced: and, indeed, I never
saw his heart so near failing him, as when he spake of her.
Sometimes I saw a tear in his eye, and he would turn about and
presently change the discourse.

"At ten o'clock my lady left him. He kissed her four or five
times; and she kept her sorrows so within herself, that she
gave him no disturbance by their parting. After she was gone,
he said, 'Now the bitterness of death is passed,' and ran out a
long discourse concerning her--how great a blessing she had
been to him; and said what a misery it would have been to him,
if she had not had that magnanimity of spirit, joined to her
tenderness, as never to have desired him to do a base thing for
the saving of his life; whereas, otherwise, what a week should
I have passed, if she had been crying on me to turn informer,
and be a Lord Howard; though he then repeated what he often
before said, that he knew of nothing whereby the peace of the
nation was in danger; and that all that ever was, was either
loose discourse, or at most embryos that never came to
anything, so that there was nothing on foot to his knowledge.

"As we came to turn into Little Queen Street, he said, 'I have
often turned to the other hand with great comfort, but now I
turn to this with greater,' and looked towards his own house;
and then, as the Dean of Canterbury, who sat over against him,
told me, he saw a tear or two fall from him.

"When he had lain down, I looked once at him and saw no change
in his looks; and though he was still lifting up his hands,
there was no trembling, though, in the moment in which I
looked, the executioner happened to be laying the axe to his
neck to direct him to take aim. I thought it touched him, but
I am sure he seemed not to mind it."

The widow of Lord Russell, daughter of the Lord Southampton above
mentioned, the most honest man ever known to have been in the service
of Charles the Second, was grand-daughter of Shakspeare's Southampton,
and appears to have united in her person the qualities of both. She
was at once a pattern of good sense, and of romantic affection. Nor
are the two things incompatible, when either of them exist in the
highest degree, as she proved during the remainder of her life; for
though she continued a widow all the rest of it, and it was a very
long one, and though she never ceased regretting her lord's death, and
had great troubles besides, yet the high sense she had of the duties
of a human being enabled her to enjoy consolations that ordinary
pleasure might have envied; first, in the education of her children,
and secondly, in the tranquillity which health and temperance _forced_
upon her. Her letters, with which the public are well acquainted, are
not more remarkable for the fidelity they evince to her husband's
memory, than for the fine sense they display in all matters upon which
the prejudices of education had left her a free judgment, and
especially for their delightful candour. It has been thought that the
blindness into which she fell in her old age was owing to weeping; but
Mr. Howell, the judicious editor of the "State Trials," informs us,
upon the authority of "a very learned, skilful, and experienced
physiologist," "that a cataract, which seems," he says, "to have been
the malady of Lady Rachael's eyes, is by no means likely to be
produced by weeping."[212]

We will here insert a few of the most touching passages from the
"Letters of Lady Russell" (seventh edition, 1819). On the 30th of
September, she writes thus to her friend. Dr Fitzwilliam:--

"I endeavour to make the best use I can of both (a letter and
prayer which the Doctor sent her); but I am so evil and
unworthy a creature, that though I have desires, yet I have no
disposition, or worthiness, towards receiving comfort." And
again:--"I know I have deserved my punishment, and will be
silent under it; but yet secretly my heart mourns, and cannot
be comforted, because I have not the dear companion and sharer
of all my joys and sorrows. I want him to talk with, to walk
with, to eat and sleep with; all these things are irksome to me
now; all company and meals I could avoid, if it might be. Yet
all this is, that I enjoy not the world in my own way, and this
same hinders my comfort. When I see my children before me, I
remember the pleasure he took in them; this makes my heart
shrink."

On the 21st July, 1685, the anniversary of her husband's death, two
years after it, she writes thus:--

"My languishing weary spirit rises up slowly to all good; yet I
hope by God's abundant grace, in time, your labours will work
the same effect in my spirits: they will, indeed, in less time
on others better disposed and prepared than I am, who in the
day of affliction seem to have no remembrance with due
thankfulness of prosperity."

In a letter written the 4th October, 1686, she says, speaking of a
recovery of one of her children from sickness,--

"I hope this has been a sorrow I shall profit by; I shall, if
God will strengthen my faith, resolve to return him a constant
praise, and make this the season to chase all secret murmurs
from grieving my soul for what is past, letting it rejoice in
what it should rejoice, his favour to me, in the blessings I
have left, which many of my betters want, and yet have lost
their chiefest friend also. But, oh, Doctor! the manner of my
deprivation is yet astonishing."

The following is dated five years after her loss. She is speaking of a
letter she wrote once a week to Dr. Fitzwilliam. Her grief had now
begun to taste the sweets of patience and temperance; but we see still
how real it is:--

"I can't but own there is a sort of secret delight in the
privacy of one of those mournful days; I think, besides a
better reason, one is, that I do not tie myself up as I do on
other days; for, God knows, my eyes are ever ready to pour out
marks of a sorrowful heart, which I shall carry to the grave,
that quiet bed of rest."

In 1692, Lady Russell writes less patiently, but shortly afterwards
appears to have regained her composure; and in Letter 134, there is a
remark on the blessings of health, and on the comfort of being able to
do one's duty, if we aim at it. In 1711, she lost her only son, the
Duke of Bedford, in his 31st year; and six months afterwards was
deprived of one of her daughters, who died in childbed. It was on this
occasion that an affecting anecdote is told. She had another daughter
who happened to be in childbed also; and as it was necessary to
conceal from her the death of her sister, this admirable woman assumed
a cheerful air, and in answer to her daughter's anxious inquiries,
said, with an extraordinary colouring of the fact, for which a martyr
to truth could have loved her, "I have seen your sister out of bed
to-day."

We intended not to omit the following charming passage from her
letters, and therefore add it here. It is in the letter last quoted:--

"My friendships have made all the joys and troubles of my life;
and yet who would live and not love? Those who have tried the
insipidness of it would, I believe, never choose it. Mr. Waller
says, 'tis (with singing) all we know they do above! And 'tis
enough; for if there is so charming a delight in the love, and
suitableness in humours, to creatures, what must it be to the
clarified spirits to love in the presence of God!"

The passage from Waller is,--

"What know we of the blest above,
But that they sing and that they love?"

Certainly, if ever there was an angel upon earth this woman was one.
Compare the above extracts with a letter from her to her husband,
written in the year 1681, and published in the work of Lord John
Russell, vol. ii., p. 2. It is a true, loving, happy wife's letter,
and renders the contrast inexpressibly affecting.

The present ducal family of Bedford have the honour to be lineally
descended from these two excellent persons, and to derive their very
dukedom from public virtue--a rare patent. And they have shown that
they estimate the honour. What must not Lady Russell have felt when
James II., within six years after the destruction of her husband, was
forced to give up his throne? And what, above all, must she not have
felt, when she heard of the answer given by her aged father-in-law to
the same prince, who had the meanness, or want of imagination, to
apply to him in his distress? "My Lord," said James to the Earl of
Bedford, "you are an honest man, have great credit, and can do me
signal service." "Ah, sir," replied the Earl, "I am old and feeble,
but I once had a son." The King is said to have been so struck with
this reply, that he was silent for some minutes. With this anecdote we
may well terminate our account of the patriot Russell.[213]

One remark, however, we must make. It has been asserted, that the
great reason why the Whigs of those days wished to keep the Catholics
out of power was the dread of losing their estates as well as
political influence, and of being obliged to give up the Abbey lands.
There may have been a good deal of truth in this, and yet the rest of
their feelings have been very sincere. Men may be educated in undue
notions of the value of wealth and property, and yet prove their
possession of nobler thoughts, when brought to heroical issues of life
and death.

The house in this square (Lincoln's Inn,) at the corner of Great Queen
Street, with a passage under its side, was once called Newcastle
House, and was occupied by the well-known fantastical duke of that
name, Minister of George II. Pennant says it was built about the year
1686, "by the Marquis of Powis, and called Powis House, and afterwards
sold to the late noble owner." The architect was Captain William
Winde. "It is said," he adds, "that government had it once in
contemplation to have bought and settled it officially on the great
seal. At that time it was inhabited by the lord keeper, Sir Nathan
Wright." It is at present occupied by the Society for the diffusion of
the Bible.

[Illustration: NEWCASTLE HOUSE.]

The Marquis of Powis, here mentioned, had scarcely built his house in
the square where Lord Russell was beheaded, when he saw his lordship's
destroyer forced to leave his throne. The Marquis followed his
fortunes, and was created by him Duke of Powis.

A laughable, and, we believe, true story, connected with the Duke of
Newcastle's residence in this house, is told in a curious miscellany
intitled the "Lounger's Common-Place Book."

"This nobleman," says the writer, "with many good points, and
described by a popular contemporary poet as almost eaten up by
his zeal for the house of Hanover, was remarkable for being
profuse of his promises on all occasions, and valued himself
particularly on being able to anticipate the words or the wants
of the various persons who attended his levees before they
uttered a word. This sometimes led him into ridiculous
embarrassments; but it was his tendency to lavish promises,
which gave occasion for the anecdote I am going to relate.

"At the election of a certain borough of Cornwall, where the
opposite interests were almost equally poised, a single vote
was of the highest importance; this object, the Duke, by
_well-applied arguments_, and personal application, at length
attained, and the gentleman _he_ recommended gained his
election.

"In the warmth of gratitude, his Grace poured forth
acknowledgments and promises without ceasing, on the fortunate
possessor of the casting vote; called him his best and dearest
friend; protested that he should consider himself as for ever
indebted; that he would serve him by night or by day.

"The Cornish voter, an honest fellow, as things go, and who
would have thought himself sufficiently paid, but for such a
torrent of acknowledgments, thanked the Duke for his kindness,
and told him, 'The supervisor of excise was old and infirm, and
if he would have the goodness to recommend his son-in-law to
the commissioners in case of the old man's death, he should
think himself and his family bound to render Government every
assistance in his power, on any future occasion.'

"'My dear friend, why do you ask for such a trifling
employment?' exclaimed his Grace, 'your relation shall have it
at a word's speaking, the moment it is vacant.'--'But how shall
I get admitted to you my Lord? for, in London, I understand, it
is a very difficult business to get a sight of you great folks,
though you are so kind and complaisant to us in the
country.'--'The instant the man dies,' replied the premier,
used to and prepared for the freedom of a contested
election,--'the moment he dies, set out post-haste for London;
drive directly to my house, by night or by day, sleeping or
waking, dead or alive, thunder at the door; I will leave word
with my porter to show you up-stairs directly, and the
employment shall be disposed of according to your wishes.'

"The parties separated; the Duke drove to a friend's house in
the neighbourhood, where he was visiting, without a wish or a
design of seeing his new acquaintance till that day seven
years; but the memory of a Cornish elector, not being loaded
with such a variety of subjects, was more retentive. The
supervisor died a few months after, and the ministerial
partisan relying on the word of a peer, was conveyed to London
post-haste, and ascended with alacrity the steps of a large
house, now divided into three, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the
corner of Great Queen Street.

"The reader should be informed that precisely at the moment
when the expectations of a considerable party of a borough in
Cornwall were roused by the death of a supervisor, no less a
person than the King of Spain was expected hourly to depart; an
event in which the Minister of Great Britain was particularly
concerned.

"The Duke of Newcastle, on the very night that the proprietor
of the decisive vote was at his door, had sat up anxiously
expecting despatches from Madrid: wearied by official business
and agitated spirits, he retired to rest, having previously
given particular instructions to his porter not to go to bed,
as he expected every minute a messenger with advices of the
greatest importance, and desired he might be shown up-stairs
the moment of his arrival.

"His Grace was sound asleep; for, with a thousand
singularities, of which the rascals about him did not forget to
take advantage, his worst enemies could not deny him the merit
of good design, that best solace in a solitary hour. The
porter, settled for the night in his chair, had already
commenced a sonorous nap, when the vigorous arm of the Cornish
voter roused him from his slumbers.

"To his first question, 'Is the Duke at home?' the porter
replied, 'Yes; and in bed, but has left particular orders that
come when you will, you are to go up to him directly.'--'God
for ever bless him, a worthy and honest gentleman,' cried our
applier for the vacant post, smiling and nodding with
approbation at a Prime Minister's so accurately keeping his
promise; 'how punctual his Grace is! I knew he would not
deceive me. Let me hear no more of lords and dukes not keeping
their words. I believe, verily, they are as honest and mean as
well as other folks, but I can't always say the same of those
who are about them.' Repeating these words as he ascended the
stairs, the burgess of ---- was ushered into the Duke's
bedchamber.

"'Is he dead?' exclaimed his Grace, rubbing his eyes, and
scarcely awaked from dreaming of the King of Spain, 'Is he
dead?' 'Yes, my lord,' replied the eager expectant, delighted
to find that the election promise, with all its circumstances,
was so fresh in the Minister's memory. 'When did he die?' 'The
day before yesterday, exactly at half-past one o'clock, after
being confined three weeks to his bed, and taking a _power of
doctor's stuff_; and I hope your Grace will be as good as your
word, and let my son-in-law succeed him.'

"The duke, by this time perfectly awake, was staggered at the
impossibility of receiving intelligence from Madrid in so short
a space of time, and perplexed at the absurdity of a king's
messenger applying for his son-in-law to succeed the King of
Spain: 'Is the man drunk or mad; where are your despatches?'
exclaimed his Grace, hastily drawing back his curtain; when,
instead of a royal courier, his eager eye recognised at the
bedside the well-known countenance of his friend in Cornwall,
making low bows, with hat in hand, and 'hoping my lord would
not forget the gracious promise he was so good as to make in
favour of his son-in-law at the last election at ----.'

"Vexed at so untimely a disturbance, and disappointed of news
from Spain, he frowned for a few seconds, but chagrin soon gave
way to mirth at so singular and ridiculous a combination of
opposite circumstances. Yielding to the irritation, he sank on
the bed in a violent fit of laughter, which, like the
electrical fluid, was communicated in a moment to his
attendants."[214]

[Illustration: OLD PALACE OF WHITEHALL, FROM THE RIVER.]

FOOTNOTES:

[194] Tatler, No. 100.

[195] "Lives and Letters," _ut supra_.

[196] "Worthies of England," _ut supra_.

[197] Gifford's "Works of Ben Jonson," vol. i., p. ix.

[198] Pennant, _ut supra_, p. 176

[199] Diary, _ut supra_, vol. ii., p. 185.

[200] "Memoires of Lady Fanshawe, &c., written by herself." 1729, p.
267.

[201] "Memoires of Lady Fanshawe, &c., written by herself." 1729, p.
298.

[202] "Life of William Lord Russell, with some Account of the Times in
which he lived." By Lord John Russell, 3rd edition, 1820, vol. ii., p.
18, &c.

[203] "History of the Reign of James the Second." Introductory
Chapter. It is worth while, as a puzzle for the reader, to give here
the contested point in the statute, which Lord Russell's enemies
thought so clear against him, and his friends so much in his favour.
13 Car. II. "Provided always, that no person be prosecuted for any of
the offences in this act mentioned, other than such as are made and
declared to be high treason, unless it be by order of the King's
Majesty, his heirs or successors, under his or their sign manual, or
by order of the Council Table of his Majesty, his heirs or successors,
directed unto the attorney-general for the time being: or some other
counsel learned to his Majesty, his heirs or successors, for the time
being: nor shall any person or persons, by virtue of this present act,
incur any of the penalties herein before-mentioned, unless he or they
be prosecuted within six months next after the offence committed, and
indicted thereupon within three months after such prosecution;
anything herein contained to the contrary notwithstanding."

[204] Life, as above, vol. i., p. 121.

[205] Hume's History of England, vol. x. chap. 69.

[206] Rapin's History of England, 1731, vol. xiv., p. 333.

[207] Burnet's History of his Own Times.

[208] Burnet's History of his Own Times, 12mo., 1725, vol. ii., p.
260.

[209] Mr. Fox, in his history above-mentioned.

[210] Burnet and Tillotson thought so too, when James II. afterwards
forced the church to declare one way or other.

[211] In his Journal, Burnet says that he often sung "within himself,"
but that the words were not audible. When his companion asked him what
he was singing, he said the beginning of the 119th Psalm. It is stated
in the Life by his descendant (who has added some original passages
from papers at Woburn), that "just as they were entering Lincoln's Inn
Fields, he said, 'This has been to me a place of sinning, and God now
makes it the place of my punishment.'" He had lived freely in his
youth, though he is not the Russell spoken of in the Memoirs of
Grammont, as many are led to believe by the engravings of him inserted
in that work. The person there mentioned was a cousin.

[212] For complete reports of all the trials connected with the Rye
House Plot, and for several pamphlets written _pro_ and _con_ upon
Lord Russell's case, see the "State Trials," vol. ix., beginning at p.
357.

[213] We quote the Earl of Bedford's reply from Granger's Biographical
History of England, not being able to refer to Orrery, who we believe
is the authority for it. Burnet's Journal is to be found at the end of
Lord Russell's Life, by his descendants.

[214] Lounger's Common-Place Book, 1805. 8vo. vol. i., p. 301.

CHAPTER VI.

Great Queen Street, in the time of the Stuarts, was one of the
grandest and most fashionable parts of the town. The famous Lord
Herbert of Cherbury died there. Lord Bristol had a house in it, Lord
Chancellor Finch, and the Conway and Paulet families. Some of the
houses towards the west retain pilasters and other ornaments, probably
indicating, as Pennant observes, the abodes in question. Little
thought the noble lords that a time would come, when a player should
occupy their rooms, and be able to entertain their descendants in
them; but in a house of this description, lately occupied by Messrs.
Allman the booksellers, died Lewis, the comedian, one of the most
delightful performers of his class, and famous to the last for his
invincible airiness and juvenility. Mr. Lewis displayed a combination
rarely to be found in acting, that of the fop and the real gentleman.
With a voice, a manner, and a person, all equally graceful and light,
and features at once whimsical and genteel, he played on the top of
his profession like a plume. He was the Mercutio of the age, in every
sense of the word mercurial. His airy, breathless voice, thrown to the
audience before he appeared, was the signal of his winged animal
spirits; and when he gave a glance of his eye, or touched his finger
at another's ribs, it was the very _punctum saliens_ of playfulness
and inuendo. We saw him take leave of the public, a man of
sixty-five, looking not more than half the age, in the character of
the Copper Captain; and heard him say, in a voice broken by emotion,
that "for the space of thirty years, he had not once incurred their
displeasure."

Next door but one to the Freemasons' Tavern (westward), for many years
lived another celebrated comic performer, Miss Pope, one of a very
different sort, and looking as heavy and insipid as her taste was
otherwise. She was an actress of the highest order for dry humour; one
of those who convey the most laughable things with a grave face.
Churchill, in the _Rosciad_, when she must have been very young,
mentions her as an actress of great vivacity, advancing in a "jig,"
and performing the parts of Cherry and Polly Honeycomb. There was
certainly nothing of the Cherry and Honeycomb about her when older;
but she was an admirable Mrs. Malaprop.

[Illustration: OLD HOUSES IN GREAT QUEEN STREET.]

Queen Street continued to be a place of fashionable resort for a
considerable period after the Revolution. As we have been speaking of
the advancement of actors in social rank, we will take occasion of the
birth of Martin Folkes in this street, the celebrated scholar and
antiquary, to mention that he was one of the earliest persons among
the gentry to marry an actress. His wife was Lucretia Bradshaw. It may
be thought worth observing by the romantic, that the ladies who were
first selected to give this rise to the profession, had all something
peculiar in their Christian names. Lord Peterborough married Anastasia
Robinson, and the Duke of Bolton, Lavinia Fenton.

Sir Godfrey Kneller, and Radcliffe the physician, lived in this
street. We mention them together because they were neighbours, and
there is a pleasant anecdote of them in conjunction. The author of a
book lately published, describes their neighbourhood as being in Bow
Street; but Horace Walpole, the authority for the story, places it in
the street before us; adding, in a note, that Kneller "first lived in
Durham Yard (in the Strand), then twenty-one years in Covent Garden
(we suppose in Bow Street), and lastly in Great Queen Street,
Lincoln's Inn Fields." "Kneller," says Walpole, "was fond of flowers,
and had a fine collection. As there was great intimacy between him and
the physician, he permitted the latter to have a door into his garden;
but Radcliffe's servants gathering and destroying the flowers, Kneller
sent him word he must shut up the door. Radcliffe replied peevishly,
'Tell him he may do anything with it but paint it.' 'And I,' answered
Sir Godfrey, 'can take anything from him but physic.'"[215]

Kneller, besides being an admired painter (and it is supposed from one
of his performances, the portrait of a Chinese, that he could have
been admired by posterity, if he chose), was a man of wit; but so
vain, that he is described as being the butt of all the wits of his
acquaintances. They played upon him undoubtedly, and at a great rate;
but it has been suggested by a shrewd observer, that while he
consented to have his vanity tickled at any price, he humoured the
joke himself, and was quite aware of what they were at. Nor is this
inconsistent with the vanity, which would always make large allowances
for the matter of fact. The extravagance it would limit where it
pleased; the truth remained; and Sir Godfrey, as Pope said, had a
large appetite. With this probability a new interest is thrown upon
the anecdotes related of his vanity, with the best of which the reader
is accordingly presented. Kneller was a German, born at Lubec, so that
his English is to be read with a foreign accent.

The younger Richardson tells us, that Gay read Sir Godfrey a copy of
verses, in which he had pushed his flattery so far, that he was all
the while in dread lest the knight should detect him. When Kneller had
heard this through, he said, in his foreign style and accent, "Ay, Mr.
Gay, all what you have said is very fine, and very true; but you have
forgot one thing, my good friend; by G--, I should have been a
general of an army; for when I was at Venice, there was a _girandole_,
and all the place of St. Mark was in a smoke of gunpowder, and I did
like the smell, Mr. Gay; should have been a great general, Mr. Gay!"

Perhaps it was this real or apparent obtuseness which induced Gay to
add "engineering" to his other talents, in the verses describing
Pope's welcome from Greece:--

"Kneller amid the triumph bears his part,
Who could (were mankind lost) a new create:
What can the extent of his vast soul confine?
A painter, critic, engineer, divine."

The following is related on the authority of Pope:--

"Old Jacob Tonson got a great many fine pictures, and two of
himself, from him, by this means. Sir Godfrey was very
covetous, but then he was very vain, and a great glutton; so he
played these passions against the others; besides telling him
that he was the greatest master that ever was, sending him,
every now and then, a haunch of venison, and dozens of
excellent claret. 'O, my G--, man,' said he once to Vander
Gucht, 'this old Jacob loves me; he is a very good man; you see
he loves me, he sends me good things; the venison was fat.' Old
Geekie, the surgeon, got several fine pictures of him too, and
an excellent one of himself; but then he had them cheaper, for
he gave nothing but praises; but then his praises were as fat
as Jacob's venison; neither could be too fat for Sir Godfrey."

Pope related the following to Spence:--

"As I was sitting by Sir Godfrey Kneller one day, whilst he was
drawing a picture, he stopt, and said, 'I can't do as well as I
should do, unless you flatter me a little, Mr. Pope! You know I
love to be flattered.' I was for once willing," continues Pope,
"to try how far this vanity would carry him; and after
considering a picture which he had just finished, for a good
while very attentively, I said to him in French (for he had
been talking for some time before in that language), 'On lit
dans les Ecritures Saintes, que le bon Dieu faisoit l'homme
après son image: mais, je crois, que s'il voudroit faire un
autre à présent, qu'il le feroit après l'image que voilà.' Sir
Godfrey turned round, and said very gravely, 'Vous avez raison,
Monsieur Pope; par Dieu, je le crois aussi.'"

It must not be omitted that Kneller was a kind-hearted man. At
Whitton, where he had a seat, he was justice of the peace, and,

"Was so much more swayed," says Walpole, "by equity than law,
that his judgments, accompanied with humour, are said to have
occasioned those lines by Pope:--

"I think Sir Godfrey should decide the suit,
Who sent the thief (that stole the cash) away,
And punish'd him that put it in his way."

"This alluded to his dismissing a soldier who had stolen a
joint of meat, and accused the butcher of having tempted him
by it. Whenever Sir Godfrey was applied to, to determine what
parish a poor man belonged to, he always inquired which parish
was the richer, and settled the poor man there; nor would he
ever sign a warrant to distrain the goods of a poor man who
could not pay a tax."[216]

Poor Radcliffe, after reigning as a physician so despotically, that
Arbuthnot, in his projected map of diseases, was for putting him up at
the corner of it disputing the empire of the world, became a less
happy man than Sir Godfrey, by reason of his falling in love in his
old age. He set up a coach, adorned with mythological paintings,--at
least, Steele says so; but soon had to put it in mourning for the
death of his flame, who was a Miss Tempest, one of the maids of
honour. Radcliffe was the Tory physician, and Steele, in the "Tatler,"
with a party spirit that was much oftener aggrieved than provoked in
that good-natured writer, was induced, by some circumstance or other,
perhaps Radcliffe's insolence, to make a ludicrous description of him,
"as the mourning Esculapius, the languishing, hopeless lover of the
divine Hebe." Steele accuses him of avarice. Others have said he was
generous. He was the founder of the Radcliffe Library at Oxford, and
made other magnificent bequests; which prove nothing either way. But
it is not favourable to a reputation for generosity, to own (as he
did), that he was fond of spunging, and to avoid the paying of bills.
However, when he lost 5,000_l._ in a speculation, he said "he had
nothing to do but to go up so many pair of stairs to make himself
whole again." He was undoubtedly a very clever physician, though he
made little use of books. Like many men who go upon their own grounds
in this way, he had an abrupt and clownish manner, which he probably
thought of use. According to Richardson, he one day said to Dr. Mead,
"Mead, I love you; now I will tell you a sure secret to make your
fortune. Use all mankind ill." It is worth observing, that Mead acted
on the reverse principle, and made double the fortune of his adviser.
Radcliffe is said have attended the lady of Judge Holt, in a bad
illness, with unusual assiduity, "out of pique to her husband;" a very
new kind of satire. He used to send huffing messages to Queen Anne,
telling her that he would not come, and that she only had the vapours;
and when King William consulted him on his swollen ankles and thin
body, Radcliffe said he "would not have his Majesty's two legs for
his three kingdoms;" a speech which it was not in the nature of
royalty to forgive. His death is said to have been hastened by his
refusal to attend on Queen Anne in her last illness; which so
exasperated the populace that he was afraid to leave his country house
at Carshalton, where he died. He lived in Bow Street when he first
came to London; and afterwards in Bloomsbury Square.

But the most remarkable inhabitant of Queen Street was Lord Herbert of
Cherbury, one of those extraordinary individuals who, with a touch of
madness on the irascible side, and subject to the greatest blindness
of self-love, possess a profound judgment on every other point. Such
persons are supposed to be victims of imagination; but they are rather
mechanical enthusiasts (though of a high order), and, for want of an
acquaintance with the imaginative, become at the mercy of the first
notion which takes their will by surprise. Lord Herbert, who in the
intellectual part was intended for a statist and a man of science, was
unfortunately one of the hottest of Welchmen in the physical. Becoming
a Knight of the Bath, he took himself for a knight-errant, and fancied
he was bound to fight everybody he met with, and to lie under trees in
the fields of Holland. He thought Revelation a doubtful matter, and so
he had recourse to the Deity for a revelation in his particular favour
to disprove it. We have related an anecdote of him at Northumberland
House, and shall have more to tell; but the account of his having
recourse to Heaven for the satisfaction of his doubts of its
interference, must not be omitted here. Perhaps it took place in this
very street. His Lordship was the first Deist in England that has left
an account of his opinions. Speaking of the work he wrote on this
subject, he says:--

"My book 'De Veritate prout distinguitur à Revelatione
verisimili, possibili, et à falso,' having been begun by me in
England, and formed there in all its principal parts, was about
this time finished; all the spare hours which I could get from
my visits and negotiations being employed to perfect this work;
which was no sooner done, but that I communicated it to Hugo
Grotius--that great scholar, who, having escaped his prison in
the Low Countries, came into France, and was much welcomed by
me and Monsieur Tieleners, also one of the greatest scholars of
his time; who, after they had perused it, and given it more
commendations than is fit for me to repeat, exhorted me
earnestly to print and publish it; howbeit, as the frame of my
whole work was so different from anything which had been
written heretofore, I found I must either renounce the
authority of all that I had written formerly, concerning the
method of finding out truth, and consequently insist upon my
own way, or hazard myself to a general censure concerning the
whole argument of my book; I must confess it did not a little
animate me, that the two great persons above-mentioned did so
highly value it; yet, as I knew it would meet with much
opposition, I did consider whether it was not better for me for
a while to suppress it.

"Being thus doubtful in my chamber one fair day in the summer,
my casement being open towards the south, the sun shining
clear, and no wind stirring, I took my book, 'De Veritate,' in
my hand, and kneeling on my knees, devoutly said these words:--

"'Oh, thou eternal God, author of the light which now shines
upon me, and giver of all inward illuminations, I do beseech
thee of thy infinite goodness to pardon a greater request than
a sinner ought to make; I am not satisfied enough whether I
shall publish this book 'De Veritate;' if it be for thy glory,
I beseech thee give me some sign from heaven; if not, I shall
suppress it.'

"I had no sooner spoken these words, but a loud though gentle
noise came from the heavens (for it was like nothing on earth)
which did so comfort and cheer me, that I took my petition as
granted, and that I had the sign I demanded; whereupon also I
resolved to print my book. This (how strange soever it may
seem) I protest, before the eternal God, is true; neither am I
any way superstitiously deceived herein; since I did not only
hear the noise, but, in the serenest sky that ever I saw, being
without all cloud, did to my thinking see the place from whence
it came."[217]

"How could a man," justly observes Walpole on this passage, "who
doubted of partial, believe individual revelation! What vanity to
think his book of such importance to the cause of truth, that it could
extort a declaration of the Divine will, when the interest of half
mankind could not!" Yet the same writer is full of admiration of him
in other respects. It is well observed by the editor of the
_Autobiography_ (in reply to the doubts thrown on his lordship's
veracity respecting his chivalrous propensities, the consequences of
which always fell short of duels), that much of the secret might be
owing "to his commanding aspect and acknowledged reputation; and a
little more to a certain perception of the Quixote in his character,
with which it might be deemed futile to contend. His surprising
defence of himself against the attack of Sir John Ayres, forcibly
exhibits his personal strength and mastery; and his spirited treatment
of the French Minister, Luynes, and the general esteem of his
contemporaries, sufficiently attest his quick feeling of national and
personal dignity, and general gallantry of bearing." There is no
doubt, in short, that Lord Herbert of Cherbury was a brave, an honest,
and an able man, though with some weaknesses, both of heat and vanity,
sufficient to console the most common-place.

With all this elegance of neighbourhood, Lincoln's Inn Fields, in the
time of Charles II., had one eyesore of an enormous description, in a
place behind Holborn row, entitled Whetstone Park. It is now a decent
passage between Great and Little Turnstiles.

"It is scarcely necessary," says Mr. Malcolm, "to remind the
reader of a well-known fact, that all sublunary things are
subject to change:--he who passes through the Little Turnstile,
Holborn, at present, will observe on the left hand, near
Lincoln's Inn Fields, a narrow street, composed of small
buildings, on the corner of which is inscribed Whetstone Park.
The repose and quiet of the place seem to proclaim strong
pretensions to regular and moral life in the inhabitants; and
well would it have been for the happiness of many a family, had
the site always exhibited the same appearance. On the contrary,
Whetstone Park contributed to increase the dissoluteness of
manners which distinguished the period between 1660 and 1700.
Being a place of low entertainment, numerous disturbances
occurred there, and rendered it subject to the satire and
reprehension even of 'Poor Robin's Intelligencer,' a paper
almost infamous enough for the production of a keeper of this
theatre of vice. The publication alluded to says, in 1676,
'Notwithstanding the discourses that have been to the contrary,
the boarding-school is still continued here, where a set of
women may be readily untaught all the studies of modesty or
chastity; to which purpose they are provided with a two-handed
volume of impudence, loosely bound up in greasy vellum, which
is tied by the leg to a wicker chair (as you find authors
chained in a library), and is always ready to give you plain
instructions and directions in all matters relating to
immorality or irreligion.' * *

"Incomprehensible as it certainly is," continues our author,
"the brutal acts of a mob are sometimes the result of a just
sense of the ill consequences attending vice; and, although
almost every individual composing it is capable of performing
deeds which deserve punishment from the police, they cannot
collectively view long and deliberate offences against the laws
of propriety, without assuming the right of reforming them.
'The Loyal and Impartial Mercury' of Sept. 1, 1682, has this
paragraph:--'On Saturday last, about 500 apprentices, and such
like, being got together in Smithfield, went into Lincoln's Inn
Fields, where they drew up, and marching into Whetstone Park,
fell upon the lewd houses there, where, having broken open the
doors, they entered, and made great spoil of the goods; of
which the constables and watchmen having notice, and not
finding themselves strong enough to quell the tumult, procured
a party of the King's guards who dispersed them, and took
eleven, who were committed to New Prison; yet on Sunday night
they came again, and made worse havoc than before, breaking
down all the doors and windows, and cutting the featherbeds and
goods in pieces.' Another newspaper explains the origin of the
riot by saying, 'that a countryman who had been decoyed into
one of the houses alluded to, and robbed, lodged a formal and
public complaint against them to those he found willing to
listen to him in Smithfield, and thus raised the
ferment.'"[218]

In the "State Poems" is a doggrel set of verses on a tragical
circumstance occasioned by a frolic of three of Charles's natural sons
in this place. It is entitled "On the three Dukes killing the Beadle
on Sunday morning, Feb. the 26th, 1671." A great sensation was made by
this circumstance, which was naturally enough regarded as a signal
instance of the consequences of Charles's mode of life. Our Grub
Street writer selected his title well--the "Dukes," the "Beadle," and
the "Sunday." His first four lines might have been put into Martinus
Scriblerus, as a specimen of the Newgate style.

"Near Holborn lies a park of great renown,
The place, I do suppose, is not unknown:
For brevity's sake the name I shall not tell,
Because most genteel readers know it well."

The three Dukes pick a quarrel with one poor damsel, and "murder" was
cried.

"In came the watch, disturbed with sleep and ale,
By noises shrill, but they could not prevail
T' appease their Graces. Strait rose mortal jars,
Betwixt the night blackguard and silver stars;
Then fell the beadle by a ducal hand,
For daring to pronounce the saucy stand.

* * * * *

See what mishaps dare e'en invade Whitehall,
This silly fellow's death puts off the ball,
And disappoints the Queen, poor little chuck;
I warrant t'would have danced it like a duck.
The fiddlers, voices, entries, all the sport,
And the gay show put off, where the brisk court
Anticipates, in rich subsidy coats,
All that is got by necessary votes.
Yet shall Whitehall, the innocent, the good,
See these men dance, all daubed with lace and blood."[219]

The "subsidy coats" allude to Charles's raising money for his
profligate expenditure under pretence of the public service. The last
couplet would have done credit to a better satire.

As we are upon the subject of a neighbourhood to which they apply, we
shall proceed to give a few more extracts from Mr. Malcolm, highly
characteristic of the lower orders of desperadoes in Charles's reign.

"The various deceivers," he tells us, "who preyed upon the
public at this time were exposed in a little filthy work called
the 'Canting Academy,' which went through more than one edition
(the second is dated 1674). I shall select from it enough to
show the variety of villany practised under their various
names. The _Ruffler_ was a wretch who assumed the character of
a maimed soldier, and begged from the claims of Naseby,
Edgehill, Newbury, and Marston Moor. Those who were stationed
in the city of London were generally found in Lincoln's Inn
Fields and Covent Garden; and their prey was people of fashion,
whose coaches were attacked boldly; and if denied, their owners
were told, ''Tis a sad thing that an old crippled cavalier
should be suffered to beg for a maintenance, and a young
cavalier that had never heard the whistle of a bullet should
ride in his coach.'

"There were people called _Anglers_, from the nature of their
method of depredating, which was thus.--They had a rod or
stick, with an iron hook affixed: this they introduced through
a window, or any other aperture, where plunder might be
procured, and helped themselves at pleasure; the day was
occupied by them in the character of beggars, when they made
their observations for the angling of the night.

"_Wild Rogues_ were the offspring of thieves and beggars, who
received the rudiments of the art even before they left their
mothers' backs: "To go into churches and great crowds, and to
_nim_ golden buttons off men's cloaks; and being very little
are shown how to creep into cellar windows, or other small
entrances, and in the night to convey out thereat whatever they
can find to the thievish receivers, who wait without for that
purpose; and sometimes do open the door to let in such who have
designed to rob the house; if taken, the tenderness of their
age makes an apology or an excuse for their fault, and so are
let alone to be hanged at riper years.'

"_Palliards_ or _Clapperdogeons_, were those women who sat and
reclined in the streets, with their own borrowed or stolen
children hanging about them, crying through cold, pinching, or
real disease, who begged relief as widows, and, in the name of
their fatherless children, gaining by this artifice, 'a great
deal of money, whilst her comrogue lies begging in the fields,
with climes or artificial sores.' The way they commonly take to
make them is by sperewort or arsenic, which will draw blisters;
or they take unslacked lime and soap, mingled with the rust of
old iron: these being well tempered together, and spread thick
upon two pieces of leather, they apply to the leg, binding it
thereunto very hard, which in a very little time would fret the
skin so that the flesh would appear all raw, &c. &c.

"_Fraters_ were impostors who went through the country with
forged patents for briefs, and thus diverted charity from its
proper direction.

"_Abram men_ were fellows whose occupations seem to have been
forgotten. They are described in the 'Canting Academy' in these
words:--'Abram men are otherwise called Tom of Bedlams; they
are very strangely and antickly garbed, with several coloured
ribands or tape in their hats, it may be instead of a feather,
a fox tail hanging down, a long stick with ribands streaming,
and the like; yet for all their seeming madness they have wit
enough to steal as they go.'[220]

"The _Whip-Jacks_ have left us a specimen of their fraternity.
They were counterfeit mariners, whose conversations were
plentifully embellished with sea-terms, and falsehoods of their
danger in the exercise of their profession. Instead of securing
their arms and legs close to their bodies, and wrapping them in
bandages (as the modern _whip-jack_ is in the habit of doing,
to excite compassion for the loss of limbs and severe wounds),
the _ancients_ merely pretended they had lost their all by
shipwreck, and were reduced to beg their way to a sea-port, if
in the country; or to some remote one, if in London.

"_Mumpers._--The persons thus termed are described as being of
both sexes: they were not solicitors for food, but money and
cloathes. 'The male mumper, in the times of the late
usurpation, was clothed in an old torn cassock, begirt with a
girdle, with a black cap, and a white one peeping out
underneath.' With a formal and studied countenance he stole up
to a gentleman, and whispered him softly in the ear, that he
was a poor sequestered parson, with a wife and many children.
At other times, they would assume the habit of a decayed
gentleman, and beg as if they had been ruined by their
attachment to the royal cause. Sometimes the mumper appeared
with an apron before him, and a cap on his head, and begs in
the nature of a broken tradesman, who, having been a long time
sick, hath spent all his remaining stock, and so weak he cannot
work! The females of this class of miscreants generally
attacked the ladies, and in a manner suited to make an
impression on their finer feelings.

"_Domerars_ are such as counterfeit themselves dumb, and have a
notable art to roll their tongues up into the roof of their
mouth, that you would verily believe their tongues were cut
out; and, to make you have a stronger belief thereof, they will
gape and show you where it was done, clapping in a sharp stick,
and, touching the tongue, make it bleed--and then the ignorant
dispute it no further.'

"_Patricos_ are the strolling priests: every hedge is their
parish, and every wandering rogue their parishioner. The
service, he saith, is the marrying of couples, without the
Gospel, or Book of Common Prayer, the solemnity whereof is
thus: the parties to be married find out a dead horse, or any
other beast, and standing the one on the one side and the other
on the other, the patrico bids them to live together till death
them part; and, so shaking hands, the wedding is ended.'"[221]

[Illustration: OLD THEATRE IN PORTUGAL STREET.]

On the southern side of Lincoln's Inn Fields, at the back of Portugal
Row, is Portugal Street, formerly containing a theatre, as celebrated
as Covent Garden or Drury Lane is now. This was the Duke's Theatre, so
called from the Duke of York, afterwards James II., who, at the
Restoration, patronised one of the principal companies of players, as
his brother Charles did the other. The latter was the Drury Lane
company. Readers of theatrical history are generally led to conclude
that there was only one theatre in the Lincoln's Inn quarter; but this
is a mistake. There were at least two successive houses in two
different places, though usually confounded under the title of "the
theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields." The first was in Gibbon's
tennis-court, in Vere Street, Clare Market, where the actors who had
played at the Red Bull opened their performances in the year of the
Restoration, under the direction of Killigrew, and with the title of
King's Company. These in 1663 removed to Drury Lane. The Duke's, or
Sir William Davenant's company, removed in 1662 from Salisbury Court
(see Fleet Street) to a new theatre "in Portugal Row," says Malone,
"_near_ Lincoln's Inn Fields."[222] Malone is a correct inquirer: so
that he makes us doubt whether the name of Portugal Row did not
formerly belong to Portugal Street. The latter is certainly meant, or
he would describe it as _in_ and not _near_ the Fields. Davenant's
company performed here till 1671, when they quitted it to return to
the renovated theatre in Salisbury Court, under the management of his
son, Charles Davenant (the father being dead), and the famous
Betterton, who had been Sir William's first actor. The two companies
afterwards came together at Drury Lane, but again fell apart; and in
1695 the Duke's company (if its altered composition could still
warrant the name), with Betterton remaining at its head, and Congreve
for a partner, again opened "the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields,"
which was rebuilt for the purpose, and is described as being in "the
Tennis-court." Was this the tennis-court theatre in Vere Street? or
were there two tennis-courts, one in Vere Street, and one in Lincoln's
Inn Fields? We confess ourselves, after a diligent examination, unable
to determine. At all events, the latest theatre of which we hear in
Lincoln's Inn Fields, was not in Vere Street. It stood in Portugal
Street, on the east end of the present burial ground, just at the back
of Surgeons' College, and was subsequently the china warehouse of
Messrs. Spode and Copeland.[223] This theatre, which was built of red
brick, and had a front facing the market, is the one generally meant
by the theatre in Lincoln's Inn Fields. It finally became celebrated
for the harlequinades of Rich; but, on his removal to Covent Garden,
was deserted, and, after a short re-opening by Gifford from Goodman's
Fields, finally ceased to be a theatre about the year 1737. Since that
period Covent Garden and Drury Lane playhouses have had this part of
the town to themselves.

It is conjectured, that the first appearance of an actress on the
English stage, to the scandal of the Puritans, and with many apologies
for the "indecorum" of giving up the performances of female characters
by boys, took place in the theatre in Vere Street, on Saturday, Dec.
8, 1660. The part first performed was certainly that of Desdemona; a
very fit one to introduce the claims of the sex.[224]

Mr. Malone has given us the prologue written for this occasion by
Thomas Jordan; which, as it shows the "sensation" that was made, sets
us in a lively manner in the situation of the spectators, and gives a
curious account of some of the male actors of gentle womanhood, we
shall here repeat. It is entitled "A Prologue, to introduce the first
Woman that came to act on the Stage, in the Tragedy called the Moor of
Venice:"

"I came unknown to any of the rest,
To tell the news; I saw the lady drest:
The woman plays to-day; mistake me not,
No man in gown, or page in petticoat:
A woman to my knowledge, yet I can't,
If I should die, make affidavit on't.
Do you not twitter, gentlemen? I know
You will be censuring: do it fairly, though;
'Tis possible a virtuous woman may
Abhor all sorts of looseness, and yet play;
Play on the stage--where all eyes are upon her:
Shall we count that a crime France counts an honour?
In other kingdoms husbands safely trust 'em;
The difference lies only in the custom.
And let it be our custom, I advise;
I'm sure this custom's better than th' excise,
And may procure _us_ custom: hearts of flint
Will melt in passion, when a woman's in't.
But, gentlemen, you that as judges sit
In the Star-chamber of the house--the pit,
Have modest thoughts of her; pray, do not run
To give her visits when the play is done,
With '_damn me, your most humble servant, lady_;'
She knows these things as well as you, it may be;
Not a bit there, dear gallants, she doth know
Her own deserts,--and your temptations too.
But to the point:--in this reforming age
We have intents to civilize the stage.
Our women are defective, and so sized,
You'd think they were some of the guard disguised;
For to speak truth, men act, that are between
Forty and fifty, wenches of fifteen;
With bone so large, and nerve so incompliant,
When you call Desdemona, enter giant.
We shall purge everything that is unclean,
Lascivious, scurrilous, impious, or obscene;
And when we've put all things in this fair way,
Barebones himself may come to see a play."[225]

The epilogue, "which consists of but twelve lines, is in the same
strain of apology."

"And how do you like her; Come, what is't ye drive at?
She's the same thing in public as in private,
As far from being what you call a whore,
As Desdemona injured by the Moor;
Then he that censures her in such a case,
Hath a soul blacker than Othello's face.
But, ladies, what think _you_? for if you tax
Her freedom with dishonour to your sex,
She means to act no more, and this shall be
No other play, but her own tragedy.
She will submit to none but your commands,
And take commission only from your hands."[226]

From the nature of this epilogue, and the permission accorded by the
ladies, the women actors appear to have met with all the success they
could wish; yet a prologue to the second part of Davenant's "Siege of
Rhodes," acted in April, 1662, shows us that the matter was still
considered a delicate one upwards of a year afterwards.

"Hope little from our poet's withered wit,
From infant players scarce grown puppets yet;
Hope from our women less, whose bashful fear
Wondered to see me dare to enter here:
Each took her leave, and wished my danger past,
And though I came back safe and undisgraced,
Yet when they spy the wits here, then I doubt
No amazon can make them venture out,
Though I advised them not to fear you much,
For I presume not half of you are such."[227]

It was in the Theatre at Vere Street that Pepys first saw a woman on
the stage.[228] One of the earliest female performers mentioned by him
was an actress whose name is not ascertained, but who attained an
unfortunate celebrity in the part of Roxana in the "Siege of Rhodes."
She was seduced by Aubery de Vere, the last Earl of Oxford of that
name, under the guise of a private marriage--a species of villany
which made a great figure in works of fiction up to a late period. The
story is "got up" in detail by Madame Dunois, in her "History of the
Court of Charles II.;"[229] but it is told with more brevity in
Grammont; and as the latter, though apocryphal enough, pretends to say
nothing on the subject in which he is not borne out by other writers,
his lively account may be laid before the reader.

"The Earl of Oxford," says one of his heroines, "fell in love
with a handsome, graceful actress, belonging to the Duke's
theatre, who performed to perfection, particularly the part of
Roxana in a very fashionable new play; insomuch that she ever
after retained that name. This creature being both very
virtuous and very modest, or, if you please, wonderfully
obstinate, proudly rejected the presents and addresses of the
Earl of Oxford. The resistance inflamed his passion; he had
recourse to invectives and even spells; but all in vain. This
disappointment had such an effect upon him, that he could
neither eat nor drink; this did not signify to him; but his
passion at length became so violent, that he could neither play
nor smoke. In this extremity, Love had recourse to Hymen; the
Earl of Oxford, one of the first peers of the realm, is, you
know, a very handsome man: he is of the order of the Garter,
which greatly adds to an air naturally noble. In short, from
his outward appearance, you would suppose he was really
possessed of some sense; but as soon as ever you hear him
speak, you are perfectly convinced to the contrary. This
passionate lover presented her with a promise of marriage, in
due form, signed with his own hand; she would not, however,
rely upon this; but the next day she thought there could be no
danger, when the Earl himself came to her lodgings attended by
a clergyman, and another man for a witness; the marriage was
accordingly solemnized with all due ceremonies, in the presence
of one of her fellow-players, who attended as a witness on her
part. You will suppose, perhaps, that the new countess had
nothing to do but to appear at court according to her rank, and
to display the earl's arms upon her carriage. This was far from
being the case. When examination was made concerning the
marriage, it was found to be a mere deception: it appeared that
the pretended priest was one of my lord's trumpeters, and the
witness his kettle-drummer. The parson and his companion never
appeared after the ceremony was over; and as for the other
witness, he endeavoured to persuade her that the Sultana Roxana
might have supposed, in some part or other of a play, that she
was really married. It was all to no purpose that the poor
creature claimed the protection of the laws of God and man;
both which were violated and abused, as well as herself, by
this infamous imposition: in vain did she throw herself at the
king's feet to demand justice; she had only to rise up again
without redress; and happy might she think herself to receive
an annuity of one thousand crowns, and to resume the name of
Roxana, instead of Countess of Oxford."[230]

This scoundrel Earl (whose alleged want of sense is extremely
probable, and was his best excuse, as well as the worst thing to say
for the lady), died full of years and honours, and was buried in
Westminster Abbey.

In 1664, Mr. Pepys witnessed a scene in the theatre in Portugal
Street, which shows the extremity to which the speculation of managers
and the curiosity of the British public can go. This was no other than
the appearance of an imposter, called the German Princess, in the part
of her own character, after having been tried for it at the Old
Bailey. She was tried for bigamy, and acquitted; but she had inveigled
a young citizen into marriage under pretence of being a German
Princess, the citizen pretending at the same time to be a nobleman.
The impudence of the thing was completed by the badness of her
performance. Granger, however, who appears to have read a vindication
of her, which she published, thinks she had great natural abilities.

The following is curious:--4th (Feb. 1666-7).

"Soon as dined," says Pepys, "my wife and I out to the Duke's
playhouse, and there saw Heraclius, an excellent play, to my
extraordinary content; and the more from the house being very
full, and great company; among others Mrs. Stuart,[231] very
fine, with her locks done up in puffes, as my wife calls them:
and several other great ladies had their hair so, though I do
not like it, but my wife do mightily; but it is only because
she sees it is the fashion. Here I saw my Lord Rochester[232]
and his lady, Mrs. Mallet, who hath after all this ado married
him; and, as I hear some say in the pit, it is a great act of
charity, for he hath no estate. But it was pleasant to see how
everybody rose up when my Lord John Butler, the Duke of
Ormond's son, came into the pit, towards the end of the play,
who was a servant to Mrs. Mallett, and now smiled upon her, and
she on him."[233]

One little thinks, now-a-days, in turning into Portugal Street, that
all the fashionable world, with the wits and poets, once thronged into
that poor-looking thoroughfare, with its bailiffs at one end, and its
butchers at the other. The difference, however, between beaux and
butchers was not so great at that time as it became afterwards; though
none arrogated the praise of high breeding more than the fine
gentlemen of Charles II. Next year Pepys speaks of a fray at this
house between Harry Killigrew and the Duke of Buckingham, in which the
latter beat him, and took away his sword. Another time, according to
his account, Rochester beat Tom Killigrew, at the Dutch Ambassador's,
and in the King's presence. Blows from people of rank do not appear to
have been resented as they would be now.

In the following passage we have an author's first night before us,
and that author the gallant Etherege, with dukes and wits about him in
the pit. He makes, however, a very different figure in our eyes from
what we commonly conceive of him, for he is unsuccessful and
complaining.

"My wife," says Pepys, "being gone before (6th Feb. 1667-8), I
to the Duke of York's playhouse, where a new play of
Etheridge's, called 'She would if she could;' and, though I was
there by two o'clock, there was one thousand people put back
that could not have room in the pit; and I at last, because my
wife was there, made shift to get into the 18_d._ box, and
there saw. But Lord! how full was the house, and how silly the
play, there being nothing in the world good in it, and few
people pleased in it. The King was there; but I sat mightily
behind, and could see but little, and hear not at all. The play
being done, I into the pit to look for my wife, it being dark
and raining; but could not find her, and so staid, going
between the two doors and through the pit, an hour and a half,
I think, after the play was done, the people staying there till
the rain was over, and to talk one with another. And among the
rest here was the Duke of Buckingham to-day openly sat in the
pit; and there I found him with my Lord Buckhurst, and Sedley,
and Etheridge the poet; the last of whom I did hear mightily
find fault with the actors, that they were out of humour and
had not their parts perfect, and that Harris did do nothing,
nor could so much as sing a catch in it; and so was mightily
concerned; while all the rest did through the whole pit blame
the play as a silly, dull thing, though there was something
very roguish and witty; but the design of the play and end
mighty insipid. At last I did find my wife."

The ensuing is a specimen of the manners of one of the fine ladies:-

"5th (May, 1668), Creed and I to the Duke of York's playhouse;
and there, coming late, up to the balcony-box, where we find my
Lady Castlemaine (the King's mistress) and several great
ladies; and there we sat with them, and I saw the
'Impertinents' once more than yesterday! and I for that reason
like it, I find, the better too. By Sir Positive At-all I
understand is meant Sir Robert Howard. My lady pretty well
pleased with it; but here I sat close to her fine woman,
Wilson, who indeed is very handsome, but they say with child by
the King. I asked, and she told me this was the first time her
lady had seen it, I having a mind to say something to her. One
thing of familiarity I observed in my Lady Castlemaine; she
called to one of her women, another that sat by this, for a
little patch off of her face, and put it into her mouth and
wetted it, and so clapped it upon her own by the side of her
mouth; I suppose she feeling a pimple rising there."[234]

More manners of this gallant reign. Pepys says he went to see a woman
with a great bushy beard, "which pleased him mightily."

"Thence to the Duke's playhouse, and saw 'Macbeth.' The King
and Court there; and we sat just under them and my Lady
Castlemaine, and close to a woman that comes into the pit, a
kind of a loose gossip, that pretends to be like her, and is so
something. And my wife, by my troth, appeared, I think, as
pretty as any of them; I never thought so much before; and so
did Talbot and W. Hewer, as they said, I heard, to one another.
The King and Duke of York minded me, and smiled upon me, at the
handsome woman near me; but it vexed me to see Moll Davies, in
the box over the King and my Lady Castlemaine, look down upon
the King and he up to her; and so did my Lady Castlemaine once
to see who it was; but when she saw Moll Davies, she looked
like fire; which troubled me."[235]

Modes of thinking. Mr. Pepys is of opinion that the "Tempest," which
he saw at this house, is an "innocent" play; "no great wit, but yet
good above ordinary plays." This appears to have been his general
opinion of Shakspeare. That year he says,

"After dinner to the Duke of York's playhouse, and there saw
'Sir Martin Mar-all,' which I have seen so often, and yet am
mightily pleased with it, and think it mighty witty, and the
fullest of proper matter for mirth that was ever writ; and I do
clearly see that they do improve in their acting of it. Here a
mighty company of citizens, 'prentices, and others; and it
makes me observe, that when I began first to be able to bestow
a play on myself, I do not remember that I saw so many by half
of the ordinary 'prentices and mean people in the pit, at 2_s._
6_d._ a piece, as now; I going for several years no higher than
the 12_d._ and then the 18_d._ places, though I strained hard
to go in them when I did: so much the vanity and prodigality of
the age is to be observed in this particular."[236]

What he calls the vanity of the age, was one of the best signs of its
advancement. Plays, at the time above mentioned, began as early as
they did before the civil wars; and when they were over, people rode
out in their coaches to take the air. Our author, when the King
visited the theatre, speaks of being there by one o'clock to get a
seat. Kynaston, a favourite actor at this house, used to be taken out
airing by the ladies, in the dress which he wore as a female. Cibber
mentions this particular among others in an entertaining account of
Kynaston, whom the ladies do not appear to have spoiled:--

"Though women," he says, "were not admitted to the stage till
the return of King Charles, yet it could not be so suddenly
supplied with them, but that there was still a necessity, for
some time, to put the handsomest young men into petticoats,
which Kynaston was then said to have worn with success;
particularly in the part of Evadne, in the 'Maid's Tragedy,'
which I have heard him speak of; and which calls to my mind a
ridiculous distress that arose from these sort of shifts, which
the stage was then put to. The King, coming a little before his
usual time to a tragedy, found the actors not ready to begin,
when his Majesty, not choosing to have as much patience as his
good subjects, sent to them to know the meaning of it; upon
which the master of the company came to the box, and rightly
judging that the best excuse for their default would be the
true one, fairly told his Majesty that the queen was not
_shaved_ yet: the King, whose good humour loved to laugh at a
jest as well as to make one, accepted the excuse, which served
to divert him till the male queen could be effeminated. In a
word, Kynaston, at that time, was so beautiful a youth, that
the ladies of quality prided themselves in taking him with them
in their coaches to Hyde Park in his theatrical habit, after
the play; which in those days they might have sufficient time
to do, because plays then were used to begin at four o'clock:
the hour that people of the same rank are now going to dinner.
Of this truth I had the curiosity to inquire, and had it
confirmed from his own mouth, in his advanced age: and, indeed,
to the last of him, his handsomeness was very little abated;
even at past sixty his teeth were sound, white and even, as one
would wish to see in a reigning toast of twenty. He had
something of a formal gravity in his mien, which was attributed
to the stately step he had been so early confined to, in a
female decency. But even that, in characters of superiority,
had its proper graces; it misbecame him not in the part of
Leon, in Fletcher's 'Rule a Wife,' &c., which he executed with
a determined manliness, and honest authority, well worth the
best actor's imitation. He had a piercing eye, and, in
characters of heroic life, a quick imperious vivacity in his
tone of voice, that painted the tyrant truly terrible. There
were two plays of Dryden in which he shone with uncommon
lustre; in 'Aurengzebe' he played Morat, and in 'Don
Sebastian,' Muley Moloch; in both these parts he had a fierce,
lion-like majesty in his port and utterance, that gave the
spectator a kind of trembling admiration."[237]

Pepys does not speak much of Betterton, the chief performer at the
Portugal-street playhouse. The reason must be, either that Betterton
played chiefly in tragedy, or that his comic talent (which is
probable) was not equal to his tragic. He was the great actor of his
time, as Garrick was of the last century, and Mr. Kean lately. His
most admired character appears to have been that of Hamlet; though
Steele, in a paper to his memory in the '_Tatler_,' seems to have been
most impressed by his performance of Othello. If an actor's Othello is
really fine, perhaps it must be his best part, as in Mr. Kean's
instance, owing to the nature of the character. Hamlet speaks to the
reflecting part of us; Othello to the sensitive. We will not present
the reader with extracts from Cibber which contain little respecting
this actor that might not be said of others; only it may be observed,
that in the better parts of the performances of the old players we
have something perhaps handed down to us of the manner of these
ancient ornaments of the stage. The liveliest idea remaining of the
genius of Betterton is furnished by an anecdote of Booth, who, when he
first performed the Ghost to Betterton's Hamlet, is said to have been
so astonished at the other's look of surprise, that for some moments
he was unable to speak. Betterton died old and poor, rather, it should
seem, from misfortune than imprudence. The actors in those times,
though much admired, were not rewarded as they have been since; nor
received anything like the modern salaries. His death is said to have
been hastened by tampering with the gout, in order to perform on his
benefit night. His person was rather manly than graceful. He was a
good-natured man; and, like Molière, would perform when he was ill,
rather than hinder the profits of his brother actors.[238] At Caen
Wood, Hampstead, the seat of Lord Mansfield, there is a portrait of
him by Pope, who was an amateur in painting. They became acquainted
when the latter was young, and the actor old; and took such a liking
to one another, that Pope is supposed to have had a hand in a volume
of pieces from 'Chaucer,' purporting to have been modernised by
Betterton.

Another celebrated actor in Portugal Street during the reign of
Charles II. was Nokes, who appears, from Cibber's account of him to
have been something between Liston and Munden. By a line in one of
Dryden's Epistles, the town seem to have thought a comedy deficient in
which he did not make his appearance. The poet says to Southern on his
play of the '_Wives' Excuse_'--

"The hearers may for want of Nokes repine,
But rest secure, the readers will be thine."

Nokes was one of those actors who create a roar the moment they are
seen, and make people ache with laughter.

These were among the older performers in Portugal Street. When
Congreve took a share in the theatre, some others had joined it, and
become celebrated, two of whom, Mr. Mountford and Mrs. Bracegirdle, we
have already described. Another two, whose names remain familiar with
posterity, are Mrs. Mountford and Mrs. Barry. Mrs. Mountford was a
capital stage coquette; besides being able to act male coxcombs and
country dowdies. Mrs. Barry was a fine tragedian, both of the heroic
and tender cast. Dryden pronounced her the best actress he had seen.
It is said she was a mistress of Lord Rochester's when young; that it
was to her his love-letters were addressed; and that she owed her
celebrity to his instructions. She was not handsome, and her mouth was
a little awry, but her countenance was very expressive. This is the
actress, who, in the delirium of her last moments, is said to have
alluded in an extempore blank verse to a manoeuvre played by Queen
Anne's ministry some time before:--

"Ha! ha! and so they make us lords by dozens!"

Cibber's sketch of Mrs. Mountford, in the character of Melantha is the
masterpiece of his book, and presents a portrait sufficiently distinct
to be extracted.

"Melantha," says our lively critic (himself a coxcomb of the
first water), "is as finished an impertinent as ever fluttered
in a drawing-room, and seems to contain the most complete
system of female foppery that could possibly be crowded into
the tortured form of a fine lady. Her language, dress, motion,
manners, soul and body, are in a continual hurry to do
something more than is necessary or commendable. And though I
doubt it will be a vain labour to offer you a just likeness of
Mrs. Mountford's action, yet the fantastic impression is still
so strong in my memory, that I cannot help saying something,
though fantastically, about it. The first ridiculous airs that
break from her are upon a gallant, never seen before, who
delivers her a letter from her father, recommending him to her
good graces, as an honourable lover. Here now, one would think,
she might naturally show a little of the sex's decent reserve,
though never so slightly covered. No, sir, not a tittle of it;
modesty is the virtue of a poor-souled country gentlewoman; she
is too much a court lady to be under so vulgar a confusion; she
reads the letter, therefore, with a careless dropping lip, and
an erected brow, humming it hastily over, as if she were
impatient to outgo her father's commands, by making a complete
conquest of him at once; and that the letter might not
embarrass her attack, crack! she scrambles it at once into her
palm, and pours upon him her whole artillery of airs, eyes, and
motion; down goes her dainty diving body to the ground, as if
she were sinking under the conscious load of her own
attractions; then launches into a flood of fine language and
compliment, still playing her chest forward in fifty falls and
risings, like a swan upon waving water; and to complete her
impertinence, she is so rapidly fond of her own wit, that she
will not give her lover leave to praise it: silent assenting
bows, and vain endeavours to speak, are all the share of the
conversation he is admitted to, which, at last, he is relieved
from, by her engagements to half-a-score visits, which she
swims from him to make, with a promise to return in a
twinkling."[239]

Three of Congreve's plays, '_Love for Love_,' the '_Mourning Bride_,'
and the '_Way of the World_,' came out at the theatre in Portugal
Street. In the first paper of the '_Tatler_,' Steele gives a criticism
on the performance of '_Love for Love_,' which contains one or two
curious points of information respecting the customs of play-goers in
the reign of Anne. The "article" begins like that of a modern
newspaper.

"On Thursday last was acted, for the benefit of Mr. Betterton,
the celebrated comedy called 'Love for Love.' Those excellent
players, Mrs. Barry, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and Mr. Dogget, though
not at present concerned in the house, acted on that occasion.
There has not been known so great a concourse of persons of
distinction as at that time: the stage itself was covered with
gentlemen and ladies; and when the curtain was drawn, it
discovered even there a very splendid audience. This unusual
encouragement, which was given to a play for the advantage of
so great an actor, gives an undeniable instance that the true
relish for manly entertainments and rational pleasures is not
wholly lost. All the parts were acted to perfection: the actors
were careful of their carriage, and no one was guilty of the
affectation to insert witticism of his own; but a due respect
was had to the audience for encouraging this accomplished
player. It is not now doubted but plays will revive, and take
their usual course in the opinion of persons of wit and merit,
notwithstanding their late apostacy in favour of dress and
sound. The place is very much altered since Mr. Dryden
frequented it; where you used to see songs, epigrams, and
satires, in the hands of every man you met, you have now only a
pack of cards; and instead of the cavils about the turn of the
expression, the elegance of the style, and the like, the
learned now dispute only about the truth of the game."

The last proprietor of this theatre was Rich, the famous harlequin,
who, having a poor company, unable to compete with Drury Lane,
introduced that love of show and spectacle which has ever since been
willing to forego the regular drama, however reproached by the
critics. Pope has hitched him into the 'Dunciad,' (book iii.), as one
of the ministers of Dulness.

"Immortal Rich! how calm he sits at ease,
'Midst snows of paper, and fierce hail of pease;
And proud his mistress' order to perform,
Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."

He had the merit, however, of producing the 'Beggar's Opera,' which
was acted scores of nights together all over England, and finally
rendered its heroine a duchess, and is said to have made "Gay Rich,
and Rich Gay." Rich had no education. He was in the habit, when
conversing, of saying mister, instead of sir.

One of Rich's actors was Quin, of whom more by and by. Garrick was
never at this theatre. It closed a little before his time, and was
never reopened. The vulgar attributed its desertion to a supernumerary
devil, who made his appearance in the pantomine of '_Harlequin and Dr.
Faustus_,' and took his exit through the roof instead of the door;
which so frightened the manager that he had not the courage to open
the theatre again. The only memorial now remaining in Portugal Street
of theatres and play-goers, and all their lively generation, is a
table set up in the burial-ground to the memory of the famous Joe
Miller, author of so many posthumous good things. He was an actor in
Congreve's time, and has the reputation of having been an honest, as
well as a pleasant fellow. The jest-book, which passes for his
publication, was collected by a companion of his, who is thought to
have owed to him nothing but his name. It is but reasonable to
conclude, however, that many of the jests were of the comedian's
relating.

In Carey Street, when she was first married, lived Mrs. Chapone. She
afterwards resided in Arundel Street. When we have no greater names to
mention, we think it our duty to avail ourselves of those of any
intelligent and amiable persons who are really worth mention, though
they may not be of the first order. They will be welcome to the
inhabitants of the street, and perhaps serve to throw a grace over
neighbourhoods that want it. It is better to think of Mrs. Chapone in
going along Carey Street, than of bailiffs and lock-up houses--unless,
indeed the latter should make us zealous to reform the debtor and
creditor laws; and even then we might be glad of the refreshment. Mrs.
Chapone was one of the disciples of Richardson, and is well known for
her '_Letters on the Improvement of the Mind_.' Ten months after her
marriage she lost her husband, to whom she was greatly attached, and
then she left Carey Street; so that the pleasantest part of her life
was probably spent there.

Clare Market stands on a spot formerly called Clement's Inn Fields,
the property of the Earls of Clare, one of whom built the market about
the year 1657. He is said to have lived close by, in a style of
magnificence. The names of the family, Denzel, Holles, &c., are
retained in some of the neighbouring streets.

Clare Market became notorious in the time of Pope, for the
extravagance of Orator Henley, a clever, but irregular-minded man, who
overrated himself, and became, it may be said, mad with impudence.
Some describe his Oratory as being in the Market, others in Duke
Street, which is the street going out of the western side of Lincoln's
Inn Square through the archway. Another writer says it was the old
theatre of Sir William Davenant, in Gibbon's Tennis Court, of which we
have just spoken, and which is said to have been in Vere Street. Most
likely all these accounts are to be reconciled. A tenement is often
described as existing in a certain street, when the street presents
nothing but a passage to it; and we take Henley's Oratory to have been
the old theatre, with a passage to it from the market, from Vere
Street, and from Duke Street. Having settled this magnificent point,
we proceed with the no less magnificent orator.

He was a native of Melton Mowbray, in the county of Leicester, the son
of a clergyman, and after going to St. John's College, Cambridge,
returned to his native place, and became master of the school there.

"Feeling, or fancying," says the author of the 'Lounger's
Common-Place Book,' "that a genius like his ought not to be
buried in so obscure a situation, having been long convinced
that many gross errors and impostures prevailed in the various
institutions and establishments of mankind; being also
ambitious of restoring ancient eloquence, but as his enemies
asserted, to avoid the scandalous embarrassments of illicit
love, he repaired to the metropolis, and for a short time
performed clerical functions at St. John's Chapel, near Bedford
Row, with the prospect of succeeding to the lectureship of an
adjoining parish (Bloomsbury), which soon became vacant.

"Several candidates offering for this situation, a warm contest
ensued; probation sermons were preached; and Henley's
predominating vanity made him expect an easy victory.

"We may guess at his disappointment, when this disciple of
Demosthenes and Cicero was informed that the congregation had
no objection to his language or his doctrine, but that he threw
himself about too much in the pulpit, and that another person
was chosen.

"Losing his temper as well as his election, he rushed into a
room where the principal parishioners were assembled, and thus
addressed them, in all the vehemence of outrageous passion:--

"'Blockheads! are _you_ qualified to judge of the degree of
action necessary for a preacher of God's word? Were you able to
read, or had you sufficient sense, you sorry knaves, to
understand the renowned orator of antiquity, he would tell you,
almost the only requisite of a public speaker was action,
action, action.

"'But I despise and defy you; _provoco ad populum_; the public
shall decide between us.' He then hastily retired, and, to
vindicate his injured fame, published the probationary
discourse he had delivered.

"Thus disappointed in the regular routine of his profession, he
became a quack divine; for this character he was eminently
qualified, possessing a strong voice, fluent language, an
imposing magisterial air, and a countenance, which no violation
of propriety, reproach, or self-correction, was ever known to
embarrass or discompose.

"He immediately advertised that he should hold forth publicly,
two days in the week, and hired for this purpose, a large room
in or near Newport Market, which he called the Oratory; but
previous to the commencement of his 'academical discourses,' he
chose to consult Mr. Whiston, a learned clergyman of
considerable mathematical and astronomical research, but who
had rendered himself remarkable by eccentric simplicity of
heart, and the whimsical heterodoxy of his creed.

"In a letter to this gentleman he desired to be informed,
whether he should incur any legal penalties by officiating as a
separatist from the Church of England. Mr. Whiston did not
encourage Henley's project, and a correspondence took place,
which, ending in virulence and ill-language, produced, a few
years after, the following letter:--

"'To Mr. William Whiston,

'Take notice, that I give you warning not to enter my room in
Newport Market, at your peril.

'JOHN HENLEY.'"[240]

Henley succeeded in his speculation, by lecturing, in the most
important manner, on all sorts of subjects, from the origin of evil
down to a shoe. He also published a variety of pamphlets, and a
periodical farrago called the 'Hyp Doctor,' for which he is said to
have had pay from Sir Robert Walpole; and as his popularity rapidly
increased in consequence of his addressing himself to uneducated
understandings, he removed from his Oratory in Newport Market to the
more capacious room in Clare Market; for he seems to have had a
natural propensity to the society of butchers, and they were fond of
his trenchant style. He sometimes threatened his enemies with them.
Pope, in answering the assertions of those who charged him with
depriving people of their bread, asks whether Colley Cibber had not
"still his lord," and Henley his butchers.

"And has not Colley still his lord----
His butchers Henley, his freemasons Moore."

Pope had been attacked by him. The poet speaks of him again, several
times, in the 'Dunciad:'

"Imbrown'd with native bronze, lo! Henley stands,
Tuning his voice, and balancing his hands.
How fluent nonsense trickles from his tongue!
How sweet the periods, neither said nor sung!
Still break the benches, Henley! with thy strain,
While Sherlock, Hare, and Gibson preach in vain.
O great restorer of the good old stage,
Preacher at once and zany of the age!
O worthy thou of Egypt's wise abodes,
A decent priest where monkeys were the gods."

Book iii., v. 199.

Pope says he had a "gilt tub," and insinuates that he sometimes got
drunk. Among the sleeping worthies in the 'Dunciad,'

"---- Henley lay inspired beside a sink,
And to mere mortals seemed a priest in drink."

A contemporary journalist, who says that the fame of Henley induced
him to be present at one of the lectures in Newport Market, describes
him as entering like a harlequin by a door behind the pulpit, and "at
one large leap jumping into it, and falling to work." "His notions,"
he says, "the orator beat into the audience with hands, arms, legs,
and head, as if people's understandings were to be courted and knocked
down with blows." The price of admission was a shilling. The following
are samples of Henley's extraordinary advertisements:--

"At the Oratory in Newport Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour
after ten, the sermon will be on the Witch of Endor. At
half-an-hour after five, the theological lecture will be on the
conversion and original of the Scottish nation, and of the
Picts and Caledonians; St. Andrew's relics and panegyric, and
the character and mission of the Apostles.

"On Wednesday, at six, or near the matter, take your chance,
will be a medley oration on the history, merits, and praise of
confusion, and of confounders, in the road and out of the way.

"On Friday, will be that on Dr. Faustus and Fortunatus, and
conjuration; after each, the Chimes of the Times, No. 23 and
24. N.B. Whenever the prices of the seats are occasionally
raised in the week days, notice will be given of it in the
prints. An account of the performances of the Oratory from the
1st of August is published, with the Discourse on Nonsense; and
if any bishop, clergyman, or other subject of his Majesty, or
the subject of any foreign prince or state, can at my years,
and in my circumstances and opportunities, without the least
assistance or any patron in the world, parallel the study,
choice, variety, and discharge of the said performances of the
Oratory by his own or any others, I will engage forthwith to
quit the said Oratory.

"J. HENLEY."[241]

In the bill of fare issued for Sunday, September 28, 1729, the most
extraordinary theological speculations are followed by a list of the
fashions in dress.

"At the Oratory, the corner of Lincoln's Inn Fields, near Clare
Market, to-morrow, at half-an-hour after ten: 1. The postil
will be on the turning of Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. 2.
The sermon will be on the necessary power and attractive force
which religion gives the spirit of a man with God and good
spirits.

"II. At five: 1. The postil will be on this point: in what
language our Saviour will speak the last sentence on mankind.
2. The lecture will be on Jesus Christ's sitting at the right
hand of God; where that is; the honours and lustre of his
inauguration; the learning, criticism, and piety of that
glorious article.

"The Monday's orations will shortly be resumed. On Wednesday,
the oration will be on the skits of the fashions, or a live
gallery of family pictures in all ages; ruffs, muffs, puffs
manifold; shoes, wedding-shoes, two-shoes, slip-shoes, heels,
clocks, pantofles, buskins, pantaloons, garters,
shoulder-knots, periwigs, head-dresses, modesties, tuckers,
farthingales, corkins, minikins, slammakins, ruffles, round
robins, tollets, fans, patches; dame, forsooth, madam, my lady,
the wit and beauty of my grannum; Winnifred, Joan, Bridget,
compared with our Winny, Jenny, and Biddy; fine ladies, and
pretty gentlewomen; being a general view of the _beau monde_,
from before Noah's flood to the year 29. On Friday will be
something better than last Tuesday. After each, a bob at the
times."[242]

Henley must have lectured a long while; for one of his "bobs at the
times" was occasioned by the dismissal of Dr. Cobden, a chaplain to
George II. in the year 1748, for preaching from the following text:
"Take away the wicked from before the king, and his throne shall be
established in righteousness." The wicked, we believe, meant the
king's mistresses. Next Saturday, Henley's advertisement appeared
with an epigram on this text for a motto:--

"Away with the wicked before the king,
And away with the wicked behind him;
His throne it will bless
With righteousness,
And we shall know where to find him."

This must be what the reviewers call a "favourable specimen."

"Sometimes," says the 'Lounger's Common-Place Book,' "one of
his old Bloomsbury friends caught the speaker's eye; on these
occasions, he could not resist the temptation to gratify his
vanity and resentment; after a short pause he would address the
unfortunate interloper in words to the following effect: 'You
see, sir, all mankind are not exactly of your opinion; there
are, you perceive, a few sensible people in the world, who
consider me as not wholly unqualified for the office I have
undertaken.'

"His abashed and confounded adversaries, thus attacked in a
public company, a most awkward species of distress, were glad
to retire precipitately, and sometimes were pushed out of the
room by Henley's partizans."[243]

It is probable that Henley's partizans were sometimes necessary to
secure him from the results of his imprudence, though his boldness
appears to have been on a par with it. He once attracted an audience
of shoemakers by announcing that he could teach them a method of
making shoes with wonderful celerity. The secret consisted in cutting
off the tops of old boots. His motto to the advertisement (_omne majus
continet in se minus_, the greater includes the less) had a pleasantry
in it, which makes the disappointment of the poor shoemakers doubly
ludicrous.

Henley, on one occasion, was for several days in the custody of the
King's messenger, having incurred the displeasure of the House of
Lords. "Lord Chesterfield, at that time secretary of state," says the
'Lounger,' "amused himself and his associates in office by sporting
with the hopes and fears of our restorer of ancient eloquence; during
his examination before the privy council, he requested permission to
sit, on account of a real, or, as it was supposed, pretended
rheumatism. Occasioning considerable merriment by his eccentric
answers, and sometimes by the oddity of his questions, he was observed
to join heartily and loudly in the laugh he had himself created.

"The Earl having expostulated with him on the impropriety of
ridiculing the exertions of his native country, at the moment
rebellion raged in the heart of the kingdom, Henley replied, 'I
thought there was no harm, my Lord, in _cracking a joke on a
red-herring_:' alluding to the worthy primate of that name, who
proposed, and, I believe, had actually commenced, arming and
arraying the clergy.

"Many disrespectful and unwarrantable expressions he had
applied to persons high in office, being mentioned to him, he
answered, without embarrassment, 'My Lords, I must live.'

"'I see no kind of reason for that,' said Lord Chesterfield,
'but many against it.' The council were pleased, and laughed at
the retort; the prisoner, somewhat irritated, observed, 'That
is a good thing, but it has been said before.'

"A few days after, being reprimanded for his improper conduct,
and cautioned against repeating it, he was dismissed, as an
impudent, but entertaining fellow."[244]

To complete the history of this man, he struck medals for his tickets,
with a star rising to the meridian; over it the motto, _Ad summa_ (to
the height), and below, _Inveniam viam aut faciam_ (I will find a way
or make one). As might be expected, he found no way at last, but that
of falling into contempt. He appears to have been too imprudent to
make money by his vagaries; and his manners, probably in consequence,
became gross and ferocious. He died in 1756. His person makes a
principal figure in two humorous plates, attributed to Hogarth.

Duke Street and Little Wild Street have had an inhabitant, as
illustrious afterwards as he was then obscure, in the person of
Benjamin Franklin, who, when he was first in England, worked in the
printing office of Mr. Watts, in the latter street, and lodged in the
former. When he came to England afterwards, as the agent of
Massachusetts, he went into this office, "and going up," says his
biography, "to a particular press [now in America], thus addressed the
two workmen: 'Come, my friends, we will drink together: it is now
forty years since I worked like you at this press, as a journeyman
printer.'" The same publication gives an account of him during this
period, which, besides containing more than one curious local
particular, is highly worth the attention of those who confound
stimulus with vigour.

"After the completion," says the writer, "of twelve months at
Palmer's" (in Bartholomew Close), "Franklin removed to the
printing-office of Mr. Watts, in Lincoln's Inn Fields, where he
continued during the whole of his subsequent stay in the
British metropolis. He found a contiguous lodging with a widow
lady in Duke Street, opposite the Catholic chapel, for which
he paid at his old rate of three and sixpence weekly, and
received no new impressions in favour of Christians from his
occasional notices of the Romish superstitions in this family
and neighbourhood. His landlady was a clergyman's daughter,
who, marrying a Catholic, had abjured Protestantism, and became
acquainted with several distinguished families of that
persuasion. She and Franklin found mutual pleasure in each
other's society. He kept good hours, and she was too lame
generally to leave her room; frugality was the habit of both;
half an anchovy, a small slice of bread and butter each, with
half a pint of ale between them, furnished commonly their
supper. So well pleased was the widow with her inmate, that
when Franklin talked of removing to another house, where he
could obtain the same accommodation as with her for two
shillings per week, she became generous in his favour, and
abated her charge for his room to that sum. He never paid her
more during the rest of his stay with her, which was the whole
time he continued in London. In the attic, was a maiden
Catholic lady, by choice and habit a nun. She had been sent
early in life to the Continent to take the veil; but the
climate disagreeing with her health, she returned home; devoted
her small estate to charitable purposes, with the exception of
about 12_l._ a-year; practised confession daily; and lived
entirely on water gruel. Her presence was thought a blessing to
the house, and several of its tenants in succession had charged
her no rent. Her room contained a mattress, table, crucifix,
and stool, as its only furniture. She admitted the occasional
visits of Franklin and her landlady; was cheerful, he says, and
healthful: and while her superstition moved his compassion, he
felt confirmed in his frugality by her example, and exhibits it
in his journal as another proof of the possibility of
supporting life, health, and cheerfulness on very small means.

"During the first weeks of his engagement with Mr. Watts, he
worked as a pressman, drinking only water, while his companions
had their five pints of porter each, per day; and his strength
was superior to theirs. He ridiculed the verbal logic of strong
beer being necessary for strong work; contending that the
strength yielded by malt liquor could only be in proportion to
the quantity of flour or actual grain dissolved in the liquor,
and that a pennyworth of bread must have more of this than a
pot of porter. The Water-American, as he was called, had some
converts to his system; his example, in this case, being
clearly better than his philosophy.[245]

"Franklin was born to be a revolutionist, in many good senses
of the word. He now proposed and carried several alterations in
the so-called _chapel_-laws of the printing office; resisted
what he thought the impositions, while he conciliated the
respect of his fellow-workmen; and always had cash and credit
in the neighbourhood at command, to which the sottish part of
his brethren were occasionally, and sometimes largely indebted.
He thus depicts this part of his prosperous life:--'On my
entrance, I worked at first as a pressman, conceiving that I
had need of bodily exercise, to which I had been accustomed in
America, where the printers work alternately, as compositors
and at the press. I drank nothing but water. The other workmen,
to the number of about fifty, were great drinkers of beer. I
carried occasionally a large form of letters in each hand, up
and down stairs, while the rest employed both hands to carry
one. They were surprised to see by this and many other
examples, that the _American aquatic_, as they used to call me,
was stronger than those that drank porter. The beer-boy had
sufficient employment during the whole day in serving that
house alone. My fellow-pressman drank every day a pint of beer
before breakfast, a pint with bread and cheese for breakfast,
one between breakfast and dinner, one at dinner, one again
about six o'clock in the afternoon, and another after he had
finished his day's work. This custom appeared to me abominable;
but he had need, he said, of all this beer, in order to acquire
strength to work.

"'I endeavoured to convince him, that the bodily strength
furnished by the beer could only be in proportion to the solid
part of the barley dissolved in the water of which the beer was
composed; that there was a larger portion of flour in a
penny-loaf, and that, consequently, if he ate this loaf, and
drank a pint of water, he would derive more strength from it
than from a pint of beer. This reasoning, however, did not
prevent him from drinking his accustomed quantity of beer, and
paying every Saturday night a score of four or five shillings
a-week for this cursed beverage; an expense from which I was
wholly exempt. Thus do these poor devils continue all their
lives in a state of voluntary wretchedness and poverty.

"'My example prevailed with several of them to renounce their
abominable practice of bread and cheese with beer; and they
procured, like me, from a neighbouring house, a good basin of
warm gruel, in which was a small slice of butter, with toasted
bread and nutmeg. This was a much better breakfast, which did
not cost more than a pint of beer, namely, three halfpence, and
at the same time preserved the head clearer. Those who
continued to gorge themselves with beer, often lost their
credit with the publican, from neglecting to pay their score.
They had then recourse to me to become security for them,
_their light_, as they used to call it, _being out_. I attended
at the table every Saturday evening to take up the little sums
which I had made myself answerable for, and which sometimes
amounted to near thirty shillings a-week.

"'This circumstance, added to the reputation of my being a
tolerable good _gabber_, or, in other words, skilful in the art
of burlesque, kept up my importance in the chapel. I had,
besides, recommended myself to the esteem of my master by my
assiduous application to business, never observing Saint
Monday. My extraordinary quickness in composing always procured
me such work as was most urgent, and which is commonly best
paid; and thus my time passed away in a very pleasant
manner.'"[246]

[Illustration: THE PRINTING PRESS AT WHICH FRANKLIN WORKED.]

FOOTNOTES:

[215] Anecdotes of Painting, in his Works, 4to. vol. iii., p. 364.

[216] Walpole's Works, _ut supra_, vol iii., p. 364.

[217] Life of Edward Lord Herbert, of Cherbury, in the Autobiography
p. 145. It is an honour to Grotius, who wrote a book, De Veritate, on
the other side of the question, that he encouraged so renowned an
antagonist to publish: though, perhaps, he saw less danger in it than
singularity. At all events, he could anticipate no harm from the
close.

[218] Malcolm's Customs and Manners of London, from the Roman Invasion
to the Year 1700, vol. i., p. 318.

[219] Poems on Affairs of State, from the Time of Oliver Cromwell to
the Abdication of King James the Second, vol. i., p. 147.

[220] It is still a phrase with the vulgar to say, a man "shams
Abram."

[221] Manners and Customs, vol. i., p. 322.

[222] Historical Account of the English Stage, p. 320.

[223] It has recently been pulled down to make room for the
enlargement of the museum of the College of Surgeons.

[224] See Malone, pp. 135, 136.

[225] Malone, p. 135.

[226] Ibid., p. 136.

[227] Malone, p. 136.

[228] Memoirs, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 167.

[229] Memoirs of the English Court in the Reign of Charles II., &c.,
by the Countess of Dunois, part ii., p. 71.

[230] Memoirs of Count Grammont, 8vo. 1811, vol. ii. p. 142.

[231] With whom Charles II. was in love--afterwards Duchess of
Richmond.

[232] The famous wit and debauchee.

[233] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iii., p. 136.

[234] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 99.

[235] Id. p. 222.

[236] Pepys' Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 2.

[237] Cibber's Apology, chap. v., &c.

[238] See Tatler, No. 167.

[239] Cibber's Apology, 2d edit. p. 138.

[240] "Lounger's Common Place Book," vol. ii., p. 137.

[241] Malcolm's Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London during
the Eighteenth Century, vol. i., p. 417.

[242] Malcolm, _et seq._, p. 421.

[243] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 139.

[244] Lounger's Common-Place Book, vol. ii., p. 141.

[245] "For," says the note, "while the mucilaginous qualities of
porter may form one criterion of the nourishment it yields, it does
not follow that mere nourishment is or ought to be the only
consideration in a labouring man's use of malt liquor, or any other
aliment. It is well known that flesh-meats yield chyle in greater
abundance than any production of the vegetable kingdom; but Franklin
would not have considered this any argument for living wholly upon
meat. The fact is, that the stimulating quality of all fermented
liquors (when moderately taken) is an essential part of the
refreshment, and therefore of the strength they yield.

'We curse not wine--the vile excess we blame.'"

[To this Franklin might have answered, that the want of stimulus is
generally produced by a previous abuse of it, and that the having
recourse to fermented liquors is likely to continue the abuse,
whatever may be said about moderation. The moderation is so difficult,
that it is better to abstain than to hazard it. It is true (not to
quote the words irreverently) "man does not live by bread alone," but
by sociality and good-humour; and that even a little excess
occasionally is not to be narrowly considered; but for the purposes of
labour we may surely gather from the recorded experience of those who
have laboured most, whether physically or mentally, first, that the
more temperate our _habits_, the more we can perform; and, secondly,
that an habitual abstinence from some kinds of refreshment is the only
way to secure them.]

[246] Life of Benjamin Franklin, 1826, p. 31.

CHAPTER VII.

DRURY LANE, AND THE TWO THEATRES IN DRURY LANE AND COVENT GARDEN.

Drury Lane takes its name from "the habitation of the great family of
the Druries," built, "I believe," says Pennant, "by Sir William Drury,
knight of the garter, a most able commander in the Irish wars, who
unfortunately fell in a duel with Sir John Burroughs, in a foolish
quarrel about precedency. Sir Robert, his son, was a great patron of
Dr. Donne, and assigned to him apartments in his house. I cannot,
learn into whose hands it passed afterwards. During the time of the
fatal discontents of the favourite, Essex, it was the place where his
imprudent advisers resolved on such counsels as terminated in the
destruction of him and his adherents."[247]

Drury House stood at the corner of Drury Lane and Wych Street, upon
the ground now included in Craven Buildings in the one thoroughfare,
and the Olympic Pavilion in the other.

Pennant proceeds to say, that it was occupied in the next century by
"the heroic William Lord Craven, afterwards Earl Craven," who rebuilt
it in the form standing in his time. He describes it as "a large brick
pile,"--a public-house with the sign of the Queen of Bohemia,--a head
which still mystifies people in some parts of the country. The remains
were taken down in 1809, and the Olympic Pavilion built on part of the
site. But the public-house was only a portion of it.

[Illustration: CRAVEN HOUSE.]

Who would suppose, in going by the place now, that it was once the
habitation of wit and elegance, of a lord and a queen, and of more
than one "romance of real life?" Yet the passenger acquainted with the
facts can never fail to be impressed by them, especially by the
romantic history of Donne. This master of profound fancies (whom
Dryden pronounced "the greatest wit, though not the best poet," of our
nation) had in his youth led a gay imprudent life, which left him
poor. He became secretary to Lord Chancellor Ellesmere, and fell in
love with his lordship's niece, then residing in the house, daughter
to a Sir George Moor or More, who, though Donne was of an ancient
family, was very angry, and took the young lady away into the country.
The step, however, was too late; for, the passion being mutual, a
private marriage had taken place. The upshot was, that Sir George
would have nothing to say to the young couple, and that they fell into
great distress. After a time, Sir Robert Drury, a man of large
fortune, who possessed the mansion above described, invited Donne and
his wife to live with him, and this too in a spirit that enabled all
parties to be the better for it. But for this, and the curious story
connected with it, we shall have recourse to the pages of our angling
friend Walton, who was a good fellow enough when he was not "handling
a worm as if he loved him."

"Sir Robert Drury," says Walton, "a gentleman of a very noble
estate, and a more liberal mind, assigned him and his wife an
useful apartment in his own large house in Drury Lane, and not
only rent free, but was also a cherisher of his studies, and
such a friend as sympathised with him and his, in all their joy
and sorrows.

"At this time of Mr. Donne's and his wife's living in Sir
Robert's house, the Lord Hay was, by King James, sent upon a
glorious embassy to the then French King, Henry IV., and Sir
Robert put on a sudden resolution to accompany him to the
French Court, and to be present at his audience there. And Sir
Robert put on a sudden resolution to solicit Mr. Donne to be
his companion in that journey. And this desire was suddenly
made known to his wife, who was then with child, and otherwise
under so dangerous a habit of body as to her health, that she
professed an unwillingness to allow him any absence from her;
saying, 'her divining soul boded her some ill in his absence,'
and, therefore, desired him not to leave her. This made Mr.
Donne lay aside all thoughts of his journey, and really to
resolve against it. But Sir Robert became restless in his
persuasions for it, and Mr. Donne was so generous as to think
he had sold his liberty when he received so many charitable
kindnesses from him, and told his wife so; who did, therefore,
with an unwilling-willingness, give a faint consent to the
journey, which was proposed to be but for two months; for about
that time they determined their return. Within a few days after
this resolve, the ambassador, Sir Robert, and Mr. Donne, left
London; and were the twelfth day got all safe to Paris. Two
days after their arrival there, Mr. Donne was left alone in
that room, in which Sir Robert, and he, and some other friends
had dined together. To this place Sir Robert returned within
half an hour; and as he left, so he found Mr. Donne alone; but
in such an ecstacy and so altered in his looks, as amazed Sir
Robert to behold him; insomuch that he earnestly desired Mr.
Donne to declare what had befallen him in the short time of his
absence. To which Mr. Donne was not able to make a present
answer; but, after a long and perplexed pause, did at last say,
'I have seen a dreadful vision since I saw you: I have seen my
dear wife pass twice by me in this room, with her hair hanging
about her shoulders, and a dead child in her arms: this I have
seen since I saw you.' To which Sir Robert replied, 'Sure, sir,
you have slept since I saw you; and this is the result of some
melancholy dream, which I desire you to forget, for you are now
awake.' To which Mr. Donne's reply was, 'I cannot be surer that
I now live, than that I have not slept since I saw you; and am
as sure, that at her second appearing she stopped and looked me
in the face, and vanished.' Rest and sleep had not altered Mr.
Donne's opinion the next day; for he then affirmed this vision
with a more deliberate, and so confirmed a confidence, that he
inclined Sir Robert to a faint belief that the vision was true.
It is truly said, that desire and doubt have no rest; and it
proved so with Sir Robert; for he immediately sent a servant to
Drewry House, with a charge to hasten back, and bring him
word, whether Mrs. Donne were alive; and, if alive, in what
condition she was in as to her health. The twelfth day the
messenger returned with this account:--That he found and left
Mrs. Donne very sad, and sick in her bed; and that, after a
long and dangerous labour, she had been delivered of a dead
child. And, upon examination, the abortion proved to be the
same day, and about the very hour, that Mr. Donne affirmed he
saw her pass by him in his chamber.

"This is a relation," continues Walton, "that will beget some
wonder, and it well may; for most of our world are at present
possessed with an opinion, that visions and miracles are
ceased. And, though it is most certain, that two lutes being
both strung and tuned to an equal pitch, and then one played
upon, the other that is not touched, being laid upon a table at
a fit distance will--like an echo to a trumpet--warble a faint
audible harmony in answer to the same tune; yet many will not
believe that there is any such thing as the sympathy of souls;
and I am well pleased that every reader do enjoy his own
opinion. But if the unbelieving will not allow the believing
reader of this story a liberty to believe that it may be true,
then I wish him to consider, that many wise men have believed
that the ghost of Julius Cæsar did appear to Brutus, and that
both St. Austin, and Monica his mother, had visions in order to
his conversion. And though these, and many others--too many to
name--have but the authority of human story, yet the
_incredible_ reader may find in the sacred story, that Samuel,
&c."[248]

We may here break off with the observation of Mr. Chalmers, that "the
whole may be safely left to the judgment of the reader."[249] Walton
says he had not this story from Donne himself, but from a "Person of
Honour," who "knew more of the secrets of his heart than any person
then living," and who related it "with such circumstance and
asseveration," that not to say anything of his hearer's belief, Walton
did "verily believe," that the gentleman "himself believed it."

The biographer then presents us with some verses which "were given by
Mr. Donne to his wife at the time he then parted from her," and which
he "begs leave to tell us" that he has heard some critics, learned
both in languages and poetry, say, that "none of the Greek or Latin
poets did ever equal."

These lines are full of the wit that Dryden speaks of, horribly
misused to obscure the most beautiful feelings. Some of them are among
the passages quoted in Dr. Johnson to illustrate the faults of the
metaphysical school. Mr. Chalmers and others have thought it probable,
that it was upon this occasion Donne wrote a set of verses, which he
addressed to his wife, on her proposing to accompany him abroad as a
page; but as the writer speaks of going to Italy, which appears to
have been out of the question in this two months' visit to Paris, they
most probably belong to some other journey or intended journey, the
period of which is unknown. The numbers of these verses are sometimes
rugged, but they are full of as much nature and real feeling, as
sincerity ever put into a true passion. There is an awfulness in the
commencing adjuration:--

"By our first strange and fatal interview,
By all desires which thereof did ensue;
By our long striving hopes; by that remorse
Which my words' masculine persuasive force
Begot in thee, and by the memory
Of hurts which spies and rivals threaten me,
I calmly beg: but by thy father's wrath,
By all pains which want and divorcement hath,
I conjure thee, and all the oaths which I
And thou have sworn to seal joint constancy,
I here unswear, and overswear them thus:
Thou shalt not love by means so dangerous.
Temper, O fair Love! love's impetuous rage;
Be my true mistress, not my feigned page.
I'll go; and by thy kind leave, leave behind
Thee, only worthy to nurse in my mind
Thirst to come back. O! if thou die before,
My soul from other lands to thee shall soar:
Thy (else almighty) beauty cannot move
Rage from the seas, nor thy love teach them love,
Nor tame wild Boreas' harshness: thou hast read
How roughly he in pieces shiverèd
Fair Orithea, whom he swore he loved.
Fall ill or good, 'tis madness to have proved
Dangers unurged: feed on this flattery,
That absent lovers one in the other be;
Dissemble nothing, not a boy, nor change
Thy body's habit, nor mind; be not strange
To thyself only: all will spy in thy face
A blushing womanly discovering grace.

* * * * *

When I am gone dream me some happiness,
Nor let thy looks our long-hid love confess;
Nor praise nor dispraise me, nor bless nor curse
Openly love's force; nor in bed fright thy nurse
With midnight's startings, crying out, Oh! oh!
Nurse! oh, my love is slain! I saw him go
O'er the white Alps alone; I saw him, I,
Assailed, taken, fight, stabbed, bleed, fall, and die.
Augur me better chance; except dread Jove
Think it enough for me to have had thy love."

Drury House, when rebuilt by Lord Craven, took the name of Craven
House. To this abode, at the restoration of Charles II., his lordship
brought his royal mistress, the Queen of Bohemia, to whose interest he
had devoted his fortunes, and to whom he is supposed to have been
secretly wedded. She was daughter to James I., and, with the reluctant
consent of her parents (particularly of her mother, who used to twit
her with the title of Goody Palsgrave), was married to Frederick, the
Elector Palatine, for whom the Protestant interest in Germany erected
Bohemia into a kingdom, in the vain hope, with the assistance of his
father-in-law, of competing with the Catholic Emperor. Frederic lost
everything, and his widow became a dependent on the bounty of this
Lord Craven, a nobleman of wealthy commercial stock, who had fought in
her husband's cause, and helped to bring up her children. It is
through her that the family of Brunswick succeeded to the throne of
this kingdom, as the next Protestant heirs of James I. James's
daughter, being a woman of lively manners, a queen, and a Protestant
leader, excited great interest in her time, and received more than the
usual portion of flattery from the romantic. Donne wrote an
epithalamium on her marriage, in which are those preposterous lines
beginning--

"Here lies a she sun, and a he moon there."

Sir Henry Wotton had permission to call her his "royal mistress,"
which he was as proud of as if he had been a knight of old. And when
she lost her Bohemian kingdom, it was said that she retained a better
one, for that she was still the "Queen of Hearts." Sir Henry wrote
upon her his elegant verses beginning--

"You meaner beauties of the night,"

in which he gives a new turn to the commonplaces of stars and roses,
and calls her

"Th'eclipse and glory of her kind."

It is doubtful, nevertheless, whether she was ever handsome. None of
the Stuarts appear to have been so, with the exception of Henrietta,
Duchess of Orleans, who resembled, perhaps, her mother. Pepys, who saw
the Queen of Bohemia at the Restoration, "thought her a very
debonaire, but plain lady." This, it is true, was near her death; but
Pepys was given to admire, and royalty did not diminish the
inclination. Had her charms ever been as great as reported, he would
have discovered the remains of them. It has been beautifully said by
Drayton, that

"Even in the aged'st face, where beauty once did dwell,
And nature, in the least, but seemèd to excel,
Time cannot make such waste, but something will appear
To show some little tract of delicacy there."

Pepys saw the queen afterwards two or three times at the play, and
does not record any alteration of his opinion. Her Majesty did not
survive the Restoration many months. She quitted Craven House for
Leicester House (afterwards Norfolk House, in the Strand,) seemingly
for no other purpose than to die there; which she did in February
1661-2. Whether Lord Craven attended her at this period does not
appear; but she left him her books, pictures, and papers. Sometimes he
accompanied her to the play. She and her husband, King Frederick,
appear to have been lively, good-humoured persons, a little vain of
the royalty which proved such a misfortune to them. The queen had the
better sense, though it seems to have been almost as much over-rated
as her beauty. But all the Stuarts were more or less clever, with the
exception of James II.

The author of a _History and Antiquities of the Deanery of Craven in
Yorkshire_, gives it as a tradition, that Lord Craven's father, a
lord-mayor, was born of such poor parents that they sent him when a
boy by a common carrier to London, where he became a mercer or draper.
His son was a distinguished officer under Gustavus Adolphus, was
ennobled, attached himself to the King and Queen of Bohemia, and is
supposed, as we have seen, to have married the king's widow. He was
her junior by twelve years. He long resided in Craven House, became
Colonel of the Coldstream Regiment of Foot Guards, and was famed for
his bustling activity. He so constantly made his appearance at a fire,
that his horse is said to have "smelt one as soon as it happened."
Pepys, during a riot against houses of ill-fame (probably the houses
in Whetstone Park, as well as in Moorfields, for he talks of going to
Lincoln's Inn Fields to see the 'prentices,) describes his lordship as
riding up and down the fields, "like a madman," giving orders to the
soldiery. It was probably in allusion to this military vivacity that
Lord Dorset says, in his ballad on a mistress,--

"The people's hearts leap, wherever she comes,
And beat day and night, like my Lord Craven's drums."

When there was a talk in his old age of giving his regiment to
somebody else, Craven said, that "if they took away his regiment they
had as good take away his life, since he had nothing else to divert
himself with." The next king, however, William III., gave it to
General Talmash; yet the old lord is said to have gone on, busy to the
last. He died in 1697, aged nearly 89 years. He was intimate with
Evelyn, Ray, and other naturalists, and delighted in gardening. The
garden of Craven House ran in the direction of the present Drury Lane;
so that where there is now a bustle of a very different sort, we may
fancy the old soldier busying himself with his flower-beds, and Mr.
Evelyn discoursing upon the blessings of peace and privacy.[250]

The only other personage of celebrity whom we know of as living in
Drury Lane, is one of another sort; to wit, Nell Gwynn. The ubiquitous
Pepys speaks of his seeing her there on a May-morning.

"May 1st, 1667. To Westminster, in the way meeting many
milk-maids with garlands upon their pails, dancing with a
fiddler before them; and saw pretty Nelly standing at her
lodging's door in Drury Lane in her smock sleeves and boddice,
looking upon one. She seemed a mighty pretty creature."

Lodgings in this quarter, though Nell lived there, must have been of
more decent reputation than they became afterwards. It is curious that
the old English word Drury, or Druerie, should be applicable to the
fame we allude to. It has more or less deserved it for a long period,
though we believe the purlieus rather warrant it now, than the lane
itself. Pope and Gay speak of it. Pope describes the lane also as a
place of residence for poor authors:--

"'Keep your piece nine years.'
'Nine years!' cries he, who high in Drury Lane,
Lull'd by soft zephyrs through the broken pane,
Rhymes ere he wakes, and prints before term ends,
Obliged by hunger and request of friends."

The existence of a theatre in Drury Lane is as old as the time of
Shakspeare. It was then called the Phoenix; was "a private," or more
select house, like that of Blackfriars; and had been a cock-pit, by
which name it was also designated. Phoenix generally implies that a
place has been destroyed by fire, a common fate with theatres; but the
first occasion on which we hear of the present one is the destruction
of it by a Puritan mob. This took place in the year 1617, in the time
of James; and was doubtless caused by the same motives that led to the
demolition of certain other houses, which it was thought to resemble
in fame. In Howe's Continuation of Stowe, it was called a "new
play-house;" so that it had lately been either built or rebuilt. This
theatre stood opposite the Castle tavern. There is still in existence
a passage, called Cockpit Alley, into Great Wild Street; and there is
a Phoenix Alley, leading from Long Acre into Hart Street.

The Phoenix was soon rebuilt: and the performances continued till
1648, when they were again stopped by the Puritans who then swayed
England, and who put an end to playhouses for some time. In the
interval, some of the most admired of our old dramas were produced
there, such as Marlowe's _Jew of Malta_; Heywood's _Woman killed with
Kindness_; _The Witch of Edmonton_, by Rowley, Decker, and Ford;
Webster's _White Devil_, or _Vittoria Colombona_, Massinger's _New Way
to Pay Old Debts_, and indeed many others.[251] It does not appear
that Shakspeare or his immediate friends had any pieces performed
there. He was a performer in other theatres; and the pressure of
court, as well as city, lay almost exclusively in their direction,
till the growth of the western part of the metropolis divided it. The
Phoenix known in his time was probably nearly as select a house as
the Blackfriars. The company had the title of Queen's Servants
(James's Queen), and the servants of the Lady Elizabeth (Queen of
Bohemia).

A few years before the Restoration, Davenant, supported by some of the
less scrupulous authorities, ventured to smuggle back something like
the old entertainments, under the pretence of accompanying them with
music; a trick understood in our times where a license is to be
encroached upon. In 1656, he removed with them from Aldersgate Street
to this house; and, after the fluctuation of different companies
hither and thither, the Cockpit finally resumed its rank as a royal
theatre, under the direction of the famous Killigrew, whose set of
players were called the King's company, as those under Sir William
Davenant had the title of the Duke's. Killigrew, dissatisfied with
the old theatre at the Cockpit, built a new one nearly on the site of
the present, and opened it in 1663. This may be called the parent of
Drury Lane theatre as it now stands. It was burnt in 1671-2, rebuilt
by Sir Christopher Wren, and opened in 1674, with a prologue, from the
pen of Dryden, from which time it stood till the year 1741. There had
been some alterations in the structure of this theatre, which are said
to have hurt the effect contemplated by Sir Christopher Wren, and
perhaps assisted its destruction; for seventy years is no great age
for a public building. Yet old Drury, as it was called, was said to
have died of a "gradual decline." It was rebuilt, and became Old Drury
the second; underwent the usual fate of theatres in the year 1809; and
was succeeded by the one now standing.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE FRONT OF DRURY LANE THEATRE, ERECTED BY
GARRICK.]

It is customary to divide the eras of theatres according to their
management; but, as managers become of little consequence to
posterity, we shall confine ourselves in this as in other respects to
names, with which posterity is familiar. In Shakspeare's time, Drury
Lane appears to have been celebrated for the best productions of the
second-rate order of dramatists, a set of men who would have been
first in any other age. We have little to say of the particulars of
Drury Lane at this period, no memorandums having come down to us as
they did afterwards. All we can imagine is, that, the Phoenix being
much out of the way, with fields and country roads in the interval
between court and city, and the performances taking place in the day
time, the company probably consisted of the richer orders, the poorer
being occupied in their labours. The court and the rich citizens went
on horseback; the Duke of Buckingham in his newly-invented sedan. In
the time of the Puritans we may fancy the visitors stealing in, as
they would into a gambling-house.

The era of the Restoration, or second era of the Stuarts, is that of
the popularity of Ben Jonson's and Beaumont and Fletcher's plays,
compared with Shakspeare's, though Davenant tried hard to revive him;
of the plays of Dryden, Lee, and Otway; and finally of the rise of
comedy, strictly so called, in those of Wycherly, Congreve, Farquhar,
and Vanbrugh. All these writers had to do with Drury Lane Theatre,
some of them almost exclusively. Nineteen out of Dryden's twenty-seven
plays were produced there; seven out of Lee's eleven; all the good
ones of Wycherly (that is to say, all except the 'Gentleman
Dancing-Master'); two of Congreve's (the 'Old Bachelor' and 'Double
Dealer'), and all Farquhar's, except the 'Beaux' Stratagem.' Otway's
best pieces came out at the Duke's Theatre; and Vanbrugh's in the
Haymarket.[252] This may be called the second era of Drury Lane, or
rather the second and third; the former, which is Dryden's and Lee's,
having for its principal performers Hart, Mohun, Lacy, Goodman, Nell
Gwynn, and others; the latter, which was that of Congreve and
Farquhar, presenting us with Cibber, Wilks, Booth, Mrs. Barry, and
Mrs. Bracegirdle. The two, taken together, began with the Restoration
and ended with George II.

Sir Richard Steele and the sentimental comedy came in at the close of
the third era, and may be said to constitute the fourth; which, in his
person, did not last long. Steele, admirable as an essayist, and
occasionally as humorous as any dramatist in a scene or two, was
hampered in his plays by the new moral ambition now coming up, which
induced him to show, not so much what people are, as his notions of
what they ought to be. This has never been held a legitimate business
of the stage, which, in fact, is nothing else than what its favourite
metaphor declares it, a glass of men and manners, in which they are
to see themselves as they actually exist. It is the essence of the wit
and dialogue of society brought into a focus. Steele was manager of
Drury Lane Theatre, and made as bad a one as improvidence and animal
spirits could produce.

The sentimental comedy continued into the next or fifth Drury Lane
era, which was that of Garrick, famous for his great reputation as an
actor, and for his triumphant revival of Shakspeare's plays, which
have increased in popularity ever since. Not that he revived them in
the strictest sense of the word; for the attempt was making when he
came to town; but he hastened and exalted the success of it.

The last era before the present one was that of Sheridan, who, though
he began with Covent Garden, produced four out of his seven pieces at
this theatre; where he showed himself a far better dramatist, and a
still worse manager than Steele.

We shall now endeavour to possess our readers with such a sense of
these different periods, as may enable them to "live o'er each scene,"
not indeed of the plays, but of the general epochs of Old Drury; to go
into the green-room with Hart and Nell Gwyn; to see Mrs. Oldfield swim
on the stage as Lady Betty Modish; to revive the electrical shock of
Garrick's leap upon it, as the lively Lothario;--in short, to be his
grandfather and great-grandfather before him, and make one of the
successive generations of play-goers, now in his peruke _à la Charles
II._, and now in his Ramillie wig, or the bobs of Hogarth. Did we
introduce him to all this ourselves, we should speak with less
confidence; but we have a succession of play-goers for his
acquaintance, who shall make him doubt whether he really is or is not
his own ancestor, so surely shall they place him beside them in the
pit.

And first, for the immortal and most play-going Pepys. To the society
of this jolliest of government officers, we shall consign our reader
and ourselves during the reign of Charles II.; and if we are not all
three equally intimate with old Drury at that time, there is no faith
in good company. By old Drury, we understand both the theatres; the
Cockpit or Phoenix and the new one built by Killigrew, which took
the title of "King's Theatre." There was a cockpit at Whitehall, or
court theatre, to which Pepys occasionally alludes; but after trying
in vain to draw a line between such of his memorandums as might be
retained and omitted, we here give up the task as undesirable, the
whole harmonizing in one mass of theatrical gossip, and making us
acquainted collaterally, even with what he is not speaking of. We have
not, indeed, retained everything, but we have almost.

We now, therefore, pass Drury House, proceed up the lane by my Lord
Craven's garden, and turn into Russell Street amongst a throng of
cavaliers in flowing locks, and ladies with curls _à la Valliere_.
Some of them are in masks, but others have not put theirs on. We shall
see them masquing as the house grows full. It is early in the
afternoon. There press a crowd of gallants, who have already got
enough wine. Here, as fast as the lumbering coaches of that period can
do it, dashes up to the door my lord Duke of Buckingham, bringing with
him Buckhurst and Sedley. There comes a greater, though at that time a
humbler man, to wit, John Dryden, in a coat of plain drugget, which by
and by his fame converted into black velvet. He is somewhat short and
stout, with a roundish dimpled face and a sparkling eye; and, if
scandal says true, by his side is "Madam" Reeves, a beautiful actress;
for the ladies of the stage were so entitled at that time. Horses and
coaches throng the place, with here and there a sedan; and, by the
pulling off of hats, we find that the king and his brother James have
arrived. The former nods to his people as if he anticipated their
mutual enjoyment of the play; the latter affects a graciousness to
match, but does not do it very well. As soon as the king passes in,
there is a squeeze and a scuffle; and some blood is drawn, and more
oaths uttered, from which we hasten to escape. Another scuffle is
silenced on the king's entrance, which also makes the gods quiet;
otherwise, at no period were they so loud. The house is not very
large, nor very well appointed. Most of the ladies masque themselves
in the pit and boxes, and all parties prepare for a play that shall
render it proper for the remainder to do so. The king applauds a new
French tune played by the musicians. Gallants, not very sober, are
bowing on all sides of us to ladies not very nice; or talking to the
orange girls, who are ranged in front of the pit with their backs to
the stage. We hear criticisms on the last new piece, on the latest
panegyric, libel, or new mode. Our friend Pepys listens and looks
everywhere, tells all who is who, or asks it; and his neighbours think
him a most agreeable fat little gentleman. The curtain rises: enter
Mistress Marshall, a pretty woman, and speaks a prologue which makes
all the ladies hurry on their masks, and convulses the house with
laughter. Mr. Pepys "do own" that he cannot help laughing too, and
calls the actress "a merry jade;" "but, lord!" he says, "to see the
difference of the times, and but two years gone." And then he utters
something between a sigh and a chuckle, at the recollection of his
Presbyterian breeding, compared with the jollity of his expectations.

But let us hear our friend's memorandums:--

"29th (September 1662). To the King's Theatre, where we saw
'Midsummer's Night's Dream,' which I had never seen before, nor
shall ever again, for it is the most insipid, ridiculous play
that ever I saw in my life. [The gods certainly had not made
Pepys poetical, except on the substantial side of things.]

"5th (January 1662-3). To the Cockpit, where we saw
'Claracilla,' a poor play, done by the King's house; but
neither the king nor queen were there, but only the duke and
duchess.

"23d (February, 1662-3). We took coach and to court, and there
we saw 'The Wilde Gallant,' performed by the King's house, but
it was ill acted. The king did not seem pleased at all, the
whole play, nor anybody else. My Lady Castlemaine was all worth
seeing to-night, and little Stewart. [This is Miss, or as the
designation then was, Mrs. Stewart, afterwards Duchess of
Richmond. 'The Wild Gallant' was Dryden's first play, and was
patronised by Lady Castlemaine, afterwards not less notorious
as Duchess of Cleveland. Miss Stewart and she were rival
beauties.]

"1st (February, 1663-4). To the King's Theatre, and there saw
the 'Indian Queen' (by Sir Robert Howard and Dryden); which
indeed is a most pleasant show, and beyond my expectation the
play good, but spoiled with the rhyme, which breaks the sense.
But above my expectation most, the eldest Marshall did do her
part most excellently well as I have heard a woman in my life;
but her voice is not so sweet as Ianthe's: but, however, we
come home mightily contented.

"1st (January, 1664). To the King's house, and saw 'The Silent
Woman' (Ben Jonson's); but methought not so well done or so
good a play as I formerly thought it to be. Before the play was
done, it fell such a storm of hayle, that we in the middle of
the pit were fain to rise, and all the house in a disorder.

"2nd (August, 1664). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'Bartholomew Fayre' (Ben Jonson's), which do still please me;
and is, as it is acted, the best comedy in the world, I
believe. I chanced to sit by Tom Killigrew, who tells me that
he is setting up a nursery; that is, is going to build a house
in Moorfields, wherein we will have common plays acted. But
four operas it shall have in the year, to act six weeks at a
time: where we shall have the best scenes and machines, the
best musique, and everything as magnificent as in Christendome,
and to that end hath sent for voices and painters, and other
persons from Italy.

"4th (August, 1664). To play at the King's house, 'The Rivall
Ladies' (Dryden's), a very innocent and most pretty witty play.
I was much pleased with it, and it being given me, I look upon
it as no breach of my oath. [Pepys means that he had made a vow
not to spend money on theatres, but that he was now treated to
a play.] Here we hear that Clun, one of their best actors, was,
the last night, going out of town after he had acted the
Alchymist (wherein was one of his best parts that he acts), to
his country house, set upon and murdered; one of the rogues
taken, an Irish fellow. It seems most cruelly butchered and
bound. The house will have a great miss of him. [Clun's body
was found at Kentish Town in a ditch. Pepys went to see the
place.]

"11th (October, 1664). Luellin tells me what an obscene loose
play this 'Parson's Wedding' is (by Tom Killigrew), that is
acted by nothing but women at the King's house.

"14th (January, 1664-5). To the King's house, there to see
'Vulpone,' a most excellent play (Ben Jonson's); the best, I
think, I ever saw, and well acted.

"19th (March, 1666). After dinner we walked to the King's
playhouse, all in dirt, they being altering of the stage to
make it wider. But God knows when they will begin to act again;
but my business here was to see the inside of the stage, and
all the tiring-rooms and machines; and, indeed, it was a sight
worthy seeing. But to see their clothes, and the various sorts,
and what a mixture of things there was; here a wooden leg,
there a ruff, here a hobby-horse, there a crown, would make a
man split himself to see with laughing; and particularly Lacy's
wardrobe and Shotrell's. But then again to think how fine they
show on the stage by candlelight, and how poor things they are
to look at too near hand, is not pleasant at all. The machines
are fine, and the paintings very pretty.

"7th (December, 1666). To the King's playhouse, where two acts
were almost done when I came in; and there I sat with my cloak
about my face, and saw the remainder of 'The Mayd's Tragedy;' a
good play, and well acted, especially by the younger Marshall,
who is become a pretty good actor; and is the first play I have
seen in either of the houses, since before the great plague,
they having acted now about fourteen days publickly. But I was
in mighty pain, lest I should be seen by anybody to be at the
play. [The plague seems to have made it an indecorum to resume
visits to the theatre very speedily. Pepys had been educated
among the Commonwealth-men, for whom he never seems to have got
rid of a respect. The contrast aggravated his festivity.]

"8th (December, 1666). To the King's playhouse, and there did
see a good part of 'The English Monsieur' (by James Howard),
which is a mighty pretty play, very witty and pleasant. And the
women do very well; but above all, little Nelly. [Nell Gwynn,
not long entered upon the stage.]

"27th (December, 1666). By coach to the King's playhouse, and
there saw 'The Scornful Lady' (Beaumont and Fletcher's), well
acted; Doll Common doing Abigail most excellently, and Knipp
the widow very well (and will be an excellent actor, I think).
In other parts the play not so well done as need be by the old
actors.

"3rd (January, 1666-7). Alone to the King's house, and there
saw 'The Custome of the Country' (Beaumont and Fletcher's), the
second time of its being acted, wherein Knipp does the widow
well; but of all the plays that ever I did see, the worst,
having neither plot, language nor anything on the earth that is
acceptable; only Knipp sings a song admirably. [Mistress Knipp
was a particular acquaintance of our friend's.]

"23rd (January, 1666-7). To the King's house, and there saw the
'Humourous Lieutenant' (Beaumont and Fletcher's), a silly play,
I think; only the spirit in it that grows very tall, and then
sinks again to nothing, having two heads breeding upon one, and
then Knipp's singing did please us. Here in a box above we
spied Mrs. Pierse; and going out they called us; and so we
staid for them; and Knipp took us all in and brought us to
Nelly (Nell Gwynn), a most pretty woman, who acted the great
part of Coelia to-day very fine, and did it pretty well: I
kissed her, and so did my wife; and a mighty pretty soul she
is. We also saw Mrs. Ball, which is my little Roman-nose black
girl, that is mighty pretty; she is usually called Betty. Knipp
made us stay in the box, and see the dancing preparatory to
to-morrow for the 'Goblins,' a play of Suckling's, not acted
these twenty years; which was pretty.

"5th (February, 1666-7). To the King's house to see 'The
Chances' (Beaumont and Fletcher's). A good play I find it, and
the actors most good in it. And pretty to hear Knipp sing in
the play very properly, 'All night I weepe;' and sung it
admirably. The whole play pleases me well: and most of all, the
sight of many fine ladies; among others, my lady Castlemaine
and Mrs. Middleton: the latter of the two hath also a very
excellent face and body, I think. And so home in the dark over
the ruins with a link. [The ruins are those of the city,
occasioned by the fire. Mr. Pepys lived in Creed Lane, where
the Navy Office then was, in which he had an appointment.]

"18th (February, 1666-7). To the King's house, to 'The Mayd's
Tragedy' (Beaumont and Fletcher's); but vexed all the while
with two talking ladies and Sir Charles Sedley; yet pleased to
hear the discourse, he being a stranger. And one of the ladies
would and did sit with her mask on all the play, and being
exceedingly witty as ever I heard a woman, did talk most
pleasantly with him; but was, I believe, a virtuous woman and
of quality. He would fain know who she was, but she would not
tell; yet did give him many pleasant hints of her knowledge of
him, by that means setting his brains at work to find out who
she was, and did give him leave to use all means to find out
who she was, but pulling off her mask. He was mighty witty, and
she also making sport with him mighty inoffensively, that more
pleasant rencontre I never heard. But by that means lost the
pleasure of the play wholly, to which now and then Sir Charles
Sedley's exceptions against both words and pronouncing were
very pretty. [This is the famous wit and man of pleasure. We
have him before us, as if we were present, together with a
curious specimen of the manners of these times. The pit, though
subject to violent scuffles, greatly occasioned by the wearing
of swords, seems to have contained as good company as the opera
pit does now.]

"2nd (March, 1666-7). After dinner with my wife to the King's
house, to see 'The Mayden Queen,' a new play of Dryden's,
mighty commended for the regularity of it, and the strain and
wit: and the truth is, there is a comical part, played by Nell,
which is Florimell, that I never can hope to see the like done
again by man or woman. The King and Duke of York were at the
play. But so great performance of a comical part was never, I
believe, in the world before as Nell do this, both as a mad
girl, then most and best of all when she comes in like a young
gallante; and hath the motions and carriage of a spark the most
that ever I saw any man have. It makes me, I confess, admire
her.

"25th (March, 1666-7). To the King's playhouse, and by and by
comes Mr. Lowther and his wife and mine, and into a box,
forsooth, neither of them being dressed, which I was almost
ashamed of. Sir W. Pen and I in the pit, and here saw the
'Mayden Queen' again; which, indeed, the more I see the more I
like, and is an excellent play, and so done by Nell her merry
part, as cannot be better done in nature.

"9th (April, 1667). To the King's house, and there saw the
'Taming of the Shrew,' which hath some very good pieces in it,
but generally is but a mean play; and the best part 'Sawny,'
done by Lacy; and hath not half its life, by reason of the
words, I suppose, not being understood, at least by me. [This
was one of the _rifacimentos_ of Shakspeare, by which he was to
be rendered palatable.]

"15th (April, 1667). To the King's house, by chance, where a
new play: so full as I never saw it; I forced to stand all the
while close to the very door till I took cold, and many people
went away for want of room. The King and Queene and Duke of
York and Duchesse there, and all the court, and Sir W.
Coventry. The play called 'The Change of Crownes;' a play of
Ned Howard's, the best that I ever saw at that house, being a
great play and serious; only Lacy did act the country gentleman
come up to court with all the imaginable wit and plainness
about the selling of places, and doing everything for money.
The play took very much.

"16th (April, 1667). Knipp tells me the King was so angry at
the liberty taken by Lacy's part to abuse him to his face, that
he commanded they should act no more, till Moone (Mohun) went
and got leave for them to act again, but not in this play. The
King mighty angry; and it was bitter indeed, but very fine and
witty. I never was more taken with a play than I am with this
'Silent Woman' (Ben Johnson's) as old as it is, and as often as
I have seen it. [Ned Howard, the author of 'The Change of
Crownes,' was one of the sons of the Earl of Berkshire, and
though of a family who helped to bring in the King, was
probably connected with the Presbyterians, and disgusted, like
many of the royalists on that side, by the disappointments they
had experienced in church and state. Dryden, who married one of
his sisters, was of a Presbyterian stock. Ned, however, who
afterwards became the butt of the wits, was not very nice, and
might have 'committed himself,' as the modern phrase is, in his
mode of conducting his satire].

"20th (April, 1667). Met Mr. Rolt, who tells me the reason of
no play to-day at the King's house--that Lacy had been
committed to the porter's lodge, for his acting his part in the
late new play; and being thence released to come to the King's
house, he there met with Ned Howard, the poet of the play, who
congratulated his release; upon which Lacy cursed him, as that
it was the fault of his nonsensical play that was the cause of
his ill-usage. Mr. Howard did give him some reply, to which
Lacy answered him that he was more a fool than a poet; upon
which Howard did give him a blow on the face with his glove;
on which Lacy, having a cane in his hand, did give him a blow
over the pate. Here Rolt and others, that discoursed of it in
the pit, did wonder that Howard did not run him through, he
being too mean a fellow to fight with. But Howard did not do
anything but complain to the King; so the whole house is
silenced: and the gentry seem to rejoice much at it, the house
being become too insolent.

"1st (May, 1667). Thence away to the King's playhouse, and saw
'Love in a Maze:' but a sorry play; only Lacy's clown's part,
which he did most admirably indeed; and I am glad to find the
rogue at liberty again. Here was but little, and that ordinary
company. We sat at the upper bench, next the boxes; and I find
it do pretty well, and have the advantage of seeing and hearing
the great people, which may be pleasant when there is good
store.

"15th (August, 1667). And so we went to the King's house, and
there saw 'The Merry Wives of Windsor;' which did not please me
at all, in no part of it.

"17th (August, 1667). To the King's playhouse, where the house
extraordinary full; and there the King and Duke of York to see
the new play, 'Queene Elizabeth's Troubles, and the History of
Eighty-eight.' I confess I have sucked in so much of the sad
story of Queene Elizabeth from my cradle, that I was ready to
weep for her sometimes; but the play is the most ridiculous
that sure ever came upon stage, and, indeed, is merely a show,
only shows the true garb of the Queene in those days, just as
we see Queene Mary and Queene Elizabeth painted; but the play
is merely a puppet play, acted by living puppets. Neither the
design nor language better; and one stands by and tells us the
meaning of things: only I was pleased to see Knipp dance among
the milkmaids, and to hear her sing a song to Queene Elizabeth,
and to see her come out in her nighte-gown with no lockes on,
but her bare face, and hair only tied up in a knot behind;
which is the comeliest dress that ever I saw her in to her
advantage.

"22nd (August, 1667). With my lord Brouncker and his mistress
to the King's playhouse, and there saw 'The Indian Emperour;'
where I find Nell come again, which I am glad of; but was most
infinitely displeased with her being put to act the Emperour's
daughter, which is a great and serious part, which she does
most basely.

"14th (September, 1667). To the King's playhouse, to see 'The
Northerne Castle, (quære _Lasse_, by Richard Brome?) which I
think I never did see before. Knipp acted in it, and did her
part very extraordinary well; but the play is but a mean sorry
play.

"----, my wife, and Mercer, and I, away to the King's
playhouse, to see 'The Scornful Lady' (Beaumont and
Fletcher's), but it being now three o'clock, there was not one
soul in the pit; whereupon, for shame, we could not go in; but
against our wills, went all to see 'Tu Quoque' again (by John
Cooke), where there was pretty store of company. Here we saw
Madame Morland, who is grown mighty fat, but is very comely.
Thence to the King's house, upon a wager of mine with my wife,
that there would be no acting there to-day, there being no
company: so I went in and found a pretty good company there,
and saw their dance at the end of the play. [There is a
confusion in the memorandum under this date.]

"20th (September, 1667). By coach to the King's playhouse, and
there saw 'The Mad Couple' (by Richard Brome), my wife having
been at the same play with Jane in the 18_d._ seat.

"25th (September, 1667). I to the King's playhouse, my eyes
being so bad since last night's straining of them, that I am
hardly able to see, besides the pain that I have in them. The
play was a new play; and infinitely full; the King and all the
court almost there. It is 'The Storme,' a play of Fletcher's;
which is but so-so, methinks; only there is a most admirable
dance at the end, of the ladies, in a military manner, which
indeed did please me mightily.

"5th (October 1667.) To the King's house; and there going in
met with Knipp, and she took us up into the tireing-rooms; and
to the women's shift, where Nell was dressing herself, and was
all unready, and is very pretty, prettier than I thought. And
into the scene-room, and there sat down, and she gave us fruit;
and here I read the questions to Knipp, while she answered me,
through all her part of 'Flora's Figarys,' which was acted
to-day. But, lord! to see how they were both painted, would
make a man mad, and did make me loath them, and what base
company of men comes among them, and how lewdly they talk. And
how poor the men are in clothes, and yet what a show they make
on the stage by candle-light, is very observable. But to see
how Nell cursed, for having so few people in the pit, was
strange; the other house carrying away all the people at the
new play, and is said now-a-days to have generally most
company, as having better players. By and by into the pit, and
there saw the play, which is pretty good.

"19th (October 1667). Full of my desire of seeing my Lord
Orrery's new play this afternoon at the King's house, 'The
Black Prince,' the first time it is acted; where, though we
came by two o'clock, yet there was no room in the pit, but were
forced to go into one of the upper boxes at 4s. a piece, which
is the first time I ever sat in a box in my life. And in the
same box came by and by, behind me, my Lord Barkely and his
lady; but I did not turn my face to them to be known, so that I
was excused from giving them my seat. And this pleasure I had,
that from this place the scenes do appear very fine indeed, and
much better than in the pit. The house infinite full, and the
King and Duke of York there. The whole house was mightily
pleased all along till the reading of a letter, which was so
long and so unnecessary, that they frequently began to laugh,
and to hiss twenty times, that had it not been for the King's
being there, they had certainly hissed it off the stage.

"23d (October 1667). To the King's playhouse, and saw 'The
Black Prince;' which is now mightily bettered by that long
letter being printed, and so delivered to everybody at their
going in, and some short reference made to it in the play.
[This is in the style of what Buckingham called "insinuating
the plot into the boxes."]

"1st (November 1667). To the King's playhouse, and there saw a
silly play and an old one, 'The Taming of the Shrew.'

"2d (November 1667). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'Henry the Fourth;' and, contrary to expectation, was pleased
in nothing more than in Cartwright's speaking of Falstaffe's
speech about 'What is honour?' The house full of
parliament-men, it being holyday with them: and it was
observable how a gentleman of good habit sitting just before
us, eating of some fruit in the midst of play, did drop down
as dead, being choked; but with much ado Orange Moll did thrust
her finger down his throat, and brought him to life again.

"26th (December 1667). With my wife to the King's playhouse,
and there saw 'The Surprizall' by Sir Robert Howard, brother of
Ned; which did not please me to-day, the actors not pleasing
me; and especially Nell's acting of a serious part which she
spoils.

"28th (December 1667). To the King's house, and there saw 'The
Mad Couple,' which is but an ordinary play; but only Nell's and
Hart's mad parts are most excellent done, but especially hers:
which makes it a miracle to me to think how ill she do any
serious part, as, the other day, just like a fool or
changeling; and, in a mad part, do beyond all imitation almost.
It pleased us mightily to see the natural affection of a poor
woman, the mother of one of the children brought on the stage;
the child crying, she by force got upon the stage, and took up
her child, and carried it away off the stage from Hart. Many
fine faces here to-day.

"7th (January 1667-8). To the Nursery [qy. in Barbican, for
children performers?], but the house did not act to-day; and so
I to the other two playhouses, into the pit to gaze up and
down, and there did, by this means, for nothing, see an act in
'The Schoole of Compliments' at the Duke of York's house, and
'Henry the Fourth' at the King's house; but not liking either
of the plays, I took my coach again, and home. [It would here
seem, that a man who did not choose to pay for a _seat_, might
witness a play for nothing.]

"11th (January 1667-8). To the King's house, to see 'The
Wild-Goose Chase' (Beaumont and Fletcher's). In this play I met
with nothing extraordinary at all, but very dull inventions and
designs. Knipp came and sat by us, and her talk pleased me a
little, she telling me how Miss Davies is for certain going
away from the Duke's house, the King being in love with her;
and a house is taken for her, and furnishing; and she hath a
ring given her already worth 600_l._: that the King did send
several times for Nelly, and she was with him; and I am sorry
for it, and can hope for no good to the state from having a
prince so devoted to his pleasure. She told me also of a play
shortly coming upon the stage, of Sir Charles Sedley's, which,
she thinks, will be called 'The Wandering Lady's,' a comedy
that she thinks will be most pleasant; and also another play
called 'The Duke of Lorane;' besides 'Cataline,' which she
thinks, for want of the clothes which the King promised them,
will not be acted for a good while.

"20th (February 1667-8). Dined, and by one o'clock to the
King's house; a new play, 'The Duke of Lerma,' of Sir Robert
Howard's, where the King and court was; and Knipp and Nell
spoke the prologue most excellently, especially Knipp, who
spoke beyond any creature I ever heard. The play designed to
reproach our King with his mistresses, that I was troubled for
it, and expected it should be interrupted; but it ended all
well; which salved me.

"27th (February 1667-8.) With my wife to the King's house, to
see 'The Virgin Martyr' by (Massinger), the first time it hath
been acted a great while: and it is mighty pleasant; not that
the play is worth much, but it is finely acted by Beck
Marshall. But that which did please me beyond anything in the
world, was the wind-musique when the angel comes down; which is
so sweet that it ravished me, and, indeed, in a word, did wrap
up my soul so that it made me really sick, just as I have
formerly been when in love with my wife; that neither then, nor
all the evening going home, and at home, I was able to think of
anything, but remained all night transported, so as I could not
believe that ever any musique hath that real command over the
soul of a man, as this did upon me; and makes me resolve to
practise wind-musique, and to make my wife do the like.
[Pepys's use of the word "sick," and his resolution to make his
wife practise the hautboy, are very ludicrous. His love of
music, however, is genuine. He was an amateur composer. On the
23d Feb. 1666, he has the following memorandum: "Comes Mrs.
Knipp to see my wife, and I spent all the night talking with
this baggage, and teaching her my song of 'Beauty retire,'
which she sings and makes go most rarely, and a very fine song
it seems to be."]

"6th (March 1667-8.) After dinner to the King's house, and
there saw part of the 'Discontented Colonell' (Sir John
Suckling's 'Brennoralt').

"7th (April 1668). To the King's house, and there saw 'The
English Monsieur,' (sitting for privacy sake in an upper box):
the play hath much mirth in it, as to that particular humour.
After the play done, I down to Knipp, and did stay her
undressing herself; and there saw the several players, men and
women, go by; and pretty to see how strange they are all, one
to another, after the play is done. Here I hear Sir W. Davenant
is just now dead, and so, who will succeed him in the
mastership of the house is not yet known. The eldest Davenport
is, it seems, gone from this house to be kept by somebody;
which I am glad of, she being a very bad actor. Mrs. Knipp
tells me that my Lady Castlemaine is mighty in love with Hart
of their house, and he is much with her in private, and she
goes to him and do give him many presents; and that the thing
is most certain, and Beck Marshall only privy to it, and the
means of bringing them together: which is a very odd thing; and
by this means she is even with the King's love to Mrs. Davies.

"28th (April 1668). To the King's house, and there did see
'Love in a Maze,' (the author is not mentioned in Baker);
wherein very good mirth of Lacy the clown, and Wintershell, the
country-knight, his master.

"1st (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw the
'Surprizall;' and a disorder in the pit by its raining in from
the cupola at top.

"7th (May 1668). To the King's house; where going in for Knipp,
the play being done, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed off
of the stage, and look mighty fine, and pretty and noble; and
also Nell in her boy's clothes mighty pretty. But lord! their
confidence, and how many men do hover about them as soon as
they come off the stage, and how confident they are in their
talk. Here was also Haynes, the incomparable dancer of the
King's house.

"16th (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw the
best part of 'The Sea Voyage' (Beaumont and Fletcher), where
Knipp did her part of sorrow very well.

"18th (May 1668). It being almost twelve o'clock, or little
more, to the King's playhouse, where the doors were not then
open; but presently they did open, and we in, and find many
people already come in by private ways into the pit, it being
the first day of Sir Charles Sedley's new play so long
expected 'The Mulberry Garden,' of whom, being so reputed a
wit, all the world do expect great matters. I having sat here a
while and eat nothing to-day, did slip out, getting a boy to
keep my place; and to the Rose Tavern (Will's, in Russell
Street), and there got half a breast of mutton off the spit,
and dined all alone. And so to the playhouse again, where the
King and Queene by and by come, and all the court, and the
house infinitely full. But the play, when it come, though there
was here and there a pretty saying, and that not very many
neither, yet the whole of the play had nothing extraordinary in
it at all, neither of language nor design; insomuch that the
King I did not see laugh nor pleased from the beginning to the
end, nor the company; insomuch that I have not been less
pleased at a new play in my life, I think.

"30th (May 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'Philaster;' where it is pretty to see how I could remember
almost all along, ever since I was a boy, Arethusa, the part
which I was to have acted at Sir Robert Cooke's; and it was
very pleasant to me, but more to think what a ridiculous thing
it would have been for me to have acted a beautiful woman.

"22nd (June 1668). To the King's playhouse, and saw an act or
two of the new play, 'Evening Love' again (Dryden's) but like
it not.

"11th (July 1668). To the King's playhouse, to see an old play
of Shirley's, called 'Hyde Parke,' the first day acted; where
horses are brought upon the stage; but it is but a very
moderate play, only an excellent epilogue spoken by Beck
Marshall.

"31st (July 1668). To the King's house, to see the first day of
Lacy's 'Monsieur Ragou,' now new acted. The King and court all
there, and mighty merry: a farce.

"15th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse to see a new
play, acted but yesterday, a translation out of French by
Dryden, called 'The Ladys à la Mode' [probably the Precieuses,
but not translated by Dryden]: so mean a thing as when they
came to say it would be acted again to-morrow, both he that
said it (Beeston) and the pit fell a-laughing.

"19th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
the 'Silent Woman;' the best comedy, I think, that ever was
wrote: and sitting by Shadwell the poet, he was big with
admiration of it. Here was my Lord Brouncker and W. Pen and
their ladies in the box, being grown mighty kind of a sudden;
but, God knows, it will last but a little while, I dare swear.
Knipp did her part mighty well.

"28th (September 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'The City Match' (by Jasper Maine), not acted these thirty
years, and but a silly play; the King and court there; the
house, for the women's sake, mighty full.

"14th (October 1668). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
'The Faithful Shepherdess' (Fletcher's), that I might hear the
French eunuch sing; which I did to my great content; though I
do admire his actions as much as his acting, being both beyond
all I ever saw or heard.

"2nd (December 1678). So she (Mrs. Pepys) and I to the King's
playhouse, and there saw 'The Usurper;' a pretty good play in
all but what is designed to resemble Cromwell and Hugh Peters,
which is mighty silly. [The Usurper was by Ned Howard, who
seems to have wished to show how impartial he could be.]

"19th (December 1678). My wife and I by hackney to the King's
playhouse, and there, the pit being full, sat in the box above,
and saw 'Cataline's Conspiracy' (Ben Jonson's), yesterday being
the first day: a play of much good sense and words to read, but
that do appear the worst upon the stage, I mean the least
diverting, that ever I saw any, though most fine in clothes;
and a fine scene of the senate and of a fight as ever I saw in
my life. We sat next to Betty Hall, that did belong to this
house, and was Sir Philip Howard's mistress; a mighty pretty
wench.

"7th (January 1668-9). My wife and I to the King's playhouse,
and there saw 'The Island Princesse' (Beaumont and Fletcher's),
the first time I ever saw it; and it is a pretty good play,
many good things being in it, and a good scene of a town on
fire. We sat in an upper box, and the merry Jade Nell came in
and sat in the next box; a bold slut, who lay laughing there
upon people, and with a comrade of hers, of the Duke's house,
that came to see the play.

"11th (January 1668-9). Abroad with my wife to the King's
playhouse, and there saw 'The Joviall Crew' (by Richard Brome),
ill acted to what it was in Clun's time, and when Lacy could
dance.

"19th (January 1668-9). To the King's house to see 'Horace'
(translated from Corneille by Charles Cotton); this is the
third day of its acting; a silly tragedy; but Lacy hath made a
farce of several dances--between each act one; but his words
are but silly, and invention not extraordinary as to the
dances. [Pepys adds, with seeming approbation, an instance of
satire on the Dutch, too gross to extract, and highly
disgraceful to that age of "fine ladies and gentlemen."]

"2nd (February 1668-9). To dinner at noon, where I find Mr.
Sheres; and there made a short dinner, and carried him with us
to the King's playhouse, where 'The Heyresse,' notwithstanding
Kynaston's being beaten, is acted; and they say the King is
very angry with Sir Charles Sedley for his being beaten, but he
do deny it. But his part is done by Beeston, who is fain to
read it out of a book all the while, and thereby spoils the
part, and almost the play, it being one of the best parts in
it: and though the design is, in the first conception of it,
pretty good, yet it is but an indifferent play; wrote, they
say, by my Lord Newcastle. But it was pleasant to see Beeston
come in with others, supposing it to be dark, and yet forced to
read his part by the light of the candles; and this I observing
to a gentleman, that sat by me, he was mightily pleased
therewith and spread it up and down. But that that pleased me
most in the play, is the first song that Knipp sings (she sings
three or four); and indeed it was very finely sung, so as to
make the whole house clap her.

"6th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and there in
an upper box (where come in Colonel Poynton and Doll Stacey,
who is very fine, and by her wedding-ring I suppose he hath
married her at last), did see the 'Moor of Venice:' but ill
acted in most parts. Moon (which did a little surprise me) not
acting Iago's part by much so well as Clun used to do: nor
another Hart's, which was Cassio's; nor indeed Burt doing the
Moor's so well as I once thought he did.

"9th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and there saw
the 'Island Princesse,' which I like mighty well as an
excellent play; and here we find Kynaston to be well enough to
act again; which he do very well, after his beating by Sir
Charles Sedley's appointment. [Kynaston is generally supposed
to have been taken for Sedley, and beaten for some offence of
the baronet's. He affected to be Sedley's double.]

"26th (February 1668-9). To the King's playhouse, and saw the
'Faithful Shepherdesse.' But, lord! what an empty house, there
not being, as I could see the people, so many as to make up
above 10_l._ in the whole house! But I plainly discern the
musick is the better, by how much the house the emptier." [The
same thing was said by the great Handel, to console himself
once, when he found a spare audience.]

Of the performers mentioned in this curious theatrical gossip, one of
them, Hart, had been a captain in the civil wars; another, Mohun, a
major; and there was a third a quarter-master; all on the royal side.
Hart and Mohun were old actors, when Betterton was young; and they
lived to see him reckoned superior to either. The two were accustomed
to act together, Hart generally in the superior character, as Brutus
to the other's Cassius; and both, like Betterton, acted in comedy as
well as tragedy. They performed, for instance, Manly and Horner in
'The Country Wife,' and there appears to have been less distinction in
their styles of acting than is customary. If Hart shone in the
Dorimant of 'Sir Fopling Flutter,' Mohun was highly applauded in
Davenant's Valentine, in 'Wit without Money.' Mohun, however, appears
to have excelled in the more ferocious parts of tragedy, as Catiline;
and Hart in the mixture of gaity with boldness, as in Hotspur and
Alexander. His Alexander was particularly famous. Upon the whole, we
should conclude, Mohun's to have the more artificial acting of the
two, more like "the actor," in Partridge's sense of the word, but very
fine nevertheless, otherwise Rochester would hardly have admired him,
as he is said to have done; unless, indeed, it was out of spite to
some other actor; for he was much influenced by feelings of that kind.
Perhaps, however, it was out of some chance predilection, The Duke of
Buckingham is said to have preferred Ben Jonson to Shakspeare, for no
other reason than his having been introduced to him when a boy. The
best compliment ever known to have been paid to Hart, is an anecdote
recorded of Betterton. Betterton acted Alexander after Hart's time;
and "being at a loss," says Davies, "to recover a particular emphasis
of that performer, which gave a force to some interesting situation of
the part, he applied for information to the players who stood near
him. At last, one of the lowest of the company repeated the line
exactly in Hart's key. Betterton thanked him heartily, and put a piece
of money into his hand, as a reward for so acceptable a service."[253]
Hart had the reputation of being the first lover of Nell Gwyn, and one
of the hundreds of the Duchess of Cleveland.

Goodman was another of the favoured many. He was one of the Alexanders
of his time, but does not appear to have been a great actor. He was a
dashing impudent fellow, who boasted of his having taken "an airing"
on the road to recruit his purse. He was expelled from Cambridge for
cutting and defacing the portrait of the Duke of Monmouth, Chancellor
of the University, but not loyal enough to his father to please
Goodman. James II. pardoned the loyal highwayman, which Goodman (in
Cibber's hearing) said "was doing him so particular an honour, that no
man could wonder if his acknowledgement had carried him a little
further than ordinary into the interest of that prince. But as he had
lately been out of luck in backing his old master, he had now no way
to get home the life he was out, upon his account, but by being under
the same obligations to King William."[254] The meaning of this is
understood to be, that Goodman offered to assassinate William, in
consequence of his having had a pardon from James; but the plot not
succeeding, he turned king's evidence against James, in order to
secure a pardon from William. This "pretty fellow" was latterly so
easy in his circumstances, owing, it is supposed, to the delicate
Cleveland, that he used to say he would never act Alexander the Great,
but when he was certain that "his duchess" would be in the boxes to
see him.

The stage in that day was certainly not behind-hand with the court;
and as it had less conventional respectability in the eyes of the
world, its private character was never so low. But we must do justice
and not confound even the disreputable. Poor Nell Gwynn, in a quarrel
with one of the Marshalls, who reproached her with being the mistress
of Lord Buckhurst, said she was mistress but of one man at a time,
though she had been brought up in a bad house "to fill strong waters
to the gentlemen;" whereas her rebuker, though a clergyman's
daughter, was the mistress of three. This celebrated actress, who was
as excellent in certain giddy parts of comedy as she was inferior in
tragedy, was small of person, but very pretty, with a good-humoured
face, and eyes that winked when she laughed. She is the ancestress of
the ducal family of St. Albans, who are thought to have retained more
of the look and complexion of Charles II. than any other of his
descendants. Beauclerc, Johnson's friend, was like him; and the black
complexion is still in vigour. The King recommended her to his brother
with his last breath, begging him "not to let poor Nelly starve."
Burnet says she was introduced to the King by Buckingham, to supplant
the Duchess of Cleveland; but others tell us, he first noticed her in
consequence of a hat of the circumference of a coach-wheel, in which
Dryden made her deliver a prologue, as a set-off to an enormous hat of
Pistol's at the other house, and which convulsed the spectators with
laughter. If Nelly retained a habit of swearing, which was probably
taught her when a child (and it is clear enough from Pepys that she
did), the poets did not discourage her. One of her epilogues by Dryden
began in the following startling manner. It is entitled "An Epilogue
spoken by Mrs. Ellen, when she was to be carried off dead by the
Bearers."

"Hold, are you mad, you damn'd confounded dog?
I am to rise and speak the epilogue."

The poet makes her say of herself, in the course of the lines, that
she was "a harmless little devil," and that she was slatternly in her
dress. Lely painted her with a lamb under her arm. Mr. Pegge
discovered that Charles made her a lady of the chamber to his queen.
Pennant seems to think this was only a title; but it is plain from
Evelyn's Memoirs that she had apartments in Whitehall.[255] She died a
few years after the King, at her house in Pall Mall. Nell was much
libelled in her time, and among others by Sir George Etherege;[256]
very likely out of some personal pique or rejection, for such revenges
were quite compatible with the "loves" of that age.[257] But she was a
general favourite, nevertheless, owing to a natural good-heartedness
which no course of life could overcome. Burnet's character of her is
well known. "Guin," says he, "the indiscreetest and wildest creature
that ever was in a court, continued, to the end of that king's life,
in great favour and was maintained at a vast expense. The Duke of
Buckingham told me that when she was first brought to the King, she
asked only five hundred pounds a year; and the King refused it. But
when he told me this, about four years after, he said, she had got of
the King above sixty thousand pounds. She acted all persons in so
lively a manner, and was such a constant diversion to the King, that
even a new mistress could not drive her away. But after all he never
treated her with the decencies of a mistress."[258] Nell Gwynn is said
to have suggested to her royal lover the building of Chelsea Hospital,
and to have made him a present of the ground for it.

Upon the whole the dramatic taste during the greater part of Charles's
reign was false and artificial, particularly in tragedy. Etherege
produced one good comedy, the precursor of Wycherly and Congreve; but
Dryden, the reigning favourite, was not as great in dramatic as he was
in other writing; his heroic plays, and Lee's "Alexander," were
admired, not so much for the beauties mixed with their absurdity, as
for the improbable air they gave to a serious passion; and the
favourite plays of deceased authors were those of the most equivocal
writers of the time of James, not the pure and profound nature of
Shakspeare and his fellows. Otway flourished, but was not thought so
great as he is now; and even in Otway there is a hot bullying smack of
the tavern, very different from the voluptuousness in Shakspeare.
Towards the close of this reign comedy came to its height with
Wycherly, who, almost as profligate in point of dialogue as any of his
contemporaries, nevertheless hit the right vein of satire. Wycherly
lived at the other end of Russell Street, in Bow Street, where we
shall see him shortly.

We are now come to the time of Congreve, Mrs. Bracegirdle, and
others; Betterton remaining. Of these individually we have spoken
before; and therefore shall only observe that by the more serious
examples of James II. and King William, the manners of the day were
reforming, and those of the stage with them. We now find ourselves
among audiences more composed, and witness plays less coarse, though
with an abundance of double meaning and exuberantly witty. Coquetry
and fashion are now the reigning stage goddesses, as mere wantonness
was that of the age preceding.

Farquhar and Vanbrugh succeeded, together with Cibber, Wilkes, Booth,
and latterly Steele and Mrs. Oldfield. Vanbrugh does not belong to
Drury Lane, but Farquhar does, with the rest; and a lively place he
made of it. He is _Captain_ Farquhar, has a plume in his hat, and
prodigious animal spirits, with invention at will, and great good
nature. Captains abounded among the wits and adventurers of those days
down to Captains Macheath and Gibbet. Vanbrugh was a captain; Steele
at one time was Captain Steele; and Mrs. Oldfield's father, though the
son of a vinter, became Captain Oldfield, and genteelly ran out an
estate. This is still the age of genuine comedy, and the stage is
worthy of it. The tragedy was proportionably bad. Booth, indeed, was a
good tragic actor, but he suited the age in being declamatory. He was
the hero of Addison's Cato, once the favourite tragedy of the critics,
now of nobody.

Rowe was another artificial writer of tragedy, but not without a vein
of feeling. It seems to have been thought in those times, as we may
see by these authors, and by the tragedies of Banks and Lillo, that to
be natural, an author was to be prosaical; while, if he had any
pretensions to be poetical, it was his business to--

"---- wake the soul by tender strokes of _art_."

The gradual approach, also, of this period to our own times, which are
more critical in costume, and the pictures left to us of favourite
performers in Hamlet and Hermione, dressed in wigs and hoop
petticoats, render those outrages upon propriety still stranger to
one's imagination. They set tragedy in a mock-heroical light. Cato
wore a long peruke; Alexander the Great a wig and jack-boots; and it
was customary, down to Garrick's time, to dress Macbeth and other
tragic general-officers in a suit of brick-dust. "Booth enters," says
Pope:--

---- "Hark, the universal peal!
But has he spoken? Not a syllable.
What shook the stage and made the people stare?
Cato's long wig, flowered gown, and lackered chair."

The stare was not that of ridicule, but of admiration. All this makes
the comedy of that period shine out the more as the only truth extant.
Cherry, and Archer, and Sir Harry Wildair, and Sir John Brute, and my
Lady Betty Modish, were like the age, and like the performers.

To return to these. Wilks was the fine gentleman of that period. He
was a friend of Farquhar's, and came to London with him from Dublin.
Cibber, though he wrote a good comedy, would appear, by some accounts
of him, to have been little more on the stage than a mimic of past
actors. Steele, however, has a criticism on him and Wilks, in which he
speaks of them both as perfect actors in their kinds.

"Wilks," he tells us, "has a singular talent in representing
the graces of nature; Cibber the deformity in the affectation
of them. Were I a writer of plays, I should never employ either
of them in parts which had not their bents this way. This is
seen in the inimitable strain and run of good humour which is
kept up in the character of Wildair, and in the nice and
delicate abuse of understanding in that of Sir Novelty. Cibber,
in another light, hits exquisitely the _flat_ civility of an
affected gentleman usher, and Wilks the easy frankness of a
gentleman.... To beseech gracefully, to approach respectfully,
to pity, to mourn, to love, are the places wherein Wilks may be
made to shine with the utmost beauty. To rally pleasantly, to
scorn artfully, to flatter, to ridicule, and to neglect, are
what Cibber would perform with no less excellence."[259]

This criticism produced a letter to Steele from two inferior actors of
that time, Bullock and Penkethman, who, rather than not be noticed at
all, were willing to be bantered. They knew it would be done
good-naturedly. Accordingly the "Tatler" says,

"For the information of posterity I shall comply with this
letter, and set these two great men in such a light as Sallust
has placed his Cato and Cæsar. Mr. William Bullock and Mr.
William Penkethman are of the same age, profession, and sex.
They both distinguish themselves in a very particular manner
under the discipline of the crab tree, with this only
difference, that Mr. Bullock has the more agreeable squall, and
Mr. Penkethman the more graceful shrug. Penkethman devours cold
chick with great applause; Bullock's talent lies chiefly in
asparagus. Penkethman is very dexterous at conveying himself
under a table; Bullock is no less active at jumping over a
stick. Mr. Penkethman has a great deal of money; but Mr.
Bullock is the taller man."[260]

Off the stage, and behind the scenes, Cibber performed the part of a
coxcomb of the first order. We shall not be properly acquainted with
Drury Lane at this period if we do not repeat his story of the wig.

This was a peruke of his, famous in the part of Sir Fopling Flutter.
It was so much admired, that Cibber used to have it brought upon the
stage in a sedan, and put it on publicly, to the great content of the
beholders. A set of curls so applauded was the next thing to a toast;
and accordingly Colonel, then Mr. Brett, whom the toasts admired,
could not rest till he had taken possession of it.

"The first view," says Colley, "that fires the head of a young
gentleman of this modish ambition, just broke loose from
business, is to cut a figure (as they call it) in a side box at
the play, from whence their next step is to the green-room
behind the scenes, sometimes their _non ultra_. Hither at last,
then, in this hopeful quest of his fortune, came this
gentleman-errant, not doubting but the fickle dame, while he
was thus qualified to receive her, might be tempted to fall
into his lap. And though, possibly, the charms of our
theatrical nymphs might have their share in drawing him
thither; yet, in my observation, the most visible cause of his
first coming was a more sincere passion he had conceived for a
fair full-bottomed periwig, which I then wore in my first play
of the 'Fool in Fashion,' in the year 1695. For it is to be
noted that the _beaux_ of those days were of a quite different
cast to the modern stamp, and had more of the stateliness of
the peacock in their mien, than (which now seems to be their
highest emulation) the pert of a lapwing. Now, whatever
contempt philosophers may have for a fine periwig, my friend,
who was not to despise the world, but to live in it, knew very
well, that so material an article of dress upon the head of a
man of sense, if it became him, could never fail of drawing to
him a more partial regard and benevolence than could possibly
be hoped for in an ill-made one. This, perhaps, may soften the
grave censure which so youthful a purchase might otherwise have
laid upon him. In a word, he made his attack upon this periwig,
as your young fellows generally do for a lady of pleasure;
first, by a few familiar praises of her person, and then a
civil inquiry into the price of it. But on his observing me a
little surprised at the levity of his question about a fop's
periwig, he began to rally himself with so much wit and humour
upon the folly of his fondness for it, that he struck me with
an equal desire of granting anything in my power to oblige so
facetious a customer. This singular beginning of our
conversation, and the mutual laughs that ensued upon it, ended
in an agreement to finish our bargain that night over a
bottle."[261]

Colonel Brett, being a man of "_bonnes fortunes_," married Savage's
mother!

Mrs. Oldfield made such an impression in her day, and has been noticed
by so many writers, that she must have a passage to herself. She was
the daughter of Captain Oldfield above-mentioned, and went to live
with her aunt, who kept the Mitre tavern in St. James's Market. Here,
we are told, Captain Farquhar, overhearing Miss Nancy read a play
behind the bar, was so struck "with the proper emphasis and agreeable
turn she gave to each character, that he swore the girl was cut out
for the stage." As she had always expressed an inclination for that
way of life, and a desire of trying her fortune in it, her mother, on
this encouragement, the next time she saw Captain Vanbrugh (afterwards
Sir John), who had a great respect for the family, acquainted him with
Captain Farquhar's opinion, on which he desired to know whether her
bent was most tragedy or comedy. Miss, being called in, informed him
that her principal inclination was to the latter, having at that time
gone through all Beaumont and Fletcher's comedies; and the play she
was reading when Captain Farquhar dined there having been 'The
Scornful Lady.' Captain Vanbrugh, shortly after, recommended her to
Mr. Christopher Rich, who took her into the house at the allowance of
fifteen shillings per week. However, her agreeable figure and
sweetness of voice soon gave her the preference, in the opinion of the
whole town, to all the young actresses of that time; and the Duke of
Bedford, in particular, being pleased to speak to Mr. Rich in her
favour, he instantly raised her to twenty shillings per week. After
which her fame and salary gradually increased, till at length they
both attained that height which her merit entitled her to.[262]

The new actress had a silver voice, a beautiful face and person, great
good-nature, sprightliness, and grace, and became the fine lady of the
stage in the most agreeable sense of the word. She also acted heroines
of the sentimental order, and had an original part in every play of
Steele. But she was particularly famous in the part of Lady Betty
Modish, in "_The Careless Husband_." The name explains the character.
Cibber tells us that he drew many of the strokes in it from her lively
manner.

"Had her birth," he says, "placed her in a higher rank of life,
she had certainly appeared in reality what in this play she
only excellently acted, an agreeable gay woman of quality, a
little too conscious of her natural attractions. I have often
seen her in private societies, where women of the best rank
might have borrowed some part of their behaviour, without the
least diminution of their sense or dignity. And this very
morning, where I am now writing, at the Bath, November 11th,
1738, the same words were said of her by a lady of condition,
whose better judgment of her personal merit in that light has
emboldened me to repeat them. After her success in this
character of higher life, all that nature had given her of the
actress seemed to have risen to its full perfection: but the
variety of her power could not be known till she was seen in a
variety of characters, which, as fast as they fell to her, she
equally excelled in. Authors had much more from her performance
than they had reason to hope for, from what they had written
for her; and none had less than another, but as their genius,
in the parts they allotted her, was more or less elevated.

"In the wearing of her person she was particularly fortunate;
her figure was always improving to her thirty-sixth year; but
her excellence in acting was never at a stand; and the last new
character she shone in (Lady Townly) was a proof that she was
still able to do more, if more could have been done for _her_.
She had one mark of good sense, rarely known in any actor of
either sex but herself. I have observed several, with promising
dispositions, very desirous of instruction at their first
setting out; but no sooner had they found their best account in
it, than they were as desirous of being left to their own
capacity, which they then thought would be disgraced by their
seeming to want any farther assistance. But this was not Mrs.
Oldfield's way of thinking; for to the last year of her life
she never undertook any part she liked, without being
importunately desirous of having all the helps in it that
another could possibly give her. By knowing so much herself,
she found how much more there was of nature yet needful to be
known.

"Yet it was a hard matter to give her any hint, that she was
not able to take or improve. With all this merit, she was
tractable, and less presuming in her station than several that
had not half her pretensions to be troublesome. But she lost
nothing by her easy conduct; she had everything she asked,
which she took care should be always reasonable, because she
hated as much to be grudged as denied a civility. Upon her
extraordinary action in the '_Provoked Husband_,' the managers
made her a present of fifty guineas more than her agreement,
which never was more than a verbal one; for they knew she was
above deserting them to engage upon any other stage, and she
was conscious they would never think it their interest to give
her cause of complaint. In the last two months of her illness,
when she was no longer able to assist them, she declined
receiving her salary, though by her agreement she was entitled
to it. Upon the whole she was, to the last scene she acted, the
delight of her spectators."[263]

This charming actress (Mrs. Oldfield) is said to have been the Flavia
of "_The Tatler_" (No. 212). The catch-penny writer of her memoirs
equivocally speaks of it as her "_vera effigies_," and on his
authority the assertion has been repeated. But as a Flavia mentioned
in the same work (No. 239) turns out to be Miss Osborne, afterwards
the wife of Bishop Atterbury (upon whom he wrote the lines on a fan
there inserted, beginning

"Flavia the least and slightest toy
Can with resistless art employ,")

and as the first Flavia is praised for her quality and the extreme
simplicity of her manners (which, according to Cibber, was not exactly
one of the charms of Mrs. Oldfield,) the supposition, we think, falls
to the ground. We need have less hesitation in admitting that Steele,
who knew her well, alludes to her in another paper under her favourite
title of Lady Betty Modish. Speaking of the effects of love upon a
generous temper, in refining the manners, he says, "There is Colonel
Ranter, who never spoke without an oath until he saw the Lady Betty
Modish, now never gives his man an order, but it is, 'Pray, Tom, do
it.' The drawers where he drinks live in perfect happiness. He asked
Will at the George the other day, how he did? Where he used to say,
'Damn it, it is so;' he now 'believes there is some mistake; he must
confess, he is of another opinion; but, however, he will not
insist.'"[264] This Colonel Ranter is supposed by the commentators to
have been Brigadier-General Churchill, one of the Marlborough family,
who lived with Mrs. Oldfield after the death of Mr. Maynwaring. Steele
elsewhere speaks of a "General" (supposed to be the same) "weeping for
her, in the character of Indiana in his '_Conscious Lovers_;'" upon
which he said Mr. Wilks observed (for he had made all the fine
gentlemen tender) that the General "would fight ne'er the worse for
that."

Mrs. Oldfield's position in life was singular. With all her beauty and
attraction, and the license of stage manners, she is understood to
have attached herself but to two persons successively, and on the
footing of a wife. The first was Mr. Maynwaring, a celebrated Whig
writer, to whom one of the volumes of "The Spectator" is dedicated,
and by whom she had a son; and, after his death, she lived with
General Churchill, by whom she had a son also. "She left," says '_The
General Biography_,' "the bulk of her substance to her son Maynwaring,
from whose father she had received it; without neglecting, however,
her other son Churchill, and her own relations."

During the period of these two connections, Mrs. Oldfield appears to
have been received into the first circles, where she is described as
being a pattern of good behaviour; and yet the feeling of Mr.
Maynwaring's friends against the connection was so strong, that she
herself, though she is understood to have had a sincere affection for
him, is said to have often remonstrated with him against it as
injurious to his interest. Marriage with an actress, though the
example had been set by a duke, appears in neither case to have been
thought of. The feeling of society seems to have been this:--"Here is
a woman bred up to the stage, and passing her life upon it. It is
therefore impossible she should marry a gentleman of family; and yet,
as her behaviour would otherwise deserve it, and the examples of
actresses are of no authority for any one but themselves, some license
may be allowed to a woman who diverts us so agreeably, who attracts
the society of the wits, and is so capital a dresser. We will treat
her profession with contempt, but herself with consideration." Upon
these curious grounds Mrs. Oldfield lived in every respect like a
woman of fashion, and as she became rich (which was, perhaps, not the
least of her recommendations), she was admitted into the best society,
and went to court. The pretence among her visitors during both her
connections probably was, that she was privately married; but she was
too sincere to warrant the deception. The Princess of Wales
(afterwards queen of George II.) asked her one day at a levee if her
marriage with General Churchill was true. "So it is said, may it
please your highness, but we have not owned it yet."--"It may appear
singular," says Mr. Chalmers, who tells us this story, "to quote the
late pious Sir James Stonhouse for anecdotes of Mrs. Oldfield; yet in
one of his letters we are informed, that she always went to the house
in the same dress she had worn at dinner in her visits to the houses
of great people; for she was much caressed on account of her
professional merit and her connection with Mr. Churchill, the Duke of
Marlborough's brother; that she used to go to the playhouse in a
chair, attended by two footmen; that she seldom spoke to any one of
the actors; and was allowed a sum of money to buy her own
clothes."[265] Mrs. Oldfield's generosity was much admired in giving
a pension to Savage, which he received regularly as long as she lived.
This is what has given posterity a liking for her. When she died she
lay in state in the Jerusalem Chamber, and her funeral in Westminster
Abbey was attended by several noblemen, among others, as pall-bearers.
Mr. Chalmers has repeated, with other biographers, that, "at her own
desire," she was elegantly dressed in her coffin; on which account, it
is added, Pope introduced her in the character of Narcissa:

"Odious! in wollen! 'twould a saint provoke,
(Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke);
No, let a charming chintz and Brussels lace
Wrap my cold limbs and shade my lifeless face:
One would not sure be frightful when one's dead--
And, Betty, give this cheek a little red."

But it does not appear that there is any authority for this speech,
except the poet's. A letter written to her first biographer by an
attendant during her last illness says, that "although she had no
priest," she "prayed without ceasing," which does not look like an
attention to dress; but the biographer adds, that "as the nicety of
dress was her delight when living, she was as nicely dressed after her
decease; being, by Mrs. Saunders' direction, thus laid in her coffin."
The nicety here mentioned was, to be sure, "mortal fine."--"She had
on," says the writer, "a very fine Brussels lace-head, a Holland shift
with tucker, and double ruffles of the same lace; a pair of new kid
gloves, and her body wrapt up in a winding sheet."[266] Yet we are of
Montaigne's opinion, and know not why death should be rendered more
melancholy than it is. When a tomb was opened in Greece, supposed to
be that of Aspasia, there was found in it a sprig of myrtle in gold.

The next batch of players, with Garrick at their head, are Quin,
Macklin, Barry, King, Woodward, Gentleman Smith, and others; with Mrs.
Clive, Pritchard, Cibber, and Woffington. Garrick's later
contemporaries are Parsons, Dodd, Quick, the Palmers, Miss Pope, Mrs.
Abingdon, and others, who bring us down to Mrs. Siddons, Miss Farren,
&c., the commencers of our own time. Of Steele and the sentimental
comedy we need say no more. Goldsmith belongs to Covent Garden; Foote
to the Haymarket; and Cumberland, though an elegant writer, does not
call for any particular mention in an abstract like this.

When Garrick first appeared, a declamatory grandeur prevailed in
tragedy, which we conceive to have arisen in the time of Charles II.
It was probably handed down by Booth; and imitated, with the usual
deterioration, from Betterton, who, though a true genius and a
universal one, may not have been uncorrupted by the taste of the
times; not to mention that it is doubtful, till Garrick appeared,
whether the art of acting was not identified with something too much
of an art, and the delicacy of verses expected to partake more of
recitation and musical accompaniment than we now look for. Our
suspicion to this effect arises from the traditional habits of the
stage, one generation handing down the manner of another, and
Betterton himself having been educated in the school of those who were
bred up in the recollection of Burbage and Condell. Shakspeare
himself, from custom, or even from some subtlety of reason, might have
approved of something of this kind; though, on the other hand, in the
celebrated directions of Hamlet to the players, there appears to be a
secret dissatisfaction with the most applauded actors of that time, as
not being exactly what was desirable. If this notion is just, and the
great poet of nature was as much advanced beyond his time in this as
in other respects, he might indeed have hailed such an actor as
Garrick, however hyperbolically they have been sometimes put together.
The best performers whom Garrick found in possession of public
applause, though some of them are described as excelling in all the
varieties of passion (as Mrs. Cibber, for instance, notwithstanding
the different impression given of her in the following quotation),
appear to have been more or less of the old declamatory school. Quin
in particular, then at the head of the profession, was an avowed
declaimer, having the same notions of tragedy in the delivery which
his friend Thomson had in the composition. Posterity respects Quin as
the friend of Thomson, and laughs with him as an epicure and a wit.
Garrick and he ultimately became friends. Of the first reception of
the new style introduced by Garrick, its electrical effects upon some,
and the natural hesitation of others to give up their old favourites,
a lively picture has been left us by Cumberland.

Speaking of himself, who was then at Westminster school, he says,--

"I was once or twice allowed to go, under proper convoy, to the
play, where, for the first time in my life, I was treated by
the sight of Garrick in the character of Lothario. Quin played
Horatio; Ryan, Altamont; Mrs. Cibber, Calista; and Mrs.
Pritchard condescended to the humble part of Lavinia. I enjoyed
a good view of the stage from the front row of the gallery, and
my attention was rivetted to the scene. I have the spectacle
even now, as it were, before my eyes. Quin presented himself,
upon the rising of the curtain, in a green velvet coat,
embroidered down the seams, an enormous full-bottomed periwig,
rolled stockings, and high-heeled, square-toed shoes. With very
little variation of cadence, and in a deep, full tone,
accompanied by a sawing kind of action, which had more of the
senate than of the stage in it, he rolled out his heroics with
an air of dignified indifference, that seemed to disdain the
plaudits that were bestowed upon him. Mrs. Cibber, in a key
high pitched, but sweet withal, sung, or rather recitatived,
Rowe's harmonious strain, something in the manner of the
improvisatore's; it was so extremely wanting in contrast, that,
though it did not wound the ear, it wearied it; when she had
once recited two or three speeches, I could anticipate the
manner of every succeeding one; it was like a long, old,
legendary ballad of innumerable stanzas, every one of which is
sung to the same tune, eternally chiming in the ear without
variation or relief. Mrs. Pritchard was an actress of a
different cast, had more nature, and, of course, more change of
tone, and variety both of action and expression: in my opinion
the comparison was decidedly in her favour; but when, after
long and eager expectation, I first beheld little Garrick, then
young and light and alive in every muscle and in every feature,
come bounding on the stage, and pointing at the wittol Altamont
and heavy-paced Horatio--heavens, what a transition!--it seemed
as if a whole century had been swept over in the transition of
a single scene; old things were done away and a new order at
once brought forward, bright and luminous, and clearly destined
to dispel the barbarisms and bigotry of a tasteless age, too
long attached to the prejudices of custom, and superstitiously
devoted to the illusions of imposing declamation. This
heaven-born actor was then struggling to emancipate his
audience from the slavery they were resigned to; and though, at
times, he succeeded in throwing in some gleams of newborn light
upon them, yet, in general they seemed to _love darkness better
than light_, and, in the dialogue of altercation between
Horatio and Lothario, bestowed far the greater _show of hands_
upon the master of the old school than upon the founder of the
new. I thank my stars, my feelings in those moments led me
right; they were those of nature, and therefore could not
err."[267]

It is needless to add that Garrick excelled in comedy as well as
tragedy, and in the lowest comedy too--in Abel Drugger as well as
Hamlet. He was first at Goodman's Fields; then appeared both at Covent
Garden and Drury Lane; but in a short time settled for life at Drury
Lane as actor, manager, and author. He was a sprightly dramatist, a
man of wit, and no doubt a generous man, though the endless matters of
business in which he was concerned, and the refusals of all kinds
which he must have been often forced into, got him, with many, a
character for the reverse. Johnson, who did not spare him, pronounced
him generous. Fine as his tragedy must have been, we suspect his
comedy must have been finer; because his own nature was one of greater
sprightliness than sentiment. We hear nothing serious of him
throughout his life; and his face, with a great deal of acuteness, has
nothing in it profound or romantic.

Garrick has the reputation of improving the stage costume: but it was
Macklin that did it. The late Mr. West, who was the first (in his
picture of the "Death of Wolfe") to omit the absurdity of putting a
piece of armour instead of a waistcoat upon a general officer, told
us, that he himself once asked Garrick why he did not reform the stage
in that particular. Garrick said the spectators would not allow it;
"they would throw a bottle at his head." Macklin, however, persevered,
and the thing was done. The other, with all his nature, seems to have
had a hankering after the old dresses. He had first triumphed in them,
and they suited his propensity to the airy and popular. Garrick had a
particular dislike to appearing in the Roman costume. Probably in this
there was a consciousness of his small person. There are many
engravings of him extant, in which his tragic characters are seen in
coats and toupees. His appearance as Hotspur, in a laced frock and
Ramillie wig, was objected to, not as being unsuitable to the time,
but as "too insignificant for the character."[268]

Of Barry, the most celebrated antagonist of Garrick, we shall speak at
Covent Garden. King, according to Churchill, by the force of natural
impudence as well as genius, excelled in "Brass;" and Churchill's
opinions are worth attending to, though he expresses them with
vehemence, and by wholesale. _Gentleman_ Smith explains his character
by his title. We should entertain a very high opinion of Mrs.
Pritchard, even had she left us nothing but the face in her portraits.
She seems to have been a really great genius, equally capable of the
highest and lowest parts. The fault objected to her was, that her
figure was not genteel; and we can imagine this well enough in an
actress who could pass from Lady Macbeth to Doll Common. She seems to
have thrown herself into the arms of sincerity and passion, not,
perhaps, the most refined, but as tragic and comic as need be. As
Churchill says,

"Before such merits all objections fly,
Pritchard's genteel, and Garrick six feet high."

Clive was an admirable comic actress, of the wilful and fantastic
order, and a wit and virago in private life. She became the neighbour
and intimate of Horace Walpole, and always seems to us to have been
the _man_ of the two. Mrs. Woffington was an actress of all work, but
of greater talents than the phrase generally implies. Davies says she
was the handsomest woman that ever appeared on the stage, and that
Garrick was at one time in doubt whether he should not marry her. She
was famous for performing in male attire, and openly preferred the
conversation of men to women--the latter she said, talking of "nothing
but silks and scandal." She was the only woman admitted into one of
the beef-steak clubs, and is said to have been president of it. These
humours, perhaps, though Davies praises her for feminine manners, as
contrasted with her antagonist Mrs. Clive, frightened Garrick out of
his matrimony.

We now pass at once to Covent Garden Theatre, which lies close by.
Many old play-goers who are in the habit of associating the two
theatres in their fancy, like twins, will be surprised to hear that
the Covent Garden establishment is very young, compared with her
sister, being little more than a hundred years old. It was first built
by Rich, the harlequin, and opened in 1733 under the patent granted to
the Duke's company. The Covent Garden company may therefore be
considered as the representatives of the old companies of Davenant and
Betterton; while those at Drury Lane are the successors of Killigrew,
and more emphatically the King's actors. Indeed, they exclusively
designate themselves as "his Majesty's servants;" and, we believe,
claim some privileges on that account. Covent Garden theatre was
partly rebuilt in 1772, and wholly so in 1809, having undergone the
usual death by conflagration. The new edifice was a structure in
classical taste, by Mr. Smirke, the portico being a copy from the
Parthenon of Athens.[269]

Actors have seldom been confined to any one house; and those whom we
are about to mention performed at Drury Lane as well as Covent Garden;
but as they were rivals or opponents of Garrick, and may be supposed
to have made the greatest efforts when they acted on a different
stage, we shall speak of them apart under the present head. The first
of them is Barry, who at one time almost divided the favour e
town with Garrick, and in some characters is said to have excelled
him, especially in love parts. How far this was owing to superiority
of figure, and to a reputation for gallantry, it is impossible to say;
and never were judgments more discordant than those which have been
left us on the subject of Barry's merits. For instance, his character
is thus summed up by Davies:--

"Of all the tragic actors who have trod the English stage for
these last fifty years, Mr. Barry was unquestionably the most
pleasing. Since Booth and Wilks, no actor had shown the public
a just idea of the hero or the lover; Barry gave dignity to the
one and passion to the other: in his person he was tall without
awkwardness; in his countenance, handsome without effeminacy;
in his uttering of passion, the language of nature alone was
communicated to the feelings of an audience."

Davies proceeds to tell us, that Barry could not perform such
characters as Richard and Macbeth, though he made a capital Alexander.
"He charmed the ladies by the soft melody of his love-complaints, and
the noble ardour of his courtship. There was no passion of the tender
kind so truly pathetic and forcible in any actor as in Barry, except
in Mrs. Cibber, who, indeed, excelled, in the expression of love,
grief, tenderness, and jealous rage, all I ever knew. Happy it was for
the frequenters of the theatre, when these two genuine children of
nature united their efforts to charm an attentive audience. Mrs.
Cibber, indeed, might be styled the daughter or sister of Mr. Garrick,
but could be only the mistress or wife of Barry."[270] Our author
afterwards calls him the "Mark Antony of the stage," whether his
amorous disposition was considered, or his love of expense. He
delighted in giving magnificent entertainments, and treated Mr.
Pelham, who once invited himself to sup with him, in a style so
princely, that the Minister rebuked him for it; which was not very
civil. An actor has surely as much right to do absurd things as a
statesman.

Now, as a contrast to this romantic portrait by Davies, take the
following from the severer but masterly hand of Churchill:--

"In person taller than the common size,
Behold where Barry draws admiring eyes;
When lab'ring passions in his bosom pent,
Convulsive rage, and struggling heave for vent,
Spectators, with imagined terrors warm,
Anxious expect the bursting of the storm:
But, all unfit in such a pile to dwell,
His voice comes forth like Echo from her cell;
To swell the tempest needful aid denies,
And all a-down the stage in feeble murmur dies.
What man, like Barry, with such pains, can err
In elocution, action, character?
What man could give, if Barry was not here,
Such well-applauded tenderness to Lear?
Who else can speak so very, very fine,
That sense may kindly end with every line?
Some dozen lines, before the ghost is there,
Behold him for the solemn scene prepare.
See how he frames his eyes, poises each limb,
Puts the whole body into proper trim,--
From whence we learn, with no great stretch of art,
Five lines hence comes a ghost, and lo! a start.
When he appears most perfect, still we find
Something which jars upon and hurts the mind.
Whatever lights upon a part are thrown,
We see too plainly they are not his own:
No flame from nature ever yet he caught,
Nor knew a feeling which he was not taught;
He raised his trophies on the base of art,
And conn'd his passions, as he conn'd his part."[271]

The probability, we fear, is that Barry was one of the old artificial
school, who made his way more by person than by genius. Davies, who
was a better gossip than critic, though he affected literature, was an
actor himself of the mouthing order, if we are to believe Churchill;
and his criticisms show him enough inclined to lean favourably to that
side.

We have spoken of Quin, who acted much at this house in opposition to
Garrick. It was here that he delivered the prologue to the memory of
his friend Thomson; and affected the audience by shedding real
tears.[272]

Macklin was celebrated in Shylock; and in some other sarcastic parts,
particularly that of Sir Archy, in his comedy of "Love-à-la-Mode." We
take him to have been one of those actors whose performances are
confined to the reflection of their own personal peculiarities. The
merits of Shuter, Edwin, Quick, and others who succeeded one another
as buffoons, were perhaps a good deal of this sort; but pleasant
humours are rare and acceptable. Macklin was a clever satirist in his
writing, and embroiled himself, not so cleverly, with a variety of his
acquaintances. He foolishly attempted to run down Garrick; and once,
in a sudden quarrel, poked out a man's eye with his stick and killed
him; for which he narrowly escaped hanging. However, he was sorry for
it; and he is spoken of, by the stage historians, as kind in his
private relations, and liberal of his purse. A curious specimen of his
latter moments we reserve for our mention of the house where he died.

Woodward seems to have been a caricature anticipation of Lewis, and
was a capital harlequin. But nobody in harlequins beat Rich, the
manager of this theatre. His pantomimes and spectacles produced a
re-action against Garrick, when nothing else could; and Covent Garden
ever since has been reckoned the superior house in that kind of
merit,--"the wit," as Mr. Ludlow Holt called it, "of goods and
chattels." However, a considerable degree of fancy and observation may
be developed in pantomime: it is the triumph of animal spirits at
Christmas, for the little children; and for the men there is
occasionally some excellent satire on the times, reminding one, in its
spirit, of what we read of the comic buffoonery of the ancients.
Grimaldi, in his broad and fugitive sketches, often showed himself a
shrewder observer than many a comic actor who can repeat only what is
set down for him. Covent Garden has, perhaps, been superior also in
music, at least since the existence of the two houses together: for
Purcell was before its time. Many of Arne's pieces came out here; and
the famous Beard, a singer as manly as his name, the delight both of
public and private life, was one of the managers.

Among the Covent Garden actors must not be forgotten Cooke, who came
out there in Richard III. For some time he was the greatest performer
of this and a few other characters. He was a new kind of Macklin, and
like him, excelled in Shylock and Sir Archy M'Sarcasm; a confined
actor, and a wayward man, but highly impressive in what he could do.
His artful villains have been found fault with for looking too artful
and villanous; but men of that stamp are apt to look so. The art of
hiding is a considerable one; but habit will betray it after all, and
stand foremost in the countenance. They who think otherwise are only
too dull to see it. Besides, Cooke had generally to represent
bold-faced, aspiring art; and to hug himself in its triumph. This he
did with such a gloating countenance, as if villany was pure luxury in
him, and with such a soft inward retreating of his voice--a wrapping
up of himself, as it were, in velvet--so different from his ordinary
rough way, that sometimes one could almost have wished to abuse him.

John Kemble, who, like the whole respectable family of that name,
contributed much to maintain the rising character of the profession,
may be considered the last popular actor of the declamatory school.
His sister was a far greater performer, a true theatrical genius,
especially for the stately and dominant; and had a great effect in
raising the character of the profession. The growth of liberal opinion
is nowhere more visible than in the different estimation in which
actors and actresses are now held, compared with what it was.
Individuals, it is true, always made their way into society by dint of
the interest they excited; but still they were upon sufferance.
Anybody could insult an actor, could even beat him, without its being
dreamt that he had a right to retaliate; and the most amiable and
lady-like actresses were thought unfit for wives, as we have seen in
the case of Mrs. Oldfield. Things are now upon a different footing.
Talent is allowed its just pretensions, whether coming from author or
performer, and actresses have taken such a step, in ascension, that
nobility almost seems to look out for a wife among them, as in a
school that will inevitably furnish it with some kind of grace and
intellect. The famous Lord Peterborough, who was the first nobleman
that married an actress, kept the union concealed as long as he
could, and only owned it just before his death. The Duke of Bolton,
who married Miss Fenton, the Polly of Gay's opera, had first had
several children by her as his mistress; so that this is hardly a case
in point; and the marriage of Beard, the singer, with a lady of the
Waldegrave family, though he was one of the most excellent of men, was
looked upon as such a degradation, that they have contrived to omit
the circumstance in the peerage-books to this day! Martin Folkes's
marriage with Mrs. Bradshaw probably made the world consider the case
a little more rationally, as he was a clever man; but Lord Derby's
marriage with Miss Farren, who was eminently the gentlewoman, as well
as of spotless character, seems to have been the first that rendered
such unions compatible with public opinion. Lord Craven's with Miss
Brunton followed, though at a considerable interval; and since that
time, the town are so far from being surprised at the marriages of
actresses with people of rank or fashion, that they seem to look for
them. Lord Thurlow, not long afterwards, married Miss Bolton; another
noble lord was lately the husband of an eminent singer; and several
other favourites of the town, Miss Tree, Miss O'Neill, &c., have
become the wives of men of fortune. We remember even a dancer, Miss
Searle (but she was of great elegance, and had an air of delicate
self-possession), who married into a family of rank.

The whole entertainment of a theatre has been rising in point of
accommodation and propriety for the last fifty years. The scenery is
better, the music better--we mean the orchestra--and last, not least,
the audiences are better. They are better behaved. Garrick put an end
to one great nuisance--the occupation, by the audience, of part of the
stage. Till his time, people often sat about a stage as at the sides
of a room, and the actor had to make his way among them, sometimes
with the chance of being insulted; and scuffles took place among
themselves. Dr. Johnson, at Lichfield, is said to have pushed a man
into the orchestra who had taken possession of his chair. The pit,
also, from about Garrick's time, seems to have left to the galleries
the vulgarity attributed to it by Pope. There still remains, says he--

---- "to mortify a wit,
The many-headed monster of the pit,
A senseless, worthless, and unhonoured crowd,
Who, to disturb their betters mighty proud,
Clattering their sticks before ten lines are spoke,
Call for the farce, the bear, or the black-joke."

This would now be hardly a fair description of the galleries; and yet
modern audiences are not reckoned to be of quite so high a cast as
they used, in point of rank and wealth; so that this is another
evidence of the general improvement of manners. Boswell, in an
ebullition of vivacity, while sitting one night in the pit by his
friend Dr. Blair, gave an extempore imitation of a cow! The house
applauded, and he ventured upon some attempts of the same kind which
did not succeed. Blair advised him in future to "stick to the cow." No
gentleman now-a-days would think of a freak like this. There is one
thing, however, in which the pit have much to amend. Their destitution
of gallantry is extraordinary, especially for a body so ready to
accept the clap-traps of the stage, in praise of their "manly hearts,"
and their "guardianship of the fair." Nothing is more common than to
see women standing at the sides of the pit benches, while no one
thinks of offering them a seat. Room even is not made, though it often
might be. Nay, we have heard women rebuked for coming without securing
a seat, while the reprover complimented himself on his better wisdom,
and the hearers laughed. On the other hand, a considerate gentleman
one night, who went out to stretch his legs, told a lady in our
hearing that she might occupy his seat "till he returned!"

A friend of ours knew a lady who remembered Dr. Johnson in the pit
taking snuff out of his waistcoat pocket. He used to go into the
green-room to his friend Garrick, till he honestly confessed that the
actresses excited too much of his admiration. Garrick did not much
like to be seen by him when playing any buffoonery. It is said that
the actor once complained to his friend that he talked too loud in the
stage box, and interrupted his feelings: upon which the doctor said,
"Feelings! Punch has no feelings." It was Johnson's opinion (speaking
of a common cant of critics), that an actor who really "took himself"
for Richard III., deserved to be hanged; and it is easy enough to
agree with him; except that an actor who did so would be out of his
senses. Too great a sensibility seems almost as hurtful to acting as
too little. It would soon wear out the performer. There must be a
quickness of conception, sufficient to seize the truth of the
character, with a coolness of judgment to take all advantages; but as
the actor is to represent as well as conceive, and to be the character
in his own person, he could not with impunity give way to his emotions
in any degree equal to what the spectators suppose. At least, if he
did, he would fall into fits, or run his head against the wall. As to
the amount of talent requisite to make a great actor, we must not
enter upon a discussion which would lead us too far from our main
object; but we shall merely express our opinion, that there is a great
deal more of it among the community than they are aware.

Goldsmith was a frequenter of the theatre: Fielding and Smollett,
Sterne, but particularly Churchill. "His observatory," says Davies,
"was generally the first row of the pit, next the orchestra." His
"Rosciad," a criticism on the most known performers of the day, made a
great sensation among a body of persons who, as they are in the habit
of receiving applause to their faces, and in the most victorious
manner, may be allowed a greater stock of self-love than most
people--a circumstance which renders an unexacting member of their
profession doubly delightful. "The writer," says Davies, "very warmly,
as well as justly, celebrated the various and peculiar excellencies of
Mrs. Pritchard, Mrs. Cibber, and Clive; but no one has, except
Garrick, escaped his satirical lash." Poor Davies is glad to say this,
because of the well-known passage in which he himself is mentioned:--

"With him came mighty Davies! On my life
That Davies hath a very pretty wife."

We will make one more quotation from this poem, because it describes a
class of actors, who are now extinct, and who carried the artificial
school to its height:--

"Mossop, attached to military plan,
Still kept his eye fixed on his right-hand man.
Whilst the mouth measures words with seeming skill,
The right hand labours, and the left lies still;
For he resolved on scripture grounds to go,
What the right doth, the left hand shall not know.
With studied impropriety of speech,
He soars beyond the hackney critic's reach;
To epithets allots emphatic state,
Whilst principals, ungraced, like lackeys, wait;
In ways first trodden by himself excels,
And stands alone in indeclinables;
Conjunction, preposition, adverb join,
To stamp new vigour on the nervous line:
In monosyllables his thunders roll;
HE, SHE, IT, and WE, YE, THEY, fright the soul."

Mr. Barrymore (of whom we have no unpleasing recollection) had
something of this manner with him; but the extremity of the style is
now quite gone out.

The only capital performers we remember, that are now dead and gone,
with the exception of two or three already mentioned, were Mrs.
Jordan, a charming cordial actress, on the homely side of the
agreeable, with a delightful voice; and Suett, who was the very
personification of weak whimsicality, with a laugh like a peal of
giggles. Mathews gives him to the life.

We shall conclude this chapter with some delightful play-going
recollections of the best theatrical critic now living[273]--the best,
indeed, as far as we know, that this country ever saw. He is one who
does not respect criticism a jot too much, nor any of the feelings
connected with humanity, or the imitation of it, too little. We here
have him giving us an account of the impression made upon him by the
first sight of a play, and concluding with a good hint to those older
children, who, because they have cut their drums open, think nothing
remains in life to be pleased with. A child may like a theatre,
because he is not thoroughly acquainted with it; but if he become a
wise man, he will find reason to like it, because he is.

Life always flows with a certain freshness in these quarters; nor,
with all their drawbacks, have we more agreeable impressions from any
neighbourhood in London, than what we receive from the district
containing the great theatres. It is one of the most social and the
least sordid.

"At the north end of Cross Court," says Mr. Lamb, "there yet
stands a portal, of some architectural pretensions, though
reduced to humble use, serving at present for an entrance to a
printing-office. This old door-way, if you are young, reader,
you may not know was the identical pit entrance to old
Drury--Garrick's Drury--all of it that is left. I never pass it
without shaking some forty years from off my shoulders,
recurring to the evening when I passed through it to see _my
first play_. The afternoon had been wet, and the condition of
our going (the elder folks and myself) was, that the rain
should cease. With what a beating heart did I watch from the
window the puddles, from the stillness of which I was taught to
prognosticate the desired cessation. I seem to remember the
last spurt, and the glee with which I ran to announce it.

* * * * *

"In those days were pit orders. Beshrew the uncomfortable
manager who abolished them!--with one of these we went. I
remember the waiting at the door--not that which is left--but
between that and an inner door, in shelter. Oh, when shall I be
such an expectant again!--with the cry of nonpareils, an
indispensable playhouse accompaniment in those days. As near as
I can recollect, the fashionable pronunciation of the
theatrical fruiteresses was, '_chase_ some oranges, _chase_
some nonpareils, _chase_ a bill of the play:' chase _pro_
chuse. But when we got in and I beheld the green curtain that
veiled a heaven to my imagination, which was soon to be
disclosed--the breathless anticipations I endured! I had seen
something like it in the plate prefixed to 'Troilus and
Cressida,' in Rowe's 'Shakspeare,'--the tent scene with
Diomede; and a sight of that plate can always bring back, in a
measure, the feeling of that evening. The boxes at that time
full of well-dressed women of quality, projected over the pit;
and the pilasters, reaching down, were adorned with a
glittering substance (I know not what) under glass (as it
seemed), resembling--a homely fancy--but I judged it to be
sugar-candy--yet, to my raised imagination, divested of its
homelier qualities, it appeared a glorified candy! The
orchestra lights at length arose, those 'fair Auroras!' Once
the bell sounded. It was to ring out yet once again; and,
incapable of the anticipation, I reposed my shut eyes in a sort
of resignation upon the maternal lap. It rang the second time.
The curtain drew up--I was not past six years old--and the play
was 'Artaxerxes!'

"I had dabbled a little in the 'Universal History'-the ancient
part of it--and here was the court of Persia. It was being
admitted to a sight of the past. I took no proper interest in
the action going on, for I understood not its import; but I
heard the word Darius, and I was in the midst of Daniel. All
feeling was absorbed in vision. Gorgeous vests, gardens,
palaces, princes, passed before me--I knew not players. I was
in Persepolis for the time, and the burning idol of their
devotion almost converted me into a worshipper. I was
awe-struck, and believed those significations to be something
more than elemental fires. It was all enchantment and a dream.
No such pleasure has ever since visited me but in dreams.
Harlequin's invasion followed; where, I remember, the
transformation of the magistrates into reverend beldames seemed
to me a piece of grave historic justice, and the tailor
carrying his own head to be as sober a verity as the legend of
St. Denys.

"The next play to which I was taken, was the 'Lady of the
Manor,' of which, with the exception of some scenery, very
faint traces are left in my memory. It was followed by a
pantomime called 'Lun's Ghost'--a satiric touch, I apprehend,
upon Rich, not long since dead--but to my apprehension (too
sincere for satire) Lun was as remote a piece of antiquity as
Lud--the father of a line of harlequins--transmitting his
dagger of lath (the wooden sceptre) through countless ages. I
saw the primeval Motley come from his silent tomb in a ghastly
vest of white patch-work, like the apparition of a dead
rainbow. So harlequins (thought I) look when they are dead.

"My third play followed in quick succession. It was 'The Way of
the World.' I think I must have sat at it as grave as a judge;
for, I remember, the hysteric affectations of good Lady
Wishfort affected me like some solemn tragic passion. 'Robinson
Crusoe' followed, in which Crusoe, Man Friday, and the Parrot
were as good and authentic as in the story. The clownery and
pantaloonery of these pantomimes have clean passed out of my
head. I believe I no more laughed at them, than at the same age
I should have been disposed to laugh at the grotesque gothic
heads (seeming to me then replete with devout meaning) that
gape and grin, in stone, around the inside of the old round
church (my church) of the Templars.

"I saw these plays in the season of 1781-2, when I was from six
to seven years old. After the intervention of six or seven
years (for at school all play-going was inhibited) I again
entered the doors of a theatre. That old Artaxerxes' evening
had never done ringing in my fancy. I expected the same
feelings to come again with the same occasion. But we differ
from ourselves less at sixty and sixteen, than the latter does
from six. In that interval what had I not lost! At the first
period I knew nothing, understood nothing, discriminated
nothing. I felt all, loved all, wondered all--

'Was nourished I could not tell how.'

I had left the temple a devotee, and was returned a
rationalist. The same things were there materially; but the
emblem, the reverence was gone! The green curtain was no longer
a veil drawn between two worlds, the unfolding of which was to
bring back past ages, to present a 'royal ghost,' but a certain
quantity of green baize, which was to separate the audience for
a given time from certain of their fellow-men who were to come
forward and pretend those parts. The lights--the orchestra
lights--came up, a clumsy machinery. The first ring, and the
second ring, was now but a trick of the prompter's bell, which
had been like the note of the cuckoo, a phantom of a voice, no
hand seen or guessed at, which ministered to its warning. The
actors were men and women painted. I thought the fault was in
them; but it was in myself, and the alteration which those many
centuries--of six short twelvemonths--had wrought in me.
Perhaps it was fortunate for me that the play of the evening
was but an indifferent comedy, as it gave me time to crop some
unreasonable expectations, which might have interfered with the
genuine emotions with which I was soon after enabled to enter
upon the first appearance, to me, of Mrs. Siddons in Isabella.
Comparison and retrospection soon yielded to the present
attraction of the scene; and the theatre became to me, _upon a
new stock_, the most delightful of recreations."--ELIA, p. 221.

[Illustration: ENTRANCE DOOR, OLD COVENT GARDEN.]

FOOTNOTES:

[247] P. 160.

[248] Lives of Dr. John Donne, Sir Henry Wotton, Hooker, &c. by Izaac
Walton, 1825, p. 22.

[249] Life of Donne, in Chalmers's "British Poets."

[250] For complete particulars of the history of James's daughter and
son-in-law, and their gallant adherents, see "Memoirs of Elizabeth
Stuart, Queen of Bohemia," by Miss Benger, and "Collins's Peerage," by
Sir Egerton Brydges, vol. v., p. 446. Miss Benger is as romantic as if
she had lived in the queen's time, but she is diligent and amusing.
The facts can easily be separated from her colouring.

[251] See Baker's Biographia Dramatica, vol. ii.

[252] See Baker, _passim_.

[253] Dramatic Miscellanies, vol. iii., chap. 24. Most of the above
particulars respecting Hart and Mohun have been gathered from that
work. There are scarcely any records of them elsewhere.

[254] Cibber's 'Apology,' _ut supra_, p. 226.

[255] "March 1st (1671). I thence walked with him through St. James's
Parke to the garden, where I both saw and heard a very familiar
discourse between ... and Mrs. Nellie, as they called an impudent
comedian, she looking out of her garden on a terrace at the top of the
wall, and ... standing on ye greene walke under it. I was heartily
sorry at this scene. Thence the King walked to the Duchess of
Cleveland, another lady of pleasure, and curse of our nation."--Evelyn's
'Memoirs,' _ut supra_, vol. ii., p. 339. It would be curious to know
how Mr. Evelyn conducted himself during this time, if he and the King
saw one another.

[256] Miscellaneous Works of the Duke of Buckingham and others. 1704,
vol. i., p. 34.

[257] The verses are attributed to Etherege; but, from a Scotch rhyme
in them of _trull_ and _will_, are perhaps not his.

[258] History of His own Times, Edin. 1753, vol. i., p. 387.

[259] Tatler, No. 182.

[260] Tatler, No. 188. See also No. 7.

[261] Apology, p. 303.

[262] Baker's Biographia Dramatica, Art. Farquhar, vol. i., p. 155.
Faithful Memoirs, &c., of Mrs. Anne Oldfield, by Egerton, p. 76.

[263] Apology, p. 250.

[264] Tatler, No. 10.

[265] Letters from the Rev. J. Orton and the Rev. Sir John Stonhouse,
quoted in the "General Biographical Dictionary," vol. xxiii. p. 326.

[266] Memoirs, p. 144.

[267] Memoirs of Richard Cumberland, written by himself, 4to. p. 59.
Davies, in his "Life of Garrick," vol. i. p. 136, gives us a different
idea of the preference awarded by the audience. To be sure, upon his
knowledge, he says only that Quin was defeated "in the opinion of the
best judges;" but he adds, from report, an anecdote that looks as if
the general feeling also was against him. "When Lothario," he says,
"gave Horatio the challenge, Quin, instead of accepting it
instantaneously, with the determined and unembarrassed brow of
superior bravery, made a long pause, and dragged out the words,

'I'll meet thee there!'

in such a manner as to make it appear absolutely ludicrous. He paused
so long before he spoke, that somebody, it was said, called out from
the gallery, 'Why don't you tell the gentleman whether you will meet
him or not?'"

[268] Davis's Miscellanies, _ut supra_, vol. i., p. 126.

[269] Since this was written, Covent Garden has been converted into an
Italian Opera House, has been a second time burnt, and a third time
rebuilt; the architect being Mr. Barry, a son of Sir Charles Barry,
who designed and erected the New Houses of Parliament.

[270] Alluding to her performance of Cordelia, &c., with the one, and
of Juliet, Belvidera, &c., with the other.

[271] The Rosciad.

[272] "He (Thomson) left behind him the tragedy of 'Coriolanus,' which
was, by the zeal of his patron, Sir George Lyttleton, brought upon the
stage for the benefit of his family, and recommended by a prologue,
which Quin, who had long lived with Thomson in fond intimacy, spoke in
such a manner as showed him 'to be,' on that occasion, 'no actor.' The
commencement of this benevolence is very honourable to Quin; who is
reported to have delivered Thomson, then known to him only for his
genius, from an arrest, by a very considerable present; and its
continuance is honourable to both, for friendship is not always the
sequel of obligation." Life, by Dr. Johnson, in Chalmers's 'Poets,' p.
409.

[273] Alas! now dead. This passage was written before the departure of
our admirable friend.

CHAPTER VIII.

COVENT GARDEN CONTINUED AND LEICESTER SQUARE.

Bow Street was once the Bond Street of London. Mrs. Bracegirdle began
an epilogue of Dryden's with saying--

"I've had to-day a dozen billet-doux
From fops, and wits, and cits, and Bow-street beaux;
Some from Whitehall, but from the Temple more:
A Covent-garden porter brought me four."

Sir Walter Scott says, in a note on the passage, "With a slight
alteration in spelling, a modern poet would have written _Bond Street_
beaux. A billet-doux from Bow Street would now be more alarming than
flattering."[274]

Mrs. Bracegirdle spoke this epilogue at Drury Lane. There was no
Covent Garden theatre then. People of fashion occupied the houses in
Bow Street, and mantuas floated lip and down the pavement. This was
towards the end of the Stuart's reign, and the beginning of the next
century--the times of Dryden, Wycherly, and the Spectator. The beau of
Charles's time is well-known. He wore, when in full flower, a peruke
to imitate the flowing locks of youth, a Spanish hat, clothes of
slashed silk or velvet, the slashes tied with ribands, a coat
resembling a vest rather than the modern coat, and silk stockings,
with roses in his shoes. The Spanish was afterwards changed for the
cocked hat, the flowing peruke for one more compact; the coat began to
stiffen into the modern shape, and when in full dress, the beau wore
his hat under his arm. His grimaces have been described by Dryden--

"His various modes from various fathers follow;
One taught the toss, and one the new French wallow;
His sword-knot this, his cravat that designed;
And this the yard-long snake that twirls behind.
From one the sacred periwig he gained,
Which wind ne'er blew, nor touch of hat profaned.
Another's diving bow he did adore,
Which with a shog casts all the hair before,
Till he, with full decorum, brings it back,
And rises with a water-spaniel shake."[275]

One of these perukes would sometimes cost forty or fifty pounds. The
fair sex at this time waxed and waned through all the varieties of
dishabilles, hoop-petticoats, and stomachers. We must not enter upon
this boundless sphere, especially as we have to treat upon it from
time to time. We shall content ourselves with describing a set of
lady's clothes, advertised as stolen in the year 1709, and which would
appear to have belonged to a belle resolved to strike even Bow Street
with astonishment. They consisted of "a black silk petticoat, with a
red-and-white calico border; cherry-coloured stays, trimmed with blue
and silver; a red and dove-coloured damask gown, flowered with large
trees; a yellow satin apron, trimmed with white Persian; muslin
head-cloths, with crowfoot edging; double ruffles with fine edging; a
black silk furbelowed scarf, and a spotted hood!"[276] It is probable,
however, the lady did not wear all these colours at once.

A tavern in Bow Street, the Cock, became notorious for a frolic of Sir
Charles Sedley, Lord Buckhurst, and others, frequently mentioned in
the biographies, but too disgusting to be told. There was an account
of it in Pepys' manuscript, but it was obliged to be omitted in the
printing. Anthony à Wood found it out, and first gave it to the
public. It was not commonly dissolute, there was a filthiness in it,
which would have been incredible if told of any other period than that
of the fine gentlemen of the court of Charles. What can be repeated
has been told by Johnson in his life of Sackville, Lord Dorset.

"Sackville, who was then Lord Buckhurst, with Sir Charles
Sedley, and Sir Thomas Ogle, got drunk at the Cock, in Bow
Street, by Covent Garden, and going into the balcony, exposed
themselves to the company in very indecent postures. At last,
as they grew warmer, Sedley stood forth naked, and harangued
the populace in such profane language, that the public
indignation was awakened; the crowd attempted to force the
door, and being repulsed, drove in the performers with stones,
and broke the windows of the house. For this misdemeanour they
were indicted, and Sedley was fined five hundred pounds; what
was the sentence of the others is not known. Sedley employed
Killegrew and another to procure a remission of the King, but
(mark the friendship of the dissolute!) they begged the fine
for themselves, and exacted it to the last groat."

Opposite this tavern lived Wycherly, with his wife, the Countess of
Drogheda. Charles paid him a visit there, before Wycherly knew the
lady; and showed him a kindness which his marriage is said to have
interrupted. The story begins and ends with Bow Street, and, as far as
concerns the lady, is curious.

"Mr. Wycherly," says the biographer, "happened to be ill of a
fever at his lodgings in Bow Street, Covent Garden: during his
sickness, the King did him the honour of a visit: when, finding
his fever indeed abated, but his body extremely weakened, and
his spirits miserably shattered, he commanded him to take a
journey to the south of France, believing that nothing could
contribute more to the restoring his former state of health
than the gentle air of Montpelier during the winter season: at
the same time, the King assured him, that as soon as he was
able to undertake the journey, he would order five hundred
pounds to be paid him to defray the expenses of it.

"Mr. Wycherly accordingly went to France, and returned to
England the latter end of the spring following, with his health
entirely restored. The King received him with the utmost marks
of esteem, and shortly after told him he had a son, who he
resolved should be educated like the son of a king, and that he
could make choice of no man so proper to be his governor as Mr.
Wycherly; and that, for this service, he should have fifteen
hundred pounds a-year allotted to him; the King also added,
that when the time came that his office should cease, he would
take care to make such a provision for him as should set him
above the malice of the world and fortune. These were golden
prospects for Mr. Wycherly, but they were soon by a cross
accident dashed to pieces.

"Soon after this promise of his Majesty's, Mr. Dennis tells us
that Mr. Wycherly went down to Tunbridge, to take either the
benefit of the waters or the diversions of the place, when,
walking one day upon the Wells-walk with his friend, Mr.
Fairbeard, of Gray's Inn, just as he came up to the
bookseller's, the Countess of Drogheda, a young widow, rich,
noble, and beautiful, came up to the bookseller and inquired
for the 'Plain Dealer.' 'Madam,' says Mr. Fairbeard, 'since you
are for the "Plain Dealer," there he is for you,' pushing Mr.
Wycherly towards her. 'Yes,' says Mr. Wycherly, 'this lady can
bear plain-dealing, for she appears to be so accomplished, that
what would be a compliment to others, when said to her would be
plain-dealing.' 'No, truly, sir,' said the lady, 'I am not
without my faults more than the rest of my sex: and yet,
notwithstanding all my faults, I love plain-dealing, and am
never more fond of it than when it tells me of a fault.' 'Then,
Madam,' says Mr. Fairbeard, 'you and the plain dealer seem
designed by heaven for each other.' In short, Mr. Wycherly
accompanied her upon the walks, waited upon her home, visited
her daily at her lodgings whilst she stayed at Tunbridge; and
after she went to London, at her lodgings in Hatton Garden:
where, in a little time, he obtained her consent to marry her.
This he did, by his father's command, without acquainting the
King; for it was reasonably supposed, that the lady's having a
great independent estate, and noble and powerful relations, the
acquainting the King with the intended match would be the
likeliest way to prevent it. As soon as the news was known at
court, it was looked upon as an affront to the King, and a
contempt of his Majesty's orders; and Mr. Wycherly's conduct
after marrying made the resentment fall heavier upon him: for
being conscious he had given offence, and seldom going near the
court, his absence was construed into ingratitude.

"The Countess, though a splendid wife, was not formed to make a
husband happy; she was in her nature extremely jealous; and
indulged in it to such a degree, that she could not endure her
husband should be one moment out of her sight. Their lodgings
were in Bow Street, Covent Garden, over against the Cock
Tavern, whither, if Mr. Wycherly at any time went, he was
obliged to leave the windows open, that his lady might see
there was no woman in the company."[277]

"The Countess," says another writer, "made him some amends by dying in
a reasonable time." His title to her fortune, however, was disputed,
and his circumstances, though he had property, were always
constrained. He was rich enough however to marry a young woman a few
days before he died, in order to disappoint a troublesome heir. In his
old age he became acquainted with Pope, then a youth, who vexed him by
taking him at his word, when asked to correct his poetry. Wycherly
showed a candid horror at growing old, natural enough to a man who had
been one of the gayest of the gay, very handsome, and a "Captain." He
was captain in the regiment of which Buckingham was colonel. We have
mentioned the Duchess of Cleveland's visits to him when a student in
the Temple. Wycherly is the greatest of all our comic dramatists for
truth of detection in what is ill, as Congreve is the greatest painter
of artificial life, and Farquhar and Hoadley the best discoverers of
what is pleasant and good-humoured. When the profligacy of writers
like Wycherly is spoken of, we should not forget that much of it is
not only confined to certain characters, but that the detection of
these characters leaves an impression on the mind highly favourable to
genuine morals. A modern critic, as excellent in his remarks on the
drama as the one quoted at the conclusion of our last chapter is upon
the stage, says on this point, speaking of the comedy of the "Plain
Dealer,"--"The character of Manly is violent, repulsive, and uncouth,
which is a fault, though one that seems to have been intended for the
sake of contrast; for the portrait of consummate, artful hypocrisy in
Olivia, is, perhaps, rendered more striking by it. The indignation
excited against this odious and pernicious quality by the masterly
exposure to which it is here subjected, is 'a discipline of humanity.'
No one can read this play attentively without being the better for it
as long as he lives. It penetrates to the core; it shows the
immorality and hateful effects of duplicity, by showing it fixing its
harpy fangs in the heart of an honest and worthy man. It is worth ten
volumes of sermons. The scenes between Manly, after his return,
Olivia, Plausible, and Norel, are instructive examples of unblushing
impudence, of shallow pretensions to principle, and of the most
mortifying reflections on his own situation, and bitter sense of
female injustice and ingratitude on the part of Manly. The devil of
hypocrisy and hardened assurance seems worked up to the highest pitch
of conceivable effrontery in Olivia, when, after confiding to her
cousin the story of her infamy, she, in a moment, turns round upon her
for some sudden purpose, and affecting not to know the meaning of the
other's allusions to what she had just told her, reproaches her with
forging insinuations to the prejudice of her character, and in
violation of their friendship. 'Go! you're a censorious woman.' This
is more trying to the patience than anything in the Tartuffe."

Tonson, the great bookseller of his time, had a private house in Bow
Street. Rowe, in an amusing parody of Horace's dialogue with Lydia,
has left an account of old Jacob's visitors here, and of his style of
language.

Tonson got rich, but he was penurious; and his want of generosity
towards Dryden (to say the least of it) has done him no honour with
posterity. It may be said that he cared little for posterity or for
anything else, provided he got his money; but a man who cares for
money (unless he is a pure miser) only cares for power and
consideration in another shape; and no man chooses to be disliked by
his fellow-creatures, living, or to come. In the correspondence
between Tonson and Dryden, we see the usual painful picture (when the
bookseller is of this description) of the tradesman taking all the
advantages, and the author made to suffer for being a gentleman and a
man of delicacy. This is the common, and, perhaps, the natural order
of things, till society see better throughout; though there have been,
and still are, some handsome exceptions, as in the instances of
Dodsley, the late Mr. Johnson, and others. The bookseller generally
behaves well, in proportion to his intelligence; nothing being so
eager to catch all petty advantages as the consciousness of having no
other ground to go upon. It may be answered that Dryden's patience
with Tonson sometimes got exhausted, and he became "captious and
irritable:" and it is always to be remembered that the bookseller need
not pretend to be anything more than a tradesman seeking his allowed
profits; but he should not on every occasion retreat into the
strongholds of trade, and yet claim the merit of acting otherwise; and
Tonson, who undertook to be the familiar friend of Rowe and Congreve,
ought not to have been able to insult the man whom they both
respected, because he was not so well off as they. The following
passage of mingled amusement and painfulness is out of Sir Walter
Scott:--

"Dryden," says Sir Walter, in his life of the poet, "seems to
have been particularly affronted at a presumptuous plan of that
publisher (a keen whig, and Secretary to the Kit-Cat Club) to
drive him into inscribing the translation of 'Virgil' to King
William. With this view Tonson had an especial care to make the
engraver aggravate the nose of Eneas in the plates into a
sufficient resemblance of the hooked promontory of the
Deliverer's countenance, and foreseeing Dryden's repugnance to
his favourite plan, he had recourse, it would seem, to more
unjustifiable means to further it; for the poet expresses
himself as convinced that, through Tonson's means, his
correspondence with his sons, then at Rome, was intercepted. I
suppose Jacob, having fairly laid siege to his author's
conscience, had no scruple to intercept all foreign supplies,
which might have confirmed him in his pertinacity. But Dryden,
although thus closely beleagured, held fast his integrity; and
no prospect of personal advantage, or importunity on the part
of Tonson, could induce him to take a step inconsistent with
his religious and political sentiments. It was probably during
the course of these bickerings with his publisher, that Dryden,
incensed at some refusal of accommodation on the part of
Tonson, sent him three well-known coarse and forcible
satirical lines descriptive of his personal appearance:--

'With leering looks, bull-faced, and freckled fair,
With two left legs, and Judas-coloured hair,
And frouzy pores, that taint the ambient air.'

"'Tell the dog,' said the poet to the messenger, 'that he who
wrote these can write more.' But Tonson, perfectly satisfied
with this single triplet, hastened to comply with the author's
request, without requiring any further specimen of his poetical
powers. It would seem, on the other hand, that when Dryden
neglected his stipulated labour, Tonson possessed powers of
animadversion, which, though exercised in plain prose, were not
a little dreaded by the poet. Lord Bolingbroke, already a
votary of the Muses, and admitted to visit their high-priest,
was wont to relate, that one day he heard another person enter
the house. 'This,' said Dryden, 'is Tonson; you will take care
not to depart before he goes away, for I have not completed the
sheet which I promised him; and if you leave me unprotected, I
shall suffer all the rudeness to which his resentment can
prompt his tongue.'"[278]

Fielding lived some time in Bow Street, probably during his
magistracy.

We turn out of Bow Street into Russell Street, so called from the
noble family of that name, who possess great property in this quarter.
It is pleasant to think that the name is accordant with the reputation
of the place, for we are more than ever in the thick of wits and men
of letters, especially of a race which was long peculiar to this
country, literary politicians. At the north-east corner of the two
streets was the famous Will's coffee-house, formerly the Rose, where
Dryden presided over the literature of the town; and on the other side
of the way, on a part of the site of the present Hummums, stood
Button's coffee-house, no less celebrated as the resort of the wits
and poets of the time of Queen Anne.

Dryden is identified with the neighbourhood of Covent Garden. He
presided in the chair at Russell Street; his plays came out in the
theatre at the other end of it; he lived in Gerrard Street, which is
not far off; and, alas! for the anti-climax! he was beaten by hired
bravos in Rose Street, now called Rose Alley. Great men come down to
posterity with their proper aspects of calmness and dignity; and we do
not easily fancy that they received anything from their contemporaries
but the grateful homage which is paid them by ourselves. "But the life
of a wit," says Steele, "is a warfare upon earth." Sir Walter Scott,
speaking of the beautiful description given by Dryden of the Attic
nights he enjoyed with Sir Charles Sedley and others, observes, "He
had not yet experienced the disadvantages attendant on such society,
or learned how soon literary eminence becomes the object of
detraction, of envy, of injury, even from those who can best feel its
merit, if they are discouraged by dissipated habits from emulating its
flight, or hardened by perverted feeling against loving its
possessors."[279]

The outrage perpetrated upon the sacred shoulders of the poet was the
work of Lord Rochester, and originated in a mistake not creditable to
that would-be great man and dastardly debauchee. The following is Sir
Walter's account of the matter.

"The 'Essay on Satire' (by Lord Mulgrave, afterwards Duke of
Buckinghamshire), though written, as appears from the
title-page of the last edition, in 1675, was not made public
until 1679, with this observation:--I have sent you herewith a
libel, in which my own share is not the least. The king having
perused it, is no way dissatisfied with his. The author is
apparently Mr. Dr[yden], his patron Lord M[ulgrave], having a
panegyric in the midst. From hence it is evident that Dryden
obtained the reputation of being the author; in consequence of
which, Rochester meditated the base and cowardly revenge which
he afterwards executed; and he thus coolly expressed his
intention in another of his letters:--'You write me word that I
am out of favour with a certain poet, whom I have admired for
the disproportion of him and his attributes. He is a rarity
which I cannot but be fond of, as one would be of a hog that
could fiddle, or a singing owl. If he falls on me at the blunt,
which is his very good weapon in wit, I will forgive him if you
please, and _leave the repartee to black Will with a cudgel_.'

"In pursuance of this infamous resolution, upon the night of
the 18th December, 1679, Dryden was waylaid by hired ruffians,
and severely beaten, as he passed through Rose Street, Covent
Garden, returning from Will's coffee-house to his own house in
Gerrard Street. A reward of fifty pounds was in vain offered in
the 'London Gazette' and other newspapers, for the discoverers
of the perpetrators of this outrage. The town was, however, at
no loss to pitch upon Rochester as the employer of the bravos,
with whom the public suspicion joined the Duchess of
Portsmouth, equally concerned in the supposed affront thus
avenged. In our time, were a nobleman to have recourse to hired
bravos to avenge his personal quarrels against any one, more
especially a person holding the rank of a gentleman, he might
lay his account with being hunted out of society. But in the
age of Charles, the ancient high and chivalrous sense of honour
was esteemed Quixotic, and the civil war had left traces of
ferocity in the manners and sentiments of the people.
Encounters, where the assailants took all advantages of number
and weapons, were as frequent, and held as honourable, as
regular duels. Some of these approached closely to
assassination; as in the famous case of Sir John Coventry, who
was waylaid and had his nose slit by some young men of rank,
for a reflection upon the King's theatrical amours. This
occasioned the famous statute against maiming and wounding,
called the Coventry Act, an Act highly necessary, for so far
did our ancestors' ideas of manly forbearance differ from ours,
that Killegrew introduces the hero of one of his comedies, a
cavalier, and the fine gentleman of the piece, lying in wait
for, and slashing the face of a poor courtezan, who had cheated
him.

"It will certainly be admitted, that a man, surprised in the
dark, and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a
misfortune. But if Dryden had received the same discipline from
Rochester's own hand, without resenting it, his drubbing could
not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him:
a sign, surely, of the penury of subjects for satire in his
life and character, since an accident, which might have
happened to the greatest hero that ever lived, was resorted to
as an imputation on his honour. The Rose Alley ambuscade became
almost proverbial; and even Mulgrave, the real author of the
satire, and upon whose shoulders the blows ought in justice to
have descended, mentions the circumstance in his 'Art of
Poetry,' with a cold and self-sufficient sneer:--

'Though praised and punished for another's rhymes,
His own deserve as great applause _sometimes_.'

To which is added in a note, 'A libel for which he was both
applauded and wounded, though entirely ignorant of the whole
matter.' This flat and conceited couplet, and note, the noble
author judged it proper to omit in the corrected edition of his
poem. Otway alone, no longer the friend of Rochester, and,
perhaps, no longer the enemy of Dryden, has spoken of the
author of this dastardly outrage with the contempt it
deserved:--

'Poets in honour of the truth should write,
With the same spirit brave men for it fight;
And though against him causeless hatreds rise,
And daily where he goes of late, he spies
The scowls of sudden and revengeful eyes;
'Tis what he knows with much contempt to bear.
And serves a cause too good to let him fear,
He fears no poison from incensed drab,
No ruffian's five-foot sword, nor rascal's stab;
Nor any other snares of mischief laid,
_Not a Rose-alley cudgel ambuscade_;
From any private cause where malice reigns,
Or general pique all blockheads have to brains.'"[280]

We dismiss this specimen of the times, that we may enjoy the look of
Dryden as posterity sees it,--that is to say, as that of the first
poet of his class, presiding over the tastes and aspirations of the
town. Milton sat in his suburban bower, equally removed from outrage
and compliment, and contemplating a still greater futurity. In the
following passage from the 'Country and City Mouse,' by Prior and
Montagu, Dryden, it is true, is spoken of with hostility, but his
acknowledged predominance shines through it. Prior's instinct misgave
him in writing against his natural master.

"Then on they jogg'd; and since an hour of talk
Might cut a banter on the tedious walk,
As I remember, said the sober mouse,
I've heard much talk of the Wits' Coffee-house;
Thither, says Brindle, thou shalt go and see
Priests supping coffee, sparks and poets tea;
Here rugged frieze, there quality well drest,
These baffling the grand Senior, those the Test,
And there shrewd guesses made, and reasons given,
That human laws were never made in heaven;
But, above all, what shall oblige thy sight,
And fill thy eye-balls with a vast delight,
Is the poetic judge of sacred wit,
Who does i' th' darkness of his glory sit;
And as the moon who first receives the light,
With which she makes these nether regions bright,
So does he shine, reflecting from afar
The rays he borrowed from a better star;
For rules, which from Corneille and Rapin flow,
Admired by all the scribbling herd below,
From French tradition while he does dispense
Unerring truths, 'tis schism, a damned offence,
To question his, or trust your private sense."[281]

Will's Coffee-house was at the western corner of Bow Street. It first
had the title of the Red Cow, then of the Rose; and we believe is the
same house alluded to in the pleasant story in the second number of
the 'Tatler:'--

"Supper and friends expect we at the Rose."

The Rose, however, was a common sign for houses of public
entertainment. The company, of which our poet was the arbiter, sat
up-stairs in what was then called the dining, but now the
drawing-room; and there was a balcony, to which his chair was removed
in summer from its prescriptive corner by the fire-side in winter.
"The appeal," says Malcolm, "was made to him upon every literary
dispute. The company did not sit in boxes, as at present, but at
various tables which were dispersed through the room. Smoking was
permitted in the public room: it was then so much in vogue that it
does not seem to have been considered a nuisance. Here, as in other
similar places of meeting, the visitors divided themselves into
parties; and we are told by Ward, that the young beaux and wits, who
seldom approached the principal table, thought it a great honour to
have a pinch out of Dryden's snuff-box."[282]

A lively specimen of a scene with Dryden in this coffee-house has been
afforded us by Dean Lockier. "I was about seventeen when I first came
up to town," says the Dean, "an odd-looking boy, with short rough
hair, and that sort of awkwardness which one always brings up at first
out of the country with one. However, in spite of my bashfulness and
appearance, I used, now and then, to thrust myself into Will's, to
have the pleasure of seeing the most celebrated wits of that time, who
then resorted thither. The second time that ever I was there, Mr.
Dryden was speaking of his own things, as he frequently did,
especially of such as had been lately published. 'If anything of mine
is good,' says he, ''tis "Mac-Flecno;" and I value myself the more
upon it, because it is the first piece of ridicule written in
heroics.' On hearing this I plucked up my spirit so far as to say, in
a voice but just loud enough to be heard, 'that "Mac-Flecno" was a
very fine poem, but that I had not imagined it to be the first that
was ever writ that way.' On this, Dryden turned short upon me, as
surprised at my interposing; asked me how long 'I had been a dealer in
poetry; and added, with a smile, 'Pray, sir, what is it that you did
imagine to have been writ so before?'--I named Boileau's 'Lutrin,' and
Tassoni's 'Secchia Rapita,' which I had read, and knew Dryden had
borrowed some strokes from each. ''Tis true,' said Dryden, 'I had
forgot them.' A little after, Dryden went out, and in going, spoke to
me again, and desired me to come and see him the next day. I was
highly delighted with the invitation; went to see him accordingly;
and was well acquainted with him after, as long as he lived."[283]

Dryden's mixture of simplicity, good-nature, and good opinion of
himself, is here seen in a very agreeable manner. It must not be
omitted, that it was to this house Pope was taken when a boy, by his
own desire, on purpose to get a sight of the great man; which he did.
According to Pope, he was plump, with a fresh colour and a down look,
and not very conversable. It appears, however, that what he did say
was much to the purpose; and a contemporary mentions his conversation
on that account as one of the few things for which the town was
desirable. He was a temperate man; though, for the last ten years of
his life, Davies informs us that he drank with Addison a great deal
more than he used to do, "probably so far as to hasten his end."

It is curious, considering his peculiar sort of reputation with
posterity, that Addison's name should be found so connected in his own
time with this species of irregularity. The same cause is supposed to
have hastened his own end; and it is related by Pope, that he was
obliged to avoid the Russell Street Coffee-house, and the bad hours of
Addison, otherwise they might have hastened his.

Will's Coffee-house was the great emporium of libels and scandal. The
channels that have since abounded for the dregs of literature had
scarcely then begun to exist; and, instead of purveying for periodical
publications, the retailers of obloquy attended among the minor wits
of this place, and distributed the last new lampoon in manuscript.
There was a drunken fellow of that time, named Julian, who acquired an
infamous celebrity in this way. Sir Walter Scott, in his edition of
Dryden, has given the following account of him and his vocation.

"The extremity of license in manners necessarily leads to equal
license in personal satire, and there never was an age in which
both were carried to such excess as in that of Charles II.
These personal and scandalous libels acquired the name of
lampoons, from the established burden formerly sung to them:--

'Lampone lampone, camerada lampone,'

"Dryden suffered under these violent and invisible assaults, as
much as any of his age; to which his own words in several
places of his writing, and also the existence of many of the
pasquils themselves in the Luttrel Collection, bear ample
witness. In many of his prologues and epilogues, he alludes to
this rage for personal satire, and to the employment which it
found for the half and three-quarter wits and courtiers of the
time!

'Yet these are pearls to your lampooning rhymes;
Ye abuse yourselves more dully than the times;
Scandal, the glory of the English nation,
Is worn to rags, and scribbled out of fashion:
Such harmless thrusts, as if, like fencers wise,
They had agreed their play before their prize.
Faith, they may hang their harp upon the willows;
'Tis just like children when they box their pillows.'

"Upon the general practice of writing lampoons, and the
necessity of finding some mode of dispersing them, which should
diffuse the scandal widely while the authors remained
concealed, was founded the self-erected office of Julian,
Secretary, as he calls himself, to the Muses. This person
attended Will's, the Wits' Coffee-house, as it was called; and
dispersed among the crowds who frequented that place of gay
resort copies of the lampoons which had been privately
communicated to him by their authors. 'He is described,' says
Mr. Malone, 'as a very drunken fellow, and at one time was
confined for a libel.' Several satires were written, in the
form of addresses to him as well as the following. There is one
among the 'State Poems,' beginning--

'Julian, in verse, to ease thy wants I write,
Not moved by envy, malice or by spite,
Or pleased with the empty names of wit and sense,
But merely to supply thy want of pence:
This did inspire my muse, when out at heel, She saw her needy
secretary reel;
Grieved that a man, so useful to the age,
Should foot it in so mean an equipage;
A crying scandal that the fees of sense
Should not be able to support the expense
Of a poor scribe, who never thought of wants,
When able to procure a cup of Nantz.'

"Another, called a 'Consoling Epistle to Julian,' is said to
have been written by the Duke of Buckingham.

"From a passage in one of the letters from the 'Dead to the
Living,' we learn, that after Julian's death, and the madness
of his successor, called Summerton, lampoon felt a sensible
decay; and there was no more that 'brisk spirit of verse, that
used to watch the follies and vices of the men and women of
figure, that they could not start new ones faster than lampoons
exposed them."[284]

These "brisk spirits" have still their descendants, and always will
have till their betters cease to set the example of railing, or to
encourage it. There is a difference, indeed, between the lampoons of
such men and those of Dryden, or the literary personalities to which
some ingenious minds will give way, before they well know what they
are about, out of mere emulation, perhaps, of the names of Pope and
Boileau. But it is not to be expected that the others will stop where
they do, or refine with the progress of their years and knowledge. The
most generous sometimes find it difficult to leave off saying
ill-natured things of one another, out of shame of yielding, or the
habit of indulging their irritability. They endeavour to reconcile
themselves to it by trying to think that the abuse has a utility; but
when they come to this point, the doubt is a proof that they ought to
forego it, and help to teach the world better. Honest contention,
however, is one thing, and scandal is another. The dealer in the
latter has always a petty mind and inferior understanding, most likely
accompanied with conscious unworthiness; the great secret of the love
of scandal lying in the wish to level others with the calumniators.

"Will's continued to be the resort of the wits at least till
1710," says Mr. Malcolm. "Probably Addison established his
servant [Button] in a new house about 1712, and his fame after
the production of 'Cato,' drew many of the Whigs thither."[285]

"Addison," says Pope, "passed each day alike; and much in the
manner that Dryden did. Dryden employed his mornings in
writing, dined _en famille_, and then went to Will's: only he
came home earlier a'nights." And again: "Addison usually
studied all the morning; then met his party at Button's; dined,
and staid there five or six hours; and sometimes far into the
night. I was of the company for about a year, but found it too
much for me: it hurt my health, and so I quitted it."[286]

Button had been a servant of the Countess of Warwick, whom Addison
married. It is said that when the latter was dissatisfied with the
Countess (we believe during the period of his courtship), he used to
withdraw the company from her servant's coffee-house. Unfortunately it
is as easy to believe a petty story of Addison as a careless one of
Steele. Addison, intellectually a great man, was complexionally a
little one. He was timid, bashful, and reserved, and instinctively
sought success by private channels and disingenous measures.

Under the influence of these eminent persons, Button's became the
head-quarters of the Whig literati, as Will's had been that of the
Tory. Steele, however, dated his poetical papers in the 'Tatler' from
Will's, as the old haunt of the town muse. Perhaps the Whiggery of
Button's was one of the reasons why Pope left off going there, as he
did not wish to identify himself with either party. Ambrose Philips is
said to have hung up a rod at that coffee-house, as an intimation of
what Pope should receive at his hands, in case the satirist chose to
hazard it. A similar threat is related of Cibber. The behaviour of
both has been cried out against as unhandsome, considering the little
person and bodily infirmities of the illustrious offender: but as the
threateners were so much his inferiors in wit, and he exercised his
great powers at their expense, it might not be difficult to show that
their conduct was as good as his. Why attack a man, if he is to be
allowed no equality of retaliation? The truth is, that personal satire
is itself an unhandsome thing, and a childish one, and there will be
no end to childish retorts, till the more grown understandings reform.
Pope accused Philips of pilfering his pastorals, and of "turning a
Persian tale for half-a-crown;" the one an offence not very likely,
unless, indeed, all common-places may be said to be stolen; the other
no offence at all, though it might have been a misfortune. These
littlenesses in great men are a part of the childhood of society. They
show us how young it still is, and what a parcel of wrangling
schoolboys (in that respect) a future period may consider us.

One of the most agreeable memories connected with Button's is that of
Garth, a man whom, for the sprightliness and generosity of his nature,
it is a pleasure to name. He was one of the most amiable and
intelligent of a most amiable and intelligent class of men--the
physicians.

Armstrong, another poet and physician and not unworthy of either
class, for genius and goodness of heart, though he had the weakness of
affecting a bluntness of manners, and of swearing, drew his last
breath in this street. He is well known as the author of the most
elegant didactic poem in the language,--the 'Art of Preserving
Health.' The affectations of men of genius are sometimes in direct
contradiction to their best qualities, and assumed to avoid a show of
pretending what they feel. Armstrong, who had bad health, and was
afraid perhaps of being thought effeminate, affected the bully in his
prose writings; and he was such a swearer, that the late Mr. Fuseli's
indulgence in that infirmity has been attributed to his keeping
company with the Doctor when a youth. We never met with a habitual
swearer in whom the habit could not be traced to some feeling of
conscious weakness. Fuseli swore as he painted, in the hope of making
up for the defects of his genius by the violence of his style.

At No. 8, Russell Street, Boswell was introduced to his formidable
friend of whom he became the biographer. The house then belonged to
Davies the bookseller. The account given us of his first interview is
highly characteristic of both parties. Boswell had a thorough specimen
of his future acquaintance at once, and Johnson evidently saw
completely through Boswell.

"Mr. Thomas Davies, the actor," saith the particular Boswell,
"who then kept a bookseller's shop in Russell Street, Covent
Garden, told me that Johnson was very much his friend, and came
frequently to his house, where he more than once invited me to
meet him; but by some unlucky accident or other he was
prevented from coming to us.

"Mr. Thomas Davies was a man of good understanding and talents,
with the advantage of a liberal education. Though somewhat
pompous, he was an entertaining companion; and his literary
performances have no inconsiderable share of merit. He was a
friendly and very hospitable man. Both he and his wife (who had
been celebrated for her beauty), though upon the stage for many
years, maintained an uniform decency of character, and Johnson
esteemed them, and lived in as easy an intimacy with them as
any family which he used to visit. Mr. Davies recollected
several of Johnson's remarkable sayings, and was one of the
best of the many imitators of his voice and manner, while
relating them. He increased my impatience more and more to see
the extraordinary man whose works I highly valued, and whose
conversation was reported to be so peculiarly excellent.

"At last," continues Mr. Boswell, "on the 16th of May, when I
was sitting in Mr. Davies's back parlour, after having drank
tea with him and Mrs. Davies, Johnson unexpectedly came into
the shop, and Mr. Davies having perceived him through the
glass-door in the room in which we were sitting, advancing
towards us--he announced his awful approach somewhat as an
actor in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the
appearance of his father's ghost, 'Look, my lord, it comes.' I
found that I had a very perfect idea of Johnson's figure, from
the portrait of him painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds soon after
he had published his 'Dictionary,' in the attitude of sitting
in his easy chair in deep meditation; which was the first
picture his friend did for him, which Sir Joshua very kindly
presented to me, and from which an engraving has been made for
this work. Mr. Davies mentioned my name, and respectfully
introduced me to him; I was much agitated, and recollecting his
prejudice against the Scotch, of which I had heard much, I said
to Davies, 'Don't tell where I come from.'--'From Scotland,'
cried Davies, roguishly. 'Mr. Johnson,' said I, 'I do indeed
come from Scotland, but I cannot help it.' I am willing to
flatter myself that I meant this as light pleasantry to soothe
and conciliate him, and not as a humiliating abasement at the
expense of my country. But however that might be, this speech
was somewhat unlucky; for with that quickness of wit for which
he was so remarkable, he seized the expression 'come from
Scotland!' which I used in the sense of being of that country;
and, as if I had come away from it, or left it, retorted,
'That, sir, I find, is what a great many of your countrymen
cannot help.' This stroke stunned me a good deal; and when we
had sat down, I felt myself not a little embarrassed, and
apprehensive of what might come next. He then addressed
himself to Davies: 'What do you think of Garrick? he has
refused me an order for the play for Miss Williams, because he
knows the house will be full, and that an order will be worth
three shillings.' Eager to take any opening to get into
conversation with him, I ventured to say, 'O, sir, I cannot
think Mr. Garrick would grudge such a trifle to you.' 'Sir
(said he, with a stern look,) I have known David Garrick longer
than you have done; and I know no right you have to talk to me
on the subject.' Perhaps I deserved this check; for it was
rather presumptuous in me, an entire stranger, to express any
doubt of the justice of his animadversion upon his old
acquaintance and pupil. I now felt myself much mortified, and
began to think that the hope I had long indulged of obtaining
his acquaintance was blasted. And, in truth, had not my ardour
been uncommonly strong, and my resolution uncommonly
persevering, so rough a reception might have deterred me for
ever from making any further attempts. Fortunately, however, I
remained upon the field, not wholly discomfited." * * * "I was
highly pleased with the extraordinary vigour of his
conversation, and regretted that I was drawn away from it by an
engagement at another place. I had, for a part of the evening,
been left alone with him, and had ventured to make an
observation now and then, which he received very civilly; so
that I was satisfied that, though there was a roughness in his
manner, there was no ill-nature in his disposition. Davies
followed me to the door, and when I complained to him a little
of the hard blows which the great man had given me, he kindly
took upon him to console me by saying, 'Don't be uneasy. I can
see he likes you very well.'"[287]

The Hummums Hotel and Coffee-house which occupies the south-west
corner of this street, and stretches round into Covent Garden market,
is so called from an eastern word signifying baths. It was one of the
earliest houses set up in England of that kind, and thence called
bagnios; and one of the few that retained their respectability. The
generality were so much the reverse, that the word bagnio came to mean
a brothel. It appears from a story we are about to relate, that people
went to the Hummums not only to bathe, but to get themselves cupped.
Bathing is too much neglected in this country; but the consequences of
our sedentary habits have forced upon us a greater degree of attention
to it, and the imitation of the Turkish system of cleanliness has been
carried further in vapour baths and the startling luxury of
shampooing, which makes people discover that they have in general two
or three skins too many. Englishmen, in the pride of their greater
freedom, often wonder how Eastern nations can endure their servitude.
This is one of the secrets by which they endure it. A free man in a
dirty skin is not in so fit a state to endure existence as a slave
with a clean one; because nature insists, that a due attention to the
clay which our souls inhabit, shall be the first requisite to the
comfort of the inhabitant. Let us not get rid of our freedom; let us
teach it rather to those that want it; but let such of us as have
them, by all means get rid of our dirty skins. There is now a moral
and intellectual commerce among mankind, as well as an interchange of
inferior goods; we should send freedom to Turkey as well as clocks and
watches, and import not only figs, but a fine state of the pores.

Of the Hummums there is a ghost-story in Boswell, a thing we should as
little dream of in this centre of the metropolis, as look for a ghost
at noonday. The reader will see how much credit is to be given it, by
the style of the narrator, who, with all his good-will towards
superstition (and it is no less a person that speaks than Dr.
Johnson), had an inveterate love of truth, which led him to defeat his
own object.

"Amongst the numerous prints," says Boswell, "pasted on the
walls of the dining-room at Streatham, was 'Hogarth's Modern
Midnight Conversation.' I asked him what he knew of Parson
Ford, who makes a conspicuous figure in the riotous group.
_Johnson._ 'Sir, he was my acquaintance and relation,--my
mother's nephew. He had purchased a living in the country, but
not simoniacally. I never saw him but in the country. I have
been told that he was a man of great parts, very profligate,
but I never heard he was impious.' _Boswell._ 'Was there not a
story of his ghost having appeared?' _Johnson._ 'Sir, it was
believed. A waiter at the Hummums, in which house Ford died,
had been absent some time, and returned, not knowing that Ford
was dead. Going down to the cellar, according to the story, he
met him; going down again he met him a second time. When he
came up, he asked some people of the house what Ford could be
doing there. They told him Ford was dead. The waiter took a
fever, in which he lay for some time. When he recovered he said
he had a message to deliver to some women from Ford; but he was
not to tell what, or to whom. He walked out; he was followed;
but somewhere about St. Paul's they lost him. He came back, and
said he had delivered the message, and the women exclaimed,
'Then we are all undone!' Dr. Pellett, who was not a credulous
man, inquired into the truth of this story, and he said, the
evidence was irresistible. My wife went to the Hummums (it is a
place where people get themselves cupped). I believe she went
with intention to hear about this story of Ford. At first they
were unwilling to tell her; but after they had talked to her,
she came away satisfied that it was true. To be sure the man
had a fever; and this vision may have been the beginning of it.
But if the message to the women, and their behaviour upon it,
were true as related, there was something supernatural. That
rests upon his word: and there it remains.'"[288]

At the beginning of the reign of Elizabeth, Covent Garden (or, as it
would be more properly spelt, _Convent_ Garden[289]) extended from
Drury Lane to St. Martin's Lane, and was surrounded by a brick wall.
It had lately belonged to the abbots of Westminster, whom it supplied,
doubtless, with fruit and vegetables, as it has since done the
metropolis, and hence its appellation. The reader will see it in the
old print of London by Aggas. There was a break into it on the
south-west, made by the garden of Bedford House, which stood facing
the Strand between the present Bedford and Southampton Streets. On the
dissolution of the monasteries, Covent Garden was given to the Duke of
Somerset, and on his fall, to John, Earl of Bedford, whose family
converted it into a pasture ground, including Long Acre, then part of
the fields leading to St. Giles's. His descendant Francis, about
seventy years afterwards, let the whole pasture on a building lease,
and built the old church for the intended inhabitants. The architect
was Inigo Jones. To the same hand we are indebted for the portico of
the north-eastern quarter, which still remains. There was a
continuation of it on the south-east, which was burnt down. It was to
have been carried all round the square, and the absence of it might be
regretted on the score of beauty; but porticoes are not fit for this
climate, unless where the object is to furnish a walk during the rain.
Covered walks devoted to that purpose, and conveniently distributed,
might be temptations to out-of-door exercise in bad weather. If they
succeeded, they would effect a very desirable end. But covered walks,
however beautiful, which are not used in that way, are rather to be
deprecated in this cold and humid climate. In Italy, where the summer
sun at noon-day burns like a cauldron, they are much to the purpose;
but the more sun we can get in England the better. Luckily, there is a
convenience in this portico, as far as the theatre is concerned;
otherwise the circuit would be more agreeable without it, and the
coffee-houses of the place more light and cheerful.

Of the style of building observed in the church there is a well-known
story. "The Earl is said to have told Inigo Jones he wished to have as
plain and convenient a structure as possible, and but little better
than a barn; to which the architect replied, he would build a barn,
but that it should be the handsomest in England."[290]

Inigo Jones's church was burnt down in the year 1795, owing to the
carelessness of some plumbers who were mending the roof. "When the
flames were at their height," says Malcolm, "the portico and massy
pillars made a grand scene, projected before a back-ground of liquid
fire, which raged with so much uncontrolled fury, that not a fragment
of wood, in or near the walls, escaped destruction."[291]

[Illustration: INIGO JONES'S CHURCH, AND OLD COVENT GARDEN.]

The barn-like taste, or in other words the Grecian (for usefulness and
simplicity are the secrets of it, and the Temple of Theseus and a
common barn have the same principles of structure), was copied in the
new edifice. By a passage quoted in the _Londinium Redivivum_ from the
_Weekly Journal_ of April 22, 1727, it appears that the portico of the
old church had been altered by the inhabitants, and restored by the
Earl of Burlington, "out of regard to the memory of the celebrated
Inigo Jones, and to prevent our countrymen being exposed for their
ignorance." The spirit of this portico has been retained, and the
church of St. Paul's Covent garden is one of the most pleasing
structures in the metropolis.

A great many actors have been buried in this spot; among them,
Eastcourt the famous mimic, Edwin, Macklin, and King. We shall speak
of one or two of them presently, but it is desirable, especially in a
work of this kind, to observe a chronological order. The mere
observance itself conveys information. Among the variety of persons
buried here may be mentioned, first:

Car, Earl of Somerset, in the old church. His burial in Covent Garden
was, doubtless, owing to his connection with the family of Russell,
his daughter having married William, afterwards Earl and Duke of
Bedford, father of the famous patriot. It is said that his lady was
bred up in such ignorance of the dishonour of her parents, that having
met by accident with a book giving an account of it, she fainted away,
and was found in that condition by her domestics. Her lover's family
were very averse to the match, but wisely allowed it upon due trial,
and had no reason to repent their generosity. To read the history of
the foolish and unprincipled Countess of Somerset, who would suppose
that her daughter was to give birth to the conscientious martyr for
liberty? But the blood which folly makes wicked, a good education may
render noble.

Butler in the church-yard. The popular notion that he was starved is
unfounded; but he was very ill-treated by a court whom his wit
materially served. It is said that Charles, once and away, gave him a
hundred pounds. This is possible; but it is at least as possible that
he gave him nothing, though he would willingly have done it, perhaps,
had his debaucheries left him the means. Charles, in his way, was as
poor as Butler, though not as honourably so, for it does not appear
that the poet was unwilling to labour for his subsistence. There is a
mystery, however, in Butler's private affairs. He once appears to have
had some office in the family of the Countess of Kent. Perhaps he was
not a very good man of business, though the learning exhibited in
'Hudibras' showed how he could work on a favourite subject. When men
succeed to this extent in what nature evidently designs them for,
great allowance is to be made for their disinclination to other tasks;
and Butler had no children to render the neglect of his fortune
criminal. The Duke of Buckingham, who once undertook to "do something
for him," and had a meeting for the purpose at a coffee-house, saw a
pander of his go by the window with a "brace of ladies," and going
after him, we hear no more of his Grace. Luckily, to prevent him from
starvation, Butler found a friend in the excellent Mr. Longueville of
the Temple, a scholar and a real gentleman, who did not confine his
generosity to an admiration of him in books. The poet is understood to
have been indebted to him for support during the latter part of his
life; and it was he who buried him in this church-yard. It is to Mr.
Longueville that we are indebted for the publication of Butler's
"Remains," which are quite worthy of the wit of "Hudibras," and
deserve to be more generally known. Butler was the greatest wit that
ever wrote in verse; perhaps the greatest that ever wrote at all,
meaning by wit the union of remote ideas. He was undoubtedly the most
learned. His political poem is out of date; and much of the humour
that delighted the cavaliers must, of necessity, be lost to us; but
passages of it will always be repeated; and it is difficult to hear
his name mentioned, without quoting some of his rhymes. He was the
first man that gave rhyme itself an air of wit. His couplets are not
only witty themselves, but seem to add a new idea to their imagery in
the very sounds at the end of them. His startling turns of thought are
accompanied by as surprising a turn in the cadence, as if the echo
itself could not help laughing. Thus his doctor's shop is

"---- stored with deletery medicines,
Which whosoever took is dead since:"

his sour religionists

"Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no mind to:"

and again,

"Synods are mystical bear-gardens,
Where elders, deputies, church-wardens,
And other members of the court,
Manage the Babylonish sport;
For prolocutor, scribe, and bear-ward,
Do differ only in a mere word:
Both are but several synagogues
Of carnal men, and bears, and dogs:
Both antichristian assemblies
To mischief bent, as far's in them lies."

His most quoted rhyme, when

"---- Pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist instead of a stick,

is, singularly enough, no rhyme at all; but the surprise of the echo,
and the truth conveyed in it, affect us as if it were perfect. Here
are one or two more of the wilful order, very ludicrous:--

"---- The captive knight
And pensive squire, both bruised in body
And conjured into safe custody.

---- in all the fabrick
You could not see one stone or a brick.

Who deals in destiny's dark counsels,
And sage opinions of the moon sells.

Those wholesale critics that in coffee-
Houses cry down all philosophy."

Mrs. Pilkington tells us that Swift took down a "Hudibras" one day,
and ordered her to examine him in the book, when, to her great
surprise, she found he remembered "every line, from beginning to end
of it."[292] Mrs. Pilkington is a lady whose word is to be taken _cum
multis granis_; nor is it very likely she should ever have heard the
Dean repeat a whole volume through; but if Swift knew any author
entire, Butler is likely to have been the man. Butler had the same
politics, the same love of learning, the same wit, the same apparent
contempt of mankind, the same charity underneath it, and the same
impatient wish to see them wiser. His style of writing is evidently
the origin of Swift's. If the reader is not yet acquainted with his
'Remains,' the following sample or two will give him a desire to be
so:--

"The truest characters of ignorance
Are vanity, and pride, and arrogance;
As blind men use to bear their noses higher,
Than those who have their eyes and sight intire."

* * * * *

"There needs no other charm, nor conjuror,
To raise infernal spirits up, but fear;
That makes men pull their horns in like a snail,
That's both a prisoner to itself, and jail;
Draws more fantastic shapes than in the grains
Of knotted wood, in some men's crazy brains,
When all the cocks they think they see, and bulls,
Are only in the inside of their skulls."

Sir Peter Lely, the painter of the meretricious beauties of the court
of Charles II.--Pope's couplet on him is well known:--

"Lely on animated canvass stole
The sleepy eye that spoke the melting soul."

The canvass is more sleepy than animated, and the ladies more like
what they were in inclination than in features. However, there is a
great likeness on that very account. They are all of a sisterhood;--
_qualem_ non _decet esse sororum_. A master of pictorial criticism has
said of the collection of them at Windsor Castle, that "they look just
like what they were, a set of kept-mistresses, painted, tawdry,
showing off their theatrical or meretricious airs and graces, without
one trace of real elegance or refinement, or one spark of sentiment to
touch the heart. Lady Grammont is the handsomest of them; and though
the most voluptuous in her attire and attitude, the most decent. The
Duchess of Portsmouth (Cleveland), in her helmet and plumes, looks
quite like a heroine of romance, or modern Amazon; but for an air of
easy assurance, inviting admiration, and alarmed at nothing but being
thought coy, commend us to my Lady ---- above, in the sky-blue
drapery, thrown carelessly over her shoulders. As paintings, these
celebrated portraits cannot rank very high. They have an affected
ease, but a real hardness of manner and execution; and they have that
contortion of attitude and setness of features, which we afterwards
find carried to so disgusting and insipid an excess in Kneller's
portraits. Sir Peter Lely was, however, a better painter than Sir
Godfrey Kneller--that is the highest praise that can be accorded to
him. He had more spirit, more originality, and was the livelier
coxcomb of the two! Both these painters possessed considerable
mechanical dexterity, but it is not of a refined kind. Neither of them
could be ranked among great painters, yet they were thought by their
contemporaries and themselves superior to every one. At the distance
of a hundred years we see the thing plainly enough."[293] Sir Peter
was a Westphalian, of a family named Vander Vaas. His father was an
officer in the army, who, having been born in a perfumer's house which
had a lily for its sign, got the name of Captain Du Lys, or Lely, and
the cognomen was retained by his son. He aimed at magnificence in his
style of living, probably in imitation of his predecessor at the
English court, Vandyke; but there was a certain coarseness about him
which showed the inferiority of his taste in that particular, as well
as in the rest.

Wycherly in the Church. See Bow Street.

Southern, one of those dramatic writers who, without much genius,
succeed in obtaining a considerable name, and justly, by dint of
genuine feeling for common nature. He began in Dryden's time, who knew
and respected his talents, was known and respected by Pope, and lived
to enjoy a similar regard from Gray. "I remember," says Oldys, "this
venerable old gentleman, when he lived in Covent Garden, and used to
frequent the evening prayers in the church there. He was always neat
and decently dressed, commonly in black, with his silver sword, and
silver locks." Gray, in a letter to Walpole, dated Burnham, in
Buckinghamshire, 1737, says, "We have old Mr. Southern at a
gentleman's house, a little way off, who often comes to see us; he is
now seventy-seven years old, and has almost wholly lost his memory;
but is as agreeable an old man as can be; at least I persuade myself
so when I look at him, and think of Isabella and Oroonoko." Southern
died about nine years after this period, aged about eighty-five. With
all the respect he obtained, probably a great deal more by the decency
and civility of his habits than by his genius, Southern, it appears,
was not above making application to the nobility and others to buy
tickets for his plays.

Joe Haines, the comedian. See Drury Lane.

Eastcourt, the comedian--or mimic, rather--for, like most players who
devote themselves to mimicry, which is a kind of caricature
portrait-painting, his comedy or general humour was inferior to it. He
was, however, a man of wit as well as a mimic; and, in spite of a
talent which seldom renders men favourites in private, was so much
regarded, that, when the Beef-steak Club was set up (which a late
author says must not be confounded with the Beef-steak Club held in
Covent Garden Theatre and the Lyceum), Eastcourt was appointed
_provveditore_ or _caterer_, and presented as a badge of distinction
with a small gridiron of gold, which he wore about his neck fastened
to a green ribbon. He is said at one time to have been a
tavern-keeper, in which quality (unless it was in the other) Parnell
speaks of him in the beginning of one of his poems:--

Gay Bacchus liking Estcourt's wine
A noble meal bespoke us,
And for the guests that were to dine
Brought Comus, Love, and Jocus.[294]

But his greatest honour is the following remarkable testimony borne to
his merits by Sir Richard Steele, whose own fineness of nature was
never more beautifully evinced in any part of his writings:--

"Poor Eastcourt! the last time I saw him we were plotting to
show the town his great capacity for acting in his full light,
by introducing him as dictating to a set of young players, in
what manner to speak this sentence and utter t'other passion.
He had so exquisite a discerning of what was defective in any
object before him, that in an instant he could shew you the
ridiculous side of what would pass for beautiful and just, even
to men of no ill judgment, before he had pointed at the
failure. He was no less skilful in the knowledge of beauty;
and, I dare say, there is no one who knew him well, but can
repeat more well-turned compliments, as well as smart repartees
of Mr. Eastcourt's, than of any other man in England. This was
easily to be observed in his inimitable faculty of telling a
story, in which he would throw in natural and unexpected
incidents to make his court to one part, and rally the other
part of the company. Then he would vary the usage he gave them,
according as he saw them bear kind or sharp language. He had
the knack to raise up a pensive temper and mortify an
impertinently gay one, as he saw them bear kind or sharp
language.

"It is an insolence natural to the wealthy, to affix, as much
as in them lies, the character of a man to his circumstances.
Thus it is ordinary with them to praise faintly the good
qualities of those below them, and say, it is very
extraordinary in such a man as he is, or the like, when they
are forced to acknowledge the value of him whose lowness
upbraids their exaltation. It is to this humour only that it is
to be ascribed, that a quick wit in conversation, a nice
judgment upon any emergency that could arise, and a most
blameless inoffensive behaviour, could not raise this man above
being received only upon the foot of contributing to mirth and
diversion. But he was as easy under that condition as a man of
so excellent talents was capable; and since they would have it
that to divert was his business, he did it with all the seeming
alacrity imaginable, though it stung him to the heart that it
was his business. Men of sense, who could taste his
excellencies, were well satisfied to let him lead the way in
conversation, and play after his own manner; but fools, who
provoked him to mimicry, found he had the indignation to let it
be at their expense who called for it; and he would show the
form of conceited heavy fellows as jests to the company at
their own request, in revenge for interrupting him from being a
companion, to put on the character of a jester.

"What was peculiarly excellent in this memorable companion was,
that in the accounts he gave of persons and sentiments, he did
not only hit the figure of their faces, and manner of their
gestures, but he would in his narration fall into their very
way of thinking, and this when he recounted passages wherein
men of the best wit were concerned, as well as such wherein
were represented men of the lowest rank of understanding. It is
certainly as great an instance of self-love to a weakness, to
be impatient of being mimicked, as any can be imagined. There
were none but the vain, the formal, the proud, or those who
were incapable of mending their faults, that dreaded him; to
others he was in the highest degree pleasing, and I do not know
any satisfaction of any indifferent kind I ever tasted so much
as having got over an impatience of seeing myself in the air he
could put me when I have displeased him. _It is indeed to his
exquisite talent this way, more than any philosophy I could
read on the subject, that my person is very little of my care;
and it is indifferent to me what is said of my shape, my air,
my manner, my speech, or my address. It is to poor Eastcourt I
chiefly owe that I am arrived at the happiness of thinking
nothing a diminution to me_, BUT WHAT ARGUES A DEPRAVITY OF MY
WILL.

"I have been present with him among men of the most delicate
taste a whole night, and have known him (for he saw it was
desired) keep the discourse to himself the most part of it, and
maintain his good humour with a countenance and in a language
so delightful, without offence to any person or thing upon
earth, still preserving the distance his circumstances obliged
him to; I say, I have seen him do all this in such a charming
manner, that I am sure none of those I hint at will read this
without giving him some sorrow for their abundant mirth, and
one gush of tears for so many bursts of laughter I wish it were
any honour to the pleasant creature's memory that my eyes are
too much suffused to let me go on."[295]

Closterman in the church-yard. He was an indifferent, but once popular
artist, whom we mention on account of his painful domestic end. He had
a mistress, whom he thought devoted to him. She robbed him of
everything she could lay her hands on, money, plate, jewels, and
moveables, and fled out of the kingdom. He pined away with an impaired
understanding, and was soon brought to the grave. Closterman was once
set in competition with Sir Godfrey Kneller. He painted the family of
the Duke of Marlborough, and had so many disputes about the picture
with the Duchess, that Marlborough said to him, "It has given me more
trouble to reconcile my wife and you, than to fight a battle."

Arne, the celebrated musician, in the church-yard. See King Street.

Sir Robert Strange, the greatest engraver, perhaps, this country has
seen; that is to say, supposing the merits of an engraver to be in
proportion to his relish for and imitation of his originals. Other men
may have drawn a finer mechanical line, but none have surpassed
Strange in giving the proper diversity of surfaces, or equalled him in
transferring to hard copper the roundness and delicacy of flesh. His
engravings from Titian almost convey something of the colours of that
great painter. Like all true masters, Strange took pains with whatever
he did, and bestowed attention on every part of it; so much indeed,
that his love for his art appears to have been an exhausting one, and
he was anxious to keep the burin out of the hands of his children. He
had seen a great deal of the world, and was a very amiable as well as
intelligent man. When young he was a great Jacobite, and fought
sword-in-hand for the Pretender; though it is said that a main cause
of his ardour was the hope of attaining the hand of a fair friend,
equally devoted to the cause. It is pleasant to add, that he did
attain it, and that she made him a good wife. Sir Robert was a
Scotchman of a good family; but his knighthood came from George the
Third, a few years before the artist's death.

Macklin, the comedian, in the church-yard, at the age of one hundred
and seven, and upwards. We have spoken of him before in his stage
character. His long age in the midst of cities and theatres is very
remarkable. It seems to have been owing to the inheritance of a robust
constitution--the great cause of longevity next to temperance, perhaps
the greatest, unless contradicted by the reverse. Most persons who
have been long-lived have had long-lived progenitors; but somebody
must begin. The foundation is always temperance. Macklin must have
been very lucky in his physical advantages, for he did not keep any
very strict rein over his temper; nor does he appear to have followed
any regimen, till latterly, and then he consulted the immediate ease
of his stomach, and not the quality of what he took. However, his
habits, whatever they were, were most likely regular. "It had been his
constant rule," says his biographer, "for a period of thirty years and
upwards, to visit a public-house called the Antelope, in White Hart
Yard, Covent Garden, where his usual beverage was a pint of beer
called _stout_, which was made hot and sweetened with moist sugar,
almost to a syrup. This, he said, balmed his stomach, and kept him
from having any inward pains."[296] The same writer, in a report of a
conversation he had with Mr. Macklin, has left us an affecting but not
unpleasing picture of the decay of faculties, remarkable to the very
last for their shrewdness and vivacity. It is the liveliest picture of
old mortality we ever met with.

_Question._ "Well, Mr. Macklin, how do you do to-day?"

_Answer._ "Why, I hardly know, sir; I think I am a little
better than I was in the morning."

_Q._ "Why, sir, did you feel any pain in the morning?"

_A._ "Yes, sir, a good deal."

_Q._ "In what part?"

_A._ "Why, I feel a sort of a--a--a--" (shaking his head), "I
forget everything; I forget the word: I felt a kind of pain
here" (putting his hand upon his left breast),--"but it is gone
away, and I am better now."

_Q._ "How do you sleep, sir?"

_A._ "Not so well as I could wish; I am becoming more wakeful
than usual; I awoke last night two or three times: I got up
twice, walked about my room here, and then went to bed again."

_Q._ "Do you always get up when you awake, sir?"

_A._ "No, sir, not always; but I get up and walk about as soon
as I feel myself--there, now, it is all gone" (putting his hand
upon his forehead).

_Q._ "You get up, sir, I suppose, as soon as you feel yourself
uneasy in bed?"

_A._ "Yes, sir, when I begin to be troublesome to myself."

_Q._ "Do not you, sir, find it unpleasant to walk about here
alone, and to have nobody to converse with?"

_A._ "Not at all, sir, I get up when I am tired abed, and I
walk about till I am tired, and then I go to bed again; and so
forth."

_Q._ "But does it not afford you great pleasure when any person
comes to see you?"

_A._ "Why, not so much as one would expect, sir."

_Q._ "Are you not pleased when your friends come and converse
with you?"

_A._ "I am always very happy to see my friends, and I should be
very happy to hold a--a--a, see there now...."

_Q._ "A conversation you mean, sir?"

_A._ "Ay, a conversation. Alas! sir, you see the wretched state
of my memory--see there now, I could not recollect that common
word--but I cannot converse. I used to go to a house very near
this where my friends assemble ... it was a--a--a [a company]
no, that's not the word, a--a--club, I mean. I was the father
of it, but I could not hear all; and what I did hear, I did
not--a--a--under--under--understand; they were all very
attentive to me, but I could not be one of them. I always feel
an uneasiness, when I don't know what the people are talking
about. Indeed, I found, sir, that I was not fit to keep
company--so I stay away."

_Q._ "Have you been reading this morning, sir?"

_A._ "Yes, sir."

_Q._ "What book?"

_A._ "I forget:--here, look at it;"--handing the book.

_Q._ "I see, it is Milton's 'Paradise Lost.'"

[He then took the book out of my hand and said:--"I have only
read this much" (about four pages) "these two days--but what I
read yesterday, I have forgot to-day." He next read a few lines
of the beginning inimitably well, and laying down the book,
said] "I understand all that, but if I read any farther, I
forget that passage which I understood before."

_Q._ "But I perceive with satisfaction, sir, that your sight is
very good."

_A._ "Oh, sir, my sight, like everything else, begins to fail
too; about two days ago I felt--a--a--there now ... I have lost
it--a pain just above my left eye, and heard something give a
crack, and ever since, this eye (pointing to the left) has been
painful."

_Q._ "I think, sir, it would be advisable for you to refrain
from reading a little time."

_A._ "I believe you are in the right, sir."

_Q._ "I think you appear at present free from pain?"

_A._ "Yes, sir, I am pretty comfortable now: but I find
my--my--my strength is all gone. I feel myself going
gradually."

_Q._ "But you are not afraid to die?"

_A._ "Not in the least, sir--I never did any person any serious
mischief in my life:--even when I gambled, I never cheated:--I
know that a--a--a--see, now--death, I mean, must come, and I am
ready to give it up" (meaning the ghost).

_Q._ "I understand you were at Drury Lane theatre last night?"

_A._ "Yes, sir, I was there."

_Q._ "Yes, sir, the newspapers of this morning take notice of
it."

_A._ "Do they?"

_Y._ "Yes, sir;--the paragraph runs thus:--'Among the numerous
visitors at Drury Lane Theatre last night, we observed the Duke
of Queensbury and the veteran Macklin, whose ages together
amount to one hundred and ninety-six."

_Mr. Macklin._ "The Duke of who?"

_A._ "The Duke of Queensbury, sir."

_Mr. Macklin._ "I don't know that man. The Duke of Queensbury!
The Duke of Queensbury! Oh! ay, I remember him now very
well:--The Duke of Queensbury old! Why, sir, I might be his
father! ha! ha! ha!"

_Q._ "Well, sir, I understand that you went to the Haymarket
Theatre to see the 'Merchant of Venice?'"

_A._ "I did, sir."

_Q._ "What is your opinion of Mr. Palmer's Shylock?"

[This question was answered by a shake of the head. Being
desirous of hearing his opinion I asked him the second time.]

_Mr. Macklin._--"Why, sir, my opinion is, that Mr. Palmer
played the character of Shylock in _one style_. In this scene
there was a sameness, in that scene a sameness, and in every
scene a sameness: it was all same! same! same!--no variation.
He did not look the character, nor laugh the character, nor
speak the character of Shakspeare's Jew. In the trial scene,
where he comes to cut the pound of flesh, he was no Jew.
Indeed, sir, he did _not hit_ the _part_, nor the _part_ did
_not hit_ him."[297]

This conversation took place in September 1796: in July 1797 he died.

Dr. Walcot, better known by the name of Peter Pindar. He was a coarse
and virulent satirist, and content to write so many common-places,
that they will stifle his works with posterity, with the exception of
a few pieces. His humour, however, was genuine of its kind. His
caricatures are striking likenesses; and the innocent simplicity which
he is fond of affecting makes a ludicrous contrast with his impudence.
Dr. Walcot's largest poems are worth little, and his serious worth
nothing. What we think likely to last in the collections, are his
"Bozzy and Piozzi," his 'Royal visit to Whitbread's Brewhouse,' one or
two more of that stamp, some of his "Odes to Academicians," and the
immortal "Pilgrims and the Peas," the hero of which is assuredly
hobbling to this day, and will never arrive. Dr. Walcot was a man of
taste in the fine arts, and produced some landscapes, which we believe
do credit to his pencil. We have never seen them. His critical good
taste is not to be disputed, though the Academicians, at one time,
would have given a great deal to find it wanting. He was latterly
blind, but maintained his spirits to the last. He had a fine skull,
which he was not displeased to be called upon to exhibit, taking his
wig off, and saying "There," with a lusty voice; which formed a
singular contrast with the pathos attached to the look of blind eyes.

Covent Garden market has always been the most agreeable in the
metropolis, because it is devoted exclusively to fruit, flowers, and
vegetables. A few crockery-ware shops make no exceptions to this
"bloodless" character. The seasons here regularly present themselves
in their most gifted looks,--with evergreens in winter, the fresh
verdure of spring, all the hues of summer, and whole loads of desserts
in autumn. The country girls who bring the things to market at early
dawn are a sight themselves worthy of the apples and roses; the
good-natured Irish women who attend to carry baskets for purchasers
are not to be despised, with the half-humorous, half pathetic tone of
their petitions to be employed; and the ladies who come to purchase,
crown all. No walk in London, on a fine summer's day, is more
agreeable than the passage through the flowers here at noon, when the
roses and green leaves are newly watered, and blooming faces come to
look at them in those cool and shady avenues, while the hot sun is
basking in the streets. On these occasions we were very well satisfied
with the market in its old state. The old sheds, and irregular
avenues, when dry, assorted well with the presence of leaves and
fruits. They had a careless picturesque look, as if a bit of an old
suburban garden had survived from ancient times.

Nothing, however, but approbation can be bestowed on the convenient
and elegant state into which the market has been raised by the
magnificence of the noble proprietor, whose arms we are glad to see on
the side next James Street. They are a real grace to the building and
to the owner, for they are a stamp of liberality. In time we hope to
see the roofs of the new market covered with shrubs and flowers,
nodding over the balustrades, and fruits and red berries sparkling in
the sun.[298] As an ornament, nothing is more beautiful in combination
than the fluctuating grace of foliage and the stability of
architecture. And, as a utility, the more air and sun the better.
There is never too much sun in this country, and every occasion should
be seized to take advantage of it.

The space between the church and the market is the scene of Hogarth's
picture of the 'Frosty Morning.' Here in general take place the
elections for Westminster. Sheridan has poured forth his good things
in this spot, and Charles Fox won the hearts of multitudes. It would
be an endless task to trace the recollections connected with the
coffee-houses under the portico. Perhaps there is not a name of
celebrity in the annals of wit or the stage, between the reigns of
Charles II. and the present sovereign, which might not be found
concerned in the clubs or other meetings which they have witnessed,
particularly those of Garrick, Hogarth, and their contemporaries. _Sir
Roger de Coverley_ has been there, a person more real to us than
nine-tenths of them. When in town he lodged in Bow Street.

Opposite the Bedford Coffee-house a tragical scene took place, the
particulars of which are interesting. The Earl of Sandwich, grandson
of Charles II.'s Earl of Sandwich, and first Lord of the Admiralty
during the North administration, had for his mistress a Miss Ray, whom
he had rendered as accomplished as she was handsome. Some say that she
was the daughter of a labourer at Elstree, others of a stay-maker in
Covent Garden. Her father is said to have had a shop in that way of
business in Holywell Street in the Strand. Miss Ray was apprenticed at
an early age to a mantua-maker in Clerkenwell Close, with whom she
served her time out and obtained a character that did her honour. A
year or two after the expiration of this period she was taken notice
of by Lord Sandwich, who gave her a liberal education; rendered her a
proficient in his favourite arts of music and singing; and made her
his mistress. He was old enough to be her father.

Lord Sandwich was in the habit of having plays and music at his house,
particularly the latter. At Christmas the musical performance was an
oratorio, for, "to speak seriously," says Mr. Cradock, "no man was
more careful than Lord Sandwich not to trespass on public decorum."
This gentleman, in his Memoirs, has furnished us with accounts which
will give a livelier idea of the situation of Miss Ray in his
Lordship's house than any formal abstract of them.

"Plays at Hinchinbrook had ceased before I had ever been in
company with Lord Sandwich, and oratorios for a week at
Christmas had been substituted. Miss Ray, who was the first
attraction, was instructed in music both by Mr. Bates and
Signor Giardini. Norris and Champness regularly attended the
meetings, and there were many excellent amateur performers; the
Duke of Manchester's military band assisted, and his Lordship
himself took the kettle-drums to animate the whole. 'Non nobis,
Domine,' was sung after dinner, and then catches and glees
succeeded; all was well conducted, for whatever his Lordship
undertook he generally accomplished, and seemed to have adopted
the emphatic advice of Longinus, 'always to excel.' Miss Ray,
in her situation, was a pattern of discretion; for when a lady
of rank, between one of the acts of the oratorio, advanced to
converse with her, she expressed her embarrassment; and Lord
Sandwich, turning privately to a friend, said, 'As you are well
acquainted with that lady, I wish you would give her a hint,
that there is a boundary line in my family I do not wish to see
exceeded; such a trespass might occasion the overthrow of all
our music meetings.'

"From what I have collected, Miss Ray was born in
Hertfordshire, in 1742, and that his lordship first saw her in
a shop in Tavistock Street where he was purchasing some
neckcloths. This was all that Mr. Bates seemed to have
ascertained, for both his lordship and the lady were equally
cautious of communicating anything on the subject. From that
time her education was particularly attended to, and she proved
worthy of all the pains that were taken with her. Her voice was
powerful and pleasing, and she has never been excelled in that
fine air of Jephtha, 'Brighter scenes I seek above;' nor was
she less admired when she executed an Italian bravura of the
most difficult description."[299]

Again:--"I did not know his lordship in early life; but this I
can attest, and call any contemporary to ratify who might have
been present, that we never heard an oath, or the least
profligate conversation at his lordship's table in our lives.
Miss Ray's behaviour was particularly circumspect. Dr. Green,
Bishop of Lincoln, always said, 'I never knew so cautious a man
as Lord Sandwich.' The Bishop came too soon once to an
oratorio; we went to receive him in the dining-room, but he
said, 'No; the drawing-room is full of company, and I will go
up and take tea there.' Lord Sandwich was embarrassed, as he
had previously objected to Lady Blake speaking to Miss Ray
between the acts; and as the Bishop would go up, a consequence
ensued just as I expected. Some severe verses were sent, which
Mr. Bates intercepted.

* * * * *

"The elegant Mrs. Hinchcliffe, lady of the Bishop, attended one
night with a party. She had never seen Miss Ray before, and she
feelingly remarked afterwards, 'I was really hurt to sit
directly opposite to her, and mark her discreet conduct, and
yet to find it improper to notice her. She was so assiduous to
please, was so very excellent, yet so unassuming, I was quite
charmed with her; yet a seeming cruelty to her took off the
pleasure of my evening.'"[300]

While Miss Ray was thus situated, his lordship, through the medium of
a neighbour, Major Reynolds, became acquainted with a brother officer
of the major's, a Captain Hackman, and invited him to his house. The
Captain fell in love with Miss Ray, and Miss Ray is understood not to
have been insensible to his passion. He was her junior by several
years, though the disparity was nothing like the reverse one on the
part of Lord Sandwich. Sir Herbert Croft, who wrote a history of their
intimacy and correspondence, under the title of "Love and Madness,"
represents the attachment as mutual. According to his statement,
Hackman urged her to marry him, and Miss Ray was desirous of doing so,
but fearful of hurting the feelings of the man who had educated her,
and who is represented as a sort of Old Robin Gray. In this sentiment,
Hackman with all his passion is represented as partaking. Sir
Herbert's book, though founded on fact, and probably containing more
truth than can now be ascertained, is considered apocryphal; and Mr.
Cradock, who is as cautious in his way as his noble acquaintance,
doubts whether any man was really acquainted with the particulars. All
that he could call to mind relative to either party was, that for
three weeks after the Captain's introduction, till his military
pursuits led him to Ireland, he was observed to bow to Miss Ray
whenever she went out; and that Miss Ray, during the latter part of
her time at the Admiralty, did not continue to speak of her situation
as before. "She complained," he says, "of being greatly alarmed by
ballads that had been sung, or cries that had been made, directly
under the windows that looked into the park; and that such was the
fury of the mob, that she did not think either herself or Lord
Sandwich was safe whenever they went out; and I must own that I heard
some strange insults offered; and that I with some of the servants
once suddenly rushed out, but the offenders instantly ran away and
escaped. One evening afterwards, when sitting with Miss Ray in the
great room above stairs, she appeared to be much agitated, and at last
said, 'she had a particular favour to ask of me; that, as her
situation was very precarious, and no settlement had been made upon
her, she wished I would hint something of the kind to Lord Sandwich.'
I need not express my surprise, but I instantly assured her, 'that no
one but herself could make such a proposal, as I knew Lord Sandwich
never gave any one an opportunity of interfering with him on so
delicate a subject.' She urged that her wish was merely to relieve
Lord Sandwich as to great expense about her; for as her voice was then
at the best, and Italian music was particularly her forte, she was
given to understand she might succeed at the Opera-house, and as Mr.
Giardini then led, and I was intimate with Mrs. Brooke and Mrs. Yates,
she was certain of a most advantageous engagement. I then instantly
conjectured who one of the advisers must have been; and afterwards
found that three thousand pounds and a free benefit had been
absolutely held out to her, though not by the two ladies who managed
the stage department. Whether any proposals of marriage at that time
or afterwards were made by Mr. Hackman, I know not."[301] Be this as
it may, Hackman's passion was undoubted. He was originally an
apprentice to a merchant at Gosport; was impatient of serving at the
counter; entered the army at nineteen, but during his acquaintance
with Miss Ray, exchanged the army for the church, "as a readier road
to independence;" and was presented to the living of Wyverton in
Norfolk.

Whatever was the nature of the intimacy between these unfortunate
persons, a sudden stop appears to have been put to Hackman's final
expectations, and he became desperate. By what we can gather from the
accounts, Lord Sandwich, either to preserve her from her lover or
herself, thought proper to put Miss Ray under the charge of a duenna.
Hackman grew jealous either of him or of some other person; he was
induced to believe that Miss Ray had no longer a regard for him, and
he resolved to put himself to death. In this resolution a sudden
impulse of frenzy included the unfortunate object of his passion.

On the evening of the fatal day, Miss Ray went with her female
attendant to Covent Garden Theatre to see "Love in a Village." Mr.
Cradock thinks she had declined to inform Hackman how she was engaged
that evening. Hackman, who appears to have suspected her intentions,
watched her, and saw the carriage pass by the Cannon Coffee-house
(Cockspur Street, Charing Cross), in which he had posted himself.
Singularly enough, Mr. Cradock happened to be in the same
coffee-house, and says that he wondered to see the carriage go by
without Lord Sandwich. This looks as if there was more in Hackman's
suspicion than can now be shown. Hackman followed them.

"The ladies sat in a front box," says Mr. Cradock; "and three
gentlemen, all connected with the Admiralty, occasionally paid
their compliments to them; Mr. Hackman was sometimes in the
lobby, sometimes in an upper side box, and more than once at
the Bedford coffee-house to take brandy and water, but still
seemed unable to gain any information; and I can add, as a
slight circumstance, that in the afternoon I had myself been at
the coffee-house (Cockspur Street, Charing Cross), and,
observing the carriage pass by, had remarked to my friend that
I wondered at seeing the ladies on their way to the theatre
without Lord Sandwich; that I meant to have dined at the
Admiralty, but had been prevented; so that it appears now that
most of the circumstances must have been accidental. The
dreadful consummation, however, was, that at the door of the
theatre, directly opposite the Bedford coffee-house, Mr.
Hackman suddenly rushed out, and as a gentleman was handing
Miss Ray into the carriage, with a pistol he first destroyed
this most unfortunate victim, and, though not at the time, fell
a most dreadful sacrifice himself."[302]

"Miss Ray," says the Introduction to 'Love and Madness,' "was
coming out of Covent Garden Theatre in order to take her coach,
accompanied by two friends, a gentleman and a lady, between
whom she walked in the piazza. Mr. Hackman stepped up to her
without the smallest previous menace or address, put a pistol
to her head, and shot her instantly dead. He then fired another
at himself, which, however, did not prove equally effectual.
The ball grazed upon the upper part of the head, but did not
penetrate sufficiently to produce any fatal effect; he fell,
however, and so firmly was he bent on the entire completion of
the destruction he had meditated, that he was found beating his
head with the utmost violence with the butt-end of the pistol,
by Mr. Mahon, apothecary, of Covent Garden, who wrenched the
pistol from his hand. He was carried to the Shakspeare, where
his wound was dressed. In his pocket were found two letters;
the one a copy of a letter which he had written to Miss Ray,
and the other to Frederic Booth, Esq., Craven Street, Strand.
When he had so far recovered his faculties as to be capable of
speech, he inquired with great anxiety concerning Miss Ray; and
being told she was dead, he desired her poor remains might not
be exposed to the observation of the curious multitude. About
five o'clock in the morning, Sir John Fielding came to the
Shakspeare, and not finding his wounds of a dangerous nature,
ordered him to Tothill Fields Bridewell.

"The body of the unhappy lady was carried into the Shakspeare
Tavern for the inspection of the coroner."[303]

The whole of the circumstances connected with this catastrophe are
painfully dramatic.

"The next morning," says Mr. Cradock, "I made several efforts
before I had resolution enough to see any one of the Admiralty;
at last old James, the black, overwhelmed with grief, came down
to me, and endeavoured to inform me, that when he had mentioned
what had occurred, Lord Sandwich hastily replied, 'You know
that I forbad you to plague me any more about those ballads:
let them sing or say whatever they please about me!' 'Indeed,
my lord,' I said, 'I am not speaking of any ballads; it is all
too true.' Others then came in, and all was a scene of the
utmost horror and distress. His lordship for a while stood, as
it were, petrified, till, suddenly seizing a candle, he ran
up-stairs and threw himself on the bed; and in an agony
exclaimed, 'Leave me for a while to myself--I could have borne
anything but this!' The attendants remained for a considerable
time at the top of the staircase, till his lordship rang the
bell and ordered that they should all go to bed. They assured
me that at that time they believed fewer particulars were known
at the Admiralty than over half the town besides; indeed all
was confusion and astonishment; and even now I am doubtful
whether Lord Sandwich was ever aware that there was any
connection between Mr. Hackman and Miss Ray. His lordship
continued for a day or two at the Admiralty, till, at the
earnest request of those about him, he at last retired for a
short time to a friend's house in the neighbourhood of
Richmond."[304]

Hackman was executed at Tyburn. He confessed at the bar that he had
intended to kill himself, but he protested that but for a momentary
frenzy he should not have destroyed her, "who was more dear to him
than life." It appears, however, that he was furnished with two
pistols; which told against him on that point.

"On Friday," says Boswell, "I had been present at the trial of
the unfortunate Mr. Hackman, who, in a fit of frantic jealous
love, had shot Miss Ray, the favourite of a nobleman. Johnson,
in whose company I dined to-day, with some other friends, was
much interested by my account of what passed, and particularly
with his prayer for mercy of heaven. He said in a solemn,
fervent tone, 'I hope he _shall_ find mercy.' In talking of
Hackman, Johnson argued as Judge Blackstone had done, that his
being furnished with two pistols was a proof that he meant to
shoot two persons. Mr. Beauclerk said, 'No; for that every wise
man who intended to shoot himself, took two pistols, that he
might be sure of doing it at once. Lord ----'s cook shot
himself with one pistol, and lived ten days in great agony. Mr.
----, who loved buttered muffins, but durst not eat them
because they disagreed with his stomach, resolved to shoot
himself, and then he ate three buttered muffins for breakfast
before shooting himself, knowing that he should not be troubled
with indigestion; _he_ had two charged pistols: one was found
lying charged upon the table by him, after he had shot himself
with the other.' 'Well (said Johnson with an air of triumph),
you see here one pistol was sufficient.' Beauclerk replied
smartly, 'Because it happened to kill him.'"[305]

It is impossible to settle this point. The general impression will be
against Hackman; but, perhaps, the second pistol, though not designed
for himself, might have been for Miss Ray. His victim was buried at
Elstree, where she had been a lowly and happy child, running about
with her blooming face, and little thinking what trouble it was to
cost her.

In Mr. Cradock's book we hear again of Lord Sandwich on whom this
story has thrown an interest. On his return from Richmond, Mr. Cradock
went to see him, and was admitted into the study where the portrait of
Miss Ray, an exact resemblance, still hung over the chimney-piece. "I
fear," says Mr. Cradock, "I rather started on seeing it, which Lord
Sandwich perceiving, he instantly endeavoured to speak of some
unconnected subject; but he looked so ill, and I felt so much
embarrassed, that as soon as I possibly could, I most respectfully
took my leave."

"His lordship rarely dined out anywhere; but after a great
length of time he was persuaded by our open-hearted friend,
Lord Walsingham, to meet a select party at his house. All
passed off exceedingly well for a while, and his lordship
appeared more cheerful than could have been expected; but after
coffee, as Mr. and Mrs. Bates were present, something was
mentioned about music, and one of the company requested that
Mrs. Bates would favour them with, 'Shepherds, I have lost my
love.' This was, unfortunately, the very air that had been
introduced by Miss Ray at Hinchinbrook, and had been always
called for by Lord Sandwich. Mr. Bates immediately endeavoured
to prevent its being sung, and by his anxiety increased the
distress, but it was too late to pause. Lord Sandwich for a
while struggled to overcome his feelings, but they were so
apparent that at last he went up Mrs. Walsingham, and in a very
confused manner said, he hoped she would excuse his not staying
longer at that time; but that he had just recollected some
pressing business, which required his return to the Admiralty,
and bowing to all the company, rather hastily left the room.
Some other endeavours to amuse him afterwards did not prove
much more successful."[306]

His lordship afterwards lived in retirement, and died in 1792.

It does not appear that Lord Sandwich's disinclination to be amused
arose from excessive sensibility. Mr. Cradock represents him in his
political character as bearing "daily insults and misrepresentations
as a stoic rather than an injured and feeling man," and he describes
his calmness of mind in retirement, and his enjoyment of solitude.
The same writer who calls him "a steady friend," speaks highly of his
classical attainments, and his accomplishments as a modern linguist
and an amateur, to which he added great caution (as the Bishop said),
a love of "badgering," and an incompetency for the personal graces.
When he played his part in the oratorios, it was on the kettle-drum.
He related the following anecdote of himself.

"When I was in Paris, I had a dancing-master; the man was very
civil, and on taking leave of him, I offered him any service in
London. 'Then,' said the man, bowing, 'I should take it as a
particular favour, if your lordship would never tell any one of
whom you have learned to dance.'"

"Hurd once said to me," adds Mr. Cradock, "there is a line in
the Heroic Epistle that I do not at all comprehend the meaning
of; but you can, perhaps, acquaint me. It alludes to Lord
Sandwich, I suppose; but one word, _shambles_, I cannot guess
at,--

'See Jemmy Twitcher _shambles_--stop, stop, thief.'

'That, sir,' said I, 'alludes to his lordship's shambling
gait.'"[307]

Upon the whole we have no doubt that he was a cold and superficial
person, and that Miss Ray would not have been sorry had Hackman
succeeded in retaining her heart; for, as to Hackman, the great cause
of his mischance, according to the passage in Boswell, appears to have
been the violence of his temper,--the common secret of most of these
outrageous love stories. He was not a bad-hearted man, merely selfish
and passionate, otherwise he would have meditated no mischief against
himself.

"He that beats or knocks out brains,
The devil's in him, if he feigns,"

says the poet. But he was weak, wilful, and, by his readiness to
become a clergyman from a Captain, perhaps not very principled. The
truest love is the truest benevolence; it acquires an infinite
patience out of the very excess of its suffering, and is content to
merge its egotism in the idea of the beloved object. He that does not
know this, does not know what love is, whatever he may know of
passion.

In Henrietta Street Mrs. Clive once resided. She was the favourite
Nell of the stage in the "Devil to Pay," and similar characters; and,
according to Garrick, there was something of the Devil to Pay in all
her stage life. She might have been Macklin's sister for humour,
judgment, and a sturdiness of purpose amounting to violence, not
unmixed with generosity. The latter part of her life she spent in
retirement at Strawberry Hill, where she was a neighbour and friend to
Horace Walpole, whose effeminacy she helped to keep on the alert. It
always seems to us, as if she had been the man of the two, and he the
woman.

Henrietta Street was most probably named after the queen of Charles
I., and James Street after her father-in-law. In both these streets
lived the egregious almanack-maker, and quack doctor, the butt of the
wits of his time. He died in Salisbury Street, Strand, which is the
scene of his posthumous behaviour,--his pretending to be alive, when
Bickerstaff had declared him dead. Partridge had foretold the death of
the French king. Swift, under the name of Bickerstaff, foretold
Partridge's, and, when the time came, insisted he was dead. Partridge
gravely insisted that he was alive. The wits, the friends of Swift,
maintained the contrary, wondering at the dead man's impudence and the
whole affair was hawked about the streets, to the ludicrous distress
of poor Partridge, who not only highly resented it, and repeatedly
advertised his existence, but was fairly obliged to give up
almanack-making. "He persisted, indeed, sturdily in his refusal to be
buried till 1715: but he actually died as an almanack-maker in 1709,
his almanack for that year being the last, and the only one he wrote
after this odd misfortune befell him."[308]

The following are specimens of the way in which Partridge resisted his
death and burial. In the almanack for 1709, he says,

"You may remember there was a paper published predicting my
death on the 29th of March at night, 1708, and after that day
was passed the same villain told the world I was dead, and how
I died, and that he was with me at the time of my death. I
thank God, by whose mercy I have my being, that I am still
alive, and, excepting my age, as well as ever I was in my life,
as I was on that 29th of March. And that paper was said to be
done by one Bickerstaff, Esq., but that was a sham name, it was
done by an impudent lying fellow. But his prediction did not
prove true. What will he say to excuse that? for the fool had
considered the star of my nativity, as he said. Why, the truth
is, he will be hard put to it to find a salvo for his honour.
It was a bold touch, and he did not know but it might prove
true.

"Feb. 1709. Much lying news dispersed about this time, and also
scandalous pamphlets; perhaps we may have some knavish
scribbler, a second Bickerstaff, or a rascal under that name
for that villain, &c. It is a cheat, and he a knave that did
it, &c.

"Whereas, it has been industriously given out by Bickerstaff,
Esq., and others, to prevent the sale of this year's almanack,
that John Partridge is dead; this may inform all his loving
countrymen, that, blessed be God, he is still living in health,
and they are knaves who reported otherwise. 'Merlinus
Liberatus, with an almanack [printed by allowance for 1710]. By
John Partridge, student in Physic and Astrology.'"

In James Street, towards the beginning of the last century, lived a
mysterious lady, who will remind the reader of the Catholic lady in
the "Fortunes of Nigel."

"In the month of March 1720," says Mr. Malcolm, "an unknown
lady died at her lodgings in James Street, Covent Garden. She
is represented to have been a middle-sized person, with
dark-brown hair, and very beautiful features, and mistress of
every accomplishment peculiar to ladies of the first fashion
and respectability. Her age appeared to be between thirty and
forty. Her circumstances were affluent, and she possessed the
richest trinkets of her sex, generally set with diamonds. A
John Ward, Esq., of Hackney, published many particulars
relating to her in the papers; and amongst others, that a
servant had been directed by her to deliver him a letter after
her death; but as no servant appeared, he felt himself required
to notice those circumstances, in order to acquaint her
relations of her decease, which occurred suddenly after a
masquerade, where she declared she had conversed with the King,
and it was remembered that she had been seen in the private
apartments of Queen Anne; though after the Queen's demise she
had lived in obscurity. This unknown arrived in London from
Mansfield, in 1714, drawn by six horses. She frequently said
that her father was a nobleman, but that, her elder brother
dying unmarried, the title was extinct; adding, that she had an
uncle then living, whose title was his least recommendation.

"It was conjectured that she might be the daughter of a Roman
Catholic, who had consigned her to a convent, whence a brother
had released her and supported her in privacy. She was buried
at St. Paul's, Covent Garden."[309]

Perhaps she had some connection with Queen Anne's brother, the
Pretender.

In King Street lived the father of Arne and Mrs. Cibber. He was an
upholsterer, and is said to have been the original of the Quid-nunc in
the _Tatler_, and the hero of Murphy's farce of the _Upholsterer, or,
What News?_ His name is connected also with that of the four "Indian
Kings," as they were called, who came into this country in Queen
Anne's time, to ask her assistance against the French in Canada.

"They were clothed and entertained," says a note in the
'Tatler', "at the public expense, being lodged, while they
continued in London, in an handsome apartment," perhaps in the
house of Mr. Arne, as may be inferred from 'Tatler,' 155, and
note. Certainly their landlord was an upholsterer in Covent
Garden, in a new street, which seems at that time to have
received the name of King Street, which it retains to this day,
in common with many other streets so called, in honour of
Charles II. The figures of these four Indian kings or chiefs
are still preserved in the British Museum. The names and titles
of their Majesties are recorded there and in the 'Annals of
Queen Anne,' but with the following differences from the
account of them in this paper: _Tee Yee Neen Ho Ga Prow_, and
_Sa Ga Yean Qua Prah Ion_, of the _Maquas_;--_Elow Oh Kaom_,
and _Oh Nee Yeath Ion No Prow_, of the river _Sachem_, and the
_Ganajoh-hore Sachem_. On the 18th of April 1710, according to
Salmon, on the 19th according to Boyer, these four illustrious
personages were conveyed in two of the Queen's coaches to St.
James's, by Sir Charles Cotterel, master of the ceremonies, and
introduced to their public audience by the Duke of Shrewsbury,
then Lord Chamberlain. They made a speech by an interpreter,
which Major Pidgeon, an officer who came over with them from
America, read in English to her Majesty. "They had (they said)
with one consent hung up the kettle and taken up the hatchet,
in token of their friendship to their great queen and her
children, and had been, on the other side of the great water, a
strong wall of security to their great queen's children, even
to the loss of their best men. For the truth of what they
affirmed, and their written proposals, they referred to Colonel
Scuyder and Colonel Nicholson, whom they called, in their
language, Brother Queder, and Anadgargaux, and, speaking of
Colonel Vetch, they named him Anadiasia. They said they always
considered the French as men of falsehood, and rejoiced in the
prospect of the reduction of Canada; after which they should
have free hunting, and a great trade with their great queen's
children, and as a token of the sincerity of the six nations,
in the name of all, they presented their great queen with the
belts of wampum. They concluded their speech with recommending
their very hard case to their great queen's gracious
consideration, expressing their hopes of her favour, and
requesting the mission of more of her children to reinforce and
to instruct, for they had got, as they said, since their
alliance with her children, some knowledge of the Saviour of
the world. The curious may see this speech at full length in
the 'Annals of Queen Anne,' year 9th, p. 191, _et seq._, 8vo.
On the same day, according to Boyer, a royal messenger of the
Emperor of Morocco, Elhadge Guzman, was likewise introduced by
the Duke of Shrewsbury to a private audience, and delivered
letters to the Queen from Mula Ishmael, his master; the same
emperor, probably, who sent an ambassador to our court in 1706,
mentioned in the 'Tatler,' No. 130, and note, vol. iii., p. 44.
The Indian Kings continued about a fortnight longer in London,
during which time they were hospitably entertained by some of
the lords commissioners of the Admiralty, by the Duke of
Ormond, and several persons of distinction. They were carried
to see Dr. Flamstead's house and the mathematical instruments
in Greenwich Park, and entertained with the sight of the
principal curiosities in and about the metropolis; then
conveyed to Portsmouth through Hampton Court and Windsor, and
embarked with Colonel Frances Nicholson, commander-in-chief of
the forces appointed to the American service, on board the
Dragon, Captain Martin, Commodore, who, with about eighteen
sail under his convoy, sailed from Spithead on the 18th of May,
and landed their Majesties safe at Boston, in New England, July
15th, 1710."[310]

Their names are like a set of yawns and sneezes.

Young Arne, who was born in King Street, was a musician against his
father's will, and practised in the garret, on a muffled spinnet, when
the family had gone to bed. He was sent to Eton, which was probably of
use to him in confirming his natural refinement, but nothing could
hinder his devoting himself to the art. It is said the old man had no
suspicion of his advancement in it, till, going to a concert one
evening, he was astonished to see his son exalted, bow in hand, as the
leader. Seeing the praises bestowed on him, he suffered him to become
what nature designed him for. Arne was the most flowing, Italian-like
musician of any we have had in England; not capable of the grandeur
and profound style of Purcell, but more sustained, continuous, and
seductive. His "Water parted" is a stream of sweetness; his song,
"When Daisies pied" is truly Shaksperian, full of archness and
originality. Like many of his profession, who feel much more than they
reflect, he became, in some measure, the victim of his sense of
beauty, being excessively addicted to women. His sister, Mrs. Cibber,
whose charming performances on the stage we have before noticed, did
not escape without the reputation of a like tendency; but she had a
bad husband (the notorious Theophilus Cibber); and on the occasion
that gave rise to it, is understood to have been the victim of his
mercenary designs.

Southampton Street we have noticed in speaking of the Strand.
Godfrey's, the chemist's, in this street, is an establishment of old
standing, as may be seen by the inscription over the door. A hundred
years ago, Mr. Ambrose Godfrey, who lived here, proposed to extinguish
fire by a new method of "explosion and suffocation;" that is to say, a
mixture of water and _gunpowder_. Tavistock Street (where Lord
Sandwich first saw Miss Ray) was once the great emporium of millinery
and mantua-making. Macklin died there. He lived many years in Wyld
Street. In Maiden Lane, Voltaire lodged, when in England, at the sign
of the White Peruke, probably the house of a fashionable French
peruquier. In "Swift's Works" (vol. xx. of the duodecimo edition, p.
294), there is a letter to him, in English, by Voltaire, and dated
from this house. The English seems a little too perfect. There is
another following it which looks more authentic. But there is no doubt
that Voltaire, while in England, made himself such a master of the
language, as to be able to write in it with singular correctness for a
foreigner. He was then young. He had been imprisoned in the Bastile
for a libel; came over here, on his release; procured many
subscriptions for the "Henriade;" published in English "An Essay on
Epic Poetry," and remained some years, during which he became
acquainted with the principal men of letters--Pope, Congreve, and
Young. He is said to have talked so indecently at Pope's table
(probably no more than was thought decent by the belles in France),
that the good old lady, the poet's mother, was obliged to retire.
Objecting, at Lord Chesterfield's table, to the allegories of Milton,
Young is said to have accosted him in the well-known couplet:--

Thou art so witty, profligate, and thin,
Thou seem'st a Milton, with his Death and Sin.

But this story has been doubted. Young, though not so thin, was as
witty and profligate in his way as Voltaire: for, even when affecting
a hermit-like sense of religion, he was a servile flatterer and
preferment-hunter. The secret of the gloomy tone in his
"Night-Thoughts" was his not having too much, and his missing a
bishopric. This is the reason why the "Night-Thoughts" are overdone,
and have not stood their ground. Voltaire left England with such a
mass of subscriptions for his "Henriade" as laid the foundation of his
fortunes, and with great admiration of English talent and genius,
particularly that of Newton and Locke, which, with all his
insinuations against our poetry, he took warm pains to extend, and
never gave up. He was fond to the last of showing he had not forgotten
his English. Somebody telling him that Johnson had spoken well of his
talents, he said, in English, "He is a clever fellow;" but the
gentleman observing that the doctor did not think well of his
religion, he added, "a superstitious dog."

During his residence in Maiden Lane, there is a story of Voltaire's
having been beset, in one of his walks, by the people, who ridiculed
him as a Frenchman. He got upon the steps of a door-way and harangued
them in their own language in praise of English liberty and the
nation; upon which, the story adds, they hailed him as a fine fellow,
and carried him to his lodgings on their shoulders. The treatment of
foreigners at this time in the streets of London (and every foreigner
was a Frenchman) was very much the reverse of what the inhabitants
took it for. Thanks to the progress of knowledge, nations have learnt
to understand one another's common cause better, and to suspect that
the most ridiculous thing they could do is to forget it.

Long Acre is a portion of the seven acres before mentioned. The great
plague of London began there in some goods brought over from Holland;
but as that calamity made its principal ravages in the city, we shall
speak of it under another head. During the battles of the Whigs and
Tories, Long Acre was famous for its Mug-houses, where beer-drinking
clubs were held, and politics "sung or said." Cheapside was another
place of celebrity for these meetings. There is a description of them
in a Journey through England in 1724, quoted by Mr. Malcolm in his
"Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century."
"Gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen," says the account, "used to meet
in a great room, seldom under a hundred."

"They had a president, who sat in an arm-chair some steps
higher than the rest of the company, to keep the whole room in
order. A harp played all the time at the lower end of the room,
and every now and then one or other of the company rose and
entertained the rest with a song, and (by the by) some were
good masters. Here was nothing drank but ale, and every
gentleman had his separate mug, which he chalked on the table
where he sat as it was brought in; and every one retired when
he pleased, as from a coffee-house.

"The rooms were always so diverted with songs, and drinking
from one table to another one another's healths, that there was
no room for anything that could sour conversation.

"One was obliged to be there by seven to get room, and after
ten the company were for the most part gone.

"This was a winter's amusement, agreeable enough to a stranger
for once or twice, and he was well diverted with the different
humours when the mugs overflow.

"On King George's accession to the throne, the Tories had so
much the better of the friends to the Protestant succession,
that they gained the mobs on all public days to their side.
This induced this set of gentlemen to establish mug-houses in
all the corners of this great city, for well-affected tradesmen
to meet and keep up the spirit of loyalty to the Protestant
succession, and to be ready upon all tumults to join their
forces for the suppression of the Tory mobs. Many an encounter
they had, and many were the riots, till at last the Parliament
was obliged by law to put an end to this city strife, which had
this good effect, that, on pulling down the mug-houses in
Salisbury Court, for which some boys were hanged on this Act,
the city has not been troubled with them since."[311]

One of the mistresses whom Prior celebrates, under the name of Chloe,
and compares to Venus and Diana, lived in Long Acre, and was the wife,
some say, of a common soldier, others of a cobbler, others of the
keeper of an ale-house. Perhaps she was all these, or there were three
mistresses whose alliances were confounded. Spence says that the
ale-house keeper was the first husband, and the cobbler the second.
"Everybody knows," says Pope, "what a wretch she was." And
again:--"Prior was not a right good man. He used to bury himself, for
whole days and nights together, with a poor mean creature, and often
drank hard. He turned from a strong Whig (which he had been when most
with Lord Halifax) to a violent Tory; and did not care to converse
with any Whigs after, any more than Rowe did with Tories."[312] "I
have been assured," says Pope's friend, Richardson, the painter, "that
Prior, after having spent the evening with Oxford, Bolingbroke, Pope,
and Swift, would go and smoke a pipe, and drink a bottle of ale, with
a common soldier and his wife, in Long Acre, before he went to
bed."[313] After the poet's death, Arbuthnot says something to the
same effect; but we forget what.

None of the wits of that time seem to have known much about love as a
sentiment. There is no end of the misconceptions of what is called
love. Prior would probably have retorted upon Pope, that his own taste
was not very delicate; and upon Arbuthnot, that the doctor was a
sensualist in his way, and of a lower order.[314] He would have quoted
Propertius, Raphael, and others, for the impartiality of his taste;
and the woman, though in low life, might have had wit and beauty. The
secret of these inequalities has been explained by Fielding.[315]

Sir Joshua Reynolds lived successively in St. Martin's Lane, and on
the north side of Great Newport Street, before he settled finally in
Leicester Square. In Newport Street was born the celebrated Horne
Tooke, the son of a poulterer in the adjoining market; which made him
say, that his father was a "Turkey merchant." He was, perhaps, the
hardest-headed man that ever figured in the union of literature and
politics; meaning, by that epithet, the power to discuss, and
impenetrability to objection. He died at his house at Wimbledon, and
was buried at Ealing. His history trenches too closely on the politics
of our own day, to allow us to expatiate upon it in a work expressly
devoted to the past.

St. Martin's Lane (see Charing Cross, for a notice of the church,) was
once as famous for artists as Newman Street has been since. In
Salisbury Court and in St. Martin's Lane the Royal Academy may be said
to have originated, for in those places successively its original
members first came together as a society established by themselves.
Perhaps there was not a single artist, contemporary with Sir Joshua,
who was unconnected with St. Martin's Lane, either as a lodger,
student, or visitor. Old Slaughter's coffee-house, in the same lane,
became celebrated on the same account, and as a resort of the
contemporary wits, especially Hogarth, who may be said to have
amalgamated in his works the wit and the painter. St. Martin's Lane
and Leicester Square are the head-quarters of the memory of English
art. In the annals of the former we meet with the names of Wilson and
Gainsborough: in the latter flourished and died Hogarth and Sir Joshua
Reynolds.

Sir Joshua's house in Leicester Square was on the eastern side, four
doors from Sydney's Alley.[316] It was there he kept a handsome table,
and was visited by Johnson and Goldsmith, and had the whole round of
the fashionable world fluttering before him, and steadying itself to
become immortal in his pictures: if, indeed, immortal they are to be,
in the ordinary meaning of that word; for, out of certain misgivings,
which perhaps argued a want of perfect claim to that destiny, he
dabbled in experiments upon colours which have failed; and his
pictures, though but of yesterday, already look old and worn out,
while Titian's are as blooming as Apollo.

Hogarth, the greatest name in English art, lived in one of the two
houses which now form Sabloniere's hotel. It was the one to the north.
He was a little bustling man, with a face more lively than refined, a
sort of knowing jockey look; and was irritable and egotistical, but
not ungenerous. As a painter, he did what no man ever did before or
since--brought out the absurdities of artificial life,

"Showed vice her own features, scorn her own image,"

and fairly painted even goods and chattels with a meaning! His
intentions were less profound than his impulses; that is to say, he
sometimes had an avowed common-place in view, as in the instance of
the Industrious and Idle Apprentice, while the execution of it was
full of much higher things and profounder humanities. As to the rest,
if ever there was a wit on canvass, it was he. To take one instance
alone, his spider's web over the poor's box is a union of remote
ideas, coalescing but too perfectly.[317]

Leicester Square, formerly Leicester Fields, was not built upon till
towards the restoration of Charles II. It took its name from a family
mansion of the Sydneys, Earls of Leicester, which stood on the north
side, on the site of the present houses and of Leicester Place.

[Illustration: RESIDENCE OF SIR ISAAC NEWTON.]

"It was for a short time," says Pennant, "the residence of
Elizabeth, daughter of James I., the titular Queen of Bohemia,
who, on February 13th, 1661, here ended her unfortunate life.
It has been tenanted for a great number of years. It was
successively the pounting-place of princes. The late King
[George II.], when Prince of Wales, after he had quarrelled
with his father, lived here several years. His son Frederic
followed his example, succeeded him in his house, and in it
finished his days."

"Behind Leicester House," the same author informs us, "stood,
in 1658, the Military-yard, founded by Henry Prince of Wales,
the spirited son of our peaceful James. M. Faubert afterwards
kept here his academy for riding and other gentlemanlike
exercises, in the reign of Charles II., which, in later years,
was removed to Swallow Street, opposite the end of Conduit
Street. Part is retained for the purpose of a riding-house; the
rest is converted into a workhouse for the parish of St.
James's."[318]

But the glory of the neighbourhood of Leicester Fields is in St.
Martin's Street, where the house is still remaining which was occupied
by the great Newton.

FOOTNOTES:

[274] Scott's 'Dryden,' vol. viii., p. 178.

[275] In the prologue to Etherege's play of the 'Man of Mode.' Scott's
'Dryden,' vol. x., p. 340.

[276] Manners and Customs of London during the Eighteenth Century,
vol. ii., p. 317.

[277] Cibber's 'Lives of the Poets' vol. iii., p. 252.

[278] Works of Dryden, vol. i., p. 387. Sir Walter thus notices a
letter of Tonson's on the subject of Dryden's contribution to one of
the volumes known under the title of his Miscellanies:--"The
contribution, although ample, was not satisfactory to old Jacob
Tonson, who wrote on the subject a most mercantile expostulatory
letter to Dryden, which is fortunately still preserved, as a curious
specimen of the minutiæ of a literary bargain in the seventeenth
century. Tonson, with reference to Dryden, having offered a strange
bookseller six hundred lines for twenty guineas, enters into a
question in the rule of three, by which he discovers and proves, that
for fifty guineas he has only 1,446 lines, which he seems to take more
unkindly, as he had not counted the lines until he had paid the money;
from all which Jacob infers, that Dryden ought, out of generosity, at
least to throw him in something to the bargain, especially as he had
used him more kindly in Juvenal, which, saith old Jacob, is not
reckoned so easy to translate as Ovid."--Vol. i., p. 379.

[279] Dryden, vol. i., p. 114.

[280] Dryden, vol. i., p. 203.

[281] Poems on State Affairs, vol. i., p. 99.

[282] Spence's 'Anecdotes,' p. 263.

[283] Spence's 'Anecdotes,' p. 59.

[284] Vol. xv., p. 218.

[285] Spence, p. 263.

[286] Ibid., p. 286.

[287] Boswell, vol. i., p. 373.

[288] Boswell, vol. iii., p. 378.

[289] It is still so called by many of the poorer orders, who are
oftener in the right in their old English than is suspected. Some of
them call it Common Garden, which is a better corruption than its
present one.

[290] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv., p. 213.

[291] Londinium Redivivum, vol. iv., p. 219.

[292] Memoirs of Mrs. Letitia Pilkington. Dublin, 1748, vol. i., p.
136.

[293] Hazlitt's 'Picture Galleries of England,' p. 80.

[294] The best account we are acquainted with of the various
Beef-steak Clubs has been given us by the good-humoured author of
'Wine and Walnuts.' His book is an antiquarian fiction, but not
entirely such; and the present account, among others, may be taken as
fact. George Lambert, Rich's scene-painter at Covent Garden, says he,
"being a man of wit, and of repute as an artist, was frequently
visited by persons of note while at his work in the scene-room. In
those days it was customary for men of fashion to visit the
green-room, and to indulge in a morning lounge behind the curtain of
the theatre. Lambert, when preparing his designs for a pantomine or
new spectacle (for which exhibitions the manager, Rich, was much
renowned), would often take his chop or steak cooked on the German
stove, rather than quit his occupation for the superior accommodation
of a neighbouring tavern. Certain of his visitors, men of taste,
struck with the novelty of the thing perhaps, or tempted by the
savoury dish, took a knife and fork with Lambert, and enjoyed the
treat. Hence the origin of the Beef-steak Club, whose social feasts
were long held in the painting-room of this theatre, which, from its
commencement, has enrolled among its members persons of the highest
rank and fortune, and many eminent professional men and distinguished
wits. The Club subsequently met in an apartment of the late theatre;
then it moved to the Shakspeare Tavern; thence again to the theatre;
until, being burnt out in 1812, the meetings adjourned to the Bedford.
At present the celebrated convives assemble at an apartment at the
English Opera House in the Strand.

"At the same time this social club flourished in England, and about
the year 1749, a Beef-steak Club was established at the Theatre Royal,
Dublin, of which the celebrated Mrs. Margaret Woffington was
president. It was begun by Mr. Sheridan, but on a very different plan
to that in London, no theatrical performer, save one _female_, being
admitted; and though called a Club, the manager alone bore all the
expenses. The plan was, by making a list of about fifty or sixty
persons, chiefly noblemen and members of Parliament, who were invited.
Usually about half that number attended, and dined in the manager's
apartment in the theatre. There was no female admitted but this _Peg
Woffington_, so denominated by all her contemporaries, who was seated
in a great chair at the head of the table, and elected president for
the season.

"'It will readily be believed,' says Mr. Victor, who was joint
proprietor of the house, 'that a club where there were good
accommodations, such a _lovely president_, full of wit and spirit, and
_nothing to pay_, must soon grow remarkably fashionable.' It did
so--but we find it subsequently caused the theatre to be pulled to
pieces about the manager's head.

"Mr. Victor says of Mrs. Margaret, 'she possessed captivating charms
as a jovial, witty bottle companion, but few remaining as a mere
female.' We have Dr. Johnson's testimony, however, who had often
gossipped with Mrs. Margaret in the green-room at old Drury, more in
the lady's favour.

"This author (Victor) says, speaking of the Beef-steak Club, 'It was a
club of ancient institution in every theatre; when the principal
performers dined one day in the week together (generally Saturday),
and authors and other geniuses were admitted members.'

"The _club_ in Ivy Lane, celebrated by Dr. Johnson, was originally a
_Beef-steak_."

[295] From a paper of Steele's in the 'Spectator,' No. 468.

[296] Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq., &c., by James
Thomas Kirkman, vol. ii., p. 419.

[297] Memoirs of the Life of Charles Macklin, Esq., by James Thomas
Kirkman, vol. ii., p. 416.

[298] A few days after writing this passage, we saw the shrubs making
their appearance.

[299] Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, by J. Cradock, Esq., M.A.,
F.S.A., vol. i., p. 117.

[300] Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, by J. Cradock, Esq., M.A.,
F.S.A., vol. iv., p. 166.

[301] Literary and Miscellaneous Memoirs, by J. Cradock, Esq., M.A.,
F.S.A., vol. i., p. 143.

[302] Cradock, as above, p. 144.

[303] Love and Madness, a Story too True, in a series of Letters, &c.
1822, p. 11.

[304] Cradock's Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 166.

[305] Boswell, vol. iii., p. 414.

[306] Cradock's Memoirs, vol. i., p. 146.

[307] Cradock's Memoirs, vol. iv., p. 166.

[308] Account of John Partridge, in the Appendix to the Tatler, vol.
iv., p. 613.

[309] Anecdotes, Manners, and Customs of London during the Eighteenth
Century, vol. i., p. 407.

[310] Tatler, _ut supra_, vol. iii., p. 397.

[311] Anecdotes, Manners, &c. _ut supra_, vol. iii., p. 239.

[312] Spence, _ut supra_, pp. 2, and 49.

[313] Johnson's Life of Prior.

[314] Arbuthnot was a lover of the table, and is understood to have
embittered his end by it; a charge which has been brought against
Pope. Perhaps there is not one that might be brought with more safety
against ninety men out of a hundred.

[315] Journey to the Next World.

[316] The house was probably on the site now occupied by the
south-east corner of New Coventry Street.

[317] For masterly criticisms on Hogarth, see the "Works of Charles
Lamb," vol. ii., p. 88, and the "Picture Galleries of England," p.
181.

[318] Pennant, p. 120.

CHAPTER IX.

CHARING CROSS AND WHITEHALL.

Old Charing Cross, and New St. Martin's Church -- Statue of
Charles I. -- Execution of Regicides -- Ben Jonson --
Wallingford House, now the Admiralty -- Villiers, Duke of
Buckingham; Sir Walter Scott's Account of him --
Misrepresentation of Pope respecting his Death -- Charles's
Horse a Satirist -- Locket's Ordinary -- Sir George Etherege.
-- Prior and his Uncle's Tavern -- Thomson -- Spring Gardens --
Mrs. Centlivre -- Dorset Place, and Whitcombe Street, &c.,
formerly Hedge Lane -- The Wits and the Bailiffs -- Suffolk
Street -- Swift and Miss Vanhomrigh -- Calves' Head Club, and
the Riot it occasioned -- Scotland Yard -- Pleasant
Advertisement -- Beau Fielding, and his Eccentricities --
Vanbrugh -- Desperate Adventure of Lord Herbert of Cherbury.

In the reign of Edward I., on the country road from London to
Westminster, stood the hamlet of Charing; a rustic spot, containing a
few houses, and the last cross set up by that Prince in honour of the
resting-places of his wife's body on its way to interment in the
Abbey. The Cross was originally of wood, but afterwards of stone. The
reader may see it in the old map of London by Aggas. He will there
observe, that towards the beginning of Elizabeth's, reign Charing
Cross was united with London on the Strand side, and at little
intervals with Whitehall; but Spring Gardens was then and long after
what its name implies; and, in the reign of Charles II., Hedge Lane
(now Whitcomb Street) and the Haymarket were still real lanes and
passages into the fields. In Elizabeth's time, you might set out from
the site of the present Pall-mall, and, leaving St. Giles in the
Fields on the right hand, walk all the way to Hampstead without
encountering perhaps a dwelling-place. Lovers plucked flowers in
Cranbourne Alley, and took moonlight walks in St. James's market.

[Illustration: THE VILLAGE OF CHARING FROM AGGAS'S MAP.]

On this spot, in Dr. Johnson's opinion, is to be found the fullest
"tide of human existence" in the metropolis. We know not how that may
be at present when the tide is so full everywhere; but Charing Cross
has long been something the reverse of a rural village, and is now
exhibiting one of the newest and grandest evidences of an improving
metropolis. By way of north front, the Mews (formerly the mews of the
King's falcons) has given way to a sorry palace for the Fine Arts; on
the west is a handsome edifice including the new college of
Physicians; on the east St. Martin's church has obtained its long
desired opening: and in the midst of these buildings and of the
Strand-end is a new square, named after the greatest of our naval
victories, adorned with a column surmounted by their hero, and
disgraced by a couple of shabby fountains. Here also is an equestrian
statue of George the Fourth. What for?

"In the reign of Henry VIII.," says Pennant, speaking of St
Martin's, "a small church was built here at the King's expense,
by reason of the poverty of the parishioners, who possibly were
at that period very poor. In 1607 it was enlarged because of
the increase of buildings. In 1721 it was found necessary to
take the whole down, and in five years from that time this
magnificent temple was completed at the expense of near
thirty-seven thousand pounds. This is the best performance of
Gibbs, the architect of the Radcliffe Library. The steeple is
far the most elegant of any of that style which I named the
_pepper-box_; and with which (I beg pardon of the good people
of Glasgow) I marked their boasted steeple of St. Andrew."[319]

Our lively biographer seems chiefly to admire the steeple of this
church. The Corinthian portico, we believe, is the usual object of
praise. Both of them may deserve praise separately; nor, indeed, will
their size and situation allow them to be regarded with indifference
in conjunction; but the elevation of the steeple on the neck of the
church, or without any apparent or proper base to rest upon, is a
fault not to be denied; and Mr. Pennant perhaps would not have been in
the wrong, had he found an ill name for steeples in general, as well
as for the species which he "peppered." Steeples, however noble, and
porticoes, however Greek, can never truly coalesce. The finest steeple
with a portico to it is but an excrescence and an anomaly, a horn
growing out of the church's neck. The Italians felt this absurdity so
much, that they have often made a separate building of the steeple,
converting it into a beautiful tower aloof from the church, as in the
instances of the famous Hanging Tower in Pisa, and the Campanile in
Florence. Suppose a shaft like the Monument, in a space near St.
Martin's church, and the church itself a proper building with a
portico, like St. Paul's Covent Garden, and you have an improvement in
the Italian style. The best thing to say for

---- sharpèd steeples high shot up in air

(as Spenser calls them) is, that they seem to be pointing to heaven,
or running up into space like an intimation of interminability. An
idea of this kind is supposed to have given rise to them. But they
always have a meagre, incongruous look, considered in their union with
the body to which they are attached. Their best appearance is at a
distance, and when they are numerous, as in the view of a great city;
but even then, how inferior are they to the massive dignity of such
towers as those of Westminster Abbey, or to a dome like that of St.
Paul's!

The origin of the word Charing is unknown. The cross was destroyed
during the Reformation. The spot where it stood is occupied by the
statue of Charles I. originally the property of the Earl of Arundel,
for whom it was cast by Le Soeur in 1633. It was not placed in its
present situation till the decline of the reign of Charles II. The
pedestal is the work of Grinling Gibbons. The statue had been
condemned by Parliament to be sold and broken in pieces; "but John
River, the brazier, who purchased it," says Pennant, "having more
taste or more loyalty than his masters, buried it unmutilated and
showed to them some broken pieces of brass in token of his obedience.
M. D'Archenholz gives a diverting anecdote of this brazier, and says
that he cast a vast number of handles of knives and forks in brass,
which he sold as made of the broken statue. They were bought with
great eagerness by the royalists, from affection to their monarch; by
the rebels as a mark of triumph over the murdered sovereign."[320] The
sovereign now faces Whitehall as if in triumph: yet behind the
Banquetting house lurks a statue of another of this unfortunate race,
who lost his throne for attempting to renew the dictatorial spirit
which cost his ancestor his head. The omission of the horse's girth in
this statue has been thought a singular instance of forgetfulness in
the artist. But it is hardly possible he could have forgotten it. Most
likely he took a poetical license, and rejected what might have hurt
the symmetry of his outline.

Charles's memory, like his life, was destined to be connected with
tragedies. On this spot, before the statue was erected, a number of
the regicides were executed with tortures; and, till of late years, it
was a place for the pillory. Harrison died there, Scrope, Colonel
Jones, Hugh Peters, and others of those extraordinary men, who, in
welcoming a bloody death, gave the last undoubted proofs that they
were real patriots as well as bigots. The spirit in which they died
(bold and invincible, though in the very glow and loquacity evincing
that lingering love of life which is so affecting to one's own
mortality,) had such an effect on the public, that the king was
advised not to have any more such executions near the court, and the
scaffold was accordingly removed to Tyburn. A ghastly story is related
of Harrison;--that after he was cut down alive (according to his
sentence), and had his bowels removed and burnt before his face by the
executioner, he rose up and gave the man a box on the ear. He had
behaved with great patience before this half-death; so that there
appears to have been something of delirium in this action,--the
action, perhaps, of a being feeling himself to be no longer under the
ordinary condition of his species.

The particular sort of religious enthusiasm evinced by these men is
now as obsolete as some of the absurdities which they fought against,
and as others which they would have upheld; but there are passages of
lasting interest in the account of their last moments, which the
reader will perhaps expect to see.

As Harrison was going to suffer, "one in derision called to him and
said, 'Where is your Good Old Cause?' He with a cheerful smile clapt
his hand on his breast, and said 'Here it is, and I am going to seal
it with my blood?' And when he came to the sight of the gallows, he
was transported with joy, and his servant asked him how he did; he
answered 'Never better in my life.' His servant told him, 'Sir, there
is a crown of glory ready prepared for you.' 'O yes,' said he, 'I
see.' When he was taken off the sledge, the hangman desired him to
forgive him. 'I do forgive thee,' said he, 'with all my heart, as it
is a sin against me;' and told him he wished him all happiness. And
further said, 'Alas, poor man, thou dost it ignorantly; the Lord grant
that this sin may not be laid to thy charge!' And putting his hand
into his pocket gave him all the money he had, and so parting with his
servant, hugging of him in his arms, he went up the ladder with an
undaunted countenance.

"The people observing him to tremble in his hands and legs, he,
taking notice of it, said:--

"'Gentlemen, by reason of some scoffing that I do hear, I judge
that some do think I am afraid to die, by the shaking I have in
my hands and knees; I tell you no, but it is by reason of much
blood I have lost in the wars, and many wounds I have received
in my body, which caused this shaking and weakness in my
nerves; I have had it this twelve years: I speak this to the
praise and glory of God; he hath carried me above the fear of
death; and I value not my life, because I go to my Father, and
am assured I shall take it again.

"'Gentlemen, take notice, that for being instrumental in that
cause and interest of the Son of God, which hath been pleaded
amongst us, and which God hath witnessed to my appeals and
wonderful victories I am brought to this place to suffer death
this day, and if I had ten thousand lives, I could freely and
cheerfully lay them down all, to witness to this matter.'"[321]

The time of Colonel Jones's departure being come "this aged
gentleman," says the account, "was drawn in one sledge with his aged
companion Scroope, whose grave and graceful countenances, accompanied
with courage and cheerfulness, caused great admiration and compassion
in the spectators, as they passed along the streets to Charing Cross,
the place of their execution; and, after the executioner had done his
part upon three others that day he was so drunk with blood, that, like
one surfeited, he grew sick at stomach; and not being able himself, he
set his boy to finish the tragedy upon Col. Jones." The night before
he died he "told a friend he had no other temptation but this, lest he
should be too much transported, and carried out to neglect and slight
his life, so greatly was he satisfied to die in that cause."

"The day he suffered, he grasped a friend in his arms, and said
to him with some expressions of endearment, 'Farewell: I could
wish thee in the same condition with myself, that thou mightest
share with me in my joys.'"[322]

The famous Hugh Peters, the commonwealth preacher, whom Burnet speaks
of as an "enthusiastical buffoon," and a very "vicious man," is
thought by a greater loyalist (Burke) to have had "hard measures dealt
him at the Restoration." He calls him a "poor good man." Peters was
afraid at first he should not behave himself with the proper courage,
but rallied his spirits afterwards, and, according to the account
published by his friends (and all the accounts, it should be observed,
emanate from that side), no man appears to have behaved better. Burnet
says otherwise, and that he was observed all the while to be drinking
cordials to keep him from fainting, and Burnet's testimony is not to
be slighted, though he seems too readily to have taken upon trust some
evil reports of Peters' life and manners, which the "poor man,"
expressly contradicted in prison. Be this as it may, "Being carried,"
says the account, "upon the sledge to execution, and made to sit
thereon within the rails at Charing Cross to behold the execution of
Mr. Cook, one comes to him and upbraided him with the death of the
King, bidding him (with opprobrious language) to repent; he replied,
'Friend, you do not well to trample upon a dying man; you are greatly
mistaken, I had nothing to do in the death of the King.'"

"When Mr. Cook was cut down and brought to be quartered, one
they called Colonel Turner called to the Sheriff's men to bring
Mr. Peters near that he might see him; and by and by the
hangman came to him all besmeared in blood, and rubbing his
bloody hands together, he tauntingly asked, 'Come, how do you
like this, how do you like this work?' To whom he replied, 'I
am not, I thank God, terrified at it; you may do your worst.'

"When he was going to his execution, he looked about and espied
a man, to whom he gave a piece of gold (having bowed it first),
and desired him to go to the place where his daughter lodged,
and to carry that to her as a token from him, and to let her
know that his heart was as full of comfort as it could be, and
that before that piece should come into her hands he should be
with God in glory.

"Being upon the ladder, he spake to the Sheriff, saying, 'Sir,
you have here slain one of the servants of God before mine
eyes, and have made me to behold it on purpose to terrify and
discourage me; but God hath made it an ordinance to me for my
strengthening and encouragement.'

"When he was going to die, he said, 'What! flesh, art thou
unwilling to go to God through the fire and jaws of death? Oh'
(said he), 'this is a good day; he is come that I have long
looked for, and I shall be with him in glory;' and so smiled
when he went away.

"What Mr. Peters said farther at his execution, either in his
speech or prayer, it could not be taken, in regard his voice
was low at that time, and the people uncivil."[323]

Ben Jonson is supposed to have been born in Hartshorn Lane, Charing
Cross, where he lived when a little child. "Though I cannot," says
Fuller, "with all my industrious inquiry, find him in his cradle, I
can fetch him from his long coats. When a little child he lived in
Hartshorn Lane, Charing Cross, when his mother married a bricklayer
for her second husband. He was first bred in a private school in St.
Martin's Court; then in Westminster school." But we shall have other
occasions of speaking of him.

The famous reprobate Duke of Buckingham, Villiers, the second of that
name, was born in Wallingford House, which stood on the site of the
present Admiralty. "The Admiralty Office," says Pennant "stood
originally in Duke Street, Westminster: but in the reign of King
William was removed to the present spot, to the house then called
Wallingford, I believe, from its having been inhabited by the Knollys,
Viscounts Wallingford. From the roof the pious Usher, Archbishop of
Armagh, then living here with the Countess of Peterborough, was
prevailed on to take the last sight of his beloved master Charles I.,
when brought on the scaffold before Whitehall. He sank at the horror
of the sight, and was carried in a swoon to his apartment."
Wallingford House was often used by Cromwell and others in their
consultations.

"The present Admiralty Office," continues Pennant, "was rebuilt in the
late reign, by Ripley; it is a clumsy pile, but properly veiled from
the street by Mr. Adam's handsome screen." Where the poor Archbishop
sank in horror at the sight of the misguided Charles, telegraphs have
since plied their dumb and far-seen discourses, like spirit in the
guise of mechanism, telling news of the spread of liberty and
knowledge all over the world. Of the Villierses, Dukes of Buckingham,
who have not heard? The first one was a favourite not unworthy of his
fortune, open, generous, and magnificent; the second, perhaps because
he lost his father so soon, a spoiled child from his cradle, wilful,
debauched, unprincipled, but witty and entertaining. Here, and at York
House in the Strand, he turned night into day, and pursued his
intrigues, his concerts, his dabblings in chemistry and the
philosopher's stone, and his designs on the Crown: for Charles's
character, and the devices of Buckingham's fellow quacks and
astrologers, persuaded him that he had a chance of being king. When a
youth, he compounded with Cromwell, and married Fairfax's
daughter;--he was afterwards all for the king, when he was not "all
for rhyming" or ousting him;--when an old man, or near it (for these
prodigious possessors of animal spirits have a trick of lasting a long
while), he was still a youth in improvidence and dissipation, and his
whole life was a dream of uneasy pleasure. He is now best known from
Dryden's masterly portrait of him in the "Absalom and Achitophel."

"A man so various, that he seemed to be,
Not one, but all mankind's epitome;
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was everything by starts, and nothing long;
But in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could every hour employ
With something new to wish or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes,
So very violent, or over civil,
That every man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert.
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate.
He laugh'd himself from court; then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom, or wise Achitophel;
Thus wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left."

"This inimitable description," observes Sir Walter Scott, in a
note on the subject, "refers, as is well known, to the famous
George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, son of the favourite of
Charles I., who was murdered by Felton. The Restoration put
into the hands of the most lively, mercurial, ambitious, and
licentious genius who ever lived, an estate of 20,000_l._ a
year, to be squandered in every wild scheme which the lust of
power, of pleasure, of license, or of whim, could dictate to an
unrestrained imagination. Being refused the situation of
President of the North, he was suspected of having favoured the
disaffected in that part of England, and was disgraced
accordingly. But in 1666 he regained the favour of the King,
and became a member of the famous Administration called the
Cabal, which first led Charles into unpopular and arbitrary
measures, and laid the foundation for the troubles of his
future reign. Buckingham changed sides about 1675, and becoming
attached to the country party, made a most active figure in all
proceedings which had relation to the Popish plot; intrigued
deeply with Shaftesbury, and distinguished himself as a
promoter of the bill of exclusion. Hence, he stood an eminent
mark for Dryden's satire; which we may believe was not the less
poignant, that the poet had sustained a personal affront, from
being depicted by his grace under the character of Bayes in the
"Rehearsal." As Dryden owed the Duke no favour, he has shown
him none. Yet even here the ridiculous rather than the infamous
part of his character is touched upon; and the unprincipled
libertine, who slew the Earl of Shrewsbury while his adulterous
countess held his horse in the disguise of a page, and who
boasted of caressing her before he changed the bloody clothes
in which he had murdered her husband, is not exposed to hatred,
whilst the spendthrift and castle builder are held up to
contempt. So just, however, is the picture drawn by Dryden,
that it differs little from the following sober historical
account.

"'The Duke of Buckingham was a man of great parts, and an
infinite deal of wit and humour; but wanted judgment, and had
no virtue, or principle of any kind. These essential defects
made his whole life one train of inconsistencies. He was
ambitious beyond measure, and implacable in his resentments;
these qualities were the effects or different faces of his
pride; which, whenever he pleased to lay aside, no man living
could be more entertaining in conversation. He had a wonderful
talent in turning all things into ridicule; but, by his own
conduct, made a more ridiculous figure in the world than any
which he could, with all his vivacity of wit and turn of
imagination, draw of others. Frolic and pleasure took up the
greatest part of his life: and in these he had neither any
taste nor set himself any bounds: running into the wildest
extravagances and pushing his debaucheries to a height, which
even a libertine age could not help censuring as downright
madness. He inherited the best estate which any subject had at
that time in England; yet his profuseness made him always
necessitous, as that necessity made him grasp at every thing
that would help to support his expenses. He was lavish without
generosity, and proud without magnanimity; and though he did
not want some bright talents, yet no good one ever made part of
his composition; for there was nothing so mean that he would
not stoop to, nor anything so flagrantly impious but he was
capable of undertaking.'"

"Buckingham's death," concludes the commentator, "was as awful
a beacon as his life. He had dissipated a princely fortune, and
lost both the means of procuring and the power of enjoying the
pleasures to which he was devoted. He had fallen from the
highest pinnacle of ambition into the last degree of contempt
and disregard." His dying scene, in a paltry inn, in Yorkshire,
has been immortalized by Pope's beautiful lines:--

"In the worst inn's worst room, with mat half hung;
The floors of plaister and the walls of dung;
On once a flock bed, but repaired with straw,
With tape-tied curtains never meant to draw,
The George and Garter, dangling from that bed,
Where tawdry yellow strove with dirty red,
Great Villiers lies! Alas! how changed from him!
That life of pleasure and that soul of whim;
Gallant and gay in Cliefden's proud alcove,
The bower of wanton Shrewsbury and love;
Or just as gay at council, in a ring
Of mimicked statesmen and a merry king;
No wit to flatter left of all his store,
No fool to laugh at, which he valued more;
There victor of his health, of fortune, friends,
And fame, this lord of useless thousands ends!"[324]

"The worst inn's worst room," however, is a poetical fiction.
Buckingham died at the house of one of his tenants at Kirby Mallory,
where he was overtaken with illness. He had wasted his fortune to a
comparative nothing; but was not reduced to such necessity as the poet
would imply.[325]

Andrew Marvel makes the statue of Charing Cross the speaker in one of
his witty libels on Charles and his brother. There was an equestrian
statue of Charles II. at Woolchurch, the horse of which is made to
hold a dialogue with this other. The poet fancies that the riders,
"weary of sitting all day," stole off one evening, and the two horses
came together. The readers at Will's must have been a little
astonished at the boldness of such passages as the following:--

"Quoth the marble horse, It would make a stone speak,
To see a Lord Mayor and a Lombard Street beak,
Thy founder and mine, to cheat one another,
When both knaves agreed to be each other's brother.
Here Charing broke forth, and thus he went on--
My brass is provoked as much as thy stone
To see church and state bow down to a ----
And the King's chief ministers holding the door,
The money of widows and orphans employed,
And the bankers quite broke to maintain the ----'s pride.

WOOLCHURCH. To see _Dei Gratia_ writ on the throne.
And the King's wicked life says God there is none.

CHARING. That he should be styled Defender of the Faith,
Who believes not a word what the Word of God saith.

WOOLCHURCH. That the Duke should turn Papist, and that church defy,
For which his own father a Martyr did die.

CHARING. Tho' he changed his religion, I hope he's so civil,
Not to think his own father has gone to the Devil.

* * * * *

CHARING. Pause, brother, awhile, and calmly consider
What thou hast to say against my royal rider.

WOOLCHURCH. Thy priest-ridden King turned desperate fighter
For the surplice, lawn-sleeves, the cross, and the mitre;
Till at last on the scaffold he was left in the lurch,
By knaves, who cried themselves up for the church,
Archbishops and bishops, archdeacons and deans.

CHARING. Thy King will ne'er fight unless for his Queens.

WOOLCHURCH. He that dys for ceremonys, dys like a fool.

CHARING. The King on thy back is a lamentable tool.

WOOLCHURCH. the Goat and the Lion I Equally Hate,
And Freemen alike value life and estate:
Tho' the father and son be different rods,
Between the two scourgers we find little odds;
Both infamous stand in three kingdoms' votes,
This for picking our pockets, that for cutting our throats.

* * * * *

What is thy opinion of James Duke of York?

CHARING. The same that the frogs had of Jupiter's stork.
With the Turk in his head, and the Pope in his heart,
Father Patrick's disciples will make England smart.
If e'er he be king, I know Britain's doom,
We must all to a stake, or be converts to Rome.
Ah! Tudor, ah! Tudor, of Stuarts enough;
None ever reigned like old Bess in the ruff.

* * * * *

WOOLCHURCH. But canst thou devise when things will be mended?

CHARING. When the reign of the line of the Stuarts is ended."

And these very lampoons had a hand in ending them.

In the days of Buckingham there was a famous house of entertainment in
Charing Cross, called Locket's Ordinary. Where it exactly stood seems
to be no longer known: we suspect by the great Northumberland
Coffee-house. "It is often mentioned," says a manuscript in Birch's
collection, "in the plays of Cibber, Vanbrugh, &c., where the scene
sometimes is laid." It was much frequented by Sir George Etherege, as
appears from the following anecdotes, picked up at the British Museum.
Sir George Etherege and his company, "provoked by something amiss in
the entertainment or attendance, got into a violent passion and abused
the waiters. This brought in Mrs. Locket: 'We are so provoked,' said
Sir George, 'that even I could find in my heart to pull the nose-gay
out of your bosom, and throw the flowers in your face.' This turned
all their anger into jest."

"Sir G. Etherege discontinued Locket's Ordinary, having run up
a score which he could not conveniently discharge. Mrs. Locket
sent one to dun him, and to threaten him with a prosecution. He
bid the messenger tell her that he would kiss her if she
stirred a step in it. When this answer was brought back, she
called for her hood and scarf, and told her husband, who
interposed, that 'she'd see if there was any fellow alive who
had the impudence.' 'Pr'ythee, my dear, don't be so rash,' said
her husband, 'you don't know what a man may do in his
passion.'"[326]

The site of the tavern is now also unknown, where Prior was found,
when a boy, reading Horace. It was called the Rummer. Mr. Nichols has
found that, in the year 1685, it was kept by "Samuel Prior," and that
the "annual feasts of the nobility and gentry living in the parish of
St. Martin" were held there, October 14, in that year. "Prior," says
Johnson, "is supposed to have fallen, by his father's death, into the
hands of his uncle, a vintner near Charing Cross, who sent him for
some time to Dr. Busby, at Westminster; but, not intending to give him
any education beyond that of the school, took him, when he was well
educated in literature, to his own house, where the Earl of Dorset,
celebrated for patronage of genius, found him by chance, as Burnet
relates, reading Horace, and was so well pleased with his proficiency,
that he undertook the care and cost of his academical education."[327]

It is doubtful, however, from one of Prior's epistles to Fleetwood
Shepherd, whether the poet was more indebted to the Lord Dorset or to
that gentleman for his first advancement in life, though the Earl
finally became his great patron. He says to Shepherd,--

"Now, as you took me up when little
Gave me my learning and my vittle,
Asked for me, from my lord, things fitting
Kind, as I 'ad been your own begetting,
Confirm what formerly you've given,
Nor leave me now at six and seven,
As Sunderland has left Mun Stephen."

And again:--

"My uncle, rest his soul! when living,
Might have contrived me ways of thriving;
Taught me with cider to replenish
My vats, or ebbing tide of Rhenish;
So, when for hock I drew pricked white-wine,
Swear 't had the flavour, and was right-wine;
Or sent me with ten pounds to Furni-
Val's Inn, to some good rogue attorney;
Where now, by forging deeds and cheating,
I 'ad found some handsome ways of getting.
All this you made me quit to follow
That sneaking, whey-fac'd god Apollo;
Sent me among a fiddling crew
Of folks, I 'ad never seen nor knew,
Calliope, and God knows who.
I add no more invectives to it,
You spoiled the youth to make a poet."

Johnson says "A survey of the life and writings of Prior may exemplify
a sentence which he doubtless understood well when he read Horace at
his uncle's; 'the vessel long retains the scent which it first
receives.' In his private relaxation he revived the tavern, and in his
amorous pedantry he exhibited the college. But on higher occasions and
nobler subjects, when habit was overpowered by the necessity of
reflection, he wanted not wisdom as a statesman, or elegance as a
poet." It is doubtful whether the general colour of everybody's life
and character might not be found in that of his childhood; but there
is no more reason to think that Prior's tavern propensities were owing
to early habit than those of his patrician companions. No man was
fonder of his bottle than Lord Dorset, and of low company than many a
lord has been. According to Burke, who was a king's man, kings are
naturally fond of low company. Yet they are no nephews of
tavern-keepers. Nor does it appear that Prior did anything in his
uncle's house but pass the time and read.

Thomson wrote part of his "Seasons" in the room over the shop of Mr.
Egerton, bookseller, where he resided when he first came to London. He
was at that time a raw Scotchman, gaping about town, getting his
pocket picked, and obliged to wait upon great men with his poem of
"Winter." Luckily his admiration of freedom did not hinder him from
acquiring the highest patronage. He obtained an easy place, which
required no compromise with his principles, and passed the latter part
of his life in a dwelling of his own at Richmond, writing in his
garden, and listening to nightingales. He was of an indolent
constitution, and has been seen in his garden eating peaches off the
trees, with his hands in his waistcoat pockets. But his indolence did
not hinder him from writing. He had the luck to have the occupation he
was fond of; and no man perhaps in his native country, with the
exception of Shakspeare, has acquired a greater or more unenvied fame.
His friends loved him, and his readers love his memory.

In Spring Gardens, originally a place of public entertainment, died
Mrs. Centlivre, the sprightly authoress of the "Wonder," the "Busy
Body," and the "Bold Stroke for a Wife." She was buried at St.
Martin's. She is said to have been a beauty, an accomplished linguist,
and a good-natured friendly woman. Pope put her in his "Dunciad," for
having written, it is said, a ballad against his "Homer" when she was
a child! But the probability is that she was too intimate with Steele
and other friends of Addison while the irritable poet was at variance
with them. It is not impossible, also, that some raillery of hers
might have been applied to him, not very pleasant from a beautiful
woman against a man of his personal infirmities, who was naturally
jealous of not being well with the sex. Mrs. Centlivre is said to have
been seduced when young by Anthony Hammond, father of the author of
the "Love Elegies," who took her to Cambridge with him in boy's
clothes. This did not hinder her from marrying a nephew of Sir Stephen
Fox, who died a year thereafter; nor from having two husbands
afterwards. Her second was an officer in the army, of the name of
Carrol, who, to her great sorrow, was killed in a duel. Her third
husband, Mr. Centlivre, who had the formidable title of Yeoman of the
Mouth, being principal cook to Queen Anne, fell in love with her when
she was performing the part of _Alexander the Great_, at Windsor; for
she appears at one time to have been an actress, though she never
performed in London. Mrs. Centlivre's dramas are not in the taste of
Mrs. Hannah More's, but the public still have a regard for them. All
the plays above-mentioned are stock pieces. The reason is, that,
careless as they are in dialogue, and not very scrupulous in manners,
they are full of action and good-humour.

Hedge Lane retained its name till lately, when, ceasing to be a heap
of squalidity, it was new christened and received the appellation of
Dorset Place. Part of it is merged in Pall Mall East. It is now the
handsomest end of the thoroughfare which runs up into Oxford Road, and
takes the successive names of Whitcomb, Princes, and Wardour Streets.
Not long ago the whole thoroughfare appears to have been called Hedge
Lane. It is related of Steele, Budgel, and Philips, that, issuing from
a tavern one day in Gerrard Street, they were about to turn into Hedge
Lane, when they were told that some suspicious-looking persons were
standing there as if in wait. "Thank ye," said the wits, and hurried
three different ways.

It is not pleasant to have old places altered which are connected with
interesting recollections, even if the place or recollection be none
of the pleasantest. When the houses in Suffolk Street were pulled
down, we could not help regretting that the abode was among them in
which poor Miss Vanhomrigh lived, who died for love of Swift. She
resided there with her mother, the widow of a Dutch merchant, and had
a small fortune. Swift while in England, upon the affairs of the Irish
Church, was introduced to them, and became so intimate as to leave his
best gown and cassock there for convenience. He found the coffee also
very pleasant, and gradually became too much interested in the
romantic spirit and flattering attentions of the young lady, whose
studies he condescended to direct, and who, in short, fell in love
with him at an age when he was old enough to be her father. Unluckily
he was married; and most unluckily he did not say a word about the
matter. It is curious to observe in the letters which he sent over to
Stella (his wife), with what an affected indifference he speaks of the
Vanhomrighs and his visits to them, evidently thinking it necessary
all the while to account for their frequency. When he left England,
Miss Vanhomrigh, after the death of her mother, followed him, and
proposed that he should either marry or refuse her. He would do
neither.

At length both the ladies, the married and unmarried, discovered their
mutual secret: a discovery which is supposed ultimately to have
hastened the death of both. Miss Vanhomrigh's survival of it was
short--not many weeks. For what may remain to be said on this painful
subject the reader will allow us to quote a passage from one of the
magazines.

"There was a vanity, perhaps, on both sides, though it may be
wrong to attribute a passion wholly to that infirmity, where
the object of it is not only a person celebrated, but one full
of wit and entertainment. The vanity was certainly not the less
on his side. Many conjectures have been made respecting the
nature of this connection of Swift's, as well as another more
mysterious. The whole truth, in the former instance, appears
obvious enough. Swift, partly from vanity, and partly from a
more excusable craving after some recreation of his natural
melancholy, had suffered himself to take a pleasure, and
exhibit an interest, in the conversation of an intelligent
young woman, beyond what he ought to have done. An attachment
on her part ensued, not greater, perhaps, than he contemplated
with a culpable satisfaction as long as it threatened no very
great disturbance of his peace, but which must have given him
great remorse in after-times, when he reflected upon his
encouragement of it. On the occasion of its disclosure his
self-love inspired him with one of his most poetical fancies:--

'Cadenus many things had writ;
Vanessa much esteemed his wit,
And called for his poetic works:
Meanwhile the boy in secret lurks,
And while the book was in her hand
The urchin from his private stand,
Took aim, and shot with all his strength
A dart of such prodigious length,
It pierced the feeble volume through,
And deep transfixed her bosom too.
Some lines more moving than the rest,
Stuck to the point that pierced her breast,
And borne directly to the heart,
With pains unknown increased her smart.
Vanessa, not in years a score,
Dreams of a gown of forty-four,
Imaginary charms can find
In eyes with reading almost blind:
Cadenus now no more appears
Declined in health, advanced in years,
She fancies music in his tongue,
Nor farther looks, but thinks him young.'

"A reflection ensues which it is a pity he had not made
before:--

'What mariner is not afraid
To venture in a ship decayed?
What planter will attempt to yoke
A sapling with a fallen oak?
As years increase she brighter shines,
Cadenus with each day declines;
And he must fall a prey to time
While she continues in her prime.'

"If he had thought of this when he used to go to her mother's
house in order to change his wig and gown and drink coffee, he
would have avoided those encouragements of Miss Vanhomrigh's
sympathy and admiration, which must have given rise to very
bitter reflections when she read such passages as the lines
that follow:--

'Cadenus, common forms apart,
In every scene had kept his heart;
Had sighed and languished, vowed and writ,
For pastime, or to show his wit.'

"It was sport to him, but death to her. His allegations of not
being conscious of anything on her part, are not to be trusted.
There are few men whose self-love is not very sharp-sighted on
such occasions,--men of wit in particular; nor was Swift,
notwithstanding the superiority he assumed over fopperies of
all sorts, and the great powers which gave a passport to the
assumption, exempt, perhaps, from any species of vanity. The
more airs he gives himself on that point, the less we are to
believe him. He was fond of lords and great ladies, and levees,
and canonicals, and of having the verger to walk before him. He
saw very well, we may be assured, the impression which he made
on the young lady; but he hoped, as others have hoped, that it
would accommodate itself to circumstances in cases of
necessity; or he pretended to himself that he was too modest to
believe it a great one; or sacrificing her ultimate good to her
present pleasure and to his own, he put off the disagreeable
day of alteration and self-denial till it was too late. There
are many reasons why Swift should have acted otherwise, and why
no man, at any time of life, should hazard the peace of another
by involvements which he cannot handsomely follow up. If he
does, he is bound to do what he can for it to the last."[328]

The famous Calves' Head Club (in ridicule of the memory of Charles I.)
was held at a tavern in Suffolk Street; at least the assembly of it
was held there which made so much noise in the last century, and
produced a riot. At this meeting it was said that a bleeding calf's
head had been thrown out of the window, wrapt up in a napkin, and that
the members drank damnation to the race of the Stuarts. This was
believed till the other day, and has often been lamented as a
disgusting instance of party spirit. To say the truth, the very name
of the club was disgusting, and a dishonour to the men who invented
it. It was more befitting their own heads. But the particulars above
mentioned are untrue. The letter has been set right by the publication
of "Spence's Anecdotes," at the end of which are some letters to Mr.
Spence, including one from Lord Middlesex, giving the real account of
the affair. By the style of the letter the reader may judge what sort
of heads the members had, and what was reckoned the polite way of
speaking to a waiter in those days:--

Whitehall, Feb. ye 9th, 1735.

"Dear _Spanco_,

"I don't in the least doubt but long before this time the noise
of the riot on the 30 of Jan. has reached you at Oxford, and
though there has been as many lies and false reports raised
upon the occasion in this good city as any reasonable man could
expect, yet I fancy even those may be improved or increased
before they come to you. Now, that you may be able to defend
your friends (as I don't in the least doubt you have an
inclination to do), I'll send you the matter of fact literally
and truly as it happened, upon my honour. Eight of us happened
to meet together the 30th of January, it might have been the
10th of June, or any other day in the year, but the mixture of
the company has convinced most reasonable people by this time
that it was not a designed or premeditated affair. We met,
then, as I told you before, by chance upon this day, and after
dinner, having drunk very plentifully, especially some of the
company, some of us going to the window unluckily saw a little
nasty fire made by some boys in the street, of straw I think it
was, and immediately cried out, 'Damn it, why should not we
have a fire as well as anybody else?' Up comes the drawer,
'Damn you, you rascal, get us a bonfire.' Upon which the
imprudent puppy runs down, and without making any difficulty
(which he might have done by a thousand excuses, and which if
he had, in all probability, some of us would have come more to
our senses), sends for the faggots, and in an instant behold a
large fire blazing before the door. Upon which some of us,
wiser, or rather soberer, than the rest, bethinking themselves
then, for the first time, what day it was, and fearing the
consequences a bonfire on that day might have, proposed
drinking loyal and popular healths to the mob (out of the
window), which by this time was very great, in order to
convince them we did not intend it as a ridicule upon that day.
The healths that were drank out of the window were these, and
these only: The King, Queen, and Royal Family, the Protestant
Succession, Liberty and Property, the present Administration.
Upon which the first stone was flung, and then began our siege:
which, for the time it lasted, was at least as furious as that
of Philipsbourgh; it was more than an hour before we got any
assistance; the more sober part of us, doing this, had a fine
time of it, fighting to prevent fighting; in danger of being
knocked on the head by the stones that came in at the windows;
in danger of being run through by our mad friends, who, sword
in hand, swore they would go out, though they first made their
way through us. At length the justice, attended by a strong
body of guards, came and dispersed the populace. The person who
first stirred up the mob is known; he first gave them money,
and then harangued them in a most violent manner; I don't know
if he did not fling the first stone himself. He is an Irishman
and a priest, and belonging to Imberti, the Venetian Envoy.
This is the whole story from which so many calves' heads,
bloody napkins, and the Lord knows what has been made; it has
been the talk of the town and the country, and small beer and
bread and cheese to my friends the Garretters in Grub Street,
for these few days past. I, as well as your friends, hope to
see you soon in town. After so much prose, I can't help ending
with a few verses:--

O had I lived in merry Charles's days,
When dull the wise were called, and wit had praise;
When deepest politics could never pass
For aught, but surer tokens of an ass;
When not the frolicks of one drunken night
Could touch your honour, make your fame less bright,
Tho' mob-form'd scandal rag'd, and Papal spight.

"MIDDLESEX."

The author of a "Secret History of the Calves' Head Club, or the
Republicans Unmasked" (supposed to be Ned Ward, of ale-house memory),
attributes the origin to Milton and some other friends of the
Commonwealth, in opposition to Bishop Juxon, Dr. Sanderson, and
others, who met privately every 30th of January, and had compiled a
private form of service for the day, not very different from that now
in use.

"After the Restoration," says the writer, "the eyes of the
Government being upon the whole party, they were obliged to
meet with a great deal of precaution; but in the reign of King
William they met almost in a public manner, apprehending no
danger." The writer farther tells us, he was informed that it
was kept in no fixed house, but that they moved as they thought
convenient. The place where they met when his informant was
with them was in a blind alley near Moorfields, where an axe
hung up in the club-room, and was reverenced as a principal
symbol in this diabolical sacrament. Their bill of fare was a
large dish of calves' heads, dressed several ways, by which
they represented the king and his friends who had suffered in
his cause; a large pike, with a small one in his mouth, as an
emblem of tyranny; a large cod's head by which they intended to
represent the person of the king singly; a boar's head with an
apple in its mouth, to represent the king by this as bestial,
as by their other hieroglyphics they had done foolish and
tyrannical. After the repast was over, one of their elders
presented an _Icon Basilike_, which was with great solemnity
burnt upon the table, whilst the other anthems were singing.
After this, another produced Milton's _Defensio Populi
Anglicani_, upon which all laid their hands, and made a
protestation in form of an oath for ever to stand by and
maintain the same. The company only consisted of Independents
and Anabaptists; and the famous Jeremy White, formerly chaplain
to Oliver Cromwell, who no doubt came to sanctify with his
pious exhortations the ribaldry of the day, said grace. After
the table-cloth was removed, the anniversary anthem, as they
impiously called it, was sung, and a calf's skull filled with
wine, or other liquor; and then a brimmer went about to the
pious memory of those worthy patriots who had killed the tyrant
and relieved their country from his arbitrary sway: and,
lastly, a collection was made for the mercenary scribbler, to
which every man contributed according to his zeal for the cause
and ability of his purse."

"Although no great reliance," says Mr. Wilson, from whose life
of De Foe this passage is extracted, "is to be placed upon the
faithfulness of Ward's narrative, yet, in the frighted mind of
a high-flying churchman, which was continually haunted by such
scenes, the caricature would easily pass for a likeness." "It
is probable," adds the honest biographer of De Foe, "that the
persons thus collected together to commemorate the triumph of
their principles, although in a manner dictated by bad taste,
and outrageous to humanity, would have confined themselves to
the ordinary methods of eating and drinking, if it had not been
for the ridiculous farce so generally acted by the royalists
upon the same day. The trash that issued from the pulpit in
this reign, upon the 30th of January, was such as to excite the
worst passions in the hearers. Nothing can exceed the grossness
of language employed upon these occasions. Forgetful even of
common decorum, the speakers ransacked the vocabulary of the
vulgar for terms of vituperation, and hurled their anathemas
with wrath and fury against the objects of their hatred. The
terms rebel and fanatic were so often upon their lips, that
they became the reproach of honest men, who preferred the
scandal to the slavery they attempted to establish. Those who
could profane the pulpit with so much rancour in the support of
senseless theories, and deal it out to the people for religion,
had little reason to complain of a few absurd men who mixed
politics and calves' heads at a tavern; and still less, to
brand a whole religious community with their actions."[329]

[Illustration: SCOTLAND YARD IN 1750.]

Scotland Yard is so called from a palace built for the reception of
the Kings of Scotland when they visited this country. Pennant tells us
that it was originally given to King Edgar, by Kenneth, Prince of that
country, for the purpose of his coming to pay him annual homage, as
Lord Paramount of Scotland. Margaret, widow of James V. and sister of
Henry VIII., resided there a considerable time after the death of her
husband, and was magnificently entertained by her brother on his
becoming reconciled to her second marriage with the Earl of
Angus.[330] When the Crowns became united, James I. of course waived
his right of abode in the homage-paying house, which was finally
deserted as a royal residence. We know not when it was demolished.
Probably it was devoted for some time to Government offices. Scotland
Yard was the place of one of Milton's abodes during the time he served
the Government of Cromwell. He lost an infant son there. The eccentric
Beau Fielding died in it at the beginning of the last century, and
Vanbrugh a little after him. There was a coffee-house in the yard,
which seems, by the following pleasant advertisement, to have been
frequented by good company:--

"Whereas six gentlemen (all of the same honourable profession),
having been more than ordinarily put to it for a little
pocket-money, did, on the 14th instant, in the evening, near
Kentish Town, borrow of two persons (in a coach) a certain sum
of money, without staying to give bond for the repayment: And
whereas fancy was taken to the hat, peruke, cravat, sword, and
cane, of one of the creditors, which were all lent as freely as
the money: these are therefore to desire the said six worthies,
how fond soever they may be of the other loans, to un-fancy the
cane again and send it to Well's Coffee House in Scotland Yard;
it being too short for any such proper gentlemen as they are to
walk with, and too small for any of their important uses; and
withal, only valuable as having been the gift of a
friend."[331]

Beau Fielding was thought worthy of record by Sir Richard Steele, as
an extraordinary instance of the effects of personal vanity upon a man
not without wit. He was of the noble family of Fielding, and was
remarkable for the beauty of his person, which was a mixture of the
Hercules and the Adonis. It is described as having been a real model
of perfection. He married to his first wife the dowager Countess of
Purbeck; followed the fortunes of James II., who is supposed to have
made him a major-general and perhaps a count; returned and married a
woman of the name of Wadsworth, under the impression that she was a
lady of fortune; and, discovering his error, addressed or accepted the
addresses of the notorious Duchess of Cleveland, and married her, who,
on discovering her mistake in turn, indicted him for bigamy and
obtained a divorce. Before he left England to follow James, "Handsome
Fielding," as he was called, appears to have been insane with vanity.
On his return, he had added, to the natural absurdities of that
passion, the indecency of being old; but this only rendered him the
more perverse in his folly. He always appeared in an extraordinary
dress: sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less size than ordinary,
the better to display the nobleness of his person; and his footmen
appeared in liveries of yellow, with black feathers in their hats, and
black sashes. When people laughed at him, he refuted them, as Steele
says, "by only moving." Sir Richard says he saw him one day stop and
call the boys about him, to whom he spoke as follows:--

"Good youths,--Go to school, and do not lose your time in following my
wheels: I am loth to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my
own offspring. Hark ye, you sirrah with the white hair, I am sure you
are mine, there is half-a-crown for you. Tell your mother, this, with
the other half-crown I gave her ... comes to five shillings. Thou hast
cost me all that, and yet thou art good for nothing. Why, you young
dogs, did you never see a man before?" "Never such a one as you, noble
general," replied a truant from Westminster. "Sirrah, I believe thee:
there is a crown for thee. Drive on, coachman." Swift puts him in his
list of Mean Figures, as one who "at fifty years of age, when he was
wounded in a quarrel upon the stage, opened his breast and showed the
wound to the ladies, that he might move their love and pity; but they
all fell a laughing." His vanity, which does not appear to have been
assisted by courage, sometimes got him into danger. He is said to have
been caned and wounded by a Welsh gentleman, in the theatre in
Lincoln's Inn Fields; and pressing forward once at a benefit of Mrs.
Oldfield's, 'to show himself,' he trod on Mr. Fulwood, a barrister,
who gave him a wound twelve inches deep. His fortune, which he ruined
by early extravagance, he thought to have repaired by his marriage
with Mrs. Wadsworth, and endeavoured to do so by gambling; but
succeeded in neither attempt, and after the short-lived splendour with
the Duchess of Cleveland, returned to his real wife, whom he pardoned,
and died under her care. During the height of his magnificence, he
carried his madness so far, according to Steele, as to call for his
tea by beat of drum; his valet got ready to shave him by a trumpet to
horse; and water was brought for his teeth, when the sound was changed
to boots and saddle." If this looks like a jest, there is no knowing
how far vanity might be carried, especially when the patient may
cloak it from himself under the guise of giving way to a humour.[332]

Vanbrugh, comic poet, architect, and herald, was comptroller of the
royal works. His house in Whitehall, built by himself, was remarkable
for its smallness. Swift compared it to a goose-pie. On the other
hand, his Blenheim and public buildings are ridiculed for their
ponderous hugeness. The close of Dr. Evans's epitaph upon him is well
known:--

Lie heavy on him earth, for he
Laid many a heavy load on thee.

When he was made Clarencieux king-at-arms, Swift said he might now
"build houses." The secret of this ridicule was, that Vanbrugh was a
Whig. Sir Joshua Reynolds has left the following high encomium on his
merits as an architect. "In the buildings of Vanbrugh, who was a poet
as well as an architect, there is a greater display of imagination
than we shall find, perhaps, in any other; and this is the ground of
the effect we feel in many of his works, notwithstanding the faults
with which many of them are charged. For this purpose, Vanbrugh
appears to have had recourse to some principles of the Gothic
architecture, which, though not so ancient as the Grecian, _is more so
to our imagination_, with which the artist is more concerned than with
absolute truth." "To speak of Vanbrugh (adds Sir Joshua), in the
language of a painter, he had originality of invention; he understood
light and shadow, and had great skill in composition. To support his
principal object, he produced his second and third groups or masses.
He perfectly understood in his art, what is the most difficult in
ours, the conduct of the back-ground, by which the design and
invention are set off to the greatest advantage. What the back-ground
is in painting, in architecture is the real ground on which the
building is erected; and no architect took greater care that his work
should not appear crude and hard; that is, that it did not abruptly
start out of the ground without expectation or preparation. This is a
tribute which a painter owes to an architect who composed like a
painter, and was defrauded of the due reward of his merit by the wits
of his time, _who did not understand the principles of composition in
poetry better than he, and who knew little or nothing of what he
understood perfectly--the general ruling principles of architecture
and painting_. Vanbrugh's fate was that of the great Perrault. Both
were the objects of the petulant sarcasms of factious men of letters,
and both have left some of the fairest monuments which, to this day,
decorate their several countries;--the façade of the Louvre; Blenheim,
and Castle Howard."[333] Perrault, however, had a worse fate than
Vanbrugh, for the Frenchman was ridiculed not only as an architect but
as a man of letters, whereas our author's pretensions that way were
acknowledged.

In the front of Scotland Yard an extraordinary adventure befell Lord
Herbert of Cherbury--(_see_ Queen Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields), who
relates it in a strain of coxcombry (particularly about the ladies)
which would have brought discredit upon such a story from any other
pen. There is no doubt, however, that the story is true.

"There was a lady," says his lordship, "wife to Sir John Ayres,
knight, who finding some means to get a copy of my picture from
Larkin, gave it to Mr. Isaac, the painter, in Blackfriars, and
desired him to draw it in little, after his manner; which being
done, she caused it to be set in gold and enamelled, and so
wore it about her neck so low that she hid it under her
breasts, which I conceive, coming afterwards to the knowledge
of Sir John Ayres, gave him more cause of jealousie than
needed, had he known how innocent I was from pretending to
anything that might wrong him or his lady, since I could not so
much as imagine that either she had my picture, or that she
bare more than ordinary affection to me. It is true, that as
she had a place in court, and attended Queen Anne, and was
beside of an excellent wit and discourse, she had made herself
a considerable person. Howbeit, little more than a common
civility ever passed betwixt us; though I confess I think no
man was welcomer to her when I came, for which I shall allege
this passage:--

"Coming one day into her chamber, I saw her through the
curtains lying upon her bed with a wax candle in one hand, and
the picture I formerly mentioned in the other. I coming
thereupon somewhat boldly to her, she blew out the candle and
hid the picture from me: myself thereupon being curious to know
what that was she held in her hand, got the candle to be
lighted again, by means whereof I found it was my picture she
looked upon with more earnestness and passion than I could
easily have believed, especially since myself was not engaged
in any affection towards her. I could willingly have omitted
this passage, but that it was the beginning of a bloody history
which followed: howsoever, yet I must before the eternal God
clear her honour. And now in court a great person sent for me
divers times to attend her; which summons, though I obeyed, yet
God knows I declined coming to her as much as conveniently I
could without incurring her displeasure; and this I did, not
only for very honest reasons, but, to speak ingenuously,
because that affection passed between me and another lady (who
I believe was the fairest of her time) as nothing could divert
it. I had not been long in London, when a violent burning fever
seized upon me, which brought me almost to my death, though at
last I did by slow degrees recover my health. Being thus upon
my amendment, the Lord Lisle, afterwards Earl of Leicester,
sent me word, that Sir John Ayres intended to kill me in my
bed; and wished me to keep guard upon my chamber and person.
The same advertisement was confirmed by Lucy, Countess of
Bedford, and the Lady Hobby, shortly after. Hereupon I thought
fit to entreat Sir William Herbert, now Lord Powis, to go to
Sir John Ayres, and tell him that I marvelled much at the
information given me by these great persons, and that I could
not imagine any sufficient ground hereof; howbeit, if he had
anything to say to me in a fair and noble way, I would give him
the meeting as soon as I had got strength enough to stand on my
legs. Sir William hereupon brought me so ambiguous and doubtful
an answer from him, that, whatsoever he meant, he would not
declare yet his intention, which was really, as I found
afterwards, to kill me any way that he could." The reason, Lord
Herbert tells us, was, that Sir John, though falsely, accused
him of having seduced his wife. "Finding no means thus to
surprise me," continues the noble lord, "he sent me a letter to
this effect; that he desired to meet me somewhere, and that it
might so fall out as I might return quietly again. To this I
replied, that if he desired to fight with me on equal terms, I
should, upon assurance of the field and fair play, give him
meeting when he did any way specify the cause, and that I did
not think fit to come to him upon any other terms, having been
sufficiently informed of his plots to assassinate me.

"After this, finding he could take no advantage against me,
then in a treacherous way he resolved to assassinate me in this
manner;--hearing I was to come to Whitehall on horseback with
two lacqueys only, he attended my coming back in a place called
Scotland Yard, at the hither end of Whitehall, as you come to
it from the Strand, hiding himself here with four men armed to
kill me. I took horse at Whitehall Gate, and, passing by that
place, he being armed with a sword and dagger, without giving
me so much as the least warning, ran at me furiously, but
instead of me, wounded my horse in the brisket, as far as his
sword could enter for the bone; my horse hereupon starting
aside, he ran him again in the shoulder, which, though it made
the horse more timorous, yet gave me time to draw my sword: his
men thereupon encompassed me, and wounded my horse in three
places more; this made my horse kick and fling in that manner,
as his men durst not come near me, which advantage I took to
strike at Sir John Ayres with all my force, but he warded the
blow both with his sword and dagger; instead of doing him harm,
I broke my sword within a foot of the hilt; hereupon, some
passenger that knew me, observing my horse wounded in so many
places, and so many men assaulting me, and my sword broken,
cried to me several times, 'Ride away, ride away;' but I
scorning a base flight upon what terms soever, instead thereof
alighted as well I could from my horse; I had no sooner put one
foot upon the ground than Sir John Ayres, pursuing me, made at
my horse again, which the horse perceiving, pressed on me on
the side I alighted, in that manner, that he threw me down, so
that I remained flat upon the ground, only one foot hanging in
the stirrup, with that piece of a sword in my right hand. Sir
John Ayres hereupon ran about the horse, and was thrusting his
sword into me, when I, finding myself in this danger, did with
both my arms reaching at his legs pull them towards me, till he
fell down backwards on his head; one of my footmen hereupon,
who was a little Shropshire boy, freed my foot out of the
stirrup, the other, who was a great fellow, having run away as
soon as he saw the first assault; this gave me time to get upon
my legs and to put myself in the best posture I could with that
poor remnant of a weapon; Sir John Ayres by this time likewise
was got up, standing betwixt me and some part of Whitehall,
with two men on each side of him, and his brother behind him,
with at least twenty or thirty persons of his friends, or
attendants on the Earl of Suffolk; observing thus a body of men
standing in opposition against me, though to speak truly I saw
no swords drawn but Sir John Ayres' and his men, I ran
violently against Sir John Ayres, but he, knowing my sword had
no point, held his sword and dagger over his head, as believing
I could strike rather than thrust, which I no sooner perceived
but I put a home thrust to the middle of his breast, that I
threw him down with so much force, that his head fell first to
the ground and his heels upwards; his men hereupon assaulted
me, when one Mr. Mansel, a Glamorganshire gentleman, finding so
many set against me alone, closed with one of them; a Scotch
gentleman also, closing with another, took him off also: all I
could well do to those that remained was to ward their thrusts,
which I did with that resolution that I got ground upon them.
Sir John Ayres was now got up a third time, when I making
towards him with intention to close thinking, that there was
otherwise no safety for me, put by a thrust of his with my left
hand, and so coming within him, received a stab with his dagger
on my right side, which ran down my ribs as far as my hips,
which I feeling, did with my right elbow force his hand,
together with the hilt of the dagger, so near the upper part of
my right side, that I made him leave hold. The dagger now
sticking in me, Sir Henry Carey, afterwards Lord of Faulkland,
and Lord Deputy of Ireland, finding the dagger thus in my body,
snatched it out; this while I, being closed with Sir John
Ayres, hurt him on the head and threw him down a third time,
when kneeling on the ground and bestriding him, I struck at him
as hard as I could with my piece of a sword, and wounded him in
four several places, and did almost cut off his left hand; his
two men this while struck at me, but it pleased God even
miraculously to defend me, for when I lifted up my sword to
strike at Sir John Ayres, I bore off their blows half a dozen
times; his friends now finding him in this danger, took him by
the head and shoulders and drew him from betwixt my legs, and
carrying him along with them through Whitehall, at the stairs
whereof he took boat, Sir Herbert Croft (as he told me
afterwards) met him upon the water vomiting all the way, which
I believe was caused by the violence of the first thrust I gave
him; his servants, brother, and friends, being now retired
also, I remained master of the place and his weapons, having
first wrested his dagger from him, and afterwards struck his
sword out of his hand.

"This being done, I retired to a friend's house in the Strand,
where I sent for a surgeon, who, searching my wound on the
right side, and finding it not to be mortal, cured me in the
space of some ten days, during which time I received many noble
visits and messages from some of the best in the kingdom. Being
now fully recovered of my hurts, I desired Sir Robert Harley to
go to Sir John Ayres, and tell him, that though I thought he
had not so much honour left in him, that I could be in any way
ambitious to get it, yet that I desired to see him in the field
with his sword in his hand; the answer that he sent me was
(repeating the charge above mentioned) 'that he would kill me
with a musket out of a window.'

"The Lords of the Privy Council, who had at first sent for my
sword, that they might see the little fragment of a weapon with
which I had so behaved myself, as perchance the like had not
been heard in any credible way, did afterwards command both him
and me to appear before them; but I, absenting myself on
purpose, sent one Humphrey Hill with a challenge to him in an
ordinary, which he refusing to receive, Humphrey Hill put it
upon the point of his sword, and so let it fall before him and
the company then present.

"The Lords of the Privy Council had now taken order to
apprehend Sir John Ayres, when I, finding nothing else to be
done, submitted myself likewise to them. Sir John Ayres had now
published everywhere that the ground of his jealousie, and
consequently of his assaulting me, was drawn from the
confession of his wife, the Lady Ayres. She, to vindicate her
honour, as well as free me from this accusation, sent a letter
to her aunt, the Lady Crook, to this purpose: that her husband,
Sir John Ayres, did lie falsely, ... but most falsely of all
did lie when he said he had it from her confession, for she had
never said any such thing.

"This letter the Lady Crook presented to me most opportunely,
as I was going to the Counsell table before the Lords, who,
having examined Sir John Ayres concerning the cause of his
quarrel with me, found him still to persist on his wife's
confession of the fact; and now, he being withdrawn, I was sent
for, when the Duke of Lennox, afterwards of Richmond, telling
me that was the ground of his quarrel, and the only excuse he
had for assaulting me in that manner, I desired his lordship to
peruse the letter, which I told him was given me as I came into
the room; this letter being publicly read by a clerk of the
Counsell, the Duke of Lennox then said, that he thought Sir
John Ayres the most miserable man living, for his wife had not
only given him the lie, as he found by the letter, but his
father had disinherited him for attempting to kill me in that
barbarous fashion, which was most true, as I found
afterwards;--for the rest, that I might content myself with
what I had done, it being more almost than could be believed,
but that I had so many witnesses thereof; for all which
reasons, he commanded me in the name of his Majesty, and all
their lordships, not to send any more to Sir John Ayres, nor to
receive any message from him, in the way of fighting, which
commandment I observed: howbeit, I must not omit to tell, that
some years afterwards Sir John Ayres, returning from Ireland by
Beaumaris, where I then was, some of my servants and followers
broke open the doors of the house where he was, and would, I
believe, have cut him into pieces, but that I, hearing
thereof, came suddenly to the house and recalled them, sending
him word also that I scorned to give him the usage he gave me,
and that I would set him free of the town, which courtesie of
mine (as I was told afterwards) he did thankfully
acknowledge."[334]

FOOTNOTES:

[319] Page 143.

[320] Pennant, p. 112. He quotes Archenholz's Tableau d'Angleterre,
183.

[321] State Trials, _ut supra_, vol. v., p. 1236.

[322] Id. pp. 1284, 1286.

[323] State Trials, vol. v., p. 1282.

[324] Scott's Edition of "Dryden," vol. ix., p. 270.

[325] See the life of him by his retainer Fairfax, and the account of
him on his deathbed in the "Collection of Letters of several Persons
of Quality and others."

[326] MSS. Birch, 4221, quoted in the Notes of the Tatler, _ut supra_,
vol. i., p. 208.

[327] Life of Prior in the "Lives of the Poets."

[328] New Monthly Magazine, vol. xvii., p. 140.

[329] Memoirs of the Life and Writings of De Foe, 1829, vol. ii., p.
116.

[330] Pennant, p. 110.

[331] Extracted from Salisbury's Flying Post, of October 27, 1696, in
Malcolm's Manners and Customs of London to the year 1700, vol. i., p.
396.

[332] See State Trials, _ut supra_, "Egerton's Memoirs of Mrs.
Oldfield;" "Swift's Great and Mean Figures," vol. xvii., 1765; and the
"History of Orlando the Fair, in the Tatler," as above, Nos. 50 and
51. "The author of Memoirs of Fielding in the Select Trials," says a
note on the latter number, "admits, that for all the ludicrous air and
pleasantry of this narration (Steele's), the truth of facts and
character is in general fairly represented."

[333] Discourses delivered at the Royal Academy. Sharpe's Edition,
vol. ii., pp. 113, 115.

CHAPTER X.

WOLSEY AND WHITEHALL.

The whole district containing all that collection of streets and
houses, which extends from Scotland Yard to Parliament Street, and
from the river side, with its wharfs, to St. James's Park, and which
is still known by the general appellation of Whitehall, was formerly
occupied by a sumptuous palace and its appurtenances, the only relics
of which, perhaps the noblest specimen, is the beautiful edifice built
by Inigo Jones, and retaining its old name of the Banqueting House.

As this palace was the abode of a series of English sovereigns,
beginning with Henry the Eighth, who took it from Wolsey, and
terminating with James the Second, on whose downfall it was destroyed
by fire, we are now in the very thick of the air of royalty; and so
being, we mean to lead a princely life with the reader for a couple of
chapters,--whether he take the word "princely" in a good or ill sense,
as first in magnificence and authority, or in wilfulness and
profusion. Cavendish, Holinshed, and the poets, will enable us to live
with Wolsey, with Henry, and with Elizabeth; Wilson and the poets,
with James the First; Clarendon, Pepys, and others with Charles the
First, Cromwell, Charles the Second, and his brother. We shall eat and
drink, and swell into most unapostolical pomp, with the great
Cardinal; shall huff and fume with Henry, and marry pretty Anne Bullen
in a closet (Lingard says in a "garret"); send her to have her head
cut off as if nothing had happened; be an everlasting young old
gentlewoman with Queen Elizabeth, enamouring people's eyes at seventy;
drink and splutter, and be a great baby, with King James; have a
taste, and be henpecked, and not very sincere, yet melancholy and much
to be pitied, with poor Charles the First; be uneasy, secret, and
energetic, and like a crowned Methodist preacher, or an old dreary
piece of English oak (choose which you will) with Oliver Cromwell;
saunter, squander, and be gay, and periwigged, and laughing, and
ungrateful, and liked, and despised, and have twenty mistresses, and
look as grim and swarthy, and with a face as full of lines, as if we
were full of melancholy and black bile, with Charles the Second; and,
finally, have all his melancholy, and none of his wit and mirth, with
his poor, dreary, bigoted brother James.

"Now, this is worshipful society."

Whether it be happy or not, or enviable by the least peasant who can
pay his way and sleep heartily, will be left to the judgment of the
reader.

The site of Whitehall was originally occupied by a mansion built by
Hubert de Burgh, Earl of Kent, and Chief Justice of England in the
reign of Henry the Third, one of the ancestors of the present Marquess
of Clanricarde. De Burgh bequeathed it to the Brotherhood of the Black
Friars, near "Oldborne," in whose church he was buried; the
Brotherhood sold it to Walter Gray, Archbishop of York, who left it to
his successors in that see as the archiepiscopal residence, which
procured it the name of York Place; and under that name, two
centuries and a half afterwards, it became celebrated for the pomp and
festal splendour of the "full-blown" priest, Wolsey, the magnificent
butcher's son. Wolsey, on highly probable evidence, is thought to have
so improved and enlarged the mansion of his predecessors, as to have
in a manner rebuilt it, and given it its first royalty of aspect: but,
as we shall see by and by, it was not called Whitehall, nor occupied
anything like the space it did afterwards, till its seizure by the
Cardinal's master.

We have always thought the epithet of "full-blown," as applied to
Wolsey, the happiest poetical hit ever made by Dr. Johnson:

"In full-blown dignity see Wolsey stand,
Law in his voice, and fortune in his hand."

His ostentation, his clerical robes, his very corpulence, and his
subsequent _fading_, all conspire to render the image felicitous.
Wolsey is the very flower of priestly prosperity--fat, full-blown,
gorgeous, called into life by sunshine; the very odours he was fond of
carrying in his hand, become a part of his efflorescence; one imagines
his cheek florid, and his huge, silken vestments expanding about him,
like bloated petals. Anon, the blast blows from the horrid royal
mouth: the round flower hangs its head; it lays its dead neck on the
earth; and in its room, is a loathed weed.

Wolsey, however, did not grow to be what he was with the indolence of
a flower. He began his career with as much personal as mental
activity, rendered himself necessary to the indolence of a young and
luxurious Sovereign,--in fact, became his Sovereign's will in another
shape, relieving the royal person of all trouble, and at the same time
securing all his wishes, from a treaty down to a mistress; and hence,
as he himself intimated, the whole secret of his prosperity. He had
industry, address, eloquence, the power of pleasing, the art (till
success spoilt him) of avoiding whatever was unpleasant. He could set
his master at ease with himself, in the smallest points of discourse,
as well as on greater occasions. Henry felt no misgiving in his
presence. He beheld in his lordly and luxurious agent a second self,
with a superior intellect, artfully subjected to his own, so as to
imply intellectual as well as royal superiority; and he loved the
priestly splendour of Wolsey, because, in setting the church so high,
and at the same time carrying himself so loyally, the churchman only
the more elevated the Prince. The moment the great servant appeared as
if he could do without the greater master, by a fortune superior to
failure in his projects, Henry's favour began to give way; and when
the princely churchman, partly in the heedlessness arising from long
habits of security, and partly in the natural resentment of a superior
mind, expressed a doubt whether his Sovereign was acting with perfect
justice towards him, his doom was sealed. Kings never forgive a wound
to their self-love. They have been set so high above fellowship by
their fellow-creatures, that they feel, and in some measure they have
a right to feel, the least intimation of equality, much more of
superiority, as an offence, especially when it is aggravated by a
secret sense of the justice of the pretension; and all Wolsey's
subsequent self-abasements could not do away with that stinging
recollection, pleased as Henry was to widen the distance between them,
and recover his own attitude of self-possession by airs of princely
pity. Wolsey was a sort of Henry, himself--wilful, worldly, and fat,
but with more talents and good-nature; for he appears to have been a
man of rare colloquial abilities, and, where he was not opposed in
large matters, of a considerate kindliness. He was an attached as well
as affable master; and his consciousness of greater merit in himself
would never have suffered him to send a couple of poor light-hearted
girls to the scaffold, for bringing the royal marriage-bed into some
shadow of a doubt of its sacredness. He would have sent them to a
nunnery, and had a new marriage, without a tragedy in it, like a
proper Christian Sultan! Had Henry been in Wolsey's place, he would
have proposed to set up the Inquisition; and King Thomas would have
reproved him, and told him that such severities did not become two
such fat and jolly believers as they.

The people appear to have liked Wolsey much. They enjoyed his pomp as
a spectacle, and pitied his fall. They did not grudge his pomp to one
who was so generous. Besides, they had a secret complacency in the
humbleness of his origin, seeing that he rose from it by real merit.
Those that quarrelled with him for his pride, were proud nobles and
grudging fellow-divines. It is pretty clear that Shakspeare, who was
such a "good fellow" himself, had a regard for Wolsey as another. He
takes opportunities of echoing his praises, and dresses his fall in
robes of pathos and eloquence. As to a true feeling of religion, it is
out of the question in considering Wolsey's history and times. It was
not expected of him. It was not the fashion or the morality of the
day. It was sufficient that the Church made its way in the world, and
secretly elevated the interests of literature and scholarship along
with it. A king in those times was regarded as a visible God upon
earth, not thoroughly well behaved, but much to be believed in; and if
the Church could compete with the State, it was hoped that more
perfect times would somehow or other ensue. A good deal of license was
allowed it on behalf of the interests of better things--a singular
arrangement, and, as the event turned out, not likely to better itself
quite so peaceably as was hoped for; but it was making the best, under
the circumstances, of the old perplexity between "the shows of things,
and the desires of the mind." Wolsey (as the prosperous and the upper
classes are apt to do in all ages) probably worshipped success itself
as the final proof of all which the divine Governor of the world
intended, in his dealings with individuals or society. Hence his proud
swelling while possessed of it, and his undisguised tears and
lamentations during his decline. He talks with his confidants about
the King and good fortune, like a boy crying for a cake, and they
respectfully echo his groans, and evidently think them not at all
inconsistent, either with manliness or wisdom.

There was a breadth of character in all that Wolsey thought, did, and
suffered--in his strength and in his weakness. In his prosperity he
set no bounds to his pomp; in adversity he cries out and calls upon
the gods, not affecting to be a philosopher. When he was angry he
huffed and used big words, like his master; when in good humour, he
loaded people with praise; and he loved a large measure of it himself,
he issued forth, with his goodly bulk and huge garments, and expected
a worship analogous to his amplitudes. There is a passage written with
great humour by Sir Thomas More, which, according to Dr. Wordsworth
(the poet's brother), is intended, "no doubt, to represent the
Cardinal at the head of his table." What reasons the doctor has for
not doubting the application, we cannot say, and therefore do not
think ourselves any more justified than inclined to dispute them. The
supposition is highly probable. Wolsey must have offered a fine
dramatic spectacle to the eyes of a genius like More. We shall
therefore copy the passage for the reader's entertainment, from a note
in Mr. Singer's excellent edition of the Cardinal's Life by
Cavendish:--

"_Anthony._ I praye you, Cosyn, tell on. _Vincent._ Whan I was
fyrste in Almaine, Uncle, it happed me to be somewhat favoured
_with a great manne of the churche, and a great state_, one of
the greatest in all that country there. And in dede whosoever
might spende as muche as hee mighte in one thinge and other,
were a ryght great estate in anye countrey of Christendom. But
_glorious_ was hee verye farre above all measure, and that was
great pitie, for it dyd harme, and made him abuse many great
gyftes that God hadde given him. Never was he saciate of
hearinge his owne prayse.

"So happed it one daye, that he had in a great audience made an
oracion in a certayne matter, wherein he liked himselfe so
well, that at his dinner he sat, him thought, on thornes, tyll
he might here how they that sat with hym at his borde, woulde
commende it. And whan hee had sitte musing a while, devysing,
as I thought after, uppon some pretty proper waye to bring it
in withal, at the laste for lacke of a better, lest he should
have letted the matter too long, he brought it even blontly
forth, and asked us al that satte at his bordes end (for at his
owne messe in the middes there sat but himself alone) how well
we lyked his oracion that he hadde made that daye. But in
fayth, Uncle, whan that probleme was once proponed, till it was
full answered, _no manne (I wene) eate one morsell of meate
more_. Every manne was fallen in so depe a studye, for the
fyndynge of _some exquisite prayse_. For he that shoulde have
broughte out but a vulgare and a common commendacion, woulde
have thoughte himself shamed for ever. Then sayde we our
sentences by rowe as wee sat, from the lowest unto the hyghest
in good order, _as it had bene a great matter of the common
weale, in a right solemne counsayle_. Whan it came to my parte,
I wyll not say it, Uncle, for no boaste, mee thoughte, by oure
Ladye, for my parte, I quytte my selfe metelye wel. And I lyked
my selfe the better because mee thoughte my words beeinge but a
straungyer, wente yet with some grace in the Almain tong;
wherein lettyng my latin alone me listed to shewe my cunnyng,
and I hoped to be lyked the better, because I sawe that he that
sate next mee, and should saie his sentence after mee, was an
unlearned Prieste, for he could speake no latin at all. But
whan he came furth for hys part with my Lordes commendation,
the wyly fox hadde be so well accustomed in courte with the
crafte of flattry, that he wente beyonde me to farre.

"And then might I see by hym, what excellence a right meane
witte may come to in one crafte, that in al his whole life
studyeth and busyeth his witte about no mo but that one. But I
made after a solempne vowe unto my selfe, that if ever he and I
were matched together at that boarde agayne, whan we should
fall to our flattrye, I would flatter in latin, that he should
not contende with me no more. For though I could be contente to
be out runne by an horse, yet would I no more abyde it to be
out runne of an asse. But, Uncle, here beganne nowe the game;
he that sate hyghest, and was to speake, was a great beneficed
man, and not a Doctour only, but also somewhat learned in dede
in the lawes of the Churche. A worlde it was to see howe he
marked every mannes worde that spake before him. And it seemed
that every worde _the more proper it was, the worse he liked
it, for the cumbrance that he had to study out a better to
passe it_. The manne even swette with the laboure, so that he
was faine in the while now and than to wipe his face. Howbeit
in conclusion whan it came to his course, we that had spoken
before him, hadde so taken up al among us before, that we hadde
not lefte him one wye worde to speake after.

"_Anthony._ Alas good manne! amonge so manye of you, some good
felow shold have lente hym one. _Vincent._ It needed not, as
happe was, Uncle. For he found out such a shift, that in hys
flatterying _he passed us all the many_. _Anthony._ Why, what
sayde he, Cosyn? _Vincent._ By our Ladye, Uncle, _not one
worde_. But lyke as I trow Plinius telleth, that when Appelles
the Paynter in the table that he paynted of the sacryfyce and
the death of Iphigenia, hadde in the makynge of the sorrowefull
countenances of the other noble menne of Greece that beehelde
it, spente out so much of his craft and hys cunnynge, that whan
he came to make the countenance of King Agamemnon her father,
which hee reserved for the laste ... he could devise no maner
of newe heavy chere and countenance--but to the intent that no
man should see what maner countenance it was, that her father
hadde, the paynter was fayne to paynte him, holdyng his face in
his handkercher--the like pageant in a maner plaide us there
_this good aunciente honourable flatterer_. For whan he sawe
that he coulde fynde no woordes of prayse, that woulde passe al
that hadde bene spoken before all readye, the wyly Fox woulde
speake never a worde, _but as he that were ravished unto
heavenwarde with the wonder of the wisdom and eloquence that my
Lordes Grace had uttered in that oracyon, he fette a long syghe
with an Oh! from the bottome of his breste, and helde uppe
bothe hys handes, and lyfte uppe both his handes, and lyfte
uppe his head, and caste up his eyen into the welkin and
wept_."

But if Wolsey set store by his fine speaking, he knew also what
belonged to his _hat_; he was quite alive to the effect produced by
his office, and knew how to _get up_ and pamper a ceremony--to cook up
a raw material of dignity for the public relish. It should be no fault
of his, that any toy of his rank should not be looked up to with awe.
Accordingly, a most curious story is told of the way in which he
contrived that the Cardinal's hat, which was sent him during his
residence in York Place, should make its first appearance in public.
Cavendish says, that the hat having been sent by the Pope through the
hands of an ordinary messenger, without any state, Wolsey caused him
to be "stayed by the way," newly dressed in rich apparel, and met by a
gorgeous cavalcade of prelates and gentry. But a note in Mr. Singer's
edition, referring to Tindal and Fox, tells us that the messenger
actually reached him in York Place, was clothed by him as aforesaid,
_and sent back with the hat to Dover_, from whence the cavalcade went
and fetched him. The hat was then set on a sideboard full of plate,
with tapers round about it, "and the greatest Duke in the lande must
make curtesie thereto."

Cavendish has given a minute account of the household at York Place,
from which the following are extracts. Compare them with the
recollection of "the disciples plucking ears of corn:"--

"He had in his hall, daily, three especial tables furnished
with three principal officers; that is to say, a Steward, which
was always a dean or a priest; a Treasurer, a knight; and a
Comptroller, an esquire; which bore always within his house
their white staves. Then had he a cofferer, three marshals, two
yeoman ushers, two grooms, and an almoner," &c., &c., &c....
"In his privy kitchen, he had a master-cook, who went daily in
damask, satin, or velvet, with a chain of gold about his
neck."... In his chapel, he had "a Dean, who was always a great
clerk and a divine; a Sub-dean; a Repeater of the quire; a
Gospeller, a Pisteller (separate men to read the Gospels and
the Epistles), and twelve singing Priests; of Scholars, he had
first, a Master of the children; twelve singing children;
sixteen singing men; with a servant to attend upon the said
children. In the Revestry, a yeoman and two grooms: then were
there divers retainers of cunning singing men, that came
thither at divers sundry principal feasts. But to speak of the
furniture of this chapel passeth my capacity to declare the
number of the costly ornaments and rich jewels, that were
occupied in the same continually. For I have seen there, in a
procession, worn forty-four copes of one suit, very rich,
besides the sumptuous crosses, candlesticks, and other
necessary ornaments to the comely furniture of the same. Now
shall ye understand that he had two cross-bearers, and two
pillar-bearers; and in his chamber, all these persons; that is
to say: his High Chamberlain; his Vice-Chamberlain; twelve
Gentlemen Ushers, daily waiters; besides two in his Privy
Chamber; and of Gentlemen waiters in his Privy Chamber he had
six; and also he had of Lords nine or ten, who had each of them
allowed two servants; and the Earl of Derby had allowed five
men. Then had he of Gentlemen, as cup-bearers, carvers, sewers,
and Gentlemen daily waiters, forty persons; of yeomen ushers he
had six; of grooms in his chamber he had eight; of yeomen of
his chamber he had forty-six daily to attend upon his person;
he had also a priest there which was his Almoner, to attend
upon his table at dinner. Of doctors and chaplains attending in
his closet to say daily mass before him, he had sixteen
persons: and a clerk of his closet. Also he had two
secretaries, and two clerks of his signet: and four counsellors
learned in the laws of the realm.

"And, for as much as he was Chancellor of England, it was
necessary for him to have divers officers of the Chancery, to
attend daily upon him, for the better furniture of the same.
That is to say, first, he had the Clerk of the Crown, a Riding
Clerk, a Clerk of the Hanaper, a Chafer of Wax. Then had he a
Clerk of the Check, as well to check his chaplains, as his
yeomen of the chamber; he had also four Footmen, which were
apparelled in rich running coats, whensoever he rode any
journey. Then had he an Herald at Arms, and a Serjeant at Arms;
a Physician; an Apothecary; four Minstrels; a Keeper of his
Tents; an Armourer; an Instructor of his Wards; two Yeomen in
his Wardrobe; and a Keeper of his chamber in the court. He had
also daily in his house the Surveyor of York, a Clerk of the
Green Cloth; and an auditor. All this number of persons were
daily attendant upon him in his house, down-lying and
up-rising. And at meals, there was continually in his chamber
a board kept for his Chamberlains, and Gentlemen Ushers, having
with them a mess of the young Lords, and another for gentlemen.
Besides all these, there was never an officer and gentleman, or
any other worthy person in his house, but he was allowed some
three, some two servants; and all other one at the least; which
amounted to a great number of persons."

Such was the style in which Wolsey grew fat, in-doors. When he went
out of doors, to Westminster Hall for instance, as Chancellor, or
merely came into an anteroom, to speak with his suitors, the following
was the state which he always kept up. Think of Lord Brougham or Lord
Lyndhurst in our own times, modestly eschewing notice, and going down
to the House in a plain hat and trowsers, and then look on the
following picture:--

"Now will I declare unto you," says the worthy Cavendish,
striking up a right gentleman-usher note (and out of this very
gentleman-usher's family came the princely house of Devonshire,
which has lasted with so much height and refinement ever
since,)--"Now will I declare unto you his order in going to
Westminster Hall, _daily_ in the term season. First, before his
coming out of his privy chamber, he heard most commonly every
day two masses in his private closet; and there then said his
daily service with his chaplain; and, as I heard his chaplain
say, being a man of credence and of excellent learning, that
the Cardinal, what business or weighty matters soever he had in
the day, he never went to his bed with any part of his divine
service unsaid, yea, not so much as one collect; wherein I
doubt not but he deceived the opinion of divers persons. And
after mass he would return in his privy chamber again, and
being advertised of the furniture of his chambers without, with
noblemen, gentlemen, and other persons, would issue out into
them, apparelled all in red, in the habit of a cardinal; which
was either of fine scarlet, or else of crimson satin, taffety,
damask, or caffa, the best that he could get for money; and
upon his head a round pillion, with a noble of black velvet set
to the same in the inner side; he had also a tippet of fine
sables about his neck; holding in his hand a very fair orange,
whereof the meat or substance within was taken out, and filled
up again with the part of a sponge, wherein was vinegar, and
other confections against the pestilent airs; the which he most
commonly smelt unto, passing among the press, or else when he
was pestered with many suitors. There was also borne before
him, first, the great seal of England, _and then his cardinal's
hat, by a nobleman or some worthy gentleman, right solemnly,
bareheaded_. And as soon as he was entered into his chamber of
presence, where there was attending his coming to await upon
him to Westminster Hall, as well noblemen and other worthy
gentlemen, as noblemen and gentlemen of his own family; thus
passing forth with two great crosses of silver borne before
him; with also two great pillars of silver, and his pursuivant
at arms with a great mace of silver gilt. Then his gentlemen
ushers cried, and said: 'On, my lords and masters, on before;
make way for my Lord's Grace!' Thus passed he down from his
chamber through the hall; and when he came to the hall door,
there was attendant for him his mule, trapped altogether in
crimson velvet, and gilt stirrups. When he was mounted, with
his cross bearers, and pillow bearers, also upon great horses
trapped with [fine] scarlet, then marched he forward, with his
train and furniture in manner as I have declared, having about
him four footmen, with gilt poll-axes in their hands; and thus
he went until he came to Westminster Hall door. And there
alighted and went after this manner, up through the hall into
the chancery; howbeit he would most commonly stay awhile at a
bar, made for him, a little beneath the chancery [on the right
hand], and there commune some time with the judges, and some
time with other persons. And that done he would repair into the
chancery, sitting there till eleven of the clock, hearing
suitors, and determining on divers matters. And from thence, he
would divers times go into the star chamber, as occasion did
serve; where he spared neither high nor low, but judged every
estate according to their merits and demerits."

But this style of riding abroad was not merely for official occasions.
He went through Thames Street every Sunday, in his way to the court at
Greenwich, with his crosses, his pillars, his hat, and his great seal.
He was as fond of his pomp out of doors, as a child is of its new
clothes.

The description of the way in which he used to receive the visits of
the King at York Place, has acquired a double interest from the use
made of it by Shakspeare, by whom it has been, in a manner, copied, in
his play of "Henry the Eighth:"

"Thus in great honour, triumph, and glory," says Cavendish, "he
reigned a long season, ruling all things within this realm,
appertaining unto the King, by his wisdom, and also all other
weighty matters of foreign regions with which the King of this
realm had any occasion to intermeddle. All Ambassadors of
foreign potentates were always dispatched by his discretion, to
whom they had always access for their dispatch. His house was
also always resorted and furnished with noblemen, gentlemen,
and other persons, with going and coming in and out, feasting
and banqueting all Ambassadors divers times, and other
strangers right nobly.

"And when it pleased the King's Majesty, for his recreation, to
repair unto the Cardinal's house, as he did divers times in the
year, at which time there wanted no preparations, or goodly
furniture, with viands of the finest sort that might be
provided for money or friendship, such pleasures were then
devised for the King's comfort and consolation, as might be
invented, or by man's wit imagined. The banquets were set
forth, with masks and mummeries, in so gorgeous a sort, and
costly a manner, that it was a heaven to behold. _There wanted
no dames, or damsels, meet or apt to dance with the maskers, or
to garnish the place for the time, with other goodly disports._
Then was there all kind of music and harmony set forth, with
excellent voices both of men and children. I have seen the King
suddenly come in thither in a mask, with a dozen of other
maskers, all in garments like shepherds, made of fine cloth of
gold and fine crimson satin paned, and caps of the same, with
visors of good proportion of visnomy; their hairs, and beards,
either of fine gold wire, or else of silver, and some being of
black silk; having sixteen torch-bearers, besides their drums,
and other persons attending upon them, with visors, and clothed
all in satin, of the same colours. And at his coming, and
before he came into the hall, ye shall understand, that he came
by water to the water gate, without any noise: where, against
his coming, were laid charged, many chambers[335], and at his
landing they were all shot off, which made such a rumble in the
air, that it was like thunder. It made all the noblemen,
ladies, and gentlewomen, to muse what it should mean coming so
suddenly, they sitting quietly at a solemn banquet; under this
sort: First, ye shall perceive that the tables were set in the
chamber of presence, banquet-wise covered, my Lord Cardinal
sitting under the cloth of estate, and there having his service
all alone; and then was there set a lady and a nobleman, or a
gentleman and gentlewoman, throughout all the tables in the
chamber on the one side, which were made and joined as it were
but one table. All which order and device was done and devised
by the Lord Sands, Lord Chamberlain to the King; and also by
Sir Henry Guildford, Comptroller to the King. Then immediately
after this great shot of guns, the Cardinal desired the Lord
Chamberlain and Comptroller to look what this sudden shot
should mean, as though he knew nothing of the matter. They
thereupon looking out of the windows into Thames, returned
again, and showed him that it seemed to them there should be
some noblemen and strangers arrived at his bridge, as
ambassadors from some foreign prince. With that, quoth the
Cardinal, 'I shall desire you, because ye can speak French, to
take the pains to go down into the hall to encounter and to
receive them, according to their estates, and to conduct them
into this chamber, where they shall see us, and all these noble
personages sitting merrily at our banquet, desiring them to sit
down with us, and to take part of our fare and pastime.' Then
[they] went incontinent down into the hall, where they received
them with near twenty new torches, and conveyed them up into
the chamber, with such a number of drums and fifes as I have
seldom seen together at one time, in any masque. At their
arrival into the chamber, two and two together, they went
directly before the Cardinal where he sat, saluting him very
reverently; to whom the Lord Chamberlain for them said; 'Sir,
for as much as they be strangers, and can speak no English,
they have desired me to declare unto your Grace thus: they,
having understanding of this your triumphant banquet, where was
assembled such a number of excellent fair dames, could do no
less, under the supportation of your good Grace, but to repair
hither to view as well as their incomparable beauty, as for to
accompany them at mumchance[336], and then after to dance with
them, and so to have of them acquaintance. And, sir, they
furthermore require of your Grace license to accomplish the
cause of their repair.' To whom the Cardinal answered, that he
was very well contented that they should do so. Then the
maskers went first and saluted all the dames as they sat, and
then returned to the most worthiest, and there opened a cup
full of gold, with crowns and other pieces of coin, to whom
they set divers pieces to cast at. Thus in this manner perusing
all the ladies and gentlewomen, and to some they lost, and of
some they won. And this done, they returned unto the Cardinal,
with great reverence, pouring down all the crowns into the cup,
which was about two hundred crowns. 'At all,' quoth the
Cardinal, and so cast the dice, and won them all at a cast;
whereat was great joy made. Then quoth the Cardinal to my Lord
Chamberlain, 'I pray you,' quoth he, 'show them that it seemeth
me that there should be among them some noble man, whom I
suppose to be much more worthy of honour to sit and occupy this
room and place than I; to whom I would most gladly, if I knew
him, surrender my place, according to my duty.' Then spake my
Lord Chamberlain unto them in French, declaring my Lord
Cardinal's mind, and they rounding him again in the ear, my
Lord Chamberlain said to my Lord Cardinal, 'Sir, they confess,'
quoth he, 'that among them there is such a noble personage,
whom, if your Grace can appoint him from the other, he is
contented to disclose himself, and to accept your place most
worthily.' With that the Cardinal, taking a good advisement
among them, at the last, quoth he, 'me seemeth the gentleman
with the black beard should be even he.' And with that he arose
out of his chair, and offered the same to the gentleman in the
black beard, with his cap in his hand. The person to whom he
offered then his chair was Sir Edward Neville, _a comely knight
of a goodly personage_,[337] that much more resembled the
King's person in that mask than any other. The King, hearing
and perceiving the Cardinal so deceived in his estimation and
choice, could not forbear laughing; but plucked down his visor,
and Master Neville's also, _and dashed[338] out with such a
plesant countenance and cheer_, that all noble estates there
assembled, seeing the King to be there amongst them, rejoiced
very much. The Cardinal eftsoons desired his highness to take
the place of estate, to whom the King answered, that he would
go first and shift his apparel; and so departed, and went
straight into my lord's bedchamber, where was a great fire made
and prepared for him; and there new apparelled him with rich
and princely garments. And in the time of the King's absence
the dishes of the banquet were clean taken up, and the tables
spread again with new and sweet perfumed clothes; every man
sitting still until the King and his maskers came in among them
again, every man being newly apparelled. Then the King took his
seat under the cloth of state, commanding no man to remove, but
sit still, as they did before. Then in came a new banquet
before the King's majesty, and to all the rest through the
tables, wherein, I suppose, were served two hundred dishes or
above, of wondrous costly meats and devices, subtilly devised.
Thus passed they forth the whole night with banqueting,
dancing, and other triumphant devices, to the great comfort of
the King, and pleasant regard of the nobility there assembled.

"All this matter I have declared at large, because ye shall
understand what joy and delight the Cardinal had to see his
Prince and sovereign Lord in his house so nobly entertained and
pleased, which was always his only study, to devise things to
his comfort, not passing of the charges or expenses. It
delighted him so much, to have the King's pleasant princely
presence, that nothing was to him more delectable than to cheer
his sovereign lord, to whom he owed so much obedience and
loyalty, as reason required no less, all things well
considered.

"Thus passed the Cardinal his life and time, from day to day,
and year to year, in such great wealth, joy, and triumph, and
glory, having always on his side the King's especial favour;
until Fortune, of whose favour no man is longer assured than
she is disposed, began to wax something wroth with his
prosperous estate [and] thought she would devise a mean to
abate his high port; wherefore she procured Venus, the
insatiate Goddess, to be her instrument. To work her purpose,
she brought the King in love with a gentlewoman, that, after
she perceived and felt the King's goodwill towards her, and how
diligent he was both to please her, and to grant all her
requests, she wrought the Cardinal much displeasure; as
hereafter shall be more at large declared."

Pretty Anne Bullen completed the ruin of Wolsey for having thwarted
her, and not long afterwards was sent out of this very house from
which she ousted him, to the scaffold, herself ruined by another
rival. On the Cardinal's downfall, Henry seized his house and goods,
and converted York Place into a royal residence, under the title of
Westminster Place, then, for the first time, called also Whitehall.

"It is not impossible," says Mr. Brayley (Londiniana, vol. ii.,
p. 27.) "that the Whitehall, properly so called, was erected by
Wolsey, and obtained its name from the newness and freshness of
its appearance, when compared with the ancient buildings of
York Place. Shakspeare, in his play of King Henry VIII., makes
one of the interlocutors say, in describing the coronation of
Queen Anne Boleyn:--

'So she parted,
And with the same full state paced back again
To York Place, where the feast is held.'

To this is replied--

'Sir, you
Must no more call it York Place--that is past.
For since the Cardinal fell, that title's lost.
'Tis now the King's, and called Whitehall.'"

It is curious to observe the links between ancient names and their
modern representatives, and the extraordinary contrast sometimes
exhibited between the two. The "Judge," who by Henry's orders went to
turn Wolsey out of his house, without any other form of law--a
proceeding which excited even the fallen slave to a remonstrance--was
named Shelly, and was one of the ancestors of the _poet_! the most
independent-minded and generous of men.

FOOTNOTES:

[334] Life of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, in the "Autobiography," p. 79.

[335] _Chambers_, short guns, or cannon, standing upon their breaching
without carriages, chiefly used for festive occasions; and having
their name most probably from being little more than _chambers_ for
powder. It was by the discharge of these _chambers_ in the play of
Henry VIIIth. that the Globe Theatre was burnt in 1613. Shakspeare
followed pretty closely the narrative of Cavendish.--_Singer._

[336] _Mumchance_ appears to have been a game played with dice, at
which silence was to be observed.--_Singer._

[337] Probably a handsomer figure than the King. This (though not the
subtlest imaginable) would be likely to be among Wolsey's
court-tricks, and modes of gaining favour.

[338] This "dashed out" is in the best style of bluff King Hal, and
capitally well said by Cavendish.

CHAPTER XI.

We have said more about Wolsey than we intend to say of Henry the
Eighth; for the son of the butcher was a great man, and his master was
only a king. Henry, born a prince, became a butcher; Wolsey, a
butcher, became a prince. And we are not playing upon the word as
applied to the king; for Henry was not only a butcher of his wives, he
resembled a brother of the trade in its better and more ordinary
course. His pleasures were of the same order; his language was coarse
and jovial; he had the very straddle of a fat butcher, as he stands in
his doorway. Take any picture or statue of Henry the Eighth--fancy its
cap off, and a knife in its girdle, and it seems in the very act of
saying, "What d'ye buy? What d'ye buy?" There is even the petty
complacency in the mouth, after the phrase is uttered.

And how formidable is that petty unfeeling mouth, in the midst of
those wide and wilful cheeks! Disturb the self-satisfaction of that
man, derange his bile for an instant, make him suppose that you do not
quite think him

"Wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,"

and what hope have you from the sentence of that mass of pampered
egotism?

Let us not do injustice, however, even to the doers of it. What better
was to be looked for, in those times, from the circumstances under
which Henry was born and bred--from the son of a wilful father, and an
unfeeling state marriage--from the educated combiner of church and
state, instinctively led to entertain the worldliest notions of both,
and of heaven itself--from the inheritor of the greatest wealth, and
power, and irresponsibility, ever yet concentrated in an English
sovereign? It has been attempted of late by various writers (and the
attempt is a good symptom, being on the charitable side,) to make out
a case for Henry the Eighth, as if he were a sort of rough but honest
fellow, a kind of John Bull of that age, who meant well upon the
whole, and thought himself bound to keep up the conventionalities of
his country. We know not what compliment is intended to be implied by
this, either to Henry or his countrymen; but really when a man sends
his wives, one after the other, to the scaffold, evidently as much to
enable him to marry another as to vindicate any propriety--when he
"cuts" and sacrifices his best friends and servants, and pounces upon
their goods--when he takes every license himself, though he will not
allow others even to be suspected of it--when he grows a brute beast
in size as well as in habits, and dies shedding superfluous blood to
the last--we cannot, for our parts, as Englishmen, but be glad of some
better excuses for him of the kind above stated, than such as are to
be found in the roots of the national character, however jovial.
Imagine only the endearments that must have passed between this man
and Anne Bullen, and then fancy the heart that could have sent the
poor little, hysterical, half-laughing, half-crying thing to the
scaffold! The man was _mad_ with power and vanity. That is his real
excuse.

It has been said, that all which he did was done by law, or at least
under the forms of it, and by the consent, sometimes by the
recommendation, of his statesmen. The assertion is not true in all
instances; and where it is, what does it prove but that his tyrannical
spirit had helped to make his statesmen slaves? They knew what he
wished, and notoriously played the game into his hands. When they did
not, their heads went off. That circumstances had spoilt them
altogether, and that society, with all its gaudiness, was but in a
half-barbarous state, is granted; but it is no less true, that his
office, his breeding, and his natural temper, conspired to make Henry
the worst and most insolent of a violent set of men; and he stands
straddling out accordingly in history, as he does in his pictures, an
image of sovereign brutality.

Excessive vanity, aggravated by all the habits of despotism and
luxury, and accompanied, nevertheless, by that unconscious misgiving
which is natural to inequalities between a man's own powers and those
which he derives from his position, is the clue to the character of
Henry the Eighth. Accordingly, no man gave greater ear to tale-bearers
and sowers of suspicion, nor resented more cruelly or meanly the
wounds inflicted on his self-love, even by those who least intended
them, or to whom he had shown the greatest fondness. The latter,
indeed, he treated the worst, out of a frenzy of egotistical
disappointment; for his love arose, not from any real regard for their
merits, but from what he had taken for a flattery to his own. Sir
Thomas More knew him well, when, in observation to some one who had
congratulated him on the King's having walked up and down with his arm
around his neck, he said that he would have that neck cut in two next
day, if the head belonging to it opposed his will. He not only took
back without scruple all that he had given to Wolsey, but he went to
live in the houses of his fallen friend and servant--places which a
man of any feeling and kindly remembrance would have avoided. He was
very near picking a murderous quarrel with his last wife, Catherine
Parr, on one of his theological questions. And how did he conduct
himself to the memory of poor Anne Bullen, even on the day of her
execution? Hear Lingard, who, though no partizan of his, thinks he
must have had some heinous cause of provocation, to induce him to
behave so roughly:--

"Thus fell," says the historian, "this unfortunate Queen within
four months after the death of Catherine. To have expressed a
doubt of her guilt during the reign of Henry, or of her
innocence during that of Elizabeth, would have been deemed a
proof of disaffection. The question soon became one of
religious feeling, rather than of historical disquisition.
Though she had departed no farther than her husband from the
ancient doctrine, yet, as her marriage with Henry led to the
separation from the communion of Rome, the Catholic writers
were eager to condemn, the Protestant to exculpate her memory.
In the absence of those documents which alone could enable us
to decide with truth, I will only observe that the King must
have been impelled by some powerful motive to exercise against
her such extraordinary, and, in one supposition, such
superfluous vigour. Had his object been (we are sometimes told
that it was) to place Jane Seymour by his side on the throne,
the divorce of Anne without execution, or the execution without
the divorce, would have effected his purpose. But he seemed to
have pursued her with insatiable hatred. Not content with
taking her life, he made her feel in every way in which a wife
and a mother could feel. He stamped on her character the infamy
of adultery and incest; he deprived her of the name and right
of wife and Queen; and he even bastardized her daughter, though
he acknowledged that daughter to be his own. If then he were
not assured of her guilt, he must have discovered in her
conduct some most heinous cause of provocation, which he never
disclosed. He had wept at the death of Catherine (of Arragon);
but, as if he sought to display his contempt for the character
of Anne, he dressed himself in white on the day of her
execution, and was married to Jane Seymour the next
morning."[339]

Now, nothing could be more indecent and unmanly than such conduct as
this, let Anne have been guilty as she might; and nothing, in such a
man, but mortified self-love could account for it. Probably he had
discovered, that in some of her moments of levity she had laughed at
him. But not to love him would have been offence enough. It would have
been the first time he had discovered the possibility of such an
impiety towards his barbarous divinityship: and his rage must needs
have been unbounded.

What Providence may intend by such instruments, is one thing: what we
are constituted to think of them, is another: charitably, no doubt,
when we think our utmost; but still with a discrimination, for fear of
consequences. As to what was thought of Henry in his own time or
afterwards, we must not rely on the opinion of Baker, Holinshed, and
other servile chroniclers, of mean understanding and time-serving
habits, who were the least honourable kind of "waiters upon
Providence," taking the commonest appearances of adversity and
prosperity (so to speak) for vice and virtue, and flattering every
arbitrary and conventional opinion, as though it were not to perish in
its turn. We are to recollect what More said of him (as above) in his
confidential moments and Wolsey in his agony, and Pole and others,
when, having got to a safe distance, they returned him foul language
for his own bullying, and blustered out what was thought of him by
those who knew him thoroughly. Observe also the manifest allusions in
what was written upon the court of those days, by one of the wisest
and best of its ornaments, Sir Thomas Wyat--a friend of Anne Bullen's.
The verses are entitled, "Of a Courtier's Life," and it may be
observed, by the way, that they furnish the second example, in the
English language, of the use of the Italian _rime terzette_, or
triplets, in which Dante's poem is written, and which had been first
introduced among us by Sir Thomas's friend, the Earl of Surrey
(another of Henry's victims):--

Mine owne John Poynes, sins ye delight to know
The causes why that homeward I me draw
And flee the prease of courtes whereso they goe,
Rather than to live thrall _under the awe_
_Of lordly lookes_, wrapped within my cloke,
_To will and lust_ learning to set a law,
It is not, that because I storme or mocke
The power of those whom fortune here hath lent
Charge over us, of right to strike the stroke;
But true it is, that I have alway ment
Less to esteeme them, than the common sort
Of outward thinges that judge in their entent;

* * * * *

My Poynes, I cannot frame my tong to fayn,
To cloke the truth, for praise, without desert,
Of them that list all vice for to retayne;
I cannot _honour_ them that set theyr part
_With Venus and with Bacchus their life long_,
Nor hold my peace of them although I smart
I cannot crouch, nor _kneele_ to such a wrong,
TO WORSHIP THEM LIKE GOD ON EARTH ALONE,
_That are as wolves these sely lambs among_.

(Here was a sigh perhaps to the memory of his poor friend Anne):--

I cannot wrest the law to fyll the coffer
With innocent blood to feed myselfe _fat_,
And do most hurt where that most help I offer
I am not he that can allow the state
Of hye Cæsar, and damn Cato to die;

(an allusion probably to Sir Thomas More).

Affirm that favill (fable-lying) hathe a goodly grace
In eloquence, and _cruelty to name_
_Zeale of justice_, and change in time and place;
And he that suffreth offence without blame,
Call him pitiefull, _and him true and playne
That raylest reckless unto each man's shame_;
Say he is rude, that cannot lye and fayne,
_The lecher a lover_, AND TYRANNY
TO BE RIGHT OF A PRINCE'S RAIGNE;
I cannot, I;--no, no;--it will not be;
This is the cause that I could never yet
Hang on their sleeves, that weigh, as thou maist see,
A chippe of chaunce more than a pound of wit;
This makes me at home to hunt and hawke,
And in foul weather at my book to sit;
In frost and snowe, then with my bowe stalke;
No man doth marke whereso I ryde or goe;
In lustie leas at libertie I walke.

Towards the conclusion, he says he does not spend his time among those
who have their wits _taken away_ with _Flanders cheer and
"beastliness:"_--

Nor I am not, where truth is given in prey
For money, and prison and treason of some
A common practice used night and day;
But I am here in Kent and Christendom,
Among the Muses, where I read and ryme;
Where if thou list, mine owne John Poynes, to come,
Thou shalt be judge how I do spend my time.

Among the poems of Surrey, is a sonnet in reproach of "Sardanapalus,"
which probably came to the knowledge of Henry, and may have been
intended to do so.

It was in Whitehall that Henry made his ill-assorted marriage with
Anne Bullen; Dr. Lingard says in a "garret;" Stowe says in the royal
"closet." It is likely enough that the ceremony was hurried and
sudden;--a fit of will, perhaps, during his wine; and if the closet
was not ready, the garret was. The clergyman who officiated was
shortly afterwards made a bishop.

Henry died in Whitehall; so fat, that he was lifted in and out his
chamber and sitting-room by means of machinery.

He was "_somewhat_ gross, or, as we tearme it, bourlie," says
time-serving Holinshed.[340]

"He _laboured_ under the _burden_ of an extreme fat and unwieldy
body," says noble Herbert of Cherbury.[341]

"The king," says Lingard, "had long indulged without restraint
in the pleasures of the table. At last he grew so _enormously
corpulent_, that he could neither support the weight of his own
body, nor remove without the aid of machinery into the
different apartments of his palace. Even the fatigue of
subscribing his name to the writings which required his
signature, was more than he could bear; and to relieve him from
this duty, three commissioners were appointed, of whom two had
authority to apply to the paper a dry stamp, bearing the
letters of the king's name, and the third to draw a pen
furnished with ink over the blank impression. An inveterate
ulcer in the thigh which had more than once threatened his
life, and which now seemed to baffle all the skill of the
surgeons, added to the irascibility of his temper."[342]

[Illustration: HOLBEIN'S GATE OF WHITEHALL PALACE.]

It was under this Prince (as already noticed) that the palace of the
Archbishop of York first became the "King's Palace at Westminster,"
and expanded into that mass of houses which stretched to St. James's
Park. He built a gate-house which stood across what is now the open
street, and a gallery connecting the two places, and overlooking a
tilt-yard; and on the park-side he built a cockpit, a tennis-court,
and alleys for bowling; for although he put women to death, he was
fond of manly sports. He was also a patron of the fine arts; and gave
an annuity and rooms in the palace to the celebrated Holbein, who is
said to have designed the gate, as well as decorated the interior. It
is to Holbein we are indebted for our familiar acquaintance with his
figure.

The reader is to bear in mind, that the street in front of the modern
Banqueting-house was always open, as it is now, from Charing Cross to
King Street, narrowing opposite to the south end of the
Banqueting-house, at which point the gate looked up it towards the
Cross. Just opposite the Banqueting-house, on the site of the present
Horse Guards, was the Tilt-yard. The whole mass of houses and gardens
on the river side comprised the royal residence. Down this open street
then, just as people walk now, we may picture to ourselves Henry
coming with his regal pomp, and Wolsey with his priestly; Sir Thomas
More strolling thoughtfully, perhaps talking with quiet-faced Erasmus;
Holbein, looking about him with an artist's eyes; Surrey coming
gallantly in his cloak and feather, as Holbein has painted him; and a
succession of Henry's wives, with their flitting groups on horseback
or under canopy;--handsome, stately Catherine of Arragon; laughing
Anne Bullen; quiet Jane Seymour; gross-bodied but sensible Anne of
Cleves; demure Catherine Howard, who played such pranks before
marriage; and disputatious yet buxom Catherine Parr, who survived one
tyrant, to become the broken-hearted wife of a smaller one. Down this
road, also, came gallant companies of knights and squires, to the
tilting-yard; but of them we shall have more to say in the time of
Elizabeth.

We see little of Edward the Sixth, and less of Lady Jane Grey and
Queen Mary, in connection with Whitehall. Edward once held the
Parliament there, on account of his sickly condition; and he used to
hear Latimer preach in the Privy garden (still so called), where a
pulpit was erected for him on purpose. As there are gardens there
still to the houses erected on the spot, one may stand by the rails,
and fancy we hear the voice of the rustical but eloquent and honest
prelate, rising through the trees.

Edward has the reputation usually belonging to young and untried
sovereigns, and very likely deserves some of it; certainly not all--as
Mr. Sharon Turner, one of the most considerate of historians, has
shown. He partook of the obstinacy of his father, which was formalised
in him by weak health and a precise education; and though he shed
tears when prevailed upon to assign poor Joan of Kent to what he
thought her eternity of torment, his faults assuredly did not lie on
the side of an excess of feeling, as may be seen by the cool way in
which he suffered his uncles to go to the scaffold, one after another,
and recorded it in the journal which he kept. He would probably have
turned out a respectable, but not an admirable sovereign, nor one of
an engaging character. Years do not improve a temperament like his.

Even poor Lady Jane Grey's character does not improve upon inspection.
The Tudor blood (she was grand-daughter of Henry's sister) manifested
itself in her by her sudden love of supremacy the moment she felt a
crown on her head, and her preferring to squabble with her husband and
his relations (who got it her), rather than let him partake her
throne. She insisted he should be only a Duke, and suspected that his
family had given her poison for it. This undoes the usual romance of
"Lady Jane Grey and Lord Guildford Dudley;"--and thus it is that the
possession of too much power spoils almost every human being,
practical or theoretical. Lady Jane came out of the elegancies and
tranquillities of the schools, and of her Greek and Latin, to find her
Platonisms vanish before a dream of royalty. She rediscovered them,
however, when it was over; and that is something. She was brought up a
slave, and therefore bred to be despotic in her turn; but habit,
vanity, and good sense alike contributed to restore her to the better
part of herself at the last moment.

We confess we pity "Bloody Mary," as she has been called, almost as
much as any unfortunate sovereign on record. She caused horrible and
odious suffering, but she also suffered horribly herself, and became
odious where she would fain have been loved. She had a bigoted
education and a complexional melancholy; was stunted in person, plain
in face, with impressive but gloomy eyes; a wife with affections
unrequited; and a persecuting, unpopular, but conscientious sovereign.
She derived little pleasure apparently from having her way, even in
religious matters; but acted as she did out of a narrow sense of duty;
and she proved her honesty, however perverted, by a perpetual anxiety
and uneasiness. When did a charitable set of opinions ever inflict
upon honest natures these miseries of an intolerant one?

It was under Elizabeth that Whitehall shone out in all its romantic
splendour. It was no longer the splendour of Wolsey alone, nor of
Henry alone, or with a great name by his side now and then; but of a
Queen, surrounded and worshipped through a long reign by a galaxy of
the brightest minds and most chivalrous persons ever assembled in
English history.

Here she comes, turning round the corner from the Strand, under a
canopy of state, leaving the noisier, huzzaing multitude behind the
barriers that mark the precincts of the palace, and bending her eyes
hither and thither, in acknowledgment of the kneeling obeisances of
the courtiers. Beside her are Cecil and Knolles, and Northampton, and
Bacon's father; or, later in life, Leicester, and Burleigh, and Sir
Philip Sidney, and Greville, and Sir Francis Drake (and Spenser is
looking on); or, later still, Essex, and Raleigh, and Bacon himself,
and Southampton, Shakspeare's friend, with Shakspeare among the
spectators. We shall see her by and by, at that period, as brought to
life to us in the description of Heutzner the traveller. At present
(as we have her at this moment in our eye) she is younger, of a large
and tall, but well-made figure, with fine eyes, and finer hands, which
she is fond of displaying. We are too apt to think of Elizabeth as
thin and elderly, and patched up; but for a good period of her life
she was plump and personable, warranting the history of the robust
romps of the Lord Admiral, Seymour; and till her latter days (and even
then, as far as her powers went), we are always to fancy her at once
spirited and stately of carriage, impulsive (except on occasions of
ordinary ceremony), and ready to manifest her emotions in look and
voice, whether as woman or Queen; in a word, a sort of Henry the
Eighth corrected by a female nature and a better understanding--or
perhaps an Anne Bullen, enlarged, and made less feminine, by the
father's grossness. The Protestants have represented her as too staid,
and the Catholics as too violent and sensual. According to the latter,
Whitehall was a mere sink of iniquity. It was not likely to be so, for
many reasons; but neither, on the other hand, do we take it to have
been anything like the pattern of self-denial which some fond writers
have supposed. Where there is power, and leisure, and luxury, though
of the most legitimate kind, and refinement, though of the most
intellectual, self-denial on the side of enjoyment is not apt to be
the reigning philosophy; nor would it reasonably be looked for in any
court, at all living in wealth and splendour.

Imagine the sensations of Elizabeth, when she first set down in the
palace at Whitehall, after escaping the perils of imputed
illegitimacy, of confinement for party's sake and for religion's, and
all the other terrors of her father's reign and of Mary's, danger of
death itself not excepted. She was a young Queen of twenty-five years
of age, healthy, sprightly, good-looking, with plenty of will, power,
and imagination; and the gallantest spirits of the age were at her
feet. How pitiable, and how respectable, become almost all sovereigns,
when we consider them as human beings put in possession of almost
superhuman power; and when we reflect in general how they have been
brought up, and what a provocative to abuse at all events becomes the
possession of a throne! We in general spoil them first;--we always
tempt them to take every advantage, by worshipping them as if they
were different creatures from ourselves;--and then we are astonished
that they should take us at our word. How much better would it be to
be astonished at the likeness they retain to us, even in the kindlier
part of our weaknesses.

By a very natural process, considering the great and chivalrous men of
that day, Elizabeth became at once one of the greatest of Queens and
one of the most flattered and vain of women. Nor were the courtiers so
entirely insincere as they are supposed to have been, when they
worshipped her as they did, and gave her credit for all the beauty and
virtue under heaven. On the contrary, the power to benefit them went
hand-in-hand with their self-love to give them a sincere though
extravagant notion of their mistress; and the romantic turn of the age
and its literature, its exploits, its poetry, all conspired to warm
and sanction the enthusiasm on both sides, and to blind the admiration
to those little outward defects, and inward defects too, which love at
all periods is famous for overlooking--nay, for converting into noble
grounds of denial, and of subjection to a sentiment. Thus Elizabeth's
hook nose, her red hair, nay, her very age and crookedness at last,
did not stand in the way of raptures at her "beauty" and "divine
perfections," any more than a flaw in the casket that held a jewel.
The spirit of love and beauty was there; the appreciation of the soul
of both; the glory of exciting, and of giving, the glorification;--and
all the rest was a trifle, an accident, a mortal show of things, which
no gentleman and lady can help. The Queen might even swear a good
round oath or so occasionally; and what did it signify? It was a
pleasant ebullition of the authority which is above taxation; the
Queen swore, and not the woman; or if the woman did, it was only an
excess of feeling proper to balance the account, and to bring her
royalty down to a level with good hearty human nature.

It has been said, that as Elizabeth advanced in life, the courtiers
dropped the mention of her beauty; but this is a mistake. They were
more sparing in the mention of it, but when they spoke they were
conscious that the matter was not to be minced. When her Majesty was
in her sixty-second year, the famous Earl of Essex gave her an
entertainment, in the course of which she was complimented on her
"_beauty_" and _dazzling outside_, in speeches written for the
occasion by Lord, then "Mr. Francis, Bacon."[343] Sir John Davies,
another lawyer, who was not born till she was near forty, and could
not have written his acrostical "Hymns" upon her till she was elderly,
celebrates her as awakening "thoughts of young love," and being
"beauty's rose indeed;"[344] and it is well known that she was at a
reverend time of life when Sir Walter Raleigh wrote upon her like a
despairing lover, calling her "Venus" and "Diana," and saying he could
not exist out of her presence.

At the entrance from Whitehall to St. James's Park, where deer were
kept, was the following inscription, recorded by Heutzner, the German
traveller:--

"The fisherman who has been wounded learns, though late, to beware:
But the unfortunate Actæon always presses on.
The chaste Virgin naturally pitied;
But the powerful Goddess revenged the wrong.
Let Actæon fall a prey to his dogs,
An example to youth,
A disgrace to those that belong to him!
May Diana live the care of Heaven,
The delight of mortals,
The security of those that belong to her."

Walpole thinks that this inscription alluded to Philip the Second,
who courted Elizabeth after her sister's death, and to the destruction
of his Armada. It might; but it implied also a pretty admonition to
youth in general, and to those who ventured to pry into the goddess's
retreats.

It was about the time of Essex's entertainment that the same traveller
gives the following minute and interesting account of her Majesty's
appearance, and of the superhuman way in which her very dinner-table
was worshipped. He is describing the manner in which she went to
chapel at Greenwich:--

"First went Gentlemen, Barons, Earls, Knights of the Garter,
all richly dressed and bare-headed; next came the Chancellor,
bearing the seals in a silk purse, between two, one of which
carried the royal sceptre, the other the sword of state in a
red scabbard, studded with golden fleurs-de-lis, the point
upwards; next came the Queen, in the fifty-sixth year of her
age (as we were told), very majestic; her face oblong, fair but
wrinkled; her eyes small, yet black and pleasant; her nose a
little hooked, her lips narrow, and her teeth black (a defect
the English seem subject to, from their too great use of
sugar); she had in her ears two very rich pearls with drops;
she wore false hair, and that red: upon her head she had a
small crown, reported to have been made of some of the gold of
the celebrated Lunebourg table; her bosom was uncovered, as all
the English ladies have it till they marry; and she had on a
necklace of exceeding fine jewels; her hands were small, her
fingers long; and her stature neither tall nor low; her air was
stately; her manner of speaking mild and obliging. The day she
was dressed in white silk, bordered with pearls of the size of
beans, and over it a mantle of black silk shot with silver
threads; her train was very long, the end of it borne by a
Marchioness; instead of a chain, she had on an oblong collar of
gold and jewels. As she went along in all this state and
magnificence, she spoke very graciously, first to one and then
to another (whether foreign ministers, or those who attended
for different reasons), in English, French, or Italian; for
besides being very well skilled in Greek and Latin, and the
languages I have mentioned, she is mistress of Spanish, Scotch,
and Dutch. Whoever speaks to her, it is kneeling; now and then
she raises some with her hand. While we were there, William
Slawater, a Bohemian Baron, had letters to present to her, and
she, after pulling off her glove, gave him her right hand to
kiss, sparkling with rings and jewels, a mark of particular
favour. Whenever she turned her face as she was going along,
everybody fell down on their knees. The ladies of the court
followed next to her, very handsome and well shaped, and for
the most part dressed in white. She was guarded on each side by
the Gentlemen Pensioners, fifty in number, with gilt
battle-axes. In the ante-chamber next the hall, where we were,
petitions were presented to her, and she received them most
graciously, which occasioned the acclamation of 'God Save the
Queen Elizabeth!' She answered it with 'I thanke youe, myne
good peupel.' In the chapel was excellent music; as soon as it
and the service was over, which scarce exceeded half an hour,
the Queen returned in the same state by water, and prepared to
go to dinner.

"A gentleman entered the room bearing a rod, and along with him
another bearing a table-cloth, which, after they had both
kneeled three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon
the table, and after kneeling again they both retired; then
came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a
salt-cellar, a plate, and bread; when they had kneeled as the
others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table,
they too retired with the same ceremonies performed by the
first: at last came an unmarried lady, (we were told she was a
Countess), and along with her a married one, bearing a tasting
knife; the former was dressed in white silk, who when she had
prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner,
approached the table, and rubbed the table with bread and salt,
with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they
had waited there a little while, the Yeoman of the Guard
entered, bare headed, clothed in scarlet with golden roses upon
their backs, bringing in each turn a course of dishes, served
in plate, most of it gilt. These dishes were received by a
gentleman in the same order they were brought, and placed upon
the table, while the lady taster gave to each guard a mouthful
to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for fear of any
poison. During the time that this guard (which consist of the
tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England,
being carefully selected for this service), were bringing
dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle drums made the hall ring
for half an hour together. At the end of all this ceremonial a
number of unmarried ladies appeared, who with particular
solemnity lifted the meat from the table and conveyed it to the
Queen's inner and more private chamber, where after she had
chosen for herself, the next goes to the ladies of the court.

"The queen dines and sups alone, with very few attendants; and
it is very seldom that anybody, foreigner or native, is
admitted at that time, and then only at the intercession of
somebody in power."[345]

A "Character of Queen Elizabeth," written by Edmund Bohun, Esq.,
published in "Nichols's Progresses," has given the following account
of her daily habits:--

"Before day, every morning, she heard the petitions of those
that had any business with her, and, calling her secretaries of
state, and masters of requests, she caused the order of
councils, proclamations, patents, and all other papers relating
to the public, to be read, which were then depending; and gave
such order in each affair as she thought fit, which was set
down in short notes, either by herself, or her secretaries. As
often as anything happened that was difficult, she called her
great and wise men to her; and proposing the diversity of
opinions, she very attentively considered and weighed on which
side the strongest reason lay, ever preferring that way which
seemed most to promote the public safety and welfare. When she
was thus wearied with her morning work, she would take a walk,
if the sun shined, into her garden, or otherwise in her
galleries, especially in windy or rainy weather. She would then
cause ---- Stanhop, or Sir Henry Savill, or some other learned
man, to be called to walk with her, and entertain her with some
learned subject; the rest of the day she spent in private,
reading history, or some other learning, with great care and
attention; not out of ostentation, and a vain ambition of being
always learning something, but out of a diligent care to enable
herself thereby to live the better, and to avoid sin; and she
would commonly have some learned man with her, or near her, to
assist her; whose labour and industry she would well reward.
Thus she spent her winter.

"In the summer time, when she was hungry, she would eat
something that was of light and easy digestion, in her chamber,
with the windows open to admit the gentle breezes of wind from
the gardens or pleasant hills. Sometimes she would do this
alone, but more commonly she would have her friends with her
then. When she had thus satisfied her hunger and thirst with a
moderate repast, she would rest awhile upon an Indian couch,
curiously and richly covered. In the winter time she observed
the same order; but she omitted her noon sleep. When her day
was thus spent, she went late to supper, which was ever
sparing, and very moderate. At supper she would divert herself
with her friends and attendants; and if they made her no
answer, she would put them upon mirth and pleasant discourse
with great civility. She would also then admit Tarleton, a
famous comedian and a pleasant talker, and other such like men,
to divert her with stories of the town, and the common jests or
accidents; but so that they kept within the bounds of modesty
and chastity. In the winter time, after supper, she would
sometimes hear a song, or a lesson or two played upon the lute;
but she would be much offended if there was any rudeness to any
person, any reproach or licentious reflection used. Tarleton,
who was then the best comedian in England, had made a pleasant
play; and when it was acted before the Queen, he pointed at Sir
Walter Rawleigh, and said,--'See, the knave commands the
Queen;' for which he was corrected by a frown from the Queen;
yet he had the confidence to add, that he was of too much and
too intolerable a power; and going on with the same liberty was
so universally applauded by all that were present, that she
thought fit for the present to bear these reflections with a
seeming unconcernedness. But yet she was so offended, that she
forbad Tarleton and all her jesters from coming near her table,
being inwardly displeased with this impudent and unreasonable
liberty. She would talk with learned men that had travelled, in
the presence of many, and ask them many questions concerning
the government, customs, and discipline used abroad. She loved
a natural jester, that would tell a story pleasantly, and
humour it with his countenance, and gesture, and voice; but she
hated all those praters who made bold with other men's
reputation, or defamed them. She detested, as ominous and
unfortunate, all dwarfs and monstrous births. She loved little
dogs, singing birds, parrots, and apes; and when she was in
private, she would recreate herself with various discourses, a
game at chess, dancing, or singing. Then she would retire into
her bedchamber, where she was attended by married ladies of the
nobility, the Marchioness of Winchester, then a widow, the
Countess of Warwick, and the Lord Scroop's Lady, whose husband
was governor of the West Marshes. She would seldom suffer any
one to wait upon her there, except Leicester, Hatton, Essex,
Nottingham, and Sir Walter Rawleigh, who were more intimately
conversant with her than any other of the courtiers. She
frequently mixed serious things with her jests and her mirth;
and upon festival-days, and especially in Christmas time, she
would play at cards and tables, which was one of her usual
pastimes; and if any time she happened to win, she would be
sure to demand the money. When she found herself sleepy, she
would take her leave of them that were present with much
kindness and gravity, and so betake her to her rest; some lady
of good quality, and of her intimate acquaintance, always lying
in the same chamber. And besides her guards, that were always
upon duty, there was a gentleman of good quality, and some
others, up in the next chamber, who were to wake her in case
anything extraordinary happened.

"Though she was endowed with all the goods of nature and
fortune, and adorned with all those things which are valuable
and to be desired, yet there were some things in her that were
capable of amendment, nor was there any mortal, whose virtues
were not eclipsed by the neighbourhood of some vices or
imperfections. She was subject to be vehemently transported
with anger; and when she was so, she would show it by her
voice, her countenance, and her hands. She would chide her
familiar servants so loud, that they that stood afar off might
sometimes hear her voice. And it was reported, that for small
offences she would strike her maids of honour with her hand:
but then her anger was short, and very innocent; and she
learned from Xenophon's book of the Institution of Cyrus, the
method of curbing and correcting this unruly and uneasy
passion. And when her friends acknowledged their offences, she
with an appeased mind easily forgave them many things. She was
also of opinion, that severity was safe, and too much clemency
was destructive; and, therefore, in her punishments and
justice, she was the more severe."

Some of the panegyric in this account must be taken with allowance;
as, for instance, in what is said of the maiden modesty of Elizabeth's
ears. It would be far easier than pleasant to bring proofs to the
contrary from plays and other entertainments performed in her
presence, and honoured with her thanks. Some of the licenses in them
would be held much too gross for the lowest theatre in our days.
Allowance, however, is to be made for difference of times; and
considering the grave assumptions that must have been practised at
court in more than one respect, and made most likely a matter of
conscience towards the community, it may have been none of the least
exquisite of them, that what was understood to all the masculine ears
present, was unintelligible to those of "Diana," even though she had a
goddess's knowledge as well as beauty.

Of one thing, it surprises us that there could ever have been a
question; namely, that Elizabeth was a great as well as fortunate
sovereign,--a woman of extraordinary intellect. To the undervaluing
remark that she had wise Ministers, it was well answered that she
chose them; and if, like most other people, she was less wise and less
correct in her conduct than she had the reputation of being, nothing,
on that very account, can surely be thought too highly of the
wonderful address with which she succeeded in sitting upon the top of
the Protestant world as she did throughout her whole reign, supreme
over her favourites as well as her Ministers--the refuge of struggling
opinion, and the idol of romance.

Enter James I., on horseback, fresh from hunting, clad all in grass
green, with a green feather, shambling limbs, thick features, a spare
beard, and a tongue too big for his mouth. He looks about him at the
by-standers, half frightened; yet he has ridden boldly, and been "in
at the death."

The sensations of James the First on getting snugly nestled in the
luxurious magnificence of Whitehall must, if possible, have been still
more prodigious than those of Elizabeth in her triumphant safety.
Coming from a land comparatively destitute, and a people whose
contentiousness at that time was equal to their valour, and suddenly
becoming rich, easy, and possessor of the homage of Elizabeth's sages
and cavaliers, the lavish and timid dogmatist must have felt himself
in heaven. There are points about the character of this prince, which
it is not pleasant to canvass; but we think the whole of it (like that
of other men, if their history were equally known,) traceable to the
circumstances of his birth and breeding. He was the son of the
accomplished and voluptuous Mary, and the silly and debauched Darnley;
his mother, during her pregnancy, saw Rizzio assassinated before her
face; Buchanan was his tutor, and made him a pedant, "which was all,"
he said, "that he could make of him;" he was a king while yet a
child;--and from all these circumstances it is not to be wondered at
that he was at once clever and foolish--confident, and, in some
respects, of no courage--the son of handsome people, and yet
disjointedly put together--and that he continued to be a child as long
as he existed.

Granger, a shrewd man up to a certain pitch, makes a shallow remark
upon what Sir Kenelm Digby has said on one of these points in James's
history. "Sir Kenelm Digby," says he, "imputes the strong aversion
James had to a drawn sword, to the fright his mother was in, during
her pregnancy, at the sight of the sword with which David Rizzio, her
secretary, was assassinated in her presence. 'Hence it came,' says
this author, 'that her son, King James, had such an aversion, all his
life-time, to a naked sword, that he could not see one without a great
emotion of the spirits, although otherwise courageous enough; yet he
could not over-master his passion in this particular. I remember, when
he dubbed me knight, in the ceremony of putting the point of a naked
sword upon my shoulder, he could not endure to look upon it, but
turned his face another way; insomuch, that, in lieu of touching my
shoulder, he had almost thrust the point into my eyes, had not the
Duke of Buckingham guided his hand aright.' 'I shall only add,"
continues Granger, "to what Sir Kenelm has observed, that James
discovered so many marks of pusillanimity, when the sword was at a
distance from him, that it is needless in this case to allege that an
impression was made upon his tender frame before he saw the
light."[346] And then he makes another objection, which, though not so
obviously unfounded, is perhaps equally so; for effects must have
causes of some sort; and among the mysteries of our birth and being,
what is more probable, than that the same wonders by which we exist at
all, should cause the peculiarities of our existence? The same "tender
frame" would produce the general pusillanimity, as well as the
particular.

Before we continue our remarks on the court of James the First, we
must look back a moment at that of Elizabeth, to say, that Tallis,
Bird, and others, gave dignity to the service of Elizabeth's chapel at
Whitehall, by their noble psalmody and organ-playing. Her Majesty, one
day, not in quite so appropriate a strain, looked out of her closet in
the chapel, and lectured a preacher out loud, for talking indiscreetly
of people's age and dress in a sermon!

The Court of James the First was a great falling off from that of
Elizabeth, in point of decency. It was Sir Toby keeping house after
the death of Olivia; or a fox-hunting squire succeeding to the estate
of some courtly dame, and mingling low life with high. The open habit
of drinking to intoxication, so long the disgrace of England, seems
first to have come up in this reign; yet James, who indulged in it,
was remarkable for his edicts against drunkenness. Perhaps he issued
them during his fits of penitence; or out of a piece of his boasted
"kingcraft," as a blind to his subjects; or, at best, as intimations
to them, that the vulgar were not to take liberties like the gods.
James's court was as great in inconsistency as himself. His father's
grossness, his mother's refinement, and the faults common to both,
were equally to be seen in it--drunkenness and poetry, dirt and
splendour, impiety with claims to religion, favouritism without
principle, the coarsest and most childish buffoonery, and the
exquisite fancies of the masque.

When Christian IV. of Denmark, brother of James's queen, came into
England to visit him, both the kings got drunk together. Sir John
Harrington the wit, translator of Ariosto (the best English version of
that poet, till Mr. Stewart Rose's appeared), has left a letter on the
subject of the court revels of those days, which makes mention of
these royal elegancies, and is on every account worth repeating:--

SIR JOHN HARRINGTON TO MR. SECRETARY BARLOW.

[From London] 1606.

"My good Friend,

"In compliance with your asking, now shall you accept my poor
accounte of rich doings. I came here a day or two before the
Danish King came, and from the day he did come till this hour,
I have been well nigh overwhelmed with carousal and sports of
all kinds. The sports began each day in such manner and such
sorte, as well nigh persuaded me of Mahomet's paradise. We had
women, and indeed wine too, of such plenty, as would have
astonished each beholder. Our feasts were magnificent, and the
two royal guests did most lovingly embrace each other at table.
I think the Dane hath strangely wrought on our good English
nobles; for those whom I could never get to taste good liquor,
now follow the fashion, and wallow in beastly delights. The
ladies abandon their sobriety, and are seen to roll about in
intoxication. In good sooth, the parliament did kindly to
provide his Majestie so seasonably with money, for there have
been no lack of good livinge, shews, sights, and banquetings
from morn to eve.

"One day a great feast was held, and after dinner the
representation of Solomon, his temple, and the coming of the
Queen of Sheba was made, or (as I may better say) was meant to
have been made before their Majesties, by device of the Earl of
Salisbury and others. But, alas! as all earthly things do fail
to poor mortals in enjoyment, so did prove our presentment
thereof. The lady who did play the Queen's part did carry most
precious gifts to both their Majesties; but forgetting the
steppes arising to the canopy, overset her caskets into his
Danish Majestie's lap, and fell at his feet, though I think it
was rather in his face. Much was the hurry and confusion;
cloths and napkins were at hand to make all clean. His Majestie
then got up, and would dance with the Queen of Sheba; but he
fell down and humbled himself before her, and was carried to an
inner chamber, and laid on a bed of state, which was not a
little defiled with the presents of the Queen, which had been
bestowed on his garments; such as wine, cream, jelly,
beverage, cakes, spices, and other good matters. The
entertainment and show went forward, and most of the presenters
went backward or fell down; wine did so occupy their upper
chambers. Now did appear, in rich dress, Hope, Faith, and
Charity. Hope did essay to speak, but wine rendered her
endeavours so feeble that she withdrew, and hoped the king
would excuse her brevity. Faith was then all alone, for I am
certain she was not joyned to good works, and left the court in
a staggering condition. Charity came to the King's feet, and
seemed to cover the multitude of sins her sisters had
committed; in some sorte she made obeyance, and brought giftes,
but said she would return home again, as there was no gift
which heaven had not already given his Majesty. She then
returned to Hope and Faith, who were both sick ... in the lower
hall. Next came Victory, in bright armour, and presented a rich
sword to the King, who did not accept it, but put it by with
his hand; and by a strange medley of versification, did
endeavour to make suit to the King. But Victory did not triumph
long; for, after much lamentable utterance, she was led away
like a silly captive, and laid to sleep in the outer steps of
the anti-chamber. Now did Peace make entry, and strive to get
foremoste to the King; but I grieve to tell how great wrath she
did discover unto those of her attendants; and much contrary to
her semblance, made rudely war with her olive-branch, and laid
on the pates of those who did oppose her coming."[347]

We suspect that some excuse might be found for James's tendency to
drinking, in the same lax and ricketty constitution which made him
timid and idle. His love of field sports might indeed have given him
strength enough to counteract it, had he been forced into greater
economy of living; but the sportsman is seldom famous for eschewing
the pleasures of the table; he thinks he has earned, and can afford,
excess; and so he can, more than most men. James would have died of
idleness and repletion at half the age he did, had he not been a lover
of horseback; but when he got to his table he loved it too well; one
excess produced another; the nerves required steadying; and the poor
disjointed, "ill-contrived" son of Mary (to use a popular, but truly
philosophic epithet,) felt himself too stout and valiant by the help
of the bottle, not to become overfond of it when he saw it return. All
his feelings were of the same incontinent maudlin kind, easily flowing
into temptation, and subjecting themselves to a ruler. The bottle
governed him; the favourite governed him; his horse and dogs governed
him; pedantry governed him; passion governed him; and when the fit was
over, repentance governed him as absolutely.

Sir Anthony Welldon (a discharged servant of James's for writing a
banter upon Scotland, and therefore of doubtful authority concerning
him, but credible from collateral evidence, and in some respects
manifestly impartial,) says that there was an organised system of
buffoonery for the King's amusement, at the head of which were Sir
Edward Souch, singer and relater of indecent stories, Sir John Finet,
composer of ditto, and Sir George Goring, master of the practical
jokes! Sir George sometimes brought two fools riding on people's
shoulders, and tilting at one another till they fell together by the
ears. The same writer says that James was not addicted to drinking;
but in this he is contradicted by every other authority, and indeed a
different conclusion may be drawn from what Sir Anthony himself
subsequently remarks. Sully (Henry the Fourth's Sully, who was at one
time ambassador to James, and who tells us that the English monarch
usually spent part of the afternoon in bed, "sometimes the whole of
it,") says that his custom was "never to mix water with his
wine;"[348] and Sir Roger Coke says he was--

"Excessively addicted to hunting and drinking, not ordinary
French and Spanish wines, but strong Greek wines; and though he
would _divide_ his hunting from drinking those wines (that is
to say, have set times for them, apart), yet he would
_compound_ his hunting with drinking those wines; and to that
purpose he was attended with a special officer, who was, as
much as could be, always at hand to fill the King's cup in his
hunting when he called for it. I have heard my father say that,
being hunting with the King, after the King had drank of the
wine, he also drank of it, and though he was young and of a
healthful constitution, it so disordered his head that it
spoiled his pleasure, and disordered him for three days after.
Whether it was from drinking these wines, or from some other
cause, the King became so lazy and unwieldy, that he was thrust
on horseback, and as he was set, so he would ride, without
otherwise poising himself on his saddle; nay, when his hat was
set on his head, he would not take the pains to alter it, but
it sat as it was upon him."[349]

Perhaps Sir Anthony was fond of the bottle himself, and thought the
King drank no more than a gentleman should. It is curious, that
Churchill, in his long and laboured invective against James,[350] does
not even allude to this propensity. The poet drank himself; probably
wrote the very invective with the bottle at his side. However, it is
strange, nevertheless, he did not turn the habit itself against the
Scottish monarch, as a virtue which failed to redeem him and make him
a good fellow.

Sir Anthony Welldon's account of James's person and demeanour is so
well painted that we must not omit it. It carries with it its own
proofs of authenticity, and is one of those animal likenesses which,
in certain people, convey the best evidence of the likeness moral:--

"He was of a middle stature, more corpulent through his clothes
than in his body, yet fat enough, his clothes being made large
and easie, the doublets quilted for steletto proofe, his
breeches in great pleits and full stuffed. He was naturally of
a timorous disposition, which was the reason of his quilted
doublets; his eyes large, ever rolling after any stranger that
came in his presence, insomuch as many for shame have left the
roome, as being out of countenance; his beard was very thin;
his tongue too large for his mouth, which ever made him speak
full in the mouth, and made him drink very uncomely, as if
eating his drink, which came out into the cup of each side of
his mouth; his skin was as soft as taffeta sarsnet, which felt
so because he never washt his hands, onely rubb'd his fingers'
ends slightly with the wet end of a napkin; his legs were very
weake, having had (as was thought) some foul play in his youth,
or rather before he was born, that he was not able to stand at
seven years of age, that weaknesse made him ever leaning on
other men's shoulders. His walke was ever circular, his fingers
ever in that walke fiddling about."--"In his dyet, apparell,
and journeys, he was very constant; in his apparell so
constant, as by his good-will he would never change his
clothes, until worn out to ragges; his fashion never--insomuch,
as one bringing to him a hat of a Spanish block, he cast it
from him, swearing he neither loved them nor their fashions.
Another time, bringing him roses on his shooes, he asked, If
they would make him a ruffe-footed dove? One yard of sixpenny
ribbon served that turn. His diet and journeys were so
constant, that the best observing courtier of our time was wont
to say, were he asleep seven yeares, and then awakened, he
would tell where the King every day had been, and every dish he
had had at his table."[351]

Sir Anthony tells us, that James could be as pleasant in speech, and
"witty," as any man, though with a grave face; and that he never
forsook a favourite, not even Somerset, till the "poisoning" stories
about the latter forced him. It may be added, that he did not even
then forsake Somerset, as far as he could abide by him; for he gave a
pardon to him and his wife for the murder of Sir Thomas Overbury,
though he hanged their agents. This is the greatest blot on James's
character; for though it was a very mean thing in him to put Raleigh
to death, we really believe Raleigh "frightened" him; and as to his
discountenance of the "mourning" for Queen Elizabeth, it appears to
us, that, instead of telling against him, and being a thing
"ungrateful," it was the least evidence he could give of something
like a feeling for his own mother whom Elizabeth had put to death.
James owed no "gratitude" to Elizabeth. She would manifestly have
hindered him from succeeding her, could she in common policy, or regal
feeling, have helped it; and she kept him, or tried to keep him, in
doubt of his succession to the last.

James's style of evincing his regard for his favourites was of a
maudlin and doating description, not necessary to be dwelt upon; and
it was traceable perhaps to the same causes as his other morbid
imperfections; but the horrible injustice which he would allow these
favourites to perpetrate, and his open violation of his own solemn
oaths and imprecations of himself to the contrary, deepen the
suffocating shadow which is thrown over this part of the history of
Whitehall by the perfumes of effeminacy and the poisons of murderous
incontinence. James's lavish bestowal of other people's money upon his
favourites (for it was all money of the State which he gave away, not
his own; though, indeed, he might have bestowed it in a less generous
style upon himself) was the fault of those who let him give it. There
was something hearty and open in the character of Buckingham, though
he was a "man of violence" after his fashion, and made Whitehall the
scene of his "abductions." But the sternest and most formidable
testimony we know against the spirit of this prince's favouritism, and
the horrors with which it became mixed up, probably against his will,
but still with a connivance most weak and guilty, is in the verses
entitled the "Five Senses," the production of his countryman, admirer,
and panegyrist, and one of the most loyal of men to his
house--Drummond of Hawthornden, who had formerly written a beautiful
eulogium upon him, in a poem which Ben Jonson wished had been his own,
the "River of Forth Feasting." It is clear by these verses that
Drummond believed in the worst stories related of Somerset and the
Court. The history of that unhappy favourite is well known. The
Countess of Essex, the young and beautiful wife of the subsequent
parliamentary general, fell in love with him, and got divorced from
her husband under circumstances of the most revolting indelicacy. Sir
Thomas Overbury, an agent of Somerset's, and one of those natures that
puzzle us by the extreme inconsistency of a fine and tender genius,
combined with a violent worldliness (with such at least is he
charged), was to be got rid of for stopping short in his furtherance
of their connection after the divorce. He was poisoned, and Somerset
and his new wife were tried for the murder. Somerset denied it, but
was found guilty; the Countess confessed it; yet both were pardoned,
while other agents of theirs were hung. There is no rescuing James,
after this, from the imputation of the last degree of criminal
weakness, to say the least of it. It is said that the other guilty
parties (the victims, most likely, of a bad bringing-up,) grew at last
as hateful to one another, as they had been the reverse--the
dreadfulest punishment of affections destitute of all real regard, and
furthered by hateful means.

We gladly escape from these subjects into the poetical atmosphere of
the Masque, the only glory of King James's reign, and the greatest
glory of Whitehall.

But the Masque, in which James's Queen was a performer, reminds us
that we must first say a word or two of herself and the other princely
inmates of Whitehall during this reign. The Queen, Anne of Denmark,
has been represented by some as a woman given to love intrigues, and
by others to intrigues political. We take her to have been a
common-place woman, given as much perhaps to both as her position and
the surrounding example induced;--the good-natured wife (after her
fashion) of a good-natured husband, sympathising with him in his
pleasures of the table, and dying of a dropsy. She danced and
performed in the Masques at court, not, we should guess, with any
exquisite grace. Her daughter Elizabeth, who married the Elector
Palatine, afterwards struggling King of Bohemia, and who has found an
agreeable biographer and panegyrist in the late Miss Benger, appears
to have partaken of her good nature, with more levity, and was very
popular with the gentry for her affable manners and her misfortunes.
When she accompanied the Elector to the altar, in the chapel at
Whitehall, she could not help laughing out loud, at something which
struck her fancy. Her brother Henry, Prince of Wales, who died in the
flower of his youth, and who, like all princes who die early, has been
extolled as a person of wonderful promise, obtained admiration in his
day for frequenting the tilt-yard while his father was lying in bed,
and for announcing himself as the opponent of his anti-warlike
disposition. There was probably quite as much of the opposition of
heirs apparent in this, as anything more substantial; for Henry seems
to have exhibited his father's levity and inconsistency of character.
He was thought to be no adorer of the fair sex, yet has the credit of
an intrigue with the Countess of Essex; and though he reprobated his
father's swearing, made no scruple of taunting his brother Charles for
his priestly education, and "quizzing" him for not being straight in
the legs. As to poor Charles ("Baby Charles," as his father called
him, for he was a fond parent, though not a wise one), he became at
once the ornament of his family, and the most unfortunate of its
members; but he seems from an early age to have partaken of the
weakness of character, and the consequent mixture of easiness and
obstinacy, common to the family. Buckingham lorded it over him like a
petulant elder brother. He once rebuked him publicly, in language
unbefitting a gentleman; and at another time, threatened to give him a
knock on the head.

[Illustration: BANQUETING HOUSE, WHITEHALL.]

We have seen court mummeries in the time of Henry the Eighth, and
pageants in that of Elizabeth. In the time of James, the masquings of
the one, and the gorgeous shows of the other, combined to produce the
Masque, in its latest and best acceptation; that is, a dramatic
exhibition of some brief fable or allegory, uniting the most fanciful
poetry and scenery, and generally heightened with a contrast of
humour, or an anti-masque. Ben Jonson was their great poetical master
in the court of James; and Inigo Jones claimed to be their no less
masterly and important setter-forth in scene and show. The poet and
artist had a quarrel upon this issue, and Inigo's memory suffers from
divers biting libels in the works of his adversary. The noble
Banqueting-house remains to show that the architect might have had
some right to dispute pretensions, even with the author of the
"Alchemist" and the "Sad Shepherd;" for it is a piece of the very
music of his art (if we may so speak)--the harmony of proportion.
Within these walls, as we now see them, rose, "like a steam of rich
distilled perfumes," the elegant lines of Ben Jonson, breathing court
flowers,--the clouds and painted columns of Jones--and the fair faces,
gorgeous dresses, and dances, of the beauties that dazzled the young
eyesight of the Miltons and Wallers. Ben's burly body would then break
out, as it were, after his more refined soul, in some burlesque
anti-masque, now and then not a little coarse; and the sovereign and
the poet most probably concluded the night in the same manner, though
not at the same table, in filling their skins full of wine.

The Court of Charles I. was decorum and virtue itself in comparison
with that of James. Drunkenness disappeared; there were no scandalous
favourites; Buckingham alone retained his ascendency as the friend and
assistant; and the King manifested his notions of the royal dignity by
a stately reserve. Little remained externally of the old Court but its
splendour; and to this a new lustre was given by a taste for painting,
and the patronage of Rubens and Vandyke. Charles was a great collector
of pictures. He was still fonder of poetry than his father, retained
Ben Jonson as his laureate, encouraged Sandys, and May, and Carew, and
was a fond reader of Spenser and Shakspeare; the last of whom is
styled by Milton (not in reproach, as Warton strangely supposed; for
how could a poet reproach a King with loving a poet?) the "closet
companion" of the royal "solitudes." Walpole, as Mr. Jesse observes,
was of opinion, that--

"The celebrated festivals of Louis XIV. were copied from the
shows exhibited at Whitehall, in its time the most polite court
in Europe." Bassompierre, in mentioning his state introduction
to Charles and Henrietta, says, "I found the King on a stage
raised two steps, the Queen and he on two chairs, who rose on
the first bow I made them on coming in. The company was
magnificent, and the order exquisite." "I never knew a duller
Christmas than we have had this year," writes Mr. Gerrard to
the Earl of Strafford: "but one play all the time at Whitehall,
and no dancing at all. The Queen had some little infirmity, the
bile or some such thing, which made her keep in; only on
Twelfth Night she feasted the King at Somerset House, and
presented him with a play newly studied, the _Faithful
Shepherdess_ (Fletcher's) which the King's players acted in the
robes she and her ladies acted their pastoral in last year. I
had almost forgot to tell your Lordship, that the dicing night,
the King carried away in James Palmer's hat 1,850_l._ The Queen
was his help, and brought him that luck; she shared presently
900_l._ There are two masques in hand; first, the Inns of
Court, which is to be presented on Candlemas-day; the other,
the King presents the Queen with on Shrove Tuesday, at night:
high expenses; they speak of 20,000_l._ that it will cost the
men of the law."[352]

"Charles was not only well informed," says Mr. Jesse, "in all
matters of court etiquette, and in the particular duties of
each individual of his household, but enjoined their
performance with remarkable strictness. Ferdinand Masham, one
of the esquires of his body, has recorded a curious anecdote
relative to the King's nice exaction of such observances. 'I
remember,' he says, 'that coming to the King's bedchamber door,
which was bolted in the inside, the Earl of Bristol, then being
in waiting and lying there, he unbolted the door upon my
knocking, and asked me "What news?" I told him I had a letter
for the King. The earl then demanded the letter of me, which I
told him I could deliver to none but to the King himself; upon
which the King said, "The esquire is in the right: for he ought
not to deliver any letter or message to any but myself, he
being at this time the chief officer of my house; and if he had
delivered the letter to any other, I should not have thought
him fit for his place."' It seems, that after a certain hour,
when the guard was set, and the 'all right' served up, the
royal household was considered under the sole command of the
esquire in waiting. 'The King,' says Lord Clarendon, 'kept
state to the full, which made his court very orderly, no man
presuming to be seen where he had no pretence to be.'"[353]

The truth is, that both from greater virtue and a less jovial
temperament, Charles carried his improvement upon the levity of his
father's court too far. Public opinion had long been quitting the old
track of an undiscerning submission; and, though it was the King's
interest to avoid scandal, it was not so to provoke dislike. It was on
the side of manner in which he failed. His reformations, the more
scandalous ones excepted, appear to have been rather external than
otherwise. Mrs. Hutchinson, while she speaks of them highly, intimates
that there was still a good deal of private licence; and though it is
asserted that Charles discountenanced swearing, perhaps even this was
only by comparison. It is reported of Charles II., that in answer to a
remonstrance made to him on the oaths in which he indulged, he
exclaimed in a very irreverent and unfilial manner, "Oaths! why, your
Martyr was a greater swearer than I am." It has been questioned also,
whether in other respects Charles's private conduct was so
"immaculate," to use Mr. Jesse's phrase, as the solemnity of his
latter years and his fate has led most people to conclude. Indeed, it
is a little surprising how anybody, partisans excepted, could have
supposed, that a prince, brought up as he was, and the friend of
Buckingham, should be entirely free from the licence of the time. His
manners and speeches to women, though not gross for that age, would be
thought coarse now; and, at all events, were proofs of a habit of
thinking quite in unison with custom. But the present age has been far
stricter in its judgment on these points than any which preceded
it--at least up to the time of George III. It was not the question of
his gallantries, or of his freedom with them, that had anything to do
with Charles's unpopularity. The people will pardon a hundred
gallantries sooner than one want of sympathy. Charles I. would not
have been unpopular in the midst of court elegancies, if he had not
been stiff and repulsive in his manners. Unfortunately he wanted
address; he had a hesitation in his speech; and his consciousness of a
delicate organization and of infirmity of purpose, with the addition
of a good deal of the will common to most people, and particularly
encouraged in princes, made him afraid of being thought weak and easy.
He therefore, in what he thought self-defence, took to an offensive
coldness and dryness of behaviour, and gradually became not unwilling
even to wreak upon other people the irritability occasioned by it to
himself. He got into unseemly passions with ambassadors, and neither
knew how to refuse a petition gracefully, nor to repel an undue
assumption with real superiority. Even his troubles did not teach him
wisdom in these respects till the very last. He was riding out one day
during the wars, when a "Dr. Wykes, dean of Burian in Cornwall," says
Mr. Jesse, "an inveterate punster, happened to be near him, extremely
well mounted. 'Doctor,' said the King, 'you have a pretty nag under
you; I pray, how old is he?' Wykes, unable to repress, even in the
presence of majesty, the indifferent conceit which presented itself,
'If it please your Majesty' he said, 'he is in the second year of his
reign' (rein). Charles discovered some displeasure at this unlicensed
ribaldry. 'Go,' he replied, 'you are a fool!'" Now that the dean was a
fool there can be no doubt; but that this blunt, offensive, and
never-to-be-forgotten word was the only one which a king in a state of
war with his subjects could find, in order to discountenance his
folly, shows a lamentable habit of subjecting the greater
consideration to the less.

Unluckily for Charles's dignity in the eyes of his attendants, and for
his ultimate welfare with the people, there was a contest of
irritability too often going forward between him and his consort
Henrietta; in which the latter, by dint perhaps of being really the
weaker of the two, generally contrived to remain conqueror. Swift has
recorded an extraordinary instance of her violence in his list of
_Mean and Great Fortunes_. He says, that one day Charles made a
present to his wife of a handsome brooch, and gallantly endeavouring
to fix it in her bosom, happened unfortunately to wound the skin, upon
which her Majesty, in a fit of passion, and in the presence of the
whole court, took the brooch out and dashed and trampled it on the
floor. The trouble that Charles had to get rid of Henrietta's noisy
and meddling French attendants, not long after his marriage, is well
known; but not so, that, having contrived to turn the key upon her in
order that she might not behold their departure, "she fell into a rage
beyond all bounds, tore the hair from her head, and cut her hands
severely by dashing them through the glass windows."[354]

When not offended, however, the Queen's manners were lively and
agreeable. We are to imagine the time of the court divided between her
Majesty's coquetries, and accomplishments, and Catholic confessors,
and the King's books, and huntings, and political anxieties;
Buckingham, as long as he lived, being the foremost figure next to
himself; and Laud and Strafford domineering after Buckingham. In the
morning the ladies embroidered and read huge romances, or practised
their music and dancing (the latter sometimes with great noise in the
Queen's apartments), or they went forth to steal a visit to a
fortune-teller, or to see a picture by Rubens, or to sit for a
portrait to Vandyke, who married one of them. In the evening there was
a masque, or a ball, or a concert, or gaming; the Sucklings, the
Wallers, and Carews repeated their soft things, or their verses; and
"Sacharissa" (Lady Dorothy Sydney) doubted Mr. Waller's love, and
glanced towards sincere-looking Henry Spencer; Lady Carlisle flirted
with the Riches and Herberts; Lady Morton looked grave; the Queen
threw round the circle bright glances and French _mots_; and the King
criticised a picture with Vandyke or Lord Pembroke, or a poem with Mr.
Sandys (who, besides being a poet, was gentleman of his Majesty's
chamber); or perhaps he took Hamilton or Strafford into a corner, and
talked, not so wisely, against the House of Commons. It was, upon the
whole, a grave and a graceful court, not without an under-current of
intrigue.

It seems ridiculous to talk of the court of Oliver Cromwell, who had
so many severe matters to attend to in order to keep himself on his
throne; but he had a court, nevertheless; and, however jealously it
was watched by the most influential of his adherents, it grew more
courtly as his protectorate advanced; and it must always have been
attended with a respect which Charles knew not sufficiently how to
insure, and James not at all. Its dinners were not very luxurious, and
the dishes appear to have been brought in by the heavy gentlemen of
his guard. In April, 1654, we read of the "grey coats" of these
gentlemen, with "black velvet collars, and silver lace and
trimmings"--a very sober effort at elegance. Here his daughters would
pay him visits of a morning, fluttering betwixt pride and anxiety; and
his mother sit with greater feelings of both, starting whenever she
heard a noise: flocks of officers came to a daily table, at which he
would cheerfully converse; and now and then ambassadors or the
Parliament were feasted; and in the evening, perhaps after a portion
of a sermon from his Highness, there would be the consciousness of a
princely presence, and something like a courtly joy. In the circle
Waller himself was to be found (making good the doubts of
"Sacharissa"), and Lord Broghill, the friend of Suckling, who refused
to join him; and Lady Carlisle, growing old, but still setting her
beauty-spots at the saints; and Richard Cromwell, heir-apparent, whom
Dick Ingoldsby is forcing to die with laughter, though severe
Fleetwood is looking that way; and the future author of Paradise Lost
talking Italian with the envoys from the Apennines; and Marvel, his
brother secretary, chuckling to hear from the Swedish ambassador the
proposal of a visit from Queen Christina; and young Dryden, bashfully
venturing in under the wing of his uncle Sir Gilbert Pickering, the
chamberlain. There was sometimes even a concert; Cromwell's love of
music prevailing against the un-angelical denouncements of it from the
pulpit. The Protector would also talk of his morning's princely
diversion of hunting; or converse with his daughters and the foreign
ambassadors, some of which latter had that day paid their respects to
the former, as to royal personages, on their arrival in England; or
if the evening were that of a christening or a marriage, or other
festive solemnity, his Highness, not choosing to forget the rough
pleasures of his youth, and combining, perhaps, with the recollection
something of an hysterical sense of his present wondrous condition,
would think it not unbecoming his dignity to recall the days of King
James, and bedaub the ladies with sweetmeats, or pelt the heads of his
brother generals with the chair cushions. Nevertheless, he could
resume his state with an air that inspired the pencil of Peter Lely
beyond its fopperies; and Mazarin at Paris trembled in his chair to
think of it.

But how shall we speak of the court of Charles II.? of that unblushing
seminary for the misdirection of young ladies, which, occupying the
ground now inhabited by all which is proper, rendered the mass of
buildings by the water's side, from Charing Cross to the Parliament,
one vast--what are we to call it?--

"Chi mi darà le voci e le parole
Convenienti a sì nobil soggetto?"

Let Mr. Pepys explain. Let Clarendon explain. Let all the world
explain, who equally reprobate the place and its master, and yet
somehow are so willing to hear it reprobated, that they read endless
accounts of it, old and new, from the not very bashful _exposé_ of the
Count de Grammont, down to the blushing deprecations of Mrs. Jameson.
Mr. Jesse himself begins with emphatically observing, that "a
professed apology either for the character or conduct of Charles II.
might almost be considered as an insult to public rectitude and female
virtue;" yet he proceeds to say, that there is a charm nevertheless in
"all that concerns the 'merry monarch,' which has served to rescue him
from entire reprobation;" and accordingly he proceeds to devote to him
the largest portion given to any of his princes, not omitting
particulars of all his natural children; and winding up with separate
memoirs of the maids of honour, the mistresses, and those confidential
gentlemen--Messrs. Chiffinch, Prodgers, and Brouncker.

Upon the reason of this apparent contradiction between the morals and
toleration of the reading world, we have touched before; and we think
it will not be expected of us to enter further into its metaphysics.
The court is before us, and we must paint it, whatever we may think of
the matter. We shall only observe in the outset, that the "merry
monarch," besides not being handsome, had the most serious face,
perhaps, of any man in his dominions. It was as full of hard lines as
it was swarthy. If the assembled world could have called out to have a
specimen of a "man of pleasure" brought before it, and Charles could
have been presented, we know not which would have been greater, the
laughter or the groans. However, "merry monarch" he is called; and
merry doubtless he was, as far as his numerous cares and headaches
would let him be. Nor should it be forgotten that cares, necessities,
and bad example, conspired, from early youth, to make him the man he
was. We know not which did him the more harm--the jovial despair of
his fellow exiles, or the sour and repulsive reputation which morals
and good conduct had acquired from the gloominess of the Puritans.

Charles was of good height as well as figure, and not ungraceful.
Andrew Marvel has at once painted and intimated an excuse for him, in
an exordium touching upon the associates of his banishment. His
allusion to the filial occupation of Saul is very witty:--

"Of a tall stature and a sable hue,
Much like the son of Kish, that lofty Jew;
Ten years of need he suffer'd in exile,
And kept his father's asses all the while."

He was a rapid and a constant walker, to settle his nerves; talked
affably with his subjects; had a parcel of little dogs about him,
which did not improve the apartments at Whitehall; hated business;
delighted to saunter from one person's rooms at court to another's, in
order to pass the time; was fond of wit, and not without it himself;
drank and gamed, and was in constant want of money for his mistresses,
which ultimately rendered him a scandalous pensioner upon the King of
France; in short, was a selfish man, partly by temperament, and partly
from his early experience of others; but was not ill-natured; and,
like his grandfather James, would live and let live, provided his
pleasures were untouched. His swarthiness he got from the Italian
stock of the Medici, and his animal spirits from Italy or France, or
both: they were certainly not inherited from his father.

The man thus constituted was suddenly transferred from an exile full
of straits and mortifications into the rich and glorious throne of
England. The people, sick of gloom and disappointment, were as mad to
receive him as he was to come. It was May, and all England dressed
itself in garlands and finery. Crowds shouted at him; music floated
around his steps; young females strewed flowers at his feet; gold was
poured into his pockets; and clergymen blessed him. He receives the
homage of Church and State; and goes the same night to sup with Mrs.
Barbara Palmer, at a house in Lambeth.

Such was the event which, by an epithet that has since acquired a
twofold significancy, has been called the "blessed Restoration."
Orthodoxy and loyalty had obtained an awkward champion.

Mrs. Palmer soon restored the King to Whitehall by coming there
herself, where she became in due time Countess of Castlemain, Duchess
of Cleveland, and mother of three dukes and as many daughters. This
was for the benefit of the peerage. But Charles, for the benefit of
royalty, was unfortunately compelled to have a wife; though, as an
alleviation of the misfortune, his wife, he reflected, would have an
establishment, with ladies of the bedchamber; nay, with a pleasing
addition of maids of honour. He therefore put what face he could on
the matter, and wedded Catharine of Braganza. When Lady Castlemain was
presented to her as one of the ladies, the poor Queen burst out
a-bleeding at the nose. It took a good while to reconcile the royal
lady to the "other lady" (Clarendon's constant term for her), but it
was done in time, to the astonishment of most, and disgust of some.
Clarendon was one of the instruments that effected the good work. From
thenceforth the Queen was contented to get what amusement she could,
and was as merry as the rest. She was not an ill-looking woman; was as
fond of dancing as her husband; and he used good-naturedly to try to
make her talk improper broken English, and would not let her be
persecuted.

Whitehall now adjusted itself to the system which prevailed through
this reign, and which may be described as follows: we do not paint it
at one point of time only, but through the whole period.

Charles walked a good deal in the morning, perhaps played at ball or
tennis, chatted with those he met, fed his dogs and his ducks, looked
in at the cockpit, sometimes did a little business, then sauntered
in-doors about Whitehall; chatted in Miss Wells' room, in Miss Price's
room, in Miss Stuart's room, or Miss Hamilton's; chatted in Mr.
Chiffinch's room, or with Mr. Prodgers; then dined, and took enough
of wine; had a ball or a concert, where he devoted himself to Lady
Castlemain, the Duchess of Portsmouth, or whoever the reigning lady
was, the Queen talking all the while as fast as she could to some
other lady; then, perhaps, played at riddles, or joked with Buckingham
and Killigrew, or talked of the intrigues of the court--the great
topic of the day. Sometimes the ladies rode out with him in the
morning, perhaps in men's hats and feathers; sometimes they went to
the play, where the favourite was jealous of the actresses; sometimes
an actress is introduced at court and becomes a "madam" herself--Madam
Davis, or Madam Eleanor Gwyn. Sometimes the Queen treats them with a
cup of the precious and unpurchasable beverage called tea, or even
ventures abroad with them in a frolicsome disguise. Sometimes the
courtiers are at Hampton, playing at hide-and-seek in a labyrinth;
sometimes at Windsor, the ladies sitting half-dressed for Sir Peter
Lely's voluptuous portraits.

Lady Castlemain, the Duchess of Portsmouth, and Nell Gwyn, all have
their respective lodgings in Whitehall, looking out upon gardens,
elegant with balconies and trellises. By degrees the little dukes grow
bigger, and there is in particular a great romping boy, very handsome,
called Master Crofts, afterwards Duke of Monmouth, who is the protégé
of Lady Castlemain, though his mother was Mrs. Walters, and who takes
the most unimaginable liberties in all quarters. He annoys exceedingly
the solemn Duke of York, the King's brother, who heavily imitates the
reigning gallantries, stupidly following some lady about without
uttering a word, and who afterwards cut off the said young gentleman's
head. The concerts are French, partly got up by St. Evremond and the
Duchess of Mazarin, who come to hear them; and there, in addition to
the ladies before mentioned, come also the Duchess of Buckingham,
short and thick, (daughter of the old Parliamentary general, Fairfax,)
and Lady Ossory, charming and modest, and the Countess of Shrewsbury,
who was neither, and Lady Falmouth, with eyes at which Lord Dorset
never ceased to look, and the Duchess of York (Clarendon's daughter),
eating something, and divine old Lady Fanshawe, who crept out of the
cabin in a sea-fight to stand by her husband's side. The Queen has
brought her there, grateful for a new set of sarabands, at which Mr.
Waller is expressing his rapture--Waller, the visitor of three courts,
and admired and despised in them all. Behind him stands Dryden, with
a quiet and somewhat down-looking face, finishing a couplet of
satire. "Handsome Sydney" is among the ladies; and so is Ralph
Montague, who loved ugly dogs because nobody else would; and Harry
Jermyn, who got before all the gallants, because he was in earnest.
Rochester, thin and flushed, is laughing in a corner at Charles's grim
looks of fatigue and exhaustion; Clarendon is vainly flattering
himself that he is diverting the king's ennui with a long story;
Grammont is shrugging his shoulders at not being able to get in a
word; and Buckingham is making Sedley and Etherege ready to die of
laughter by his mimicry of the poor Chancellor.

The following delicate morceaux from the pages of our friend Pepys
will illustrate the passages respecting my Lady Castlemain and others.

"1660--Sept. 14.--To White Hall Chappell, where one Dr. Crofts
made an indifferent sermon, and after it an anthem, ill sung,
which made the King laugh. Here I first did see the Princesse
Royall since she came into England. Here I also observed, how
the Duke of York (James II.) and Mrs. Palmer (Lady Castlemaine)
did talk to one another very wantonly through the hangings that
part the king's closet and the closet where the ladies sit.

"May 21.--My wife and I to Lord's lodgings, where she and I
staid talking in White Hall Garden. And in the Privy-garden saw
the finest smocks and linnen petticoats of my Lady
Castlemaine's, laced with rich lace at the bottom, that ever I
saw; and did me good to look at them. Sarah told me how the
King dined at my Lady Castlemaine's, and supped, every day and
night the last week; and that the night that the bonfires were
made for joy of the Queene's arrival, the King was there; but
there was no fire at her door, though at all the rest of the
doors almost in the street; which was much observed; and that
the King and she did send for a pair of scales and weighed one
another; and she being with child, was said to be heaviest. But
she is now a most disconsolate creature, and comes not out of
doors, since the King's going (to meet his wife).

"August 23d.--Walked to White Hall, and through my Lord's
lodgings we got into White Hall Garden, and so to the
Bowling-greene, and up to the top of the new Banqueting House
there, over the Thames, which was a most pleasant place as any
I could have got; and all the show consisted chiefly in the
number of boats and barges; and two pageants, one of a king,
and the other a queene, with her maydes of honour sitting at
her feet very prettily; and they tell me the queene is Sir
Richard Ford's daughter. Anon come the King and Queene in a
barge under a canopy with 1,000 barges and boats I know, for
they could see no water for them, nor discern the King nor
Queene. And so they landed at White Hall Bridge, and the great
guns on the other side went off. But that which pleased me best
was, that my Lady Castlemaine stood over against us upon a
piece of White Hall. But methought it was strange to see her
lord and her upon the same place walking up and down without
taking notice one of another, only at first entry he put off
his hat, and she made him a very civil salute, but afterwards
took no notice one of another; but both of them now and then
would take their child, which the nurse held in her armes, and
dandle it. One thing more; there happened a scaffold below to
fall, and we feared much hurt, but there was none, but she of
all the great ladies only run down among the common rabble to
see what hurt was done, and did take care of a child that
received some little hurt, which methought was so noble. Anon,
there come one there booted and spurred that she talked long
with, and by and by, she being in her haire, she put on his
hat, which was but an ordinary one, to keep the wind off. But
it become her mightily, as everything else do."

What Pepys thought "noble" was probably nothing more than the
consequence of a habit of doing what she pleased, in spite of
appearances. The "hat" is a comment on it, to the same effect.

"December 25th.--Christmas Day.--Had a pleasant walk to White
Hall, where I intended to have received the communion with the
family, but I come a little too late. So I walked up into the
house and spent my time looking over pictures, particularly the
ships in King Henry the VIIIth's Voyage to Bullonn[355],
marking the great difference between those built then and now.
By and by, down to the chapel again, where Bishop Morley
preached upon the song of the angels, 'Glory to God on high, on
earth peace, and good-will towards men.' Methought he made but
a poor sermon, but long, and reprehending the common jollity of
the court for the true joy that shall and ought to be on these
days; particularized concerning their excess in playes and
gaming, saying, that he whose office it is to keep the
gamesters in order and within bounds, serves but for a second
rather in a duell, meaning the groome-porter. Upon which it was
worth observing how far they are come from taking the
reprehensions of a bishop seriously, that they all laugh in the
chapel when he reflected on their ill actions and courses. He
did much press us to joy in these publick days of joy, and to
hospitality. But one that stood by whispered in my ear that the
bishop himself do not spend one groate to the poor himself. The
sermon done, a good anthem followed with violls, and the King
come down to receive the sacrament.

"1662-3--February 1st.--This day Creed and I walking in White
Hall did see the King coming privately from my Lady
Castlemaine's; which is a poor thing for a Prince to do: and so
I expressed my sense of it to Creed in terms which I should not
have done, but that I believe he is trusty in that point."

The court of James II. is hardly worth mention. It lasted less than
four years, and was as dull as himself. The most remarkable
circumstance attending it was the sight of friars and confessors, and
the brief restoration of Popery. Waller, too, was once seen there; the
_fourth_ court of his visiting. There was a poetess also, who appears
to have been attached by regard as well as office to the court of
James--Anne Kingsmill, better known by her subsequent title of
Countess of Winchilsea. The attachment was most probably one of
feeling only and good-nature, for she had no bigotry of any sort.
Dryden, furthermore, was laureate to King James; and in a fit of
politic, perhaps real, regret, turned round upon the late court in his
famous comparison of it with its predecessor.

James fled from England in December, 1688, and the history of
Whitehall terminates with its conflagration, ten years afterwards.

FOOTNOTES:

[339] Lingard, vol. iv., p. 246. (Quarto Edit.)

[340] Vol. iii., p. 862, Edit. 1808.

[341] Folio edit

[342] _Ut supra_, p. 347. Henry had been afflicted with this ulcer a
long while. He was in danger from it during his marriage with Anne
Bullen. It should be allowed him among his excuses of temperament; but
then it should also have made him more considerate towards his wives.
It never enters the heads, however, of such people that _their_ faults
or infirmities are to go for anything, except to make others
considerate for them, and warrant whatever humours they choose to
indulge.

[343] Nicholls's "Progresses and Public Processions of Queen
Elizabeth," year 1595, pp. 4-8. "He will ever bear in his heart the
picture of her beauty." "He now looks on his mistress's outside with
the eyes of sense, which are dazzled and amased."

[344] See the poems in Anderson's Edition, vol. ii., p. 706.

[345] From an article in the second volume of that elegant and
interesting publication, the "Retrospective Review;" the
discontinuance of which, some years back, was regretted by every lover
of literature.

[346] Biographical History of England. Vol. ii., p. 7. Fifth Edition.

[347] _Nugæ Antiquæ_, Ed. 1804, vol i., p. 348, _et seq._ (Quoted in a
note to Peyton's "Catastrophe of the Stuarts," in "Secret History of
the Court of James I." Vol. ii., p. 387.)

[348] Harris, vol. i., p. 17.

[349] Harris, vol. i., p. 79.

[350] See the Poem of "Gotham" in Churchill's works.

[351] Secret History, &c., as above, vol. ii., p. 1.

[352] Jesse's Memoirs of the Court of England during the Reign of the
Stuarts, vol. ii., p. 91.

[353] Ibid., p. 94.

[354] Jesse, vol. ii., p. 79.

[355] Boulogne.

CHAPTER XII.

St. James's Park and its associations. -- Unhealthiness of the
Place and neighbourhood. -- Leper Hospital of St. James. --
Henry the Eighth builds St. James's Palace and the Tilt Yard.
-- Original State and Progressive Character of the Park. --
Charles the First. -- Cromwell. -- Charles the Second; his
Walks, Amusements, and Mistresses. -- The Mulberry Gardens. --
Swift, Prior, Richardson, Beau Tibbs, Soldiers, and Syllabubs.
-- Character of the Park at present. -- St. James's Palace
during the Reigns of the Stuarts and two first Georges. --
Anecdotes of Lord Craven and Prince George of Denmark. --
Characters of Queen Anne and of George the First and Second. --
George the First and his Carp. -- Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and
the Sack of Wheat. -- Horace Walpole's Portrait of George the
First. -- The Mistresses of that King, and of his Son. --
Mistake of Lord Chesterfield. -- Queen Caroline's Ladies in
Waiting. -- Miss Bellenden and the Guineas. -- George the
Second's Rupture with his Father, and with his Son. --
Character of that Son. -- Buckingham House. -- Sheffield and
his Duchess. -- Character of Queen Charlotte. -- Advantages of
Queen Victoria over her predecessors.

St. James's Park is associated in contemporary minds with nothing but
amusing recollections of bands of music, marching soldiers,
maid-servants and children, drinkings of "milk from the cow," the
hoop-petticoats of the court days of George the Third, and fading
images of passages in novels, or of shabby-genteel debtors sitting
lounging on the benches. A little further back in point of time we see
a novelist himself, Richardson, walking in it, with other invalids,
for his health; then Swift crossing it from Suffolk Street in his way
to Chelsea, or thinking of the _Spectator_ and _Rosamond's Pond_; then
the gallants of the time of Charles the Second, with Charles himself
feeding his ducks and playing at mall; then his unhappy father led
through it from St. James's Palace on his way to the scaffold at
Whitehall; and then the chivalresque sports of the Tudors in the
famous tilt-yard, which occupied the site of the Horse Guards. To all
these points we shall return for the purpose of entering into a few
particulars; but as geographers begin their accounts of a place with
the soil, we shall first make a few remarks of a like nature.

The site of this park, which must always have been low and wet, is
said in the days before the Conquest to have been a swamp. Yet so
little understood, not only at that time but any time till within
these few years, were those vitalest arts of life which have been
disclosed to us by the Southwood Smiths and others, that the good
citizens of London in those days built a hospital upon it for lepers
(by way of purifying their skins), and people of rank and fashion have
been clustering about it more and more ever since, especially of late
years. "If a merry-meeting is to be wished," says the man in
Shakspeare, "may God prohibit it." If our health is to be injured
while in town by luxury and late nights, say the men of State and
Parliament, let us all go and make it worse in the bad air of
Belgravia. Nay, let us sit with our feet in the water, while in
Parliament itself, and then let us aggravate our agues in Pimlico and
the park.--There is no use in mincing the matter, even though the
property of a great lord be doubled by the mistake. The fashionable
world should have stuck to Marylebone and the good old dry parts of
the metropolis, or gone up hill to Kensington gravel-pits, or into any
other wholesome quarter of the town or suburbs, rather than have
descended to the water-side, and built in the _mush_ of Pimlico.
Building and house-warming doubtless make a difference; and wealth has
the usual advantages compared with poverty: but the malaria is not
done away. A professional authority on the subject gave the warning
five and twenty years ago in the _Edinburgh Review_; but what are
warnings to house-building and fashion? "It is not suspected," he says
(vol. xxxvi. p. 341) "that St. James's Park is a perpetual source of
malaria, producing frequent intermittents, autumnal dysenteries, and
various derangements of health, in all the inhabitants who are subject
to its influence. The cause being unsuspected, the evil is endured,
and no further inquiries are made." The malaria (he tells us in
another passage of the same article) "spreads even to Bridge Street
and Whitehall. Nay, in making use of the most delicate _miasmometer_
(if we may coin such a word) that we ever possessed, an officer who
had suffered at Walcheren, we have found it reaching up to St. James's
Street even to Bruton Street, although the rise of ground is here
considerable, and the whole space from the nearest water is crowded
with houses."

This statement, corroborated as it is by the obvious nature of the
soil and air in the park, where the people to any eye coming from
higher ground seem walking about only in a thinner kind of water--a
perpetual haze and _mugginess_--ought to settle the question
respecting the doom of Buckingham Palace. Her Majesty, whose life and
comfort are precious to her subjects, should have her town residence
in quite another sort of place. Almost everything indeed, artificial
as well as natural, conspires to render the spot unwholesome. See what
the royal lungs receive on all sides of the present abode whichever
way the windows are opened. In front of it is the steam of the mushy
ground and the canal; on the left comes draining down the wet of
Constitution Hill; and on the right and at the back are the vapours of
the river and the pestilential smokes of the manufactories. What an
air in which to set forth the colours of the royal flag and refresh
the anxieties of the owner! We never look down on the flag from
Piccadilly, but we long to see it announcing the royal presence on
higher ground and in a healthy breeze.

The Leper Hospital, being the ancientest known domicile in the spot
before us, stood on the site of the present St. James's Palace; so
that where state and fashion have congregated, and blooming beauties
come laughing through the trees, was once heard the dismal sound of
the "cup and clapper," which solicited charity for the most revolting
of diseases. The spot was probably selected for the hospital, not only
as being at the greatest convenient distance from the habitations of
the good citizens its founders (lepers being always put as far as
possible out of the way), but because it suggested itself to the
imagination as possessed of an analogous dreariness and squalidity.
Unfavourable circumstances in those days were only thought fit for one
another, not for the super-induction of favourable ones. The lunatic
was to be exasperated by whips and dark-keeping, and the leper thrust
into the ditch. The world had not yet found out that light,
cleanliness, and consolation were good for all. Imagine this "lake of
the dismal swamp," now St. James's Park, with not another house nearer
to it than the walls at Ludgate, presenting to the timid eyes of the
Sunday pedestrian its lonely spital, which at once attracted his
charity and repelled his presence (for leprosy was thought
infectious), the wind sighing through the trees, and the rain mingling
with the pestilential-looking mud.

The endowment of St. James's Hospital is said to have been originally
for women only, fourteen in number, to whom were subsequently added
eight brethren "to administer divine service." They were probably,
however, in a good condition of life--"leper ladies," as an old poem
styles the companions of Cressida; but ladies, according to the poem,
were not exempt from the duty of asking alms with the "cup and
clapper;" and as it was probably a part of their business and
humiliation to watch for the appearance of wayfarers, and accost them
with cries and clamour, scenes of that kind may have taken place in
the walk now constituting the Mall.

The hospital was exchanged with Henry the Eighth for "a
consideration;" and upon its site, or near it, that soul of leprosy
built a manor, and transferred into it his own bloated and corrupted
body. He was then in the forty-third year of his age, and in the same
year (1532) he married poor Anne Boleyn. The town-residences (as they
would now be called) of the kings of England had hitherto been at
Kensington, or on the banks of the Thames at London and Westminster
(such as the Tower, Westminster Hall, &c.) What it was that attracted
Henry to the Leper Hospital it is difficult to conceive; though the
neighbourhood, no doubt, had become a little cleansed and refined by
the growth of Westminster and Whitehall. Much neatness was not
required by a state of manners, which, according to Erasmus, must have
been one of the dirtiest in Europe, and which allowed the refuse of
meats and drinks, in gentlemen's houses, to collect under the rushes
in the dining-rooms. Perhaps the new palace was to be a place of
retirement for the King and his thoughtless victim, whom four years
afterwards he put to death. Most likely, however, his great object was
to grasp all he could, and add to the number of his parks and
amusements; for the whole of the St. James's Fields (as they were
called) fell into his hands with the house, and he stocked them with
game, built a tilt-yard in front of Whitehall, on the site of the
present Horse Guards, together with a cock-pit in its neighbourhood;
and on the downfall of Wolsey took possession of Whitehall itself,
which thenceforth became added to the list of royal abodes. The new
palace could never have been handsome. It had the homely look which it
retains to this day, as the reader will see in the print before him;
the gateway looking up St. James's Street being evidently a remnant of
it.

[Illustration: ST. JAMES'S PALACE. 1650.]

The Tilt Yard, as its name implies, was the chief scene of knightly
amusement in the reigns of the Tudors. Here Henry jousted till he grew
too fat; and here Elizabeth sat at the receipt of chivalrous
adulation. The spot is full of life and colour in the eyes of one's
imagination, with heralds and coats of arms, plumed champions,
caparisoned steeds, and courts looking on from draperied galleries.
The present tranquil exercises on parade may be considered as a
remnant of the old military shows. But the people had no admittance
within the court grounds, except on favour.

The new park seems to have remained strictly enclosed as a nursery for
game till the period of the civil wars of the Commonwealth. A new
palace by Inigo Jones was intended to overlook it at Whitehall, of
which only the Banqueting House was erected. Charles the First was
brought to this house across the Park, from St. James's Palace, in
order to suffer death. Cromwell is then discerned in the park grounds
taking the air in a sedan; but its popular history does not commence
till the Restoration, when Charles the Second, who seems not to have
known what to do with the quantity of life and animal spirits that had
been suppressed during his exile, took to improving and enjoying it
with great vivacity. The walks with him became real walks, for he was
a great pedestrian. He had got the habit, perhaps, when he could not
afford a horse. He let the people in to see him feed his ducks in the
canal, a branch of which, called Duck Island, he pleasantly erected
into a "Government" for the French wit and refugee, St. Evremond. He
made an aviary on the south-east side of the park, thence called
Birdcage Walk; turned the north side into a mall for the enjoyment of
the pastimes so called, in which he excelled; introduced skating from
Holland on the canal and Rosamond's Pond (which was another branch of
it on the south-west); had mistresses in lodgings east and west of him
(Cleveland at Whitehall and Nell Gwyn in Pall Mall); and saw, in the
course of his reign, new streets rising and old places of
entertainment flourishing in other quarters of his favourite district;
Spring Gardens (which became famous for the tavern called
"Lockett's"), at Charing Cross, and the Mulberry Gardens and
noblemen's mansions between Pimlico and Piccadilly. It has been a
question whether the site of the Mulberry Gardens was on the spot now
occupied by Arlington Street, or on that of the Queen's Palace. We
suspect it is difficult to say which, and that they extended along the
whole space between the two. Particular sites are too often confounded
with places near them; and houses are said to displace one another,
which only occupied successive neighbourhoods. By some writers, for
instance, the sites of Arlington and Old Buckingham Houses are
considered as identical, while others represent them in one another's
vicinity. At all events, the Mulberry Gardens appear to have included
the site of both those houses. Ladies came there in masks to eat
syllabubs, and converse with their lovers. Sedley made them the scene
of a play. The whole park, indeed, in Charles's reign, may be said to
have been the scene of a play, especially towards evening, when the
meetings took place which Sedley and Etherege dramatised. In the
morning all was duck-feeding and dog-playing and playing at mall; in
the evening all intrigue and assignation. At one time Waller is
admiring the King's masterly use of the small stick; at another Pepys
is asking questions of the park-keepers, or transported at sight of
the court ladies on horseback; at another Evelyn is horrified (though
he seems to have sought occasions for such horrors) at overhearing a
"very familiar discourse" between his Majesty and that "impudent
comedian," Nelly Gwyn, who is standing at her garden-wall at the back
of Pall Mall (near the present Marlborough House).

Matters in this respect mended, though not suddenly, at the
Revolution. Whitehall Palace was then accidentally burnt down, and
that of St. James's becomes one of the chief residences of the
sovereign, which it remains till the reign of the present. Swift and
Prior are now seen walking for their health in the park,--Swift to get
thin, and Prior to get fat. The heroes and hungry debtors of the
novelists (for the park was privileged from arrest) make their
appearance, the former with their wives or friends, the latter sitting
starving on the benches. Staid ladies have Sunday promenades under the
eye of staid sovereigns. Something of a new license returns with the
first and second Georges; but it comes from Germany, is discreet, and
makes little impression. The greatest assignation we read of is an
innocent one of Richardson with a Lady Bradshaigh, who is "mighty
curious" to know what sort of man he is, and accordingly moves him to
describe himself in the formal terms of an advertisement, in order
that he may be recognised when she meets him. Goldsmith's Beau Tibbs,
who "blasts himself with an air of vivacity" at seeing "nobody in
town," is now the pleasantest fellow we encounter in the park for many
a day. The ducks, and the dogs, and the birdcages, and Rosamond's
Pond, dismal for drowning lovers, have long vanished; and the place
begins to look as it used to do forty years ago. The gayest
entertainment in it is "the soldiers," with their bands of music; and
the most sensual pleasure a glass of milk from the cow. A mad woman
(Margaret Nicholson) makes a sensation, by attempting to stab George
the Third at the palace door; but all is quiet again, sedate and
orderly, even when court-days bring together a crowd of beauties.
George the Fourth just lives long enough to turn Buckingham Palace
into a toy, and the site of Carlton Gardens into something better.
With his successors comes the greatest of all the park improvements--the
conversion of the poor fields and canal into a public pleasure-ground
and an ornamental piece of water. Upon this King Charles's ducks have
returned, equally improved; and if it did but possess a good
atmosphere, St. James's Park would now be as complete a place of
recreation for the promenaders of its neighbourhood, as it is handsome
and well-intended.

One of the most popular aspects of St. James's Park is that of a
military and music-playing and milk-drinking spot. The milk-drinkings,
and the bands of music, and the parades, are the same as they used to
be in our boyish days; and, we were going to add, may they be
immortal. But though it is good to make the best of war as long as war
cannot be helped, and though music and gold lace, &c., are wonderful
helps to that end, yet conscience will not allow us to blink all we
know of a very different sort respecting battlefields and days after
the battle. We say, therefore, may war turn out to be as mortal, and
speedily so, as railroads and growing good-sense can make it; though
in the meantime, and the more for that hope, we may be allowed to
indulge ourselves as we did when children, in admiring the pretty
figures which it cuts in this place--the harmlessness of its glitter
and the transports of its beholders. Will anybody who has beheld it
when a boy ever forget how his heart leaped within him when, having
heard the music before he saw the musicians, he issued hastily from
Whitehall on to the parade, and beheld the serene and stately regiment
assembled before the colonel, the band playing some noble march, and
the officers stepping forwards to the measure with their saluting
swords? Will he ever forget the mystical dignity of the band-major,
who made signs with his staff; the barbaric, and as it were,
Othello-like height and lustre of the turbaned black who tossed the
cymbals; the dapper juvenility of the drummers and fifers; and the
astounding prematureness of the little boy who played on the triangle?
Is it in the nature of human self-respect to forget how this little
boy, dressed in a "right earnest" suit of regimentals, and with his
hair as veritably powdered and plastered as the best, fetched those
amazing strides by the side of Othello, which absolutely "kept up"
with his lofty shanks, and made the schoolboy think the higher of his
own nature for the possibility? Furthermore, will he ever forget how
some regiment of horse used to come over the Park to Whitehall, in the
midst of this parade, and pass the foot-soldiers with a sound of
clustering magnificence and dancing trumpets? Will he ever forget how
the foot then divided itself into companies, and turning about and
deploying before the colonel, marched off in the opposite direction,
carrying away the school-boy himself and the crowd of spectators with
it; and so, now with the brisk drums and fifes, and now with the
deeper glories of the band, marched gallantly off for the court-yard
of the palace, where it again set up its music-book, and enchanted the
crowd with Haydn or Mozart? What a strange mixture, too, was the crowd
itself--boys and grown men, gentlemen, vagabonds, maid-servants--there
they all went listening, idling, gazing on the ensign or the
band-major, keeping pace with the march, and all of them more or less,
particularly the maid-servants, doting on the "sogers." We, for one,
confess to having drunk deep of the attraction, or the infection, or
the balmy reconcilement (whichever the reader pleases to call it).
Many a holiday morning have we hastened from our cloisters in the city
to go and hear "the music in the park," delighted to make one in the
motley crowd, and attending upon the last flourish of the hautboys and
clarionets. There we first became acquainted with feelings which we
afterwards put into verse (if the recollection be not thought an
impertinence); and there, without knowing what it was called, or who
it was that wrote it, we carried back with us to school the theme of a
glorious composition, which afterwards became a favourite with
opera-goers under the title of _Non più andrai_, the delightful march
in _Figaro_. We suppose it is now, and has ever since been played
there, to the martialisation of hundreds of little boys, and the
puzzlement of philosophy. Everything in respect to military parade
takes place, we believe, in the park just as it used to do, or with
little variation. The objects also which you behold, if you look at
the parade and its edifices, are the same. The Admiralty, the
Treasury, the back of the Minister's house in Downing Street, and the
back-front of the solid and not inappropriate building, called the
Horse Guards, look as they did fifty years ago; and there also
continue to stand the slender Egyptian piece of cannon, and the dumpy
Spanish mortar, trophies of the late war with France. The
inscriptions, however, on those triumphant memorials contain no
account of the sums we are still paying for having waged it.

"The soldiers" and the "milk from the cow" do not at all clash in the
minds of boyhood. The juvenile imagination ignores what it pleases,
especially as its knowledge is not very great. It no more connects the
idea of village massacre with guns and trumpets, than it supposes the
fine scarlet coat capable of being ragged and dirty. Virgil may say
something about ruined fields, and people compelled to fly for their
lives; but this is only part of a "lesson," and the calamities but so
many nouns and verbs. The maid-servants, and indeed the fair sex in
general, till they become wives and mothers, enjoy the like happy
exemption from ugly associations of ideas; and the syllabub is taken
under the trees, with a delighted eye to the milk on one side, and the
military show on the other.

The late Mr. West, the painter, was so pleased with this pastoral
group of cows and milk-drinkers in the park, that he went out of the
line of his art to make a picture of it.

Saint James's Palace was not much occupied by the Tudor and Stuart
sovereigns. Their principal town residence was Whitehall. The first of
the Stuarts may have intended to make St. James's the residence of the
Princes of Wales; for he gave it his son Henry, who died there. We
have spoken of this prince and his doubtful "promise" already. The
best thing known of him is the astonishment he expressed at his
father's keeping "such a bird" as Walter Raleigh locked up in a cage.

Charles the First spent the three last days of his life in this
palace, occupying himself in devotion, and preparing to fall with
dignity;--happy if he had but known how to value the dignity of truth,
which would have saved him from the necessity. The Stuarts,
unfortunate everywhere in proportion to the gravity of their
pretensions, had their customary bad fortune in this palace; at least
the male portion of them. James the Second's daughters, who got his
throne, were born and married there; but here also was born his son,
the first Pretender, whose mother's chamber being situate near some
backstairs gave colour to the ridiculous story of his having been a
spurious child smuggled into the palace in a warming pan; and here his
unlucky and narrow-minded father partly resided when he _per force_
invited his ouster and son-in-law William to take up his abode in it,
and received in return notice to quit his throne. The old romantic
Lord Craven, who was supposed to have been privately married to James
the First's daughter, the luckless Queen of Bohemia, and who was thus
destined to witness the whole of the troubles of the English dynasty
of the Stuarts, happened to be on duty at St. James's when the Dutch
troops were coming across the park to take possession of it. Agreeably
to his chivalrous character, and to his habit of taking warlike steps
to no purpose, the gallant veteran would have opposed their entrance;
but his master forbade him; and he marched away, says Pennant, "with
sullen dignity."

"_Est-il-possible_" got the house after James;--we mean his daughter
Anne's husband, George of Denmark, who being no livelier a man than
his father-in-law, made no other comment than these three words (_Is
it possible?_) on the accounts given him by the poor King of every
successive desertion from his cause. In due time the man of one remark
followed the deserters; upon which James observed to one of the few
friends left him, "Who do you think is gone now? Little
_Est-il-possible_ himself."

St. James's was given to Anne and her husband by the new sovereign
William the Third. She made it her chief palace when she came to the
throne, and such it continued to be with the sovereigns of England
till the reign of George the Third, with whom its occupation was
divided with Buckingham house. Lady Strafford, the wild daughter of
Rochester, who lived in France because England, she said, was "too
dull" for her, used to relate stories of the "orgies" in Anne's
palace. Palaces for the most part have been places of greater license
than the world supposes, owing to the natural results of luxury,
privilege, and the bringing of idle and agreeable people together; but
the orgies which the rattle-headed Lady Strafford talked of, were
probably never anything much greater than a drinking-bout of her
husband, who unluckily taught his wife to drink too. Anne, between her
Protestant accession and her exiled Popish kindred, her imperious
favourite the Duchess of Marlborough, and her quarrelling and
fluctuating Administrations, had an anxious time of it. There is an
old French story of a sage but ugly cavalier, who married a handsome
fool, in the persuasion that his children would inherit their mother's
beauty and his own wisdom. Unfortunately, they turned out to be
specimens of his own ugliness, combined with the mother's folly. We do
not say that Queen Anne was a fool, though she was not very wise; but
when her grandfather, Lord Clarendon, saw the match between his clever
daughter and the future James the Second, he probably hoped that their
offspring would possess the father's figure combined with the mother's
wit; whereas neither Mary nor Anne possessed the latter, and Anne
inherited the mother's fat with the father's dulness. She was a
well-meaning and fond, but sluggish-minded woman, with no force of
character; her temperament was heavy and lax; she did not know what to
do with her political perplexities; and the screw-up of her nerves
with strong waters appears to have become irresistible. Swift gives a
curious account of her levees, in which she would sit with a parcel of
courtiers about her, silently giving glances at them, and putting the
end of her fan in her mouth for want of address. She was glad to get
the whole set away, that she might sink into her easy chair, and
complain of the troubles of human life.

St. James's thus began with being a dull court, and dull for the most
part it remained to the last--quite worthy of its external appearance.
George the First and Second were both dull gentlemen, with a
difference; the former a pale round-featured man, content to appear
the insipid personage he was; the latter, aquiline-nosed, affecting
spirit and gallantry, and attaining only to rudeness. They were people
of the then German schools of breeding, very different from the
present; and St. James's at that time combined a tasteless air of
decorum with gallantries equally unengaging. George the First had two
German mistresses, one as lean as the other was fat; and George the
Second another, remarkable for nothing but making money. Lady Wortley
Montagu and Horace Walpole have given some amusing notices of the
palace in connection with their Majesties and the court.

"This is a strange country," said George the First on his coming to
England. "The first morning after my arrival at St. James's, I looked
out of the window and saw a park with walks, a canal, &c., which they
told me were mine. The next day, Lord Chetwynd, the ranger of _my_
park, sent me a fine brace of carp out of _my_ canal; and I was told I
must give five guineas to Lord Chetwynd's servant for bringing me _my
own_ carp out of _my own_ canal in _my own_ park."

We are not to suppose that the King delivered this speech in the smart
good English of its reporter, or in any English; for he was not
acquainted with the language. He and his Minister Sir Robert Walpole
used to converse, even on the most important matters of state, in such
Latin as their school recollections furnished, the Minister
understanding German or French as little as the King did English.

His Majesty, in the first days of his new court, was more agreeably
surprised one evening by the sudden return of Lady Mary Wortley to the
party which were assembled in his rooms, and which she had somewhat
strangely pleaded a previous engagement for quitting. She returned,
borne in the arms of Mr. Secretary Craggs, junior, who had met her
going away, and seized hold of the fugitive. He deposited her in the
ante-room; but the doors of the presence-chamber being hastily thrown
open by the pages, she found herself so astonished and fluttered that
she related the whole adventure to the no less astonished king; who
asked Mr. Craggs whether it was customary in England to carry ladies
about "like sacks of wheat." "There is nothing," answered the adroit
secretary, "which I would not do for your Majesty's satisfaction."

Towards the close of this monarch's reign, the future court historian,
Horace Walpole, then a boy of ten years of age, had a longing "to see
the King;" and as he was the son of the Minister, his longing was
gratified in a very particular manner. A meeting was arranged on
purpose the day before his Majesty took his last journey to Hanover:--

"My mother," says Walpole, "carried me at ten at night to the
apartments of the Countess of Walsingham, on the ground floor,
towards the garden of St. James's, which opened into that of
her aunt the Duchess of Kendal's; apartments occupied by George
the Second after his Queen's death, and by his successive
mistresses, the Countesses of Suffolk and Yarmouth. Notice
being given that the King was come down to supper, Lady
Walsingham took me alone into the Duchess's ante-room, where we
found alone the King and her. I knelt down and kissed his hand.
He said a few words to me, and my conductress led me back to my
mother. The person of the King is as perfect in my memory as if
I saw him but yesterday. It was that of an elderly man, rather
pale, and exactly like his pictures and coins, not tall, of an
aspect rather good than august, with a dark tie-wig, a plain
coat, waistcoat, and breeches, of snuff-coloured cloth, with
stockings of the same colour, and a blue ribband over all. So
entirely was he my object that I do not believe I once looked
at the Duchess; but as I could not avoid seeing her on entering
the room, I remember that just beyond his Majesty stood a very
tall, lean, ill-favoured old lady."

This lady, the Duchess of Kendal, a German, was the king's lean
mistress. The fat one, another German, whom he made Countess of
Darlington, was "as corpulent and ample as the duchess was long and
emaciated." Walpole, who gives this account of her, adds, that he
remembered being "terrified" in his infancy at her enormous figure.
She had "two fierce black eyes, large and rolling between two lofty
arched eyebrows, two acres of cheeks spread with crimson, an ocean of
neck," &c., "and no part restrained by stays." "It was not," says
Horace, "till the last year or two of his reign, that this foreign
sovereign paid the nation the compliment of taking openly an English
mistress." This was Miss Brett, daughter of Savage's reputed mother
the Countess of Macclesfield, by her second husband, Colonel Brett,
whom we have seen, in our accounts of the Streets of London, keeping
company with Addison. Miss Brett was a very lively and aspiring
damsel. During the visit to Hanover just mentioned, she took it upon
herself to break out a door from her apartments in St. James's Palace
into the Royal garden. The eldest of the king's grand-daughters, also
a very spirited person, ordered it to be closed up again. Miss Brett,
more spirited, again broke it open, and we hear of the matter no
further. But the king died on his journey, and the new mistress's
empire was over.

The new King, George the Second, while Prince of Wales, had quarrelled
with his father, and had been ordered to quit St. James's with all his
household. Though a great formalist, he was also a great, and indeed
somewhat alarming, pretender to gallantry, being of opinion, according
to Lady Wortley Montagu, that men and women were created solely to be
"kicked or kissed" by him at his pleasure. It is of him that stories
were told of the King's cuffing his ministers, and kicking his hat
about the room; and he is understood to be the King Arthur of
Fielding's Tom Thumb. He had a wife, however, of some real pretensions
to liveliness of mind, afterwards Queen Caroline, the friend of men of
letters, and a very excellent wife too, for she was charitable to her
husband's irregularities, and is said to have even shortened her life
by putting her rheumatic legs into cold water in order to be able to
accompany him in his walks. Here, in St. James's Palace, as well as at
Kensington, she held her literary and philosophico-religious levees
(being fond of a little theological inquiry); and here also she had
brought together the handsomest and liveliest set of ladies in waiting
ever seen on these sober-looking premises before or since. For, though
Lady Winchelsea, the poetess, was among those of James the Second, the
ladies about that sombre personage and his Queen seem, for the most
part, to have been both dull and ugly. His first Queen, Anne Hyde, had
been a maid of honour herself, and did not encourage the sisterhood;
and his second Queen, the young and handsome Mary of Modena, who had
heard of the doings at Whitehall when her husband was Duke of York,
condescended to be jealous of him, in spite of their difference of
years; James being comparatively an old gentleman, while she was not
out of her teens. Indeed, he gave cause for the jealousy, and added no
hopes of amendment; for being a Papist as well as a solemn gallant, he
divided his time between the ugly mistresses he was fond of, and the
priests who absolved him from the offence; an absolution that was
superfluous, according to his brother Charles; the "merry monarch"
having been of opinion that the mistresses themselves were penance
enough.

George the Second's German mistress was a Baroness de Walmoden. On the
death of Queen Caroline, he brought her over from Germany, and created
her Countess of Yarmouth. She had two sons, the younger of whom was
supposed to be the King's; and a ludicrous anecdote connected with the
supposition and with the abode before us, is related of the famous
Lord Chesterfield. On the countess's settlement in her state
apartments, his lordship found one day in the palace ante-chamber a
fair young gentleman, whom he took for the son in question. He was
accordingly very profuse in his compliments. The shrewd lad received
them all with a grave face, and then delightfully remarked, "I suppose
your lordship takes me for 'Master Louis;' but I am only Sir William
Russell, one of the pages." Chesterfield piqued himself on his
discernment, particularly in matters of intercourse; and it is
pleasant to catch the heartless man of "the graces" at a disadvantage
that must have extremely mortified him.

There is another St. James's anecdote of Chesterfield, which shows him
in no very dignified light. Mrs. Howard, afterwards Countess of
Suffolk, a very amiable woman, supposed to have been one of the
mistresses of George the Second, was thought to have more influence
with his Majesty than she possessed. Sir Robert Walpole told his son
Horace that Queen Caroline saw Lord Chesterfield one night, after
having won a large sum of money at court, steal along a dark passage
under her window that was lighted only by a single lamp, in order to
deposit it in Mrs. Howard's apartment, for fear of carrying it home in
the dark. Sir Robert (his son adds) thought that this was the occasion
of Chesterfield's losing his credit with the Queen; but the conclusion
has shown it to be unfounded. Chesterfield, however, though really a
very sharp-sighted man, was rendered liable by his bad principles to a
failure in what he thought his acutest views; and Caroline's better
nature may have seen through his lordship's character without the
help of the lamp and the dark passage.

The Queen's ladies above alluded to were the famous bevy of the
Howards, Lepells, and Bellendens, celebrated in the pages of Swift and
Pope. They have become well known to the public by the appearance of
the _Suffolk Correspondence_, and _Lady Hervey's Letters_. George the
Second, when Prince of Wales, and living in this palace with his
father, had probably made love to them all, fluttering more than
flattering them, between his attentions as a prince and his unengaging
qualities as a brusque and parsimonious man. Miss Bellenden, who
became Duchess of Argyle, is said to have observed one day to him as
he was counting his money in her presence (probably with an intimation
of his peculiar sense of the worth of it), "Sir, I cannot bear it. If
you count your money any more, I will go out of the room." Another
version of the story says that she tilted the guineas over, and then
ran out of the room while the Prince was picking them up. This is
likely, for she had great animal spirits. When the Prince quarrelled
with his father, and he and his household were ordered to quit St.
James's, Miss Bellenden is described, in a ballad written on the
occasion, as taking her way from the premises by jumping gaily
down-stairs.

The occasion of this rupture between George the First and his son was
curious. Palaces are very calm-looking things outside; but within,
except in very wise and happy, or very dull reigns, are pampered
passions, and too often violent scenes. George the First and his son,
like most sovereigns and heirs apparent, were not on good terms. The
Princess of Wales had been delivered of a second son, which was to be
christened; and the Prince wished his uncle the Duke of York to stand
godfather with his Majesty. His Majesty, on the other hand,
peremptorily insisted on dividing the pious office with the officious
Duke of Newcastle. The christening accordingly took place in the
Princess's bed-chamber; and no sooner had the bishop shut the book
than the Prince, furiously crossing the foot of the bed, and heedless
of the King's presence, "held up his hand and forefinger to the Duke
in a menacing attitude (as Lady Suffolk described the scene to
Walpole) and said, 'You are a rascal, but I shall find you' (meaning
in his broken English, 'I shall find a time to be revenged')." The
next morning Lady Suffolk (then Mrs. Howard), while about to enter the
Princess's apartment, was surprised to find her way barred by the
yeomen with their halberds; and the same night the Prince and Princess
were ordered to quit so unexpectedly, that they were obliged to go to
the house of their chamberlain, the Earl of Grantham, in Albemarle
Street. The father and son were afterwards reconciled, but they never
heartily agreed.

Nor was the case better between George the Second and the new Prince
of Wales, his son Frederick. If George the First was a common-place
man of the quiet order, and George the Second of the bustling,
Frederick was of an effeminate sort, pretending to taste and
gallantry, and possessed of neither. He affected to patronise
literature in order to court popularity, and because his father and
grandfather had neglected it; but he took no real interest in the
literati, and would meanly stop their pensions when he got out of
humour. He passed his time in intriguing against his father, and
hastening the ruin of a feeble constitution by sorry amours.

Not long after the marriage of George the Third, Buckingham House was
settled on his young Queen in the event of her surviving him; and the
King took such a liking to it as to convert St. James's Palace wholly
into a resort for state occasions, and confine his town residence to
the new abode. Buckingham House was so called from John Sheffield,
Duke of Buckinghamshire, who built it. It was a dull though ornamented
brick edifice, not unworthily representing the mediocre ability and
stately assumptions of the owner, who was a small poet and a
fastidious grandee, nearly as mad with pride as his duchess. This lady
was a natural daughter of James the Second (if indeed she was even
that, for a Colonel Godfrey laid claim to the paternity), and she
carried herself so loftily in consequence, as to wish to be treated
seriously as a princess, receiving visitors under a canopy, and going
to the theatre in ermine. She and the Duchess of Marlborough, who had
a rival palace next door to St. James's, used to sit swelling at one
another with neighbourly spite. Sheffield, her husband, is said to
have first made love to her sister Anne (afterwards Queen), for which
her uncle, Charles the Second, has been accused of sending him on an
expedition to Tangier in a "leaky vessel." The duke wrote a long
complacent description of Buckingham House, that has often been
reprinted, recording, among other things, the classical inscriptions
which he put upon it and the princely chambers which it contained for
the convenience of the births of his illustrious house. The births
came to nothing in consequence of the death of his only legitimate
child; a natural son inherited the property, and Government bought it
for Queen Charlotte. Henceforward it divided its old appellation of
Buckingham House with that of the "Queen's House;" almost all the
Queen's children were born there; and there, as at Kew and Windsor,
she may be said to have secreted her husband as much as she could from
the world, partly out of judicious consideration for his infirmities,
and partly in accordance with the pride as well as penuriousness that
were at the bottom of manners not ungentle, and a shrewd though narrow
understanding. The spirit of this kind of life was very soon announced
to the fashionable world after her marriage by the non-appearance of
certain festivities; and it continued as long as her husband lived,
and as far as her own expenditure was concerned; though when her son
came to the throne she astonished the public by showing her
willingness to partake of festivities in an establishment not her own.
A deplorable exhibition of her tyrannous and unfeeling habits of
exaction of the attentions of those about her is to be found in the
_Diary of Madame d'Arblay_ (Miss Burney), whom they nearly threw into
a consumption. It is clear that they would have done so, had not the
poor waiting-gentlewoman mustered up courage enough to dare to save
her life by persisting in her request to be set free. Queen Charlotte
was a plain, penurious, soft-spoken, decorous, bigoted, shrewd,
over-weening personage, "content" through a long life "to dwell on
decencies for ever," inexorable "upon principle" to frailty, but not
incapable of being bribed out of it by German prepossessions, and
whatever else might assist to effect the miracle, as was seen in the
instance of Mrs. Hastings, who had been Warren Hastings's mistress,
and who was, nevertheless received at court. Pleasant as her Majesty
might have been to Miss Burney, who seems to have loved to be
"persecuted," she was assuredly no charmer in the eyes of the British
nation; nor was she in the slightest degree lamented when she died.
Nevertheless she was a very good wife, for such we really believe her
to have been; we mean not merely faithful, (for who would have tempted
her?) but truly considerate, and anxious, and kind; and besides this
she had another merit, not indeed of the same voluntary description,
but one for which the nation is strongly indebted to her, though we
are not aware that it has ever been mentioned. We mean that her cool
and calculating brain turned out to be a most happy match for the
warmer one of her husband, in ultimate as well as immediate respects;
for it brought reason back into the blood of his race, and drew a
remarkable line in consequence between him and his children; none of
whom, however deficient in abilities, partook of their father's
unreasonableness, while some went remarkably counter to his want of
orderliness and self-government. The happy engraftment of the Cobourg
family on the stock, completed this security in its most important
quarter; and if ever a shade of more than ordinary sorrow for the
necessity should have been brought across the memory in that quarter
by a ridiculous pen, the sense of the security ought to fling it to
the winds, with all the joy and comfort befitting the noblest brow and
the wisest reign that have yet adorned the annals of its house.

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