CONTENTS

I. GAMBLING-CLUBS AND HIGH PLAY
II. WITTY WOMEN AND PRETTY WOMEN
III. OLD LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES
IV. OLD M.P.S AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS
V. FAMOUS OLD ACTORS
VI. OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS
VII. SOME FAMOUS LONDON ACTRESSES
VIII. QUEER CLUBS OF FORMER DAYS
IX. CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE
X. WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY
XI. LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES
XII. OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS
       I. THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON
      II. OLD LONDON TEA-GARDENS
XIII. WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND
XIV. THE OLD DOCTORS
XV. THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON
XVI. ROGUES ASSORTED
XVII. BARS AND BARRISTERS
XVIII. THE SUBLIME BEEFSTEAKERS AND THE KIT-KAT AND ROTA CLUBS
XIX. HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS

LONDON SOUVENIRS

I.

GAMBLING-CLUBS AND HIGH PLAY.

Philosophers may argue, and moralists preach, the former against the folly, and the latter against the wickedness of gambling, but, as may be expected, their remonstrances pass but as a gentle breeze over the outwardly placid ocean of play, causing the fishes—the familiars of the gambling world—languidly to raise their heads, and mildly to inquire: 'What's all that row about?' Gambling is one of the strongest passions in the human breast, and no warning, no exhibition of fatal examples, will ever stop the indulgence in the excitement it procures. It assumes many phases; in all men have undergone disastrous experiences, and yet they repeat the dangerous and usually calamitous experiments. In no undertaking has so much money been lost as in mining; prizes have occasionally been drawn, but at such rare intervals as to be cautions rather than encouragements; and yet, even at the present day, with all the experience of past failures, sanguine speculators fill empty shafts with their gold, which is quickly fished up by the greedy promoters.

Some of the now most respectable West End clubs originally were only gambling-hells. They are not so now; but the improvement this would seem to imply is apparent only. Our manners have improved, but not our morals; the table-legs wear frilled trousers now, but the legs are there all the same, even the blacklegs. But it is the past more than the present we wish to speak of.

Early in the last century gaming was so prevalent that in one night's search the Leet's Jury of Westminster discovered, and afterwards presented to the justices, no fewer than thirty-five gambling-houses. The Society for the Reformation of Manners published a statement of their proceedings, by which it appeared that in the year beginning with December 1, 1724, to the same date in 1725, they had prosecuted 2,506 persons for keeping disorderly and gaming houses; and for thirty-four years the total number of their prosecutions amounted to the astounding figure of 91,899. In 1728 the following note was issued by the King's order: 'It having been represented to his Majesty that such felons and their accomplices are greatly encouraged and harboured by persons keeping night-houses ... and that the gaming-houses ... much contribute to the corruption of the morals of those of an inferior rank ... his Majesty has commanded me to recommend it, in his name, in the strongest manner to the Justices of the Peace to employ their utmost care and vigilance in the preventing and suppressing of these disorders, etc.'

This warning was then necessary, though as early as 1719 an order for putting in execution an old statute of Henry VIII. had been issued to all victuallers, and others whom it might concern. The order ran: 'That none shall keep or maintain any house or place of unlawful games, on pain of 40s. for every day, of forfeiting their recognisance, and of being suppressed; that none shall use or haunt such places, on pain of 6s. 8d. for every offence; and that no artificer, or his journeyman, husbandman, apprentice, labourer, mariner, fisherman, waterman, or serving-man shall play at tables, tennis, dice, cards, bowls, clash, coiting, loggating, or any other unlawful game, out of Christmas, or then out of their master's house or presence, on pain of 20s.'

There were thus many attempts at controlling the conduct of the lower orders, but the gentry set them a bad example. The Cocoa-Tree Club, the Tory chocolate-house of Queen Anne's reign, at No. 64, St. James's Street, was a regular gambling-hell. In the evening of a Court Drawing-room in 1719, a number of gentlemen had a dispute over hazard at that house; the quarrel became general, and, as they fought with their swords, three gentlemen were mortally wounded, and the affray was only ended by the interposition of the Royal Guards, who were compelled to knock the parties down with the butt-ends of their muskets indiscriminately, as entreaties and commands were disregarded. Walpole, in his correspondence, relates: 'Within this week there has been a cast at hazard at the Cocoa-Tree, the difference of which amounted to £180,000. Mr. O'Birne, an Irish gamester, had won £100,000 of a young Mr. Harvey, of Chigwell, just started from a midshipman into an estate by his elder brother's death. O'Birne said: "You can never pay me." "I can," said the youth; "my estate will sell for the debt." "No," said O'Birne, "I will win £10,000; you shall throw for the odd £90,000." They did, and Harvey won.' It is not on record whether he took the lesson to heart. The house was, in 1746, turned into a club, but its reputation was not improved; bribery, high play, and foul play continued to be common in it.

Another chocolate-house was White's, now White's Club, St. James's Street. As a chocolate-house it was established about 1698, near the bottom of the west side of St. James's Street; it was burnt down in 1773. Plate VI. of Hogarth's 'Rake's Progress' shows a room full of players at White's, so intent upon play as neither to see the flames nor hear the watchmen bursting into the room. It was indeed a famous gambling and betting club, a book for entering wagers always lying on the table; the play was frightful. Once a man dropped down dead at the door, and was carried in; the club immediately made bets whether he was dead or only in a fit; and when they were going to bleed him the wagerers for his death interposed, saying it would affect the fairness of the bet. Walpole, who tells the story, hints that it is invented. Many a highwayman—one is shown in Hogarth's picture above referred to—there took his chocolate or threw his main before starting for business. There Lord Chesterfield gamed; Steele dated all his love news in the Tatler from White's, which was known as the rendezvous of infamous sharpers and noble cullies, and bets were laid to the effect that Sir William Burdett, one of its members, would be the first baronet who would be hanged. The gambling went on till dawn of day; and Pelham, when Prime Minister, was not ashamed to divide his time between his official table and the piquet table at White's. General Scott was a very cautious player, avoiding all indulgence in excesses at table, and thus managed to win at White's no less than £200,000, so that when his daughter, Joanna, married George Canning he was able to give her a fortune of £100,000.

Another club founded specially for gambling was Almack's, the original Brooks's, which was opened in Pall Mall in 1764. Some of its members were Macaronis, the fops of the day, famous for their long curls and eye-glasses. 'At Almack's,' says Walpole, 'which has taken the pas of White's ... the young men of the age lose £10,000, £15,000, £20,000 in an evening.' The play at this club was only for rouleaux of £50 each, and generally there was £10,000 in gold on the table. The gamesters began by pulling off their embroidered clothes, and put on frieze garments, or turned their coats inside out for luck. They put on pieces of leather to save their lace ruffles; and to guard their eyes from the light, and to prevent tumbling their hair, wore high-crowned straw hats with broad brims, and sometimes masks to conceal their emotions. Almack's afterwards was known as the 'Goose-Tree' Club—a rather significant name—and Pitt was one of its most constant frequenters, and there met his adherents. Gibbon also was a member, when the club was still Almack's—which, indeed, was the name of the founder and original proprietor of the club.

Another gaming-club was Brooks's, which at first was formed by Almack and afterwards by Brooks, a wine-merchant and money-lender. The club was opened in 1778, and some of the original rules are curious: '21. No gaming in the eating-room, except tossing up for reckonings, on penalty of paying the whole bill of the members present. 30. Any member of this society that shall become a candidate for any other club (old White's excepted) shall be ipso facto excluded. 40. Every person playing at the new quinze-table shall keep fifty guineas before him. 41. Every person playing at the twenty-guinea table shall keep no less than twenty guineas before him.' According to Captain Gronow, play at Brooks's was even higher than at White's. Faro and macao were indulged in to an extent which enabled a man to win or to lose a considerable fortune in one night. George Harley Drummond, a partner in the bank of that name, played only once in his life at White's, and lost £20,000 to Brummell. This event caused him to retire from the banking-house. Lord Carlisle and Charles Fox lost enormous sums at Brooks's.

At Tom's Coffee House, in Russell Street, Covent Garden, there was playing at piquet, and the club consisting of seven hundred noblemen and gentlemen, many of whom belonged to the gay society of that day (the middle of the last century), we may be sure the play was high.

Arthur's Club, in St. James's Street, so named after its founder (who died in 1761), was a famous gambling centre in its day. A nobleman of the highest position and influence in society was detected in cheating at cards, and after a trial, which did not terminate in his favour, he died of a broken heart. This happened in 1836.

The Union, which was founded in this century, was a regular gambling-club. It was first held at what is now the Ordnance Office, Pall Mall, and subsequently in the house afterwards occupied by the Bishop of Winchester.

In the early days of this century the most notorious gambling-club was Crockford's, in St. James's Street. Crockford originally was a fishmonger, and occupied the old bulk-shop west of Temple Bar. But, having made money by betting, 'he gave up,' as a recent writer on 'The Gambling World' says, 'selling soles and salmon, and went in for catching fish, confining his operations to gudgeons and flat-fish'; or, in other words, he established a gambling-house, first by taking over Watier's old club-house, where he set up a hazard bank, and won a great deal of money; he then separated from his partner, who had a bad year and failed. Crockford removed to St. James's Street, where he built the magnificent club-house which bore his name. It was erected at a cost of upwards of £100,000, and, in its vast proportions and palatial decorations, surpassed anything of the kind ever seen in London. To support such an establishment required a large income; yet Crockford made it, for the highest play was encouraged at his card-tables, but especially at the hazard-tables, where Crockford nightly took his stand, prepared for all comers. And he was successful, and became a millionaire. When he died he left £700,000, and he had lost as much in mining and other speculations. His death was hastened, it is said, by excessive anxiety over his bets on the turf. He retired from the management of the club in 1840, and died in 1844. The club was soon after closed, and after a few years' interval was reopened as the Naval, Military, and Civil Service Club. It was then converted into dining-rooms, called the Wellington. Later on it was taken by a joint-stock company as an auction-room, and now it is again a club-house, known as the Devonshire Club.

We referred above to Watier's Club. It was established in 1807, at the instigation of the Prince of Wales, and high play was the chief pursuit of its members. 'Princes and nobles,' says Timbs in his 'Curiosities of London,' 'lost or gained fortunes amongst themselves.' But the pace was too fast. The club did not last under its original patronage, and it was then, when it was moribund, taken over by Crockford. At this club, also, macao was the favourite game, as at Brooks's.

One of the most objectionable results of promiscuous gambling is the disreputable company into which it often throws a gentleman.

'That Marquis, who is now familiar grown

With every reprobate about the town....

Now, sad transition! all his lordship's nights

Are passed with blacklegs and with parasites..

The rage of gaming and the circling glass

Eradicate distinction in each class;

For he who scarce a dinner can afford

Is equal in importance with my lord.'

 

This is just what happened when gambling-hells were openly flourishing in London, and what happens now when gambling-clubs abound, and are almost daily raided by the police, when some actually respectable people are found mixed up with the rascaldom which supports these clubs. A perfect mania seems to have seized the lower orders of our day to gamble; but formerly, for instance, in Walpole's time, in the latter half of the last century, the upper classes were the worst offenders, of which the just-mentioned statesman and epistolary chronicler of small-beer, which, however, by long keeping has acquired a strong and lasting flavour, gives us many proofs. 'Lord Sandwich,' he reports, 'goes once or twice a week to hunt with the Duke [of Cumberland], and, as the latter has taken a turn of gaming, Sandwich, to make his court—and fortune—carries a box and dice in his pocket; and so they throw a main whenever the hounds are at fault, upon every green hill and under every green tree.' Five years later, at a magnificent ball and supper at Bedford House, 'the Duke was playing at hazard with a great heap of gold before him. Somebody said he looked like the prodigal son and the fatted calf both.' Under such circumstances it could not fail that swindlers par excellence sometimes found their way among the royal and noble gamblers. There was a Sir William Burdett, whose name had the honour of being inscribed in the betting-room at White's as the subject of a wager that he would be the first baronet who would be hanged. He and a lady, 'dressed foreign, as a Princess of the House of Brandenburg,' cheated Lord Castledurrow (Baron Ashbrook) and Captain Rodney out of a handsome sum at faro. The noble victim met the Baronet at Ranelagh, and addressed him thus: 'Sir William, here is the sum I think I lost last night. Since then I have heard that you are a professed pickpocket, and therefore I desire to have no further acquaintance with you.' The Baronet took the money with a respectful bow, and then asked his Lordship the further favour to set him down at Buckingham Gate, and without further ceremony jumped into the coach. Walpole writes to Mann, in 1750, that 'Jemmy Lumley last week had a party of whist at his own house: the combatants, Lucy Southwell, that curtseys like a bear, Mrs. Bijean, and Mrs. Mackenzy. They played from six in the evening till twelve next day, Jemmy never winning one rubber, and rising a loser of £2,000.... He fancied himself cheated and would not pay. However, the bear had no share in his evil surmises ... and he promised a dinner at Hampstead to Lucy and her sister. As he went to the rendezvous his chaise was stopped, and he was advised by someone not to proceed. But proceed he did, and in the garden he found Mrs. Mackenzy. She asked him whether he was going to pay, and, on his declining to do so, the fair virago took a horsewhip from beneath her hoop, and fell upon him with the utmost vehemence.'

Members of clubs were fully aware of the nefariousness of their devotion to gambling. When a waiter at Arthur's Club was taken up for robbery, George Selwyn said: 'What a horrid idea he will give of us to the people in Newgate?' Certes, some of the highwaymen in that prison were not such robbers and scoundrels as some of the aristocratic members of those clubs. When, in 1750, the people got frightened about an earthquake in London, predicted to happen in that year, 'Lady Catherine Pelham,' Walpole tells us, 'Lady James Arundell, and Lord and Lady Galway ... go this evening to an inn ten miles out of town, where they are going to play at brag till five in the morning, and then come back, I suppose, to look for the bones of their husbands and families under the rubbish.' When the rulers of the nation on such an occasion, or any other occasion of public terror, possibly caused by their own mismanagement of public affairs, hypocritically and most impertinently ordered a day of fasting and humiliation, the gambling-houses used to be filled with officials and members of Parliament, who thus had a day off.

There was one famous gambling-house we find we have not yet mentioned, viz., Shaver's Hall, which occupied the whole of the southern side of Coventry Street, from the Haymarket to Hedge Lane (now Oxenden Street), and derived its name from the barber of Lord Pembroke, who built it out of his earnings. Attached to it was a bowling-green, which sloped down to the south. The place was built about the year 1650, and the tennis-court belonging to it till recently might still be seen in St. James's Street.

II.

WITTY WOMEN AND PRETTY WOMEN.

Certain waves of sentiment or action, or both combined, have at various times passed over the face of European society. A thousand years ago the Old Continent went madly crusading to snatch the Holy Sepulchre from the grasp of the pagan Sultan, who, sick man as he is, still holds it. The movement had certain advantages: it cleared Europe of a good deal of ruffianism, which never came back, as it perished on the journey to Jerusalem, or very properly was killed off by the justly incensed Turks, who could not understand by what right these hordes of robbers invaded their country. Then another phase of society madness arose. Some maniac, clad in armour, on a horse similarly accoutred, would appear, and challenge everyone to admit that the Lady Gwendolyne Mousetrap, whom he kept company with, and took to the tea-gardens on Sundays, was the most peerless damosel, and that whoso doubted it, would not get off by paying a dollar, but would have to fight it out with him. Then another mailed and belted chap would jump up, and maintain that the Countess of Rabbit-Warren—who was the girl he was just then booming—was the finest woman going, and that that slut Gwendolyne Mousetrap was no better than she should be. Of course, as soon as the King and Court heard of the shindy between the two knights a day was appointed when they should fight it out, the combatants being enclosed in a kind of rat-pit, officially called lists, whilst the King, his courtiers and their gentle ladies looked at the sport; and if one of the knights was killed, or perhaps both were killed, or at least maimed for life, the Lady Gwendolyne and the Countess of Rabbit-Warren, who, of course, both assisted at the spectacle, received the congratulations of the Court. Sometimes one of the knights would funk, and not come up to the scratch; then he was declared a lame duck, and the lady whom he had left in the lurch and made a laughing-stock of would erase his name from her tablets, and shy the trumpery proofs of devotion he had given her, a worn-out scarf or Brummagem aigrette, out of an upper window. This was called the age of chivalry. Then a totally different eruption of the fighting mania—which is, after all, the universal principle in human action—took place. A vagrant scholasticus would appear in a University town, and announce that he was ready to hold a disputation with any professor, Doctor of Divinity, or Master of Arts, on any mortal subject, the more subtle, and the more incomprehensible, and the more mystical, the better. Thus, one such scholasticus got into the rostrum at Tübingen, and addressed his audience thus: 'I am about to propound three theses: the answer to the first is known to myself only, and not to you; to the second, the answer is known neither to you nor to me; to the third, the answer is known to you only.' This was a promising programme, and, indeed, proved highly edifying. 'Now, the first question,' resumed the scholasticus, 'is this: Have I got any breeches on? You don't know, but I do; I have not. The second question, the answer to which is known neither to you nor to me, is: Shall I find in this town any draper willing to advance on credit stuff enough to make me a pair? And the third question, the answer to which is known to you only, is: Will any of you pay a tailor's wages to make me a pair? And now that the argument is clearly before you, we may proceed to the consideration of the parabolic triangulation of the binocular theorem;' and then he would bewilder them with a lot of jaw-breaking words, which then, as now, passed for learning. This was called the age of scholasticism. It was succeeded by the Renaissance, which, after a good boil-up of its intellectual ingredients, settled down into a literary mud, an Acqui-la-Bollente, a Nile mud, pleasant to the soul, and fertilizing to the mind, the protoplasm of diarists and letter-writers, of whom—to mention but three—Evelyn, Pepys, and Horace Walpole were prominent patterns in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

It is with the latter, Horace Walpole, of Strawberry Hill, we are chiefly concerned. Horace Walpole, after enlarging a cottage into a Gothic castle, with lath and plaster, and rough-cast walls, and wooden pinnacles, filled it with literary and artistic treasures. But he also gathered around him a select social circle, which included Garrick, Paul Whitehead, General Conway, George Selwyn, Richard Bentley, the poet Gray, Sir Horace Mann, and Lords Edgcumbe and Strafford. And of ladies there was no lack; there were Mrs. Pritchard, Kitty Clive, Lady Suffolk, the Misses Berry, and—would you believe it?—Hannah More! It was the age for chronicling small-beer and home-made wine, gossip, scandal, and frivolity; and Horace Walpole enjoyed existence as a cynical Seladon or platonic Bluebeard amidst this bevy of lively, gay-minded, frolicsome beauties, young and old. Happily, or unhappily, for him, he did not become acquainted with the Misses Berry before 1788, when he was seventy-one years of age. He took the most extraordinary liking to them, and was never content except when they were with him, or corresponding with him. When they went to Italy, he wrote to them regularly once a week, and on their return he installed them at Little Strawberry Hill, a house close to his own, so that he might daily enjoy their society. He appointed them his literary executors, with the charge of collecting and publishing his writings, which was done under the superintendence of Mr. Berry, their father, who was a Yorkshire gentleman. When Walpole had succeeded to the Earldom of Orford he made Mary, the elder of the two sisters, an offer of his hand. Both sisters survived him upwards of sixty years. Little Strawberry Hill, which we just mentioned as the residence of the Misses Berry, had, before their coming to live in it, been occupied by Kitty Clive, the famous actress. Born in 1711, she made her first appearance on the stage of Drury Lane, and in 1732 she married a brother of Lord Clive, but the union proved unhappy, and was soon dissolved. She quitted the stage in 1769, leaving a splendid reputation as an actress and as a woman behind her, and retired to Little Strawberry Hill, where she lived in ease, surrounded by friends and respected by the world. Horace Walpole was a constant visitor at her house, as were many other persons of rank and eminence. It was said of her that no man could be grave when Kitty chose to be merry. But she must have been a woman of some spirit, too, for when it was proposed to stop up a footpath in her neighbourhood she placed herself at the head of the opponents, and defeated the project. She died suddenly in 1785, and Walpole placed an urn in the grounds to her memory, with the inscription:

'Here lived the laughter-loving dame;

A matchless actress, Clive her name.

The comic Muse with her retired,

And shed a tear when she expired.'

The Mrs. Pritchard mentioned above was also an actress, of great and well-deserved fame. She lived at an originally small house, called "Ragman's Castle," which she much improved and enlarged. It had, after her, various occupants, and was finally taken down by Lord Kilmorey during his occupancy of Orleans House, near which it stood.

Another of the constant visitors at Strawberry Hill was Lady Suffolk, Pope's 'Chloe.' She was married to the Hon. Charles Howard, from whom she separated when she became the mistress of the Prince, afterwards George II., who, as Prince, allowed her £2,000 a year, and as King £3,200 a year, besides several sums at various times. He gave her £12,000 towards Marble Hill, the mansion still facing the Thames, which became her residence. Her husband lived long enough to become Earl of Suffolk, and dying, left her free to marry, when she was forty-five, the Hon. George Berkeley, who died eleven years after. She survived him twenty-one years, and supplied her neighbour, Horace Walpole, with Court anecdotes and scandal during all that period. Walpole calls her remarkably 'genteel'—a favourite expression of his, though now so vulgar!—and, in spite of her antecedents, she was courted by the highest in the land. Such were the morals of those days. According to Horace Walpole, her mental qualifications were not of a high order, but she was gentle and engaging in her manners, and she was a gossip with a good memory—and that answered her host's purpose admirably. Pope also made great use of her reminiscences.

Like Dr. Johnson, Horace Walpole liked to fill his house with a lot of female devotees; but whilst Johnson seemed to prefer a parcel of disagreeable, ugly, and cantankerous women, always quarrelling among themselves and with everybody else, Walpole liked his women to be young and fair, full of life and mirth. By what strange circumstance was the cynical and sarcastic Walpole led into a sort of friendship with the mild and pietistic Mrs. Hannah More? It was in 1784 that this queer friendship began. It appears that about that date Hannah More had discovered at Bristol a milk woman who wrote verses, just such verses as Hannah More and Walpole—neither of whom had an idea of poetry—would consider wonderful. A subscription must be started for the benefit of the milkwoman, and Hannah More applied to Horace Walpole, who set up for a Mæcenas, though he always expressed the utmost contempt for authors, for a contribution. Of course, Hannah More did not make this application without a dose of fulsome compliment to Horace Walpole's genius, and he went into the trap, subscribed, and expressed his admiration of the milkwoman's poetry. The woman's name was Yearsley; she was quite ready to receive the money, but, having evidently a very high opinion of her own doggerel, she refused to listen to the literary advice given to her by Horace Walpole and her patroness, with whom she very soon quarrelled. Walpole condoled with Hannah thus: 'You are not only benevolence itself, but, with fifty times the genius of Dame Yearsley, you are void of vanity. How strange that vanity should expel gratitude! Does not the wretched woman owe her fame to you? ... Dame Yearsley reminds me of the troubadours, those vagrants whom I used to admire till I knew their history, and who used to pour out trumpery verses, and flatter or abuse, accordingly as they were housed and clothed, or dismissed to the next parish. Yet you did not set this person in the stocks, after procuring an annuity for her.' By this letter we see what were Horace Walpole's ideas of patronage: flattery and a pittance, independence and the stocks. Walpole was open to flattery. Dr. Johnson was not—at least, not from a woman; he despised the sex too much to care for their praise. When Hannah More laid it on very thick in his case, he fiercely turned round on her and said: 'Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.' And, with all his admiration for her character, Walpole could not help sneering at what he called her saintliness, and venting his sarcasm on her silly 'Cœlebs in Search of a Wife,' the absurdity of which has, indeed, been surpassed by a few modern novels of the same tendency. The last we hear of their friendship is that he made her a present of a Bible—fancy the satyr's leer with which he must have presented it to her! She paid him out for the implied irony by wishing that he would read it.

Among the ladies who were neighbours of Horace Walpole, we must not omit Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, who lived for some years in a house on the south side of the road leading to Twickenham Common. She may justly be considered as one of the witty, if not of the pretty, women of Walpole's time. He detested her. Probably he was somewhat jealous of her, for her letters from Constantinople on Turkish life and society earned her the sobriquet of the 'Female Horace Walpole.' He writes of her thus whilst she was living at Florence: 'She is laughed at by the whole town. Her dress, her avarice, and her impudence must amaze anyone.... She wears a foul mob, that does not cover her greasy black locks, that hang loose, never combed or curled; an old mazarine blue wrapper, that gapes open and discovers a canvas petticoat. Her face swelled violently on one side, and partly covered with white paint, which for cheapness she has bought so coarse that you would not use it to wash a chimney.' In another letter he describes her dress as consisting of 'a groundwork of dirt, with an embroidery of filthiness.' When he wrote of her then, she was about fifty years of age, and seems to have retained none of the beauty which distinguished her in her earlier years. She was not only coarse in looks, but in her speech and writings, which shock modern fastidiousness. She was not the woman to please Horace Walpole, who, even when in the seventies, liked nothing better than acting as squire or cicerone to fine ladies. Lady Mary was not one of them. She was, in fact, what we now should call a regular Bohemian; and was it to be wondered at? She had been introduced into that sort of life when she was a girl only eight years old by her own father, Evelyn, Earl of Kingston. He was a member of the Kitcat Club, whose chief occupation was the proposing and toasting the beauties of the day. One evening the Earl took it into his head to nominate his daughter. She was sent for in a chaise, and introduced to the company in dirty Shire Lane in a grimy chamber, reeking with foul culinary smells and stale tobacco-smoke, and elected by acclamation. The gentlemen drank the little lady's health upstanding; and feasting her with sweets, and passing her round with kisses, at once inscribed her name with a diamond on a drinking-glass. 'Pleasure,' she says, 'was too poor a word to express my sensations. They amounted to ecstasy. Never again throughout my whole life did I pass so happy an evening.' Of course, the child could not perceive the hideousness of the whole proceeding and its surroundings: if the kisses were seasoned with droppings of snuff from the noses above, which otherwise were not always very clean—even at the beginning of this century Lord Kenyon, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, was an utter stranger to the luxury of a pocket-handkerchief, and had no delicacy about avowing it—it did not detract from the sweetness of the bon-bons with which she was regaled.

The founder of the Blue-Stocking Club, Mrs. Montagu, née Elizabeth Robinson, was another of Walpole's witty and handsome lady friends. As a girl she was lively, full of fun, yet fond of study. In 1742 she was married to Edward Montagu, M.P., a coal-owner of great wealth. As a girl the Duchess of Portland had called her 'La Petite Fidget'; but after her marriage she became more sedate, and a great power in the literary world. She established the Blue-Stocking Club, of which herself, Mrs. Vesey, Miss Boscawen, Mrs. Carter, Lord Lyttelton, Mr. Pulteney, Mr. Stillingfleet, and Horace Walpole were the first members. The name originally came from Venice, where, in 1400, the Academical Society delle calze had been established, whence the name was transferred to similar associations in France, there called Bas Bleus, and from the latter country it was introduced into England. Mrs. Montagu, having been left a widow with £7,000 a year, built herself a mansion, standing in a large garden at the north-west corner of Portman Square, and there the Blue-Stocking Club continued to hold its meetings for a number of years, including all the persons of her time who were celebrated in art, science, or literature, among whom may be mentioned Boswell and Johnson, the latter of whom, in the presence of ladies, somewhat modified his bearish habits. Mrs. Montagu died in 1800, and the house she had built eventually became the town residence of Viscount Portman.

Of course, Horace Walpole was acquainted with the Misses Gunning—'those goddesses,' as Mary Montagu styled them. They were nieces of the first Earl of Mayo, and so got a ready introduction into London society, which literally went raving mad about them. Horace Walpole tells us that even the 'great unwashed' followed them in crowds whenever they appeared in public: there must have been an extraordinary appreciation of beauty in the rabble—and what a rabble of ruffians it was!—of those days. But London then was no bigger than a provincial town, compared with what it is now. The two ladies speedily found husbands: the Duke of Hamilton married Elizabeth, the younger, after an evening spent in the society of the sisters and their mother at Bedford House, and was in such a hurry about it that he would wait for neither licence nor ring, and, after with some difficulty satisfying the scruples of the parson called upon to celebrate the extempore ceremony, they were married with the ring of a bed-curtain, at half an hour after twelve at night, at Mayfair Chapel. Three weeks afterwards Lord Coventry married her sister, Maria. The Duke of Hamilton dying in 1758, six years after the strange nuptials in Mayfair Chapel, the widow in the following year married Jack Campbell, afterwards Duke of Argyll. Lady Coventry did not wear her coronet long; in 1760 she died, it is said, in consequence of her excessive use of white paint. Her sister, 'twice duchessed,' survived her many years.

We have far from exhausted the list of the ladies distinguished for wit and beauty who figure in Horace Walpole's 'Letters,' but our space is exhausted. We cannot, however, conclude without a few words on the 'Letters' in question. Their chief value consists in the lively descriptions of public events; not as dry and cold history records them, but by letting us have peeps behind the scenes, so as to see the wire-pullers, the secret machinery, which set in motion the actors on the political and social stage. They show us lords and ladies in their negligés, and how the conceit of a hairdresser, or the caprice of a lady's-maid, may make or mar the destinies of a nation. This copious letter-writing forms indeed an era in our literary history which will never return or be renewed; the prying reporter and the irrepressible interviewer now supply all the world with what the letter-writer communicated to a few friends only. This present age may be called the Age of Reminiscences: everybody is writing his; of making books there is no end!

III.

OLD LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES.

A comparatively small room, considering it was one for public use, with dingy walls, a grimy ceiling, a sanded floor, boxes with upright backs and narrow seats, wooden chairs, liquor-stained tables, lighted up in the evening with smoky lamps or guttering candles, the whole room reeking with tobacco like a guard-room—such was the coffee-house of the later Stuart and the whole Georgian periods. Its distinctive article of furniture was spittoons. In such dens did the noblemen, in flowing wigs and embroidered coats, parsons in cassocks and bands, physicians in sable suits and tremendous perukes, together with broken-down gamesters, swindlers, country yokels, and out-at-elbows literary and theatrical adventurers, meet, not only for pleasure, but for business too. Dr. Radcliffe, who in 1685 had the largest practice in London, was daily to be seen at Garraway's, now demolished, its site being included in Martin's bank; and another favourite resort of doctors hereby was Batson's, where, as the 'Connoisseur' says, 'the dispensers of life and death flock together, like birds of prey watching for carcases. I never enter this place but it serves as a memento mori to me.... Batson's has been reckoned the seat of solemn stupidity.'

Coffee-houses, indeed, had their distinct sets of customers. St. Paul's, for instance, was patronized by the clergy, both by those with fat livings and by 'battered crapes,' who plied there for an occasional burial or sermon. Dick's was frequented by members of the Temple, with whom, in 1737, Mrs. Yarrow and her daughter, who kept the house, were great favourites; wherefore, when the Rev. James Miller brought out a comedy, called 'The Coffee-House,' in which the ladies were thought to be indicated—the engraver having unfortunately fixed upon Dick's Coffee-House as the frontispiece scene—the Templars attended the first representation, and hissed the piece off the boards. Button's, in Covent Garden, was the resort of Addison and Steele, of Pope and Swift, of Savage and Davenant—in fact, of the wits of the time. At this house was the lion's head through whose mouth letters were dropped for the Tatlers and Spectators. The head was afterwards transferred to the Bedford Coffee-House, under the Piazza, and eventually, in 1827, was purchased by the Duke of Bedford, and is now at Woburn Abbey; Bedford's was the successor of Button's, and is described in the 'Memoirs' of it as having been signalized for many years as 'the emporium of wit, the seat of criticism, and the standard of taste.' In 1659 was founded the Rota Club by James Charrington, a political writer, and its members met at Miles's, in Old Palace Yard. Pepys attended one of its meetings on January 10, 1659-60. It was a kind of debating-society for the dissemination of Republican opinions. Coffee-houses, indeed, at that period became important political institutions. Nothing resembling the modern newspaper then existed; in consequence, these houses were the chief organs through which the public opinion vented itself, and so threatening to the Court did, in course of time, their influence appear, that on December 29, 1675, the King and his Cabal Ministry issued a proclamation for shutting up and suppressing all coffee-houses, 'because in such houses, and by occasion of the meeting of disaffected persons in them, diverse false, malicious, and scandalous reports were devised and spread abroad, to the defamation of his Majesty's Government, and to the disturbance of the quiet and peace of the realm.' The opinions of the judges were taken on this ridiculous edict, and they sapiently reported 'that retailing coffee might be an innocent trade, but as it was used to nourish sedition, spread lies, and scandalize great men, it might also be a common nuisance.' On a petition of the merchants and retailers of coffee and tea, permission was granted to keep open the coffee-houses until June 24 next, under an admonition that 'the masters of them should prevent all scandalous papers, books, and libels from being read in them.' This, of course, was a huge joke on the part of the Cabal, who thus constituted the concoctors and dispensers of 'dishes'—to use the hideous word then employed—of coffee and tea censors and licensers of books, and judges of the truth or falsehood of political opinions and intelligence. After that no more was heard of the matter, and the coffee-houses remained political debating clubs, as is proved by the remarks on them in the Spectator and similar publications. See, for instance, Nos. 403, 476, 481, 521, etc.

The first London coffee-house was set up by one Bowman, coachman to Mr. Hodges, a Turkey merchant. Others say that Mr. Edwards brought over with him a Ragusa servant, Pasqua Rosee, who was associated with Bowman in establishing the first coffee-house in St. Michael's Alley, Cornhill. But the partners soon quarrelled. They parted, and Bowman opened a coffee-house in St. Michael's Churchyard, from which we may infer that the public took to the new drink. Rosee issued handbills headed: 'The vertue of the coffee-drink. First made and publicly sold in England by Pasqua Rosee, at the sign of his own head.' The original of one of them is preserved in the British Museum. It is generally said that the second coffee-house in London was that established as the Rainbow (now a tavern) in Fleet Street, by one Fair, a barber, in the year 1657. In the Mercurius Politicus of September 30, 1658, an advertisement appeared, setting forth the virtues of the then equally new beverage, namely, tcha, or tay, or tee, which was sold at the Sultaness Head Cophee-house, in Sweeting's Rents, by the Royal Exchange. We thus see that as early as 1658 there were already three coffee-houses in London. But coffee met with opponents. The vintners called it 'sooty drink'; lampooners said it undermined virile power, and that to drink it was to ape the Turks and insult one's canary-drinking ancestors. Fair, the founder of the Rainbow, already mentioned, was indicted for 'making and selling a sort of liquor, called coffee, whereby in making it he annoyed his neighbours by evil smells, and for keeping of fire for the most part night and day, to the great danger and affrightment of his neighbours.' But Farr stood his ground, and in time became a person of importance in the parish, and coffee-houses multiplied. Cornhill and its purlieus were full of them. There were the Great Turk, Sword Blade, Rainbow, Garraway, Jerusalem, Tom's, and Weston's Coffee-Houses in Exchange Alley alone; in St. Michael's Alley, close by, there were, besides Rosee's, Williams's, and other coffee-houses. They also, as we have seen, had been established further west than the City, and they were also, as already mentioned, places of rendezvous, where appointments were made, where lawyers met clients, and doctors patients, merchants their customers, clerks their masters, where farce-writers, journalists, politicians, and literary hacks went to pick up ideas, and, as it was then called, watch, and if they could, catch the humours of the town. The Spectator, in his very first number, acknowledges his indebtedness to coffee-houses. 'There is no place of general resort,' he says, 'wherein I do not often make my appearance. Sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round of politicians at Will's (on the north side of Russell Street, at the corner of Bow Street), and listening with great attention to the narratives that are made in those little circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at Child's (St. Paul's Churchyard), and whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the Postman, overhear the conversation of every table in the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's (the famous Whig coffee-house from the time of Queen Anne to late in the reign of George III.), and sometimes join the little committee of politics in the inner room, as one who comes there to hear and improve.'

There was another Will's in Serle Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, which was also a haunt of the Spectator, as were the other coffee-houses in that neighbourhood. He says in his ninety-ninth number: 'I do not know that I meet in any of my walks objects which move both my spleen and laughter so effectually as these young fellows at the Grecian, Squire's, Searle's, and all other coffee-houses adjacent to the law, who rise early for no other purpose but to publish their laziness.' It appears that it was usual to resort to the coffee-house as early as six o'clock in the morning. In 'Moser's Vestiges,' Will's is thus referred to: 'All the beaux that used to breakfast in the coffee-houses and taverns appendant to the Inns of Court struck their morning strokes in an elegant déshabille, which was carelessly confined by a sash of yellow, red, blue, green, etc., according to the taste of the wearer. The idle fashion was not quite worn out in 1765. We can remember having seen some of these early loungers in their nightgowns, caps, etc., at Will's, Lincoln's Inn Gate, about that period.'

But the coffee-houses were not all for beer and skittles only. In the City especially, the business of the City, and of England, in fact, was transacted in them. Merchants and other business people, professional men, brokers, agents, had not then their private offices, which could only be reached through the ante-den of quill-driving cerberi, milgo clerks. All the transactions of daily life were then largely carried on in public, as they are in all communities, until they arrive at a high state of civilization. Even now among the peasantry of various European countries a man cannot have his child christened without the ceremony being rendered a public spectacle. And so here in England, in the barbarous days of dingy and musty coffee-houses, they were consulting-rooms, offices, counting-houses, auction-rooms, and shops. When the business was done, or in order to further it, refreshments of all sorts were handy, for the coffee-house did not confine itself to that innocent beverage, but supplied stronger stuffs; it was, in fact, a tavern, and many of the houses, now openly so called, were formerly coffee-houses. And the business transacted at them was, as may be imagined, of the most varied character. Agents for the purchase or sale of estates, houses and other property, instead of seeing people at their offices, met them at coffee-houses. Thus one Thomas Rogers advertised that he gave attendance daily at the Rainbow by the Temple; on Tuesdays at Tom's, by the Exchange, and on Thursdays at Will's, near Whitehall, for transacting agency business. This was legitimate enough, but what of the sale of human flesh at a coffee-house? In 1708 an advertisement appeared: 'A black boy, twelve years of age, fit to wait on a gentleman, to be disposed of at Denis's Coffee-house, in Finch-lane.' And again, in 1728: 'To be sold, a negro boy, aged eleven years. Enquire at the Virginia Coffee-house, Threadneedle-street.' Sometimes the keeper of the coffee-house sold goods on account of others; thus from an advertisement in the Postman, January, 1705, we learn that Mr. Shipton, at John's Coffee-house, in Exchange Alley, sold someone's famous razor strops. The landlords of those places, indeed, seem to have been very accommodating, especially in the taking in of letters, thus anticipating the practice of modern newspaper shops. And they were not squeamish as to the advertisements, answers to which were to be sent to them. Thus a gentleman (?) in the General Advertiser, October, 1745, expressed a wish to hear from a lady he had seen in one of the left-hand boxes at Drury Lane, and who seemed to take particular notice of a gentleman who sat about the middle of the pit (the advertiser, of course). Letter to be left for 'P.M.F.', at the Portugal Coffee-house, near the Exchange. In 1762 a young man advertised for his mother, 'who, in 1740, resided at a certain village near Bath, where she was delivered of a son, whom she left with a sum of money under the care of a person in the same parish, and promised to fetch him at a certain age, but has not since been heard of ... if living, she is asked to send a letter to "J.E.", at the Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's Churchyard ... this advertisement is published by the person himself [i.e., the son, born near Bath] not from motives of necessity, or to court any assistance (he being by a series of happy circumstances possessed of an easy and independent fortune).' It would, I fancy, be difficult at the present day to find anyone, having a reputation of any note to keep up, willing to receive answers to such an advertisement, which, if it was not a fraud, looked terribly like an attempt at one. It happened in those days, as it occasionally does now, that the estates of gentlemen who married late in life passed away to remote branches; the 'young gentleman' had no doubt reflected on this subject. The Turk's Head seems, to judge by advertisements, to have been somewhat heathenish. Here is another advertisement, also from the Morning Post, answers to which it took in: 'Whereas there are ladies, who have £2,000, £3,000, or £4,000 at their command, and who, from not knowing how to dispose of the same to the greatest advantage ... afford them but a scanty maintenance ... the advertiser (who is a gentleman of independent fortune, strict honour and character, and above reward) acquaints such ladies that if they will favour him with their name and address ... he will put them into a method by which they may, without any trouble, and with an absolute certainty, place out their money, so as to produce them a clear interest of 10 or 12 per cent.... on good and safe securities. Direct to "R.J.," Esq., at the Turk's Head Coffee-house, Strand.' We pity any lady who fell into the clutches of this 'gentleman of independent fortune'! And how the Turk's Head must have grinned when answers to 'R.J.' arrived! About the same time a gentleman advertised that he knew a method, which reduced it almost to a certainty to win a considerable sum by insuring numbers in the lottery. For ten guineas the gentleman was prepared to 'discover the plan.' Answers to be sent to the York Coffee-house, St. James's Street. Another gentleman is willing to lend £3,000 to anyone having sufficient interest to procure him a Government appointment, worth £200 or £300 per annum. Answers to this were to be sent to the Chapter Coffee-house, St. Paul's. To some of the coffee-houses it would seem porters were attached, ready to run errands for customers, or the outside public; some of them seem to have earned a reputation of a certain character. Thus Cynthio (Spectator, No. 398) employs Robin, the porter, who waits Will's Coffee-house, to take a letter to Flavia. 'Robin, you must know,' we are told, 'is the best man in the town for carrying a billet; the fellow has a thin body, swift step, demure looks, sufficient sense, and knows the town ... the fellow covers his knowledge of the nature of his messages with the most exquisite low humour imaginable; the first he obliged Flavia to take was by complaining to her that he had a wife and three children, and if she did not take that letter, which he was sure there was no harm in, but rather love, his family must go supperless to bed, for the gentleman would pay him according as he did his business.' He would seem to have been a mild Leporello.

We find the cheapness of living at coffee-houses frequently extolled in the publications and conversations of the day in which they were most flourishing. An Irish painter, whom Johnson knew, declared that £30 a year was enough to enable a man to live in London, without being contemptible. He allowed £10 for clothes and linen. He said a man might live in a garret at 1s. 6d. a week; few people would inquire where he lodged, and if they did, it was easy to say: 'Sir, you will find me at such and such a place'—just as nowadays impecunious swells, who live in garrets, manage to keep up their club subscription, and give as their address that of the club. By spending threepence at a coffee-house, Johnson's Irish painter further argued, a man 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 the painter went out to pay visits, as Swift also did.

With regard to the persons employed in a coffee-house, we learn from one advertisement: 'To prevent all mistakes among gentlemen of the other end of the town, who come but once a week to St. James's Coffee-house, either by miscalling the servants, or requiring such things from them as are not properly within their respective provinces, this is to give notice that Kidney, keeper of the book-debts of the outlying customers, and observer of those who go off without paying, having resigned that employment, is succeeded by John Sowton, to whose place of caterer of messages and first coffee-grinder William Bird is promoted, and Samuel Bardock comes as shoe-cleaner in the room of the said Bird.'

Well, the coffee-houses are things of the past; a few survive as taverns. What may be considered as their successors are called coffee-shops, patronized by working-men chiefly, but the 'humours' are of the tamest description; they may supply statistics to temperance apostles, but no literary entertainment to the public.

IV.

OLD M.P.S AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS.

Somebody has said that, on making inquiry after a man you have not seen for a number of years, you may find him either in the hulks or in Parliament. This somebody evidently was a bit of a philosopher, who knew how to put the possibilities of human life in a nutshell. He understood that the same cause may have totally different effects: the same heat which softens lead hardens clay, the same abilities which may send a man to penal servitude may elevate him to the dignity of an M.P. And thus it happened that some queer people got into Parliament, which, no doubt, was the fact which gave rise to somebody's wise saw, and which was not to be wondered at in the good old days, before Reform and Corrupt Practices Prevention Acts, and similar humbugging interferences with the liberty of the subject, were dreamt of. In those good old days of rotten and pocket boroughs men had Parliamentary honours thrust upon them nolentes volentes. Thus, a noble lord, who owned several such boroughs, was asked by the returning officer whom he meant to nominate. Having no eligible candidate at hand, he named a waiter at White's Club, one Robert Mackreth; but, as he did not happen to be sure of the Christian name of his nominee, the election was declared to be void. Nothing daunted, his lordship persisted in his nomination. A fresh election was therefore held, when, the name of the waiter having been ascertained, he was returned as a matter of course, and Robert Mackreth, Esq., took his seat in St. Stephen's. This was possible in the days of Eldon and Perceval; in fact, in the early part of this century, 306 members, more than half of the House of Commons, were returned by 160 persons, and in 1830 it was admitted that, though there were men of ability in the Cabinet, such as Brougham, Lansdowne, Melbourne, Palmerston, the members of the House were 'persons of very narrow capacities, of small reputation for talent, and without influence with the people.'

However, the Reform Bill was passed in 1832, and pocket boroughs were abolished. There had been thirty-seven places returning members with constituencies not exceeding fifty electors, and fourteen of those places had not more than twenty electors. There were three boroughs each containing only one £10 householder. One of the boroughs only paid in assessed taxes £3 9s., another £16 8s. 9d., a third £40 17s. 1d. But, luckily for the public, the Reform Bill did not abolish the fun of the flags, music, beer, and jokes of elections. The delicate attentions which could still be paid to candidates remained in full swing. Thus, we remember an election in the Isle of Wight: The father of one of the candidates for Parliamentary distinction, in the Conservative interest, had, in his youthful days, married a lady who, in a peripatetic manner, dealt in oysters. His rival, a Radical, paid him the compliment of sending him daily barrows and truck-loads of oyster-shells, which were, with his kind regards, discharged in front of the hotel where his committee was established, and from whose windows he addressed the electors. It was splendid fun, and calculated to impress the intelligent foreigner. It showed how highly the British public appreciated their elective franchise. Pleasantries had, indeed, always been the rule at election-time. When Fox, in 1802, canvassed Westminster, he asked a shopkeeper on the opposite side for his vote and interest, when the latter produced a halter, and said that was all he could give him. Fox thanked him, but said he could not think of depriving him of it, as no doubt it was a family relic. At an election at Norwich in 1875 the committee-room of the Conservative candidate was attacked, but the agent kept up the fire and had red-hot pokers ready, which, standing at the top of the stairs, he offered to his assailants, but they would not take them! In the same town the Liberals held a prayer-meeting, at which the Conservatives presented each man with one of Moody and Sankey's hymn-books, with something between the leaves. In fact, the Reform Bill had not made elections pure. William Roupell obtained his seat for Lambeth by the expenditure of £10,000, 'and,' said a man well able to judge of the truth of his assertion, 'if he were released from prison (to which he was sent for life for his forgeries) and would spend another £10,000, he would be re-elected, in spite of his having proved a criminal.'

Money carried the day at elections. According to a speech made by Mr. Bright at Glasgow in 1866, a member had told him that his election had cost him £9,000 already, and that he had £3,000 more to pay. At a contest in North Shropshire in 1876, the expenses of the successful candidate, Mr. Stanley Leighton, amounted to £11,727, and of the defeated candidate, Mr. Mainwaring, to £10,688. At the General Election of 1880, in the county of Middlesex, the expenses of the successful candidates, Lord George Hamilton and Mr. Octavius Coope, were £11,506. The cost of the Gravesend election, and the petition which followed and unseated the candidate returned, was estimated at £20,000. But the most expensive contest ever known in electioneering was that for the representation of Yorkshire. The candidates were Viscount Milton, son of Earl Fitzwilliam, a Whig; the Hon. Henry Lascelles, son of Lord Harewood, a Tory; and William Wilberforce, in the Dissenting and Independent interest. The election was carried on for fifteen days, Mr. Wilberforce being at the head of the poll all the time. It terminated in his favour and in that of Lord Milton. The contest is said to have cost the parties near half a million pounds. The expenses of Wilberforce were defrayed by public subscription, more than double the sum being raised within a few days, and one moiety was afterwards returned to the subscribers. When Whitbread, the brewer, first opposed the Duke of Bedford's interest at Bedford, the Duke informed him that he would spend £50,000 rather than that he should come in. Whitbread replied that was nothing, the sale of his grains would pay for that. Now, John Elwes, the miser, knew better than that. Though worth half a million of money, he entered Parliament, by the interest of Lord Craven, at the expense of 1s. 6d., for which he had a dinner at Abingdon. From 1774 he sat for the next twelve years for Berkshire, his conduct being perfectly independent, and in his case there had been no bribery that could be brought home to him. He was a great gambler, and, after staking large sums all night, he would, in the morning, go to Smithfield to await the arrival of his cattle from his farms in Essex, and, if not arrived, would walk on to meet them. He wore a wig; if he found one thrown away into the gutter, he would appropriate and wear it. In those days members occasionally wore dress-swords at the House. One day a gentleman seated next to Elwes was rising to leave his place, and just at that moment Elwes bent forward, so that the point of the sword the gentleman wore came in contact with Elwes's wig, which it whisked off and carried away. The House was instantly in a roar of laughter, whilst the gentleman, unconscious of what he had done, calmly walked away, and Elwes after him to recover his wig, which looked as if it was one of those he had picked up in the gutter.

Bribes were expected and given, as we have seen. Of course, the thing was not done openly. Tricks were practised, understood by all parties. The agent would sit in a room in an out-of-the-way place. A voter would come in; the agent would say, 'How are you to-day?' and hold up three fingers. 'I am not very well,' the answer would be, when the agent would accidentally hold up his hand, upon which the voter would say that he thought fresh air would do him good, and look out of the window as if examining the sky. In the meantime the agent would place five sovereigns on the table, and also go to look at the weather. His back being turned to the table, the voter would quietly slip the cash into his pocket, and, saying 'Good-morning,' take his departure. And how could any bribery be proved? But occasionally the people expecting bribes were nicely taken in. Lord Cochrane, when he first stood for Honiton, refused to give bribes, and the seat was secured by his opponent, who gave £5 for every vote. On this Cochrane sent the bellman round to announce that he would give to every one of the minority who had voted for him 10 guineas. At the next election no questions were asked, and Cochrane was returned by an overwhelming majority. Those who had voted for him then intimated that they expected some acknowledgment for their support. He declined to give a penny, and when he was reminded that, after the former election, he had given 10 guineas to every one of the minority, he coolly replied that this was for their disinterestedness in refusing his opponent's £5, and that to pay them now would be acting in violation of his principle not to bribe. And the disinterested voters marched off with faces as long as those of horses.

The Reform Bill of 1832, which was highly objectionable to old-fashioned Conservatives, was accused by them of having introduced some very queer and curious members into the House. Through this Bill the bone-grubber, as Raike calls him, W. Cobbett, was returned for Oldham, and Brighton, under the very nose of the Court, returned two rampant Radicals, who openly talked of reducing the allowance made to the King and Queen. Nay, John Gully, a prize-fighter, was returned to the House for Pontefract, and was re-elected at the next election. He at one time kept the Plough Inn in Carey Street, which was pulled down just before the erection of the new Law Courts. Eventually he resigned his seat on account of ill-health, as he averred; but as he became a great patron of racing, and was a constant attendant at the various race-courses, his ill-health was probably only a pretence for quitting a sphere for which he felt himself unfit. On his first election the following epigram appeared against him:

'If anyone ask why should Pontefract sully

Its name by returning to Parliament Gully,

The etymological cause, I suppose, is

He's broken the bridges of so many noses.'

 

Another member who may be reckoned among the curiosities who have sat in the House was William Roupell. He was the illegitimate son of Richard Palmer Roupell, a wealthy lead merchant, who invested a large sum in the purchase of land, to which he gave the name of the Roupell Park Estate. William was his favourite son, though he had other legitimate children; and it was not till a few days before his father's death that he learnt the secret of his own birth. The former had made a will, by which he left this property to William, on condition of his making annual payments to his brothers and sisters; but as this would have brought to light the forgeries he had already committed during his father's lifetime, to the amount of about £150,000, he, on his father's death, managed to get hold of the will, which eventually he destroyed, substituting a forged one, leaving all to his wife and William; and the latter quickly persuaded his mother to confer the greater part of the estates on him by deed of gift. He soon obtained the social position the great wealth he now possessed usually commands; he stood for Lambeth, and by the expenditure of £10,000, as already mentioned, he obtained the seat. But Roupell was not only a rogue, but a fool. By gambling and extravagance he soon ran through the fortune he had obtained by crooked means. Finding the detection of his crimes inevitable, he fled to Spain, but eventually returned, and gave himself up to justice, confessing the forgeries he had committed. Of course, the persons who had purchased property then became aware that the deeds by which they held it were worthless. The court considered his offences so serious that in 1862 it condemned him to penal servitude for life; but he was released after an imprisonment of fourteen years. In 1876 he left Portland a free man again. But it is with Roupell as a member of Parliament we are chiefly concerned. In that capacity he did not shine. He remained in the House long enough to prove that he was disqualified to represent a large borough like Lambeth. He took no part in the debates, nor did he appear to be able to grapple with and master any question connected with politics. Being asked one evening at the Horns, when meeting his constituents, why he did not speak in the House of Commons, he replied: 'Because I do not want to make a fool of myself.' Next morning the Times made merry with this confession. He was consequently regarded as a cipher, but he was supported by his supposed wealth. But soon suspicious murmurs began to be heard, and he prepared for his flight to Spain; and he decamped without making any application for the Chiltern Hundreds, so that for a considerable time his place in Parliament could not be filled up. Advertisements in Galignani apprised him of the omission, and at length the application was made. He did not meet with much pity, either from the public or the press; squibs without end appeared against him in the papers. We append a specimen of a short one:

'Now, the Lambeth folks this wealthy gent

As their member did decide on,

But little they knew he'd happened to do

Some things he didn't oughter;

For he'd forged a will and several deeds....

'And the public said: "Well, this here Roupell

Has got no more than he oughter."

So there was an end of the wealthy gent

As was member from over the water.'

 

Lambeth appears to have been unfortunate in the selection of its Parliamentary candidates. In 1852 the parochial party, wishing for a local man, formed themselves into a committee to secure the election of Mr. Joseph Harvey, of Lambeth House, a drapery establishment in the Westminster Bridge Road. Mr. Harvey had never taken an active part in public matters; his tastes lay not that way. He shrank from public life, and had no training or aptitude for addressing large meetings. However, he was forced forward; but when he spoke at the Horns—the speech was written for him by someone else—his total incapacity for the position thrust on him became so apparent that he gave up the contest, but not before he had afforded plenty of food to the squib-writers.

Parliament is not above the use of nicknames, either by way of praise or in scorn. Cobbett's talent for fastening such names on anyone he disliked was very great. He invented 'Prosperity Robinson,' 'Æolus Canning,' 'Pink-nosed Liverpool,' 'unbaptized, buttonless blackguards,' or Quakers. Lord Yarmouth, from the colour of his whiskers, and from the place which gave him his title, was known as 'Red Herrings.' Lord Durham so often opposed his colleagues in the Cabinet that he was called the 'Dissenting Minister.' Thomas Duncombe was so popular that he was always spoken of as 'Honest' or 'Poor' Tom; his French friends called him 'Cher Tomie.' John Arthur Roebuck had a habit of bringing forward, in a startling way, facts he had got hold of, and thus raising opposition; and from a passage in a speech he made at the Cutlers' Feast, at Sheffield, in 1858, obtained the nickname of 'Tear 'em.' He had just paid a visit to Cherbourg, and returned home with feelings very unfriendly to the then ruler of France, to which he gave expression at the feast, excusing himself at the same time for using such language towards a neighbour by saying: 'The farmer who goes to sleep, having placed the watch-dog, Tear 'em, over his rick-yard, hears that dog bark. He bawls out of the window: "Down, Tear 'em, down!" And Tear 'em does not again disturb his sleep, till he is woke up by the strong blaze of his corn and hay ricks. I am Tear 'em. Beware! Cherbourg is a standing menace to England.' Michael Angelo Taylor was known by the sobriquet of 'Chicken' Taylor. On some points of law he had answered the great lawyer Bearcroft, but not without apologizing for his venturing, he being but a chicken in the law, on a fight with the cock of Westminster Hall. Charles Wynn was brother to Sir Watkin Wynn, and from a peculiarity in the utterances of the latter, and the shrillness of Charles's voice, the two went by the nicknames of 'Bubble and Squeak.' Sir Watkin was also known as 'Small Journal' Wynn, from his extensive knowledge of Parliamentary rule. William Cowper, falsely accused of having married a second wife whilst his first was still alive, was known as 'Will Bigamy.'

Strangers formerly were not allowed to be present at the deliberations of the House; now they are admitted to the Strangers' Gallery, but never to the floor of the House. Yet sometimes there will be an intruder. Once Lord North, when speaking, was interrupted by the barking of a dog which had crept in. He turned round, and said: 'Mr. Speaker, I am interrupted by a new member.' The dog was driven out, but got in again, and recommenced barking, when Lord North, in his dry way, said: 'Spoke once.'

We are near the limits of our space. Let us conclude with recording a few of the strange designations given to Parliaments. The Parliament de la Bonde was a Parliament in the reign of Edward II., to which the Barons came armed against the Spencers, with coloured bands, or 'bonds,' upon their sleeves, by way of distinction. The Diabolical Parliament was one held at Coventry in the thirty-eighth year of Henry VI.'s reign, and in which Edward, Earl of March, afterwards King, and several of the nobility, were attainted. The Unlearned Parliament, held at Coventry in the sixth year of the reign of Henry IV., was so called by way of derision, because, by a special precept to the sheriffs in their several counties, no lawyers were to be admitted thereto. The Insane Parliament, which was held at Oxford in the forty-first year of the reign of Henry III., obtained this name from the extraordinary proceedings of the Lords, who came with great retinues of armed men, 'when contention grew very high, and many things were enacted contrary to the King's prerogative.' We might add to the list, but the gas is being turned off; so vale!

V.

FAMOUS OLD ACTORS.

There is a boom just now in the theatrical world. New theatres are springing up, not only in London proper, but in all its suburbs, yet it is only history repeating itself. From 1570 to 1629 no less than seventeen playhouses had been built in London, and London then extended only from the Tower to Westminster, and from Oxford Street to Blackman Street in the Borough. The first London theatre was the Fortune,[#] opened about the year 1600, a large round, brick building between Whitecross Street and Golding—now Golden—Lane, which was burnt down on December 9, 1621. The town was then full of actors, for besides those playing at the various theatres, there were royal comedians. Many noblemen kept companies of players, nay, the lawyers acted in the Inns of Court, and there were actors of note among them. But the inevitable reaction ensued. Amidst the storms of the Revolution the stage was neglected. Even Shakespeare had to take a back-seat till Garrick brought him into fashion again, though it is chiefly to the learned and enthusiastic criticism and appreciation of German students of Shakespeare that the revival of his plays on the stage is due. His reputation was 'made in Germany,' and the Germans we have to thank for a Shakespeare who is presentable to a modern audience, which the original writer was not; his plays were only fit to be acted before the savages who delighted in bull and bear baiting. This estimate of the Shakespearian drama is not in accordance with the prevailing sentiment, but we have a right to our opinions and the courage to express them. However, this is only incidental to our theme, which deals more with actors and acting than with the plays they took parts in.

[#] The Curtain is said to have been erected in 1570, on the site of the present Curtain Road, but the date is doubtful, and it was more of an inn than a playhouse.

There is a general opinion abroad that the realistic play is of quite modern date, probably brought on the stage in 'L'Assommoir.' In a publication of July, 1797, I find it stated that 'our managers some time ago conceived it would be proper to introduce realities instead of fictions. Hence we have seen real horses and real bulls on the stage, gracing the triumphal entry of some hero. Hence, too, real water has been supplied in such quantities that Harlequin's leap into the sea would now really be no joke.... The introduction of water will, no doubt, facilitate the introduction of real sea-fights, provided we can get real admirals and seamen.' But the writer seems to have been oblivious of the fact that, in the middle of the last century, already the water of the New River had been carried under the flooring of Sadler's Wells Theatre, the boards being removed, for the exhibition of aquatic performances. And as to this century, long before the more recent realistic plays, we have seen in the sixties a real cab with a real horse brought on to the stage to give the heroine, who is about to elope, the opportunity of uttering the pun: 'Now, four-wheeler, wo!' (for weal or woe!). And a very good pun it is.

The formation of the English drama is chiefly due to the 'Children of Paul,' or pupils of St. Paul's School, in those days nicknamed the 'Pigeons of St. Paul.' The dramatic celebrity of these juvenile performers goes back as far as the year 1378. Originally they confined themselves to 'moralities,' but in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, before whom they acted on various occasions, they appeared in the regular drama with considerable applause. They exhibited burlesque interludes and farcical comedies. Their schoolroom, which stood behind the Convocation House near St. Paul's, was their stage; but about the year 1580 the citizens, bent on driving all players out of the city, caused it to be removed. The plague had, as usual, caused great ravages in London, and it was thought that the actors were great means of spreading it, wherefore their performances were altogether prohibited. When the 'Children of Paul' performed out of their own premises, it was generally the Blackfriars Theatre they resorted to. When they performed in the school-house the admission was 2d. This charge was made to keep the company select, and according to a passage in 'Jacke Drum's Entertainment,' first printed in 1601, it was select:

'SIR EDWARD: I saw the "Children of Paul's" last night, and troth, they pleased me prettie, prettie well. The apes in time will do it handsomely.

'PLANET: I like the audience that frequenteth there with much applause. A man shall not be choked with the stench of garlick, nor be passed to the barmy jacket of a beer brewer.'

The stage did not attain a dignified position till the time of Shakespeare. He and his fellow-actors—Burbage, Heminge, Condell, Taylor, Kemp, Sly—ennobled it, and since then the roll of English actors who have gained distinction on the boards is very long, and our limited space allows us to refer to but a few of them, and then only to some characteristic traits.

Let us commence with a defence of Garrick's conduct towards Johnson. When the latter was preparing his edition of 'Shakespeare,' Garrick offered him the use of his choice library. But, entering the room, he found Johnson, according to his usual habit, pulling the books off the shelves, breaking their backs, more easily to read them, and throwing them carelessly on the floor. Garrick naturally grew very angry, for which he has been much abused, charged with 'having acted in abominably bad taste ... without any true gentlemanly feeling ... that knowing his friend's character ... Garrick ought to have been prepared for any slight unfavourable consequences. He ought to have known that much might be excused in so great a man,' etc. Now, this is most undeserved censure on a man of greater parts than Johnson ever could boast of. The only thing he ever wrote which will live is his Dictionary. As to his greatness, if unabashed bounce and a dictatorial jaw constitute greatness, he certainly, judging him by Bozzy's account, could lay claim to such. Garrick's generosity induced him to offer a bear the use of his books. Still, he had a right to expect that even a bear, who professed to admire and practise literature, would know how to treat books. But the bear remained a bear everywhere. He treated Mr. Thrale's books no better. But Garrick was generous in other ways. He was often visited at his villa, near Sunbury, by a gentleman with whom he used to have long and violent arguments on various matters, the visitor generally differing from, and contradicting, his host. One day Garrick, at the gentleman's request, readily lent him £100. Their discussions continued, but the visitor was no longer so violent in his arguments, nor did he contradict Garrick as he had done formerly. On one occasion, when Garrick had reintroduced an argument his friend had always violently combated, but now mildly conceded, Garrick, who liked a lively discussion, jumped up and exclaimed: 'Pay me my hundred pounds, or contradict me!' Garrick's generous nature broke forth in that exclamation, and he did not wish his friend to feel under an obligation. That his character was gentle and chivalrous is proved by the fact that his wife and he were considered the fondest pair ever known, though the lady was a woman with plenty of spirit. Her letter of remonstrance against Kean's Abel Drugger was brief: 'DEAR SIR,—You don't know how to play Abel Drugger.' To which Kean courteously, yet wittily, replied: 'DEAR MADAM,—I know it.' She must have been very sprightly, too, for when at the age of ninety-eight, and about two months before her death (November, 1822), she visited Westminster Abbey, she asked the clergyman who attended her if there would be room for her by the side of her David—'not,' she said, 'that I think I am likely soon to require it, for I am yet a mere girl!' She was a Viennese danseuse, Madame Violette, when Garrick married her, and Horace Walpole reports that it was whispered at the time that she had been sent over to England by no less a person than the Empress-Queen, Maria Theresa, to be out of the way of that somewhat jealous lady's husband. Apprehensive that he might be ridiculed for marrying a dancer, Garrick got some friend to satirize him publicly beforehand. But we have seen that the marriage turned out a very happy one. Garrick had been the pupil of Johnson, when the latter kept, or attempted to keep, a school near Lichfield, and he and his two fellow-pupils (he never had more than two) used to peep through the keyhole of his bedroom that they might turn into ridicule the doctor's awkward fondness for Mrs. Johnson, who was by many years her husband's senior, and elephantine in her figure, with swollen cheeks and a red complexion, produced by paint and the liberal use of cordials. In after-years Garrick used to exhibit her, by his exquisite talent of mimicry, so as to excite the heartiest bursts of laughter. This may seem ungenerous, but Johnson paid Garrick back in the same coin. Vexed at Garrick's great success in his profession, he made it his business always to express the greatest contempt for actors.

Quin, the contemporary of Garrick, and his rival, was employed by Prince Frederick to instruct the Royal children in elocution, and when he was informed of the graceful manner in which George III. had delivered his first speech from the throne, he proudly said: 'Aye, it was I who taught the boy to speak.' Quin could be witty. Disputing concerning the execution of Charles I., and his opponent asking, 'But by what laws was he put to death?' Quin replied: 'By all the laws he had left them.' When playing at Bath, he was at an evening party, where the transmigration of souls was being discussed. A lady, remarkable for the whiteness of her neck and bust, asked him what animal he would wish to be transformed into. Quin, looking sharply at a fly then travelling over her white neck, with an arch glance at her, said: 'A fly!' On another occasion to Lady Berkeley, a celebrated beauty, he said: 'Why, your ladyship is looking as charming as the spring.' The season was spring, but the day was raw and cold, and Quin, seeing he had paid the lady but a poor compliment, corrected himself by adding: 'Or, rather, I wish the spring would look a little more like your ladyship.'

In Clare Street, Clare Market, there is a public-house called the Sun. John Rich, the harlequin and lessee of the Duke's Theatre in Portugal Street (long since taken down), returning from the theatre in a hackney-coach, ordered to be driven to the Sun. On arriving there, he jumped out of the coach, and through the window into the public-house. The coachman thought his fare was a 'bilk'; but whilst he was still looking up and down the street, Rich again jumped into the coach, and told the driver to take him to another public-house. On reaching it, Rich offered to pay the coachman, but the latter refused the money, saying: 'No, none of your money, Mr. Devil; though you wear shoes, I can see your hoofs'; and he drove off as quickly as possible. The theatre called the Duke's Theatre, in Portugal Street, was rebuilt by Christopher Rich, the father of the above-mentioned John, but he died before the building was quite finished, and it was opened by John; and it is in this theatre that the modern stage took its rise, and here the earliest Shakespearian revivals took place. Quin was one of the performers there; and there the 'Beggar's Opera' was first produced, and acted on sixty-two nights in one season, causing the saying that it made Gay rich and Rich gay. The opera was written under the auspices of the Duchess of Queensberry, who agreed to indemnify Rich in all expenses if the daring speculation should fail.

Rich, in 1731, built himself a new theatre—the Covent Garden Theatre—on a site granted by the Duke of Bedford, at a ground-rent of £100 per annum. When a new lease was granted, in 1792, the ground-rent was raised to £940 per annum. When Thomas Killigrew was manager of the theatre in Bear Yard, Clare Market, he was a great favourite with Charles II. This King at times showed great indifference to the business of the State, and refused to attend the Council. One day, when he had been long expected, Lord Lauderdale went to his apartments, but was refused admission. His lordship complained to Nell Gwynne, upon which she wagered him £100 that the King would that evening attend the Council. Then she sent for Killigrew, and asked him to dress as if for a journey, and to enter the King's rooms without ceremony, with further instructions what he was to do then. As soon as the King saw him, he said:

'What, Killigrew! Where are you going? Did I not give orders that I was not to be disturbed?'

'I don't mind your orders, and I am going as fast as I can.'

'Why, where are you going?'

'To hell,' replied the jester in a sepulchral tone.

'What are you going to do there?' asked the King, laughing.

'To fetch back Oliver Cromwell, to take some care of the national affairs, for I am sure your Majesty takes none.'

And the King went to the Council.

Another famous comedian of that day was Joe Haines, who was an Oxford M.A., but a scamp of the first order, who managed to cheat even the rector of the Jesuit College in Paris out of £40 by a pretended note from the Duke of Monmouth. Not long after, meeting with a simple-minded clergyman, he told him that he was one of the patentees of Drury Lane, and appointed him his chaplain, instructing him at the same time to go to the theatre with a large bell, to ring it, and call out: 'Players, come to prayers!' Which the clergyman did, till he found he had been hoaxed. In the reign of James II., this Haines turned Roman Catholic, and told Sunderland that the Virgin Mary had appeared, and said to him: 'Joe, arise!' To this Sunderland dryly replied that she should have said 'Joseph,' if only out of respect for her husband.

The greatest actor at the time of Charles II. was undoubtedly Thomas Betterton. He joined the company of Sir William Davenant in 1662. Pepys frequently went to see him. In those days the pay of actors was not what it is now; Betterton, in spite of the position he held in public estimation, never had more than £5 a week, including £1, by way of pension, to his wife, who retired in 1694. In 1709 he took a benefit, at which the money taken at the doors was £75, but he received also more than £450 in complimentary guineas; and in the following year he had another benefit, by which he netted about £1,000. Of course, according to modern notions, these are but small receipts; but they are better than what seems to have been the standard of theatrical payments in 1511—judging from a bill of that year, without name of place where the acting took place, but which states that it was performed on the feast of St. Margaret (July 20). According to legend, the devil, in the shape of a dragon, swallowed St. Margaret, but she speedily made her escape, and was thus considered to possess great powers of assisting women in childbirth. The bill runs thus:

'To musicians, for three nights, £0 5s. 6d.; for players in bread and ale, £0 3s. 1d.; for decorations, dresses, and play-books, £1 0s. 0d.; to John Hobbard, priest, and author of the piece, £0 2s. 8d.; for the place in which the presentation was held, £0 1s. 0d.; for furniture, £0 1s. 4d.; for fish and bread, £0 0s. 4d.; for painting three phantoms and devils, £0 0s. 6d.; and for four chickens for the hero, £0 0s. 4d.' We see here the author received only 2s. 8d. for writing the play. Matters have improved since then; Sheridan realized £3,000 by the sale of his altered play of 'Pizarro.' In the early part of this century authors of successful pieces received from the theatre from £250 to £500, and from the purchaser of the copyright for publication from £100 to £400. Then actors received £80 a week; favourite performers—stars, as we should now call them—were paid £50 a night. Actors have at times found very generous friends. When, in 1808, Covent Garden Theatre, then under the management of John P. Kemble, was burnt down, the loss was immense, and the insurances did not exceed £50,000. The then Duke of Northumberland offered Kemble the sum of £10,000 as a loan on his simple bond. The offer was accepted, and the bond given. On the day appointed for laying the first stone, the bond was returned cancelled!

Italian opera-singers have made large fortunes in England. When Owen McSwiney was lessee of the Haymarket, circa 1708, he engaged one Nicolini, a Neapolitan, who really was a splendid actor and a magnificent-looking man, with a voice which won universal admiration, at a salary of eight hundred guineas for the season—at that time an enormous sum. Nicolini left the stage in 1712, and returned to Italy, where he built himself a fine villa, which, as a testimony of his gratitude to the nation which enriched him, he called the English Folly. In 1721 a company of French comedians occupied the Haymarket, to the disgust of native actors. Aaron Hill, the dramatic author and opera-manager, consequently had occasion to write to John Rich: 'I suppose you know that the Duke of Montague and I have agreed that I am to have that house half the week, and the "French vermin" the other half.' International courtesies were at some discount at the time!

A few theatrical anecdotes may close these lucubrations. Actors sometimes are strangely affected by their own parts. Betterton, although his countenance was ruddy, when he performed Hamlet, through the violent and sudden emotion of horror at the presence of his father's spectre, instantly turned as white as his collar, whilst his whole body was affected by a strong tremor. When Booth the first time attempted the ghost, when Betterton acted Hamlet, that actor's look at him struck him with such horror that he became disconcerted to such a degree that he could not speak his part. Of Mrs. Siddons, it was said that by the force of fancy and reflection, she used to be so wrought up in preparing to play Lady Constance in 'King John,' that, when she set out from her own house to the theatre, she was already Constance herself.

Smith—better known as 'Gentleman Smith'—married a sister of Lord Sandwich. For some time the union was kept concealed, but an apt quotation of Charles Bannister elicited the truth:

'"Art thou not Romeo, and a Montague!"' said Bannister, when Foote bantered Smith on the subject. The latter was not proof against the sally, and acknowledged the marriage. 'Well,' said Bannister, 'I rejoice that you have got a Sandwich from the family; but if ever you get a dinner from them, I'll be hanged.' The prophecy proved true.

Michael Kelly was an English opera-singer, a musical composer, and at one time Sheridan's manager at Drury Lane. He then went into the wine trade, when Sheridan advised him to put over his door: 'Michael Kelly, composer of wine, and importer of music.'

VI.

OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS.

When I was a little boy I drew most of my notions of life and mankind from the picture-books for my use and instruction. I thought that Kings and Queens wore their crowns and sceptres all day long, and took them to bed with them, for I had thus seen them in the pictures in the books. One engraving, I remember, I saw of a severe-looking gentleman, who had thrown a gray doormat over his head, and sat behind a little desk everlastingly writing away with an enormous quill pen. It was this quill pen which specially riveted my attention. I was always given a steel pen in my writing-lessons. Why not a quill? I asked my mother who the man was, and was told he was a judge, and that what I took for a door-mat was a wig which he wore to look dignified, and the great weight of which was, moreover, intended to prevent his great legal learning from evaporating through the pores of his skull, which was bald, but compelled it to come out through his mouth only.

He used a quill pen to take notes of what was said by the parties contending before him, because that, being a natural production, could not possibly tell lies, whereas a steel pen, as an artificial contrivance, could not be depended on for veracity; wherefore, in all law proceedings, even at the lowest police court, quill pens only could be used, for the law on morality and public policy grounds strongly objects to lies; it is itself so truthful! Of course, I believed all my mother told me; children are so easy of belief if you only look serious when you tell them crammers. But I know better now, and crowns no longer represent to me sovereignty, nor wigs wisdom. Of another delusion, too, I have been cured. When I was a young man I was told that English law was the perfection of human wisdom. I believed this then, for I was only a bigger child without experience. But when I arrived at years of discretion—that is, when I began to observe and reflect—I could come to no other conclusion than that the axiom of the law's wisdom was a delusion. There are many ways of proving this, but one argument presents itself, which renders all further proofs unnecessary. Can a code which comprises a number of laws, the interpretation of whose import is liable to be declared by one judge to mean 'Yes,' whilst another as positively maintains it means 'No,' be called the perfection of human wisdom? The ever-growing frequency of appeals alone is sufficient to show that the existing laws are ambiguous in expression, and lend themselves to the idiosyncrasies of every individual judge, which is very far from perfection. Laws should be as precise in their definitions as mathematical formulæ. To substantiate my reasoning, let me quote an actual case: Some twelve or thirteen years ago, the captain of a cargo steamer belonging to a London firm, while loading maize at Odessa, signed bills of lading which were ante-dated. Between the false date and the real one, a few days after, of loading, there was a considerable fall in the price of maize, and the consignees, who were the sufferers by it, brought an action against the owners of the steamer, they—the consignees—having discovered the ante-dating, and recovered £437 damages, which the shipowners paid. On the captain's return to England, he made a claim of £190 for wages, which claim was admitted by the firm, but they set up a counter-claim for the damages they had had to pay to the consignees, through the captain's negligence and breach of duty in signing the ante-dated bills. The case went to trial before Mr. Justice Field and a jury, and was decided in the captain's favour, both as to his wages and the counter-claim. The owners appealed, and the Divisional Court, consisting of Grove, Denman, and Wills, ordered the judgment to be set aside, and a new trial granted. The Appeal Court ordered the original judgment in favour of the captain to be restored. The owners then took the cause into the House of Lords, where Lords Watson, Blackburn, and Fitzgerald restored the order of the Divisional Court in favour of the owners, with all the costs they had incurred. Now, here was a case of breach of duty as plain as it could be, yet it took four trials, the costs amounting to about £4,000, to decide the question. This is but one of a hundred similar cases which might be cited. With what wisdom can laws be framed which can give rise to so many judicial contradictory decisions? And the fault of this lies not with the judges, but with the legislators, whose only wisdom seems to consist in surrounding plain matter-of-fact with a network of sophistry, chicanery, and hair-splitting subtleties—a system which is constantly regretted by the judges themselves, who are ever ready to warn the public against indulgence in litigation, for English judges, as a rule, are straightforward, honourable men, who are inclined to take common-sense and impartial views, except when a political or theological bias gives a twist to their judgment. Nor can it be left out of our consideration that men educated in the legal schools of the Inns of Court, and by teachers strongly impressed with the dignity and importance of their pursuit, should adhere to it with cast-iron rigidity, thus opposing, as much as possible, the introduction of new, and in their estimation, revolutionary and destructive opinions. It is due to this adherence to, and maintenance of, the principles of a barbarous and an arbitrary regime that the judges still possess the tremendous power of committing for contempt of court any person who may make a remark displeasing to them, however innocently that remark may have been made. Years ago I defended an action brought against me by a tradesman for certain goods he alleged he had supplied me with. The action was tried in a County Court. The plaintiff made his statement, which introduced several particulars which were as new to me as they were false. But my solicitor whom I had brought with me could not know they were so. I turned towards the judge, and stated that I could prove in two minutes that there was not a word of truth in the plaintiff's statements. But the judge turned quite savagely towards me, saying:

'You must not speak to me. You have your solicitor here.'

'But,' I replied, 'my solicitor cannot know that these assertions are false!'

'Be silent!' thundered the judge. 'If you say another word I shall commit you for contempt.'

Of course I said no more, but, like the parrot, thought a lot. I knew that a judge, a mere County Court judge, who passes his life amidst the most sordid and depressing scenes of wretchedness, had the power of sending me to prison, and to keep me there till I made the most abject apology for a speech which was never intended to be offensive. Persons have been kept in prison for twenty years by the mere order of a judge, who was plaintiff, jury, and judge in every such case. This is scarcely in accordance with our ideas of justice. But this relic of a barbarous age will be abolished in time, as the Courts of Doctors' Commons, or the Palace Court, where a number of sleepy old gentlemen

'Were sittin' at their ease,

A-sendin' of their writs about,

And drorin' in their fees,'

have been abolished. And there is no doubt that our modern judges are superior in talent, adroitness, and acuteness to those of former days. They are men of high-breeding, combining in their characteristics those of the courtier and of the lawyer. Judges of the past were different; in fact, some of the old judges were noted for their eccentricities. Lord Thurlow was one of them. When he was still an aspirant for forensic fame, he was one evening at Nando's Coffee-house—now a hairdresser's shop, opposite Chancery Lane, falsely called the palace of Henry VIII. and Cardinal Wolsey. Arguing keenly about a celebrated case then before the courts, he was heard by some lawyers, who were so pleased with his handling of the matter that next day they appointed him junior counsel, and the cause won him a silk gown. This was in 1754. It is asserted that he was singularly ugly, and that when his portrait was shown to Lavater, the physiognomist said: 'Whether that man is on earth or in another place, which shall be nameless, I know not; but wherever he is, he is a born tyrant, and will rule if he can.' And the opinion thus formed was a correct one, for Lord Thurlow was fierce and overbearing as a statesman, and was more feared than any other member of the Cabinet. In 1778 he had become Lord Chancellor, and been raised to the Peerage. His ugliness must have been a fact, for the Duke of Norfolk, who had at Arundel Castle a fine breed of owls, named one of them, on account of its ugliness, Lord Thurlow. Great fun was caused by a messenger coming to the Duke in the Lobby of the House of Peers with the news that Lord Thurlow had laid an egg.

In 1785 Lord Thurlow purchased Brockwell Green Farm, and other lands in the neighbourhood of Dulwich and Norwood, and chose Knight's Hill as a suitable site for a house. The house was finished, but Lord Thurlow considered it too dear—it is said to have cost £30,000—and would never live in it, but remained in a smaller house, called Knight's Hill Farm. As he was coming from the Queen's Drawing-room, a lady asked him when he was going into his new house. 'Madam,' he replied, 'the Queen has just asked me that impudent question, and, as I would not tell her, I will not tell you.' Both the mansion and the farmhouse disappeared long ago.

The romantic marriage of Lord Eldon, then plain Mr. John Scott, of the Northern Circuit, forms a pleasant episode in legal history. Bessie Surtees was the daughter of Aubone Surtees, a banker and gentleman of honourable descent at Newcastle. Scott had met and danced with her at the assemblies in that town, and his pretensions were at first favoured by her family; but Sir William Blackett, a patrician but aged suitor, presenting himself, Bessie was urged to throw over Scott and become Lady Blackett. But Bessie was faithful, and one night descended from a window into her lover's arms, and they were married at Blackshiels, North Britain. The future Lord Eldon came to London with his young and pretty wife, and settled in a humble, small house in Cursitor Street. Their housekeeping at first must have been on a somewhat restricted scale, for Lord Eldon, in after-life, used to relate that, in those days, he frequently ran into Clare Market for sixpennyworth of sprats. It was probably owing to these privations in the early days of their married life that her husband had afterwards to complain of her stinginess and her repugnance to society. In fact, she seems to have ruled him rather sternly, for we read of his often stealing into the George Coffee House, at the top of the Haymarket, to get a pint of wine, as Lady Eldon did not permit him to enjoy it in peace at home. Cyrus Redding, who tells us this, did not like Eldon either as a Tory or as a man. 'His words,' he writes, 'were no index to his real feelings. He had a sterile soul for all things earthly, except money, doubts, and the art of drawing briefs.'

Cyrus Joy, who was present at the funeral of Lord Gifford, who was buried in the Rolls Chapel, relates that Lord Eldon and Lord Chief Justice Abbott were placed in a pew by themselves, and that he saw Lord Eldon, who was very shaky during the most solemn part of the service, touch the Chief Justice, evidently for his snuff-box, for the box was produced, and he took a large pinch of snuff, but the moment he had taken it he threw it away. 'I was astonished,' says Joy, 'at the deception practised by so great a man, with the grave yawning before him.' Whilst Lord Eldon held the Great Seal, in 1812, a fire occurred at Encombe, his country seat in Dorsetshire. As soon as it broke out, Lord Eldon buried the Seal in the garden whilst the engine played on the burning house. All the men-servants were helping to supply it with water. 'It was,' wrote Lord Eldon, 'a very pretty sight, for all the maids turned out of their beds, and formed a line from the water to the fire-engine, handing the buckets. They looked very pretty, all in their shifts.' When the fire was subdued, Lord Eldon had forgotten where he had buried the Seal, and all the gardeners and maids who had looked so pretty by firelight were set to work to dig up the garden till the Seal was found. Lord Eldon could be very rude at times. He and the Archbishop dined with George III., when he said: 'It is a curious fact that your Majesty's Archbishop and your Lord Chancellor married clandestinely. I had some excuse, certainly, for Bessie Surtees was the prettiest girl in all Newcastle; but Mrs. Sutton was always the same pumpkin-faced thing that she is at present.' The King was much amused, as we are told.

Lord Eldon's brother, Sir William Scott, had a strange matrimonial experience. His brother eloped with a man's daughter, and thus entered the wedded state somewhat illegally. Sir William may be said to have entered it, in the true sense of the word, legally—that is, as a result of his legal status. He and Lord Ellenborough presided at the Old Bailey at the trial of the young Marquis of Sligo for having, while in the Mediterranean, lured into his yacht two of the King's sailors, for which offence he was fined £5,000, and sentenced to four months' imprisonment in Newgate. Throughout the trial his mother sat in the court, hoping that her presence would rouse in the bench or the jury feelings favourable to her son. When the above sentence was pronounced, Sir William accompanied it by a long moral jobation on the duties of a citizen. The Marchioness sent a paper full of satirical thanks to Sir William for his good advice to her son. Sir William read it as he sat on the bench, and, having looked towards the lady, received from her a glance and a smile which sealed his fate. Within four months he was tied fast (on April 10, 1813) to a voluble, shrill termagant, who rendered him miserable and contemptible. He removed to his wife's house in Grafton Street, and, ever economical in his domestic expenses, brought with him his own door-plate from Doctor's Commons, and placed it under the pre-existing plate of Lady Sligo. Jekyll, the punster of the day, condoled with Sir William at having to 'knock under.' Sir William had the plates transposed.

'You see, I don't knock under now,' he said to Jekyll.

'Not now,' replied the punster; 'now you knock up.'

This was said with reference to his advanced age.

Lord Erskine, another famous judge, when dining one day at the house of Sir Ralph Payne, afterwards Lord Lavington, found himself so indisposed as to be obliged to retire after dinner to another room. When he returned to the company, Lady Payne asked how he found himself. Erskine took out a piece of paper and wrote on it:

''Tis true I am ill, but I cannot complain,

For he never knew pleasure who never knew Payne.'

 

After he had ceased to hold the Seals as Lord Chancellor—and the time he held the office was one year only—he met Captain Parry at dinner, and asked him what he and his crew lived on in the Frozen Sea. Parry replied that they lived on seals. 'And capital things too, seals are, if you only keep them long enough,' was Erskine's reply. Being invited to attend the Ministerial fish dinner at Greenwich when he was Chancellor, 'To be sure,' he answered; 'what would your dinner be without the Great Seal?' When Erskine lived at Hampstead he was asked at a dinner-party he attended, 'The soil is not the best in that part of Hampstead where your seat is?' 'No,' he answered, 'very bad; for though my grandfather was buried there as an Earl near a hundred years ago, what has sprouted from it since but a mere Baron?' Erskine married when very young, and had four sons and four daughters. When a widower and getting old he married a second time, and his latter days were passed in a state bordering on indigence. He died in 1823, in poverty. On July 17, 1826, a woman, poorly dressed, was brought before the Lord Mayor by a chimney-sweep as a person deserving assistance. The woman, being interrogated, declared herself to be Lady Erskine. The Lord Mayor conducted her into his private room, where he heard her sad story. She had lived with Lord Erskine several years before he married her, which he did in Scotland, whereby their children (four) were legitimatized. His death left her destitute, though she had been promised a pension from Government of twelve shillings a week, which had been paid very irregularly, and finally withdrawn altogether, because she would not be parted from her youngest child. The others had been taken care of by Government. She had for years endeavoured to maintain herself by female labour, but now she was totally destitute and actually starving. The Lord Mayor liberally supplied her present wants, and promised to intercede for her with Government, with what result we have been unable to ascertain. It was Mr. H. Erskine, brother of Lord Erskine, who, after being presented to Dr. Johnson by Boswell, slipped a shilling into the latter's hand, whispering that it was for showing him his bear. Erskine could mould a jury at his pleasure, yet in Parliament he was not successful as an orator. But when pleading he was always ready with repartee. Once, when insisting on the validity of an argument before Lord Mansfield, the latter said: 'I disproved it before you were born!' 'Yes, my Lord,' replied Erskine, 'because I was not born.' Lord Erskine owned that the most discreditable passage in his life was his becoming Lord Chancellor. Some other judges seem to have had no faith in their own works. Lord Campbell was seated one day next to Chief Baron Pollock, when they were both Members of the House of Commons, and said: 'Pollock, we lawyers receive the highest wages of an infamous profession.'

Sir Nicholas Bacon was so learned in the law that he was appointed attorney in the Court of Wards, and made a Privy Councillor and Keeper of the Great Seal under Elizabeth. When the Queen visited him at Redgrave, she observed, alluding to his corpulence, that he had built the house too little for himself. 'Not so, madam,' he answered; 'but your Majesty has made me too big for my house.' A man was brought before Sir Nicholas accused of a crime which, under the Draconian laws then in force, involved the penalty of death. He was found guilty, and, asked whether he had anything to say for himself, appealed to the judge's compassion, seeing that he was a kind of relation to him, his name being Hogg. 'True,' replied Bacon; 'but Hog is not Bacon till it's hung.' And hung, or hanged, to speak correctly, he was, and thus did not save his bacon. But the jest was a cruel one.

VII.

SOME FAMOUS LONDON ACTRESSES.

Distance lends enchantment to the view, but the view frequently does not return it, a common practice with borrowers! Distance alone invests the East with a halo of romance and beauty, to which it really can lay no claim. The romance is the invention of Western imagination, and the beauty, if not tawdry, is monstrous. In no respect is this excess of imagination over the reality more apparent than in the eidolon the European forms in his mind of Eastern female beauty. He hears or reads of houris, and nautch-girls, and bayaderes, and the dancing-women of Japan and Burmah; but if ever he sees any of them he will be disenchanted, for awkward figures they are, wrapped up in clothes like so many sacks, twisted and tied over one another—if not old, at least middle-aged women with rings in their noses. Pooh! enough of them! The real beauties the European never gets a sight of, they are shut up in harems. But still he thinks the East the region of beauty, and longs for it, even when he sees beauty in perfection in the West, where alone it is to be found, because in Western lands alone physical and intellectual or perfect beauty exists in combination. And this combination is most frequently seen, as may be surmised from the nature of her avocation, in the actress. Women first appeared on the English stage in 1660. On December 6 in that year, at the performance of 'Othello' at the Duke's Theatre, Lincoln's Inn Fields, the prologue spoken is entitled: 'A prologue to introduce the first woman that came to act on the stage.' Pepys went to see 'The Beggar's Bush' at the same theatre on January 3, 1661, and reports: 'Here the first time that ever I saw a woman come upon the stage.' But the Queen had long before then, namely, in 1633, acted in a pastoral given at Court. The practice having, however, been introduced at the Duke's Theatre, was continued, to the disgust of moralists, who looked upon the 'enormous shamefulness' of female acting as a sinful practice. Even the intelligent and generally liberal-minded Evelyn speaks of the drama as abused to 'an atheistical liberty,' by the circumstance of women being suffered to become performers. In his Diary, October 18, 1666, he writes: 'This night was acted my Lord Broghill's tragedy, called "Mustapha," before their Majesties at Court, at which I was present, very seldom going to the public theatres for many reasons now, as they were abused to an atheistical liberty, foul and indecent women now (and never till now) permitted to appear and act, who, inflaming several young noblemen and gallants, became their misses, and to some their wives, witness ye Earl of Oxford, Sir R. Howard, P. Rupert, the Earl of Dorset, and another greater person than any of them, who fell into their snares, to ye reproach of their noble families, and ruin of both body and soul.' By 'another greater person,' Evelyn no doubt intended the King himself, Charles II., who had at least three avowed mistresses taken from the stage—Madam Davis, Mrs. Knight, and Nell Gwynne. Miss Davis was, according to Pepys, a natural daughter of the Earl of Berkshire. He went to see her perform on March 7, 1666, in 'The English Princess,' and 'little Miss Davis did dance a jigg after the end of the play, and there telling the next day's play, so that it came in by force only to see her dance in boy's clothes.' Mrs. Knight was a famous singer. Kneller painted her portrait. Of Nell Gwynne we shall have occasion to speak further on. At the same theatre Mrs. Davenport, the lady who played the part of Roxalana in 'The Siege of Rhodes,' was taken to be the Earl of Oxford's misse, as at this time they began to call lewd women, as Evelyn says. But Evelyn evidently was badly informed. Mrs. Davenport for a long time refused the Earl of Oxford's presents and overtures, but, on his offering to marry her, she consented. The ceremony was performed, and they lived together for some time, and then the Earl informed her that the marriage was a sham, and that the mock parson was one of his trumpeters. In vain the deluded woman appealed to the laws, in vain she threw herself at the King's feet to demand justice. She might consider herself lucky to obtain a pension of £300. Pepys saw her afterwards at the theatre, and says: 'Saw the old Roxalana in the chief box, in a velvet gown, as the fashion is, and very handsome, at which I was glad.'

Moll Davies was another of the King's favourites, and he is said to have fallen in love with her through her singing 'My Lodging is on the Cold Ground' in 'The Rivals,' a play altered by Davenant from Beaumont and Fletcher's 'The Two Noble Kinsmen.' Pepys frequently mentions her as a rival to Nell Gwynne. She had one daughter by Charles, who was christened Mary Tudor, and was married in 1687 to the son of Sir Francis Ratcliff, who became Earl of Derwentwater. When the King grew tired of her he settled a pension on her of £1,000 a year. It was as a descendant of this Earl that the lady who called herself Amelia, Countess of Derwentwater, in 1868 took possession of the old baronial castle of Devilstone, or Dilston, claiming it and the estates belonging thereto, but then and now vested in Greenwich Hospital, as hers. But the Lords of the Admiralty, in 1870, defeated her claim, and she disappeared from public view.

Another famous actress in the days of Charles II. was Margaret Hughes, of whom Prince Rupert became enamoured. At first she pretended to be fiercely virtuous, so as to secure a higher price for her favours. And, in fact, the Prince settled on her Brandenburgh House, near Hammersmith, in which she lived about ten years. The house afterwards became the residence of Queen Caroline, who died there, shortly after which it was demolished.

Whatever may be said against women appearing on the stage, there is something more repulsive in men and boys taking female parts in a play, at least, so it seems to our moral feelings, and æsthetically the practice is still more objectionable. Male performers can never represent the spontaneous grace, melting voice, and tender looks of a female, and the ludicrous contretemps the custom frequently caused further showed its absurdity. Thus, on one occasion, Charles II. inquired why the commencement of the play was delayed. The manager stepped forward and craved his Majesty's indulgence, as the queen was not yet shaved. And whatever Prynne might say in his 'Histrio Mastix' against female actors, the practice caught on and became general. Of course, the opposition did not cease at once; even in France it raised its head as late as 1733. A speaker against the stage spoke thus at the Jesuits' College in Paris: 'They (the actresses) do not form the deadly shafts of Cupid, but they level them with the eye, and shoot with the utmost dexterity and skill. Such women I mean as represent destructive love characters.... How artfully do they hurl the most inconsiderable dart! What multitudes are wounded by a single one!' And, indeed, what multitudes have our Nancy Oldfields, Bracegirdles, Gwynnes, Kitty Clives, Perditas, Meltons, and the whole galaxy of theatrical beauties not only wounded, but conquered, and sometimes killed!

The life of an actress had many ups and downs—as it has now—in former days. There was the eccentric Charlotte Charke, daughter of Colley Cibber, who for some mysterious reason for many years went in male attire, and who acted on the stage if she could get employment. There was then in Bear Yard, Clare Market, a theatre, occasionally used as a tennis-court and as an auction-room. 'Thither,' she says in her Memoirs, 'I adventured to see if there was any character wanting—a custom very frequent among the gentry who exhibited in that slaughter-house of dramatic poetry. One night, I remember, the "Recruiting Officer" was to be performed.... To my unbounded joy Captain Plume was so unfortunate that he came at five o'clock to say that he did not know a word of his part.... The question being put to me, I immediately replied that I could do such a thing, but was ... resolved to stand upon terms ... one guinea paid in advance, which terms were complied with.'

We mentioned above that the life of an actress has many ups and downs even now. In justification of that statement let us quote from the Star of September 12, 1896: 'A pathetic story of an aged lady, who had been a popular actress, but upon whom evil days had come, and who was found dead in a poorly-furnished bedroom in a third-floor back at Whitfield Street, Tottenham Court Road, was told yesterday to the coroner. The old lady was Louisa Marshall, aged seventy, sister of a celebrated clown at Drury Lane, who died before her. She used to teach the piano, and had a small pension from the Musical and Dramatic Sick Fund. The contents of her room, an old piano and some theatrical dresses, were said to be worth fifty shillings at most.' But, as Byron says, let us lay this sheet of sorrow on the shelf, and speak of lively, joyous Nell Gwynne, who drove that amorous Pepys nearly mad. His Diary is full of her. First she is simply 'pretty, witty Nell' (April 3, 1665). On January 23, 1666, Nelly is brought to him in a box at the theatre. 'A most pretty woman.... I kissed her, and so did my wife, and a mighty pretty soul she is.' On March 2, in the same year, 'Nell ... comes in like a young gallant, 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.' On May 1, 1667, he writes: 'To Westminster. In the way many milkmaids with their 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 bodice, looking upon one. She seemed a mighty pretty creature.' But, according to her ardent admirer, this 'mighty pretty creature' could use mighty strong language too, for he says of her (October 5, 1667): 'But to see how Nell cursed for having so few people in the pit was strange.' And again, on October 26, he reports: 'Nelly and Beck Marshall (one of the great Presbyterian's daughters) falling out the other day, the latter called the other my Lord Buckhurst's mistress. Nell answered her: "I was but one man's mistress, though I was brought up in a disreputable house to fill strong waters to the gentlemen, and you are a mistress to three or four, though a Presbyter's praying daughter."' And Nell may have been right, for Beck Marshall seems to have been a trifle fast. Pepys says, on May 2, 1668: 'To the King's (play) house, where ... the play being over, I did see Beck Marshall come dressed off 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!' Pepys, in the end, seems to have cooled in his devotion to pretty Nell, for on January 7, 1669, he wrote in his Diary: 'My wife and I to the King's play-house.... We sat in an upper box, and the jade Nell came and sat in the next box, a bold, merry slut, who lay laughing there upon people, and with a comrade of hers, of the Duke's house, that came in to see the play.'

Coal Yard, Drury Lane, seems to have been Nell Gwynne's birthplace, a low, disreputable locality, and she died in a fine house on the south side of Pall Mall. Previously to that, she had lived in a house on the north side, whose site is now occupied by the Army and Navy Club. Though Drury Lane in the days of Nell Gwynne was a fashionable locality, it would seem that only to the southern division this epithet could be applied; the northern end, towards Holborn, had a low and mean character, and Coal Yard consisted of miserable tenements. It has recently been rebuilt, and is now called Goldsmith Street. Nell Gwynne died in 1691, and was pompously interred in the parish church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, Dr. Tennison, the then Vicar, and afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury, preaching her funeral sermon. This sermon was afterwards brought forward at Court to impede the doctor's preferment; but Queen Mary, having heard the objection, answered: 'Well, what then? This I have heard before, and it is a proof that the unfortunate woman died a true penitent, who through the course of her life never let the wretched ask in vain.' This was certainly as noble an answer to give on the part of a Queen as it was mean on the part of King Charles II. to say on his deathbed: 'Don't let poor Nelly starve.' Was it not in his power to make provision for her, instead of leaving her to the charity of the world?

Another both fortunate and unfortunate actress was Mrs. Montford, whose husband was murdered as he had come to escort Mrs. Bracegirdle, after Captain Hill's attempt at abducting this lady, on her leaving the theatre, of which more hereafter. On Mrs. Montford, or Mountfort—the name is found spelt both ways—Gray wrote his ballad of 'Black-eyed Susan.' Lord Berkeley's partiality for her was so great that at his decease he left her £300 a year, on condition that she did not marry; he also purchased Cowley, near Uxbridge, for her—the place had been the summer residence of Rich, the actor—and from time to time made her presents of considerable sums. She fell in love with a Mr. Booth, a then well-known actor, but, not wishing to lose her annuity, she did not marry him, though she gave him the preference over many others of her suitors. Mrs. Montford had an intimate friend, Miss Santlow, a celebrated dancer; but, through the liberality of one of her admirers, she became possessed of a fortune, which rendered her independent of the stage, upon which Mr. Booth proposed to her, and was accepted. This so affected Mrs. Montford that she became mentally deranged, and was brought from Cowley to London to have the best advice. As she was not violent and had lucid moments, she was not rigorously confined, but suffered to go about the house. One day she asked her attendant what play was to be performed that evening, and was told it was 'Hamlet.' In this piece, whilst she was on the stage, she had always appeared as Ophelia. The recollection struck her, and with the cunning always allied with insanity, she found means to elude the watchfulness of her servants, and to reach the theatre, where she concealed herself till the time when Ophelia was to appear, when she rushed on the stage, pushing the lady who was to act the character aside, and exhibited a more perfect representation of madness than the most consummate mimic art could produce. She was, in truth, Ophelia herself, the very incarnation of madness. Nature having made this last effort, her vital powers failed her. On going off, she prophetically exclaimed: 'It is all over!' As she was being conveyed home, 'she,' in Gray's words, 'like a lily drooping, bowed her head and died.'

Lovely Nancy Oldfield, who quitted the bar of the Mitre, in St. James's Market, then kept by her aunt, Mrs. Voss, became, towards the end of the seventeenth century, the great attraction at Drury Lane. Her intimacy with General Churchill, cousin of the great Duke of Marlborough, obtained for her a grave in Westminster Abbey. Persons of rank and distinction contended for the honour of bearing her pall, and her remains lay in state for three days in the Jerusalem Chamber!

We referred above to the attempt made by Captain Hill to carry off Mrs. Bracegirdle. Hill had offered her his hand and had been refused. He determined to abduct her by force. He induced his friend Lord Mahun to assist him. A coach was stationed near the Horseshoe Tavern in Drury Lane, with six soldiers to force her into it, which they attempted to do as she came down Drury Lane about ten o'clock at night, accompanied by her mother and brother, and a friend, Mr. Page. The attempt was resisted, a crowd collected, and Hill ordered the soldiers to let the lady go, and she was escorted home by her friends. She then sent for her friend Mr. Montford, who soon after turned the corner of Norfolk Street, where Hill challenged him, as he attributed Mrs. Bracegirdle's rejection of him to her love for Montford, which suspicion, however, was groundless, and ran him through the body before he could draw his sword. Hill made his escape; Montford died from his wounds.

Even in more recent days actresses have made good matches. Miss Anna Maria Tree, of Covent Garden, in 1825 married James Bradshaw, of Grosvenor Place; in 1831, Miss Foote, the celebrated actress, became Countess of Harrington; Miss Farren, Countess of Derby; Miss Brunton, Countess of Craven; Miss Bolton became Lady Thurlow; Miss O'Neill married a baronet; Miss Kitty Stephens became Countess of Essex; Miss Campion was taken off the stage by the aged Duke of Devonshire. The list might be greatly extended, even to our own times; but the instances quoted are sufficient to show the prizes ladies may draw in the theatrical matrimonial lottery; and there are as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.

VIII.

QUEER CLUBS OF FORMER DAYS.

The Virtuoso Club was established by some members of the Royal Society, and held its meetings at a tavern in Cornhill. Its professed object was to 'advance mechanical exercises, and promote useful experiments'; but, according to Ned Ward, their discussions usually ended in a general shindy, and results not to be described by a modern writer. The club claimed the merit of the invention of the barometer; but, for all that, its proceedings afforded fine sport to the satirists: thus, the members were said to aim at making beer without water, living like princes on three-halfpence a day, producing a table by which a husband may discover all the particulars of the tricks his wife may play him. The ridicule showered on the club at last reduced it to a little cynical cabal of half-pint moralists, who continued to meet at the same tavern. Convivially-disposed members of other learned societies have occasionally formed themselves into clubs. Thus some antiquaries, many years since, formed a club styled 'Noviomagians.' Mr. Crofton Croker was its president more than twenty years, and many other distinguished men were members.

A number of roistering companions used to hold a club at the Golden Fleece in Cornhill, after which they named their club. Each member on his admission had a characteristic name assigned to him—as Sir Nimmy Sneer, Sir Talkative Do-little, Sir Rumbus Rattle. They eventually adjourned to the Three Tuns, Southwark.

The No-Nose Club, whether it ever existed or not, was a horrible idea in itself; it flourished only during the lifetime of its founders.

The Club of Beaus was what its name implies—a club of fops and idiots. The only merit they seem to have had was that their habits were always scrupulously clean, though their language usually was filthy. Their meetings were held at an inn in Covent Garden.

The Quacks' Club, or Physical Society, was really an offshoot of the College of Physicians, which met at a tavern near the Exchange, where they discussed medical matters. The College of Physicians at that time was in Warwick Lane, where it remained till removed, in 1825, to Trafalgar Square.

The Weekly Dancing Club, or Buttock Ball, was held at a tavern in King Street, St. Giles, and was patronized by bullies, libertines, and strumpets; footmen who had robbed their masters and turned gentlemen; chambermaids who had stolen their mistresses' clothes and set up for gentlewomen. Though called a club, it was not really a close assembly, but everyone was admitted on the payment of sixpence, and no questions asked. The Dancing Academy was first established about the year 1710 by a dancing-master over the Coal Yard gateway into Drury Lane, and was so successful that it was removed to the more commodious premises mentioned above. But at last it became such a nuisance that the authorities shut it up. The Coal Yard above mentioned, the last turning on the north-east side of Drury Lane, is said to have been the birthplace of Nell Gwynne.

A club cultivating a certain filthy habit, which I can only indicate as one practised by the French peasantry, and as described in one of Zola's novels, was established at a public-house in Cripplegate. The manner in which the proceedings of the club are set forth by their chronicler is as hideous and repulsive as the writer can make it; it could not be reproduced in any modern publication without risk of prosecution, which, indeed, would be well deserved. But the manners of the eighteenth century were excessively coarse.

The Man-Killing Club, besides admitting no one to membership who had not killed his man, also bound itself to resist the Sheriff's myrmidons on their making any attempt to serve a writ on or seize one of them. It was founded in the reign of Charles II. by a knot of bullies, broken Life-Guardsmen, and old prize-fighters. Its meetings were held at a low public-house on the back-side of St. Clement's. The good old times!

The Surly Club was chiefly composed of master carmen, lightermen, and Billingsgate porters, who held their weekly meetings at a tavern near Billingsgate Dock, where City dames used to treat their journeymen with beakers of punch and new oysters. The object of their meetings was the practice of contradiction and of foul language, that they might not want impudence to abuse passengers on the Thames. This society first established the thumping-post at Billingsgate, to harden its members by whipping never to bridle their tongues from fear of corporeal punishment. Billingsgate language was, as may be supposed, much improved by them.

The Atheistical Club met at an inn in Westminster, and its name sufficiently indicates its object, namely, to take the devil's part. A trick was played on them by a man disguising himself in a bear's skin and making them believe he was the devil, which occurrence, it is said, broke up the club. Similar societies were discovered in Wells Street, and at the Angel, in St. Martin's Lane, and the members arrested; but, it turning out that in these cases the devil was less black than he was painted, the charges against them had to be withdrawn. The societies, in fact, were more political, with republican tendencies, inspired by the French Revolution, which was just then at its height, and the worship of Reason seems to have been one of their principles.

The Split-farthing Club held its weekly meetings at the Queen's Head in Bishopsgate Street, and was supposed to be composed chiefly of misers and skinflints. If any smoker among them left his box behind him, and wanted to borrow a pipe of tobacco of a brother, it would not be lent without a note of hand, which was generally written round the bowl of a pipe so as to prevent the waste of paper.

The Club of Broken Shopkeepers held its meetings at the sign of Tumble-Down Dick, a famous boozing den in the Mint in Southwark, a sanctuary of knaves, sots, and bankrupts, honest or swindling, against arrest for debt. The sign of Tumble-Down Dick was set up in derision of Richard Cromwell, the allusion to his fall from power, or 'tumble-down,' being very common in the satires published after the Restoration. There was a house with the same sign at Brentford. Of course, the professed object of the meetings of the broken shopkeepers was that of driving away and forgetting care; and any new-comer among them, if he had any cash left, was liberally allowed to expend it for the furtherance of the club's object.

The Man-Hunting Club was composed chiefly of young limbs of the law; uncultivated youths, though they were law students, formed themselves into an association to hunt men over Lincoln's Inn Fields and the neighbourhood whom they might happen to meet crossing them at ten or eleven o'clock at night. They would be concealed upon the grass in one of the borders of the fields till they heard some single person coming along, when they would spring up with their swords drawn, run towards him, and cry: 'That's he; bloody wounds, that's he!' Usually the person so attacked would run away, when they would pursue him till he took refuge in an alehouse in some neighbouring street. But if the man-hunters encountered a person of courage, ready to fight them, they would sneak off, like the curs they really were. Their meeting-place was at a tavern close to Bear Yard, Clare Market.

The Yorkshire Club held its meetings on market-days at an inn in Smithfield. It was composed of sharp country-folk, who assumed the innocence of yokels. The most flourishing members among them, says one authority, were needle-pointed innkeepers; nick and froth victuallers, honest horse chaunters, pious Yorkshire attorneys; the rest good, harmless master hostlers, two or three innocent farriers, who had wormed their masters out of their shops, and themselves into them. When met for business, their deliberations were about horseflesh, blind eyes, spavins, bounders and malinders, and how to disguise defects and get rid of the animals.

The Mock-Heroes Club met at an alehouse in Baldwin's Gardens, and was composed chiefly of attorneys' clerks and young shopkeepers. On admission the new member assumed the name of some defunct hero, and ever afterwards was at the meetings called by that name; and as the club held its meetings in the public room, though at a separate table specially reserved for them, this formal and ridiculous way of addressing one another caused no slight amusement to the other persons frequenting the room. In other respects their language was high-flown. Thus, one would face about to his left-hand neighbour, with his right hand charged with a brimming tankard, saying: 'Most noble Scipio, the love and friendship of a soldier to you. The thanks of a brother to my valiant friend Hannibal, whom I cannot but value, though I had the honour to conquer.' 'My respects to you, brave Cæsar,' cries one opposite, 'remembering the battle of Pharsalia.' And so on, till they had drunk themselves under the table.

The Lying Club, which held its meetings at the Bell Tavern, in Westminster, is said to have been established in 1669. Every member was to wear a blue cap with a red feather in it; before admittance he had to give proof of his powers of mendaciloquence; during club hours, that is, from four to ten p.m., no true word was to be uttered without a preliminary 'By your leave' to the chairman; and if any member told a 'whopper' which the chairman could not beat with a greater, the latter had to surrender his office for that evening. Ned Ward gives some exquisite specimens of the 'whoppers' told by members.

The Beggars' Club held its weekly meetings at a boozing ken in Old Street. All the sham cripples, blind men, etc., belonged to it, and there discussed the various stratagems they had adopted to excite public compassion, or intended to adopt for that purpose.

About 1735 a number of young gentlemen, who were pretenders to wit, formed themselves into a society, which met at the Rose Tavern, Covent Garden, and which they christened the Scatter-wit Society. But their literary performances were poor specimens of wit, contributed nothing to the reputation of the Rose Tavern as the resort of 'men of parts,' and consequently is not frequently mentioned in the literature of that day.

Bob Warden was the younger brother of Mr. Warden, a gentleman who, 'after having given a new turn to Jackanapes Lane, and promoted many useful objects for the good of the public, was undeservedly hanged.' We may explain here that Jackanapes Lane was the original name of Carey Street, north of the Law Courts, and the new turn Mr. Warden gave to it is the western bend connecting it with Portugal Street. Bob Warden, after his brother's death, was apprenticed to a painter, but, thinking more of his palate than his palette, he dropped the latter, and with some money left to him, established a convivial club at the Hill, in the Strand, where all sorts of queer characters, such as ruined gamesters, petticoat-pensioners, Irish captains, sharpers and cheats were welcome. As the meetings took place in a cellar, the club became known as the Cellar Club, and was the forerunner of the Coal Hole and the Lord Chief Baron Nicholson. Bob, amidst his roistering customers, drank himself to death.

For about ten years the Mohawks, or Mohocks, kept London in a state of alarm, though they seldom ventured into the City, where the watch was more efficient, but confined themselves chiefly to the neighbourhood of Clare Market, Covent Garden, and the Strand. The Spectator says of them: 'Some of them are celebrated for dexterity in tipping the lion upon them, which is performed by squeezing the nose flat to the face and boring out the eyes with their fingers. Others are called the dancing-masters, and teach their scholars to cut capers by running swords through their legs.... A third sort are the Nimblers, who set women on their heads and commit ... barbarities on them.' Their conduct in the end became so alarming that a reward of £100 was offered by royal proclamation for the apprehension of any one of them. Curious stories were current at various times as to the origin of this society. In the 'Memoirs' of the Marquis of Torcy, Secretary of State to Louis XIV., and a famous diplomatist (born 1665, died 1746), the Duke of Marlborough is said to have suggested to Prince Eugene 'to employ a band of ruffians ... to stroll about the streets by night ... and to insult people by passing along, increasing their licentiousness gradually, so as to commit greater and greater disorders ... that when the inhabitants of London and Westminster were accustomed to the insults of these rioters, it would not be difficult to assassinate those of whom they might wish to be freed, and to cast the whole blame on the band of ruffians.' This project the Prince is reported to have rejected. Swift, in his 'History of the Four Last Years of Queen Anne,' attributes the scheme to the Prince himself on his visit to this country, through his hatred of Treasurer Harley. He proposed that 'the Treasurer should be taken off ... that this might easily be done and pass for an effect of chance, if it were preceded by encouraging some proper people to commit small riots in the night. And in several parts of the town a crew of ruffians were accordingly employed about that time, who probably exceeded their commission ... and acted inhuman outrages on many persons, whom they cut and mangled in the face and arms and other parts of their bodies.... This account ... was confirmed beyond all contradiction by several intercepted letters and papers.' It is just possible that popular panic exaggerated the doings of the Mohawks. Perhaps they did not exceed in savagery the drunken frolics then customary at night-time.

The Hell Fire Club was an institution of a character similar to that of the Mohawks. It was abolished by an order of the Privy Council in 1721, 'against certain scandalous clubs,' but it must have been revived in the country, for John Wilkes, about 1750, was a notorious member of a club with the above name at Medmenham Abbey, Bucks.

The Calves' Head Club for a time had its headquarters at The Cock, an inn long since demolished, in Suffolk Street, Pall Mall. It was one of the many inns at which Pepys was 'mighty merry.' The club is said to have been originated by Milton and other partisans of the Commonwealth; and the author of the 'Secret History of the Calves' Head Club'—probably Ned Ward—gives an account of the melodramatic and diabolical ceremonies observed at their banquets. An axe was hung up in their club-room as a sacred symbol—the destroyer of the tyrant. But the eating and drinking, for which, as Addison says, clubs were instituted, were not neglected by the members. At the banquet held in 1710 there was spent on bread, beer, and ale the sum of £2 10s.; on fifty calves' heads, £5 5s.; on bacon, £1 10s.; on six chickens and two capons, £1; on three joints of veal, 18s.; on butter and flour, 15s.; on oranges, lemons, vinegar, and spices, £1; on oysters and sausages, 15s.; on the use of pewter and linen, £1; and on various other items additional sums, bringing the total up to £18 6s. No wine, it will be noticed, is included in the above bill, but there is no doubt a considerable amount for this item should be added to it.

Early in the last century street clubs became common in various parts of London, that is to say, clubs in which the inhabitants of one or two streets met every night to discuss the affairs of the neighbourhood. Out of these, we suppose, arose the Mug House Club, in Long Acre, which soon found imitators in other parts of London. The members—gentlemen, lawyers, and tradesmen—met in a large room. A gentleman nearly ninety years of age was their president. A harp played at the lower end of the room, and now and then a member rose and treated the company to a song. Nothing was drunk but ale, and every gentleman had his own mug, which he chalked on the table as it was brought in.

In 1770 some young gentlemen, on returning from the grand tour it was then customary to make after leaving college—a tour which was supposed to lick the young cubs into shape and refine their manners, of course an illusion, since, whilst abroad, they associated chiefly with the scum of English society then swarming on the Continent—some of these young gentlemen, on their return, established in St. James's Street the Savoir Vivre Club, where they held periodical dinners, of which macaroni was a standing dish. This club was the nursery of the Macaronis, a phalanx of mild Hyde Park beaux, who were distinguished for nothing but the ridiculous dress they assumed. An unfinished copy of verses found among Sheridan's papers, and which Thomas Moore considered as the foundation of certain lines in the 'School for Scandal,' delineates the Macaronis in a few masterly strokes:

'Then I mount on my palfrey as gay as a lark,

And, followed by John, take the dust in Hyde Park.

In the way I am met by some smart Macaroni,

Who rides by my side on a little bay pony;

... as taper and slim as the ponies they ride,

Their legs are as slim, and their shoulders no wider,' etc.

 

The Savoir Vivre Club did not outlive the reign of the Macaronis, which lasted about five years, and the club ended its days—the chairmen and linkmen never having understood its foreign appellation—as a public-house bearing the name and sign of The Savoy Weavers. There were, in the last century especially, no end of Small clubs, whose objects in most cases were trivial and ridiculous. Short notice is all they deserve.

The Humdrum Club was composed of gentlemen of peaceable dispositions, who were satisfied to meet at a tavern, smoke their pipes, and say nothing till midnight. The Twopenny Club was formed by a number of artisans and mechanics, who met every night, each depositing on his entering the club-room his twopence. If a member swore, his neighbours might kick him on the shins. If a member's wife came to fetch him, she was to speak to him outside the door. In the reign of Charles II. was established the Duellists' Club, to which no one was admitted who had not killed his man. The chronicler of the club naïvely says: 'This club, consisting only of men of honour, did not continue long, most of the members being put to the sword or hanged.'

The Everlasting Club, founded in the first decade of the last century, was so called because its hundred members divided the twenty-four hours of day and night among themselves in such a manner that the club was always sitting, no person presuming to rise till he was relieved by his appointed successor, so that a member of the club not on duty himself could always find company, and have his whet or draught, as the rules say, at any time.

The tradespeople and workmen of the past seem to have had a passion for clubs; but there is this to be said in their favour, theirs were only drinking clubs. Our modern patrons of low-class clubs establish them for the worse pursuits of gambling and betting.

IX.

CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

In the Weekly Journal of January 2, 1719-20, can be read: 'It was the observation of a witty knight many years ago, that the English people were something like a flight of birds at a barn-door. Shoot among them and kill ever so many, the rest shall return to the same place in a very little time, without any remembrance of the evil that had befallen their fellows.' The pigeons at Monte Carlo, whom the cruel-minded idiots who fire at them have missed, instead of flying at once and for ever from the murderous spot, perch on the cage in which their fellows are kept, and are easily caught again, to be eventually killed. 'Thus the English,' the Weekly Journal concludes, 'though they have had examples enough in these latter times of people ruined by engaging in projects, yet they still fall in with the next that appears.' And thus the Stock Exchange flourishes. That desolation-spreading upastree was planted in the mephitic morass of the national debt. It is considered deserving of blame in an individual to get into debt, yet sometimes his doing so is unavoidable—his means are insufficient for his wants. But a nation has no excuse for taking credit and getting into debt. There is wealth enough in the country to pay cash for all it requires; and if it borrows money merely to subsidize foreign tyrants to enchain their own subjects, it commits a criminal act. But nearly the whole of our national debt has such an origin, and its poisonous produce is the Stock Exchange. The word 'stock-jobber' was first heard in 1688, when a crowd of companies sprang into existence, and it was then that the Stock Exchange was first established as an independent institution at Jonathan's Coffee-house, in Change Alley, in or about 1698. Before then the brokers had carried on their business in the Royal Exchange. London at that time abounded—at what time does it not?—with new projects and schemes, many of them delusory, consequently the legitimate transactions of the Royal Exchange were inconveniently interfered with by the presence of so many jobbers and brokers—that pernicious spawn of the public funds, as Noortbouck calls them—and they were ordered to leave the Exchange. They just crossed the road and went to Jonathan's, 'and though a public nuisance, they serve the purposes of ministers too well, in propagating a spirit of gaming in Government securities, to be exterminated, as a wholesome policy would dictate.' There, at Jonathan's, 'you will see a fellow in shabby clothes,' as we read in the 'Anecdotes of the Manners and Customs of London,' 'selling £10,000 or £12,000 in stock, though perhaps he may not be worth at the same time 10s., and with as much zeal as if he were a director, which they call selling a bear-skin.' Thus this latter expression seems very old. The business of stock-jobbing increased, in spite of some feeble repressive attempts on the part of Government in 1720, the House of Commons passing a vote 'that nothing can tend more to the establishment of public credit than preventing the infamous practice of stock-jobbing'; and also passing at the same time an Act enabling persons who had been sufferers thereby to obtain an easy and speedy redress.[#] In spite of this the brokers contrived to thrive to such an extent that they found it necessary to take a more commodious room in Threadneedle Street, to which admission was obtained on payment of sixpence. The Bank Rotunda was at one period the place where bargains in stocks were made; but there the brokers were as great a nuisance as they had been at the Royal Exchange, and were turned out. It was then they took the room in Threadneedle Street, and in the year 1799 they raised £12,150 in 1,263 shares of £50 each, and purchased a site in Capel Court, comprising Mendoza's boxing-room and debating forum and buildings contiguous, on which the present Stock Exchange was erected, and opened in 1801. Capel Court was so called from the London residence of Sir William Capel, Lord Mayor of London in 1504. Within the last decade the building has been considerably enlarged and beautified.

[#] An Act passed in 1734 forbade time bargains under a penalty of £500 on brokers and their clients, and of £100 for contracting for the sale of stock of which the person was not possessed. Both these statutes were repealed circa 1860.

Stockbrokers are supposed to lead very harassed and restless lives—yes, if they speculate on their own account and with their own money, a folly which no experienced broker ever thinks of committing. He speculates for other people, and with their money, and, well, if before the official hour of opening—viz., eleven o'clock—a chance presents itself of a deal with a customer's stock on the broker's account, by which a little benefit accrues to the latter, the customer knows nothing about it, and what you are ignorant of does not hurt. The broker is, in this respect, very much like the lawyer. Neither the broker nor the lawyer can be expected to share their clients' anxieties concerning investments or disputed interests, and they don't. When either of them leaves his office for his suburban villa or Brighton breezes, he leaves all thoughts of business behind him in the office, considering that the freedom from care he enjoys at home is honestly earned, and no doubt it is—in his estimation.

Until within the first quarter of this century a singular custom concerning the admission of Jews to the Stock Exchange was in existence. The number of Jew brokers was limited to twelve, and these could secure the privilege only by a liberal gratuity to the Lord Mayor for the time being. 'During the Mayoralty of Wilkes, one of the Jew brokers was taken seriously ill, and Wilkes is said to have speculated pretty openly on the advantage he would derive from filling up the vacancy. The son of the broker, meeting the Lord Mayor, reproached Wilkes with wishing his father's death. 'My dear fellow,' replied Wilkes, with the sarcastic humour peculiar to him, 'you are in error, for I would rather have all the Jew brokers dead than your father.'

The funds are much affected by political events; that goes without saying. Their rise or fall may be very rapid. It was exceptionally so in the early period of the French revolutionary war. In March, 1792, the Three per Cents, were at 96, in 1797 they were as low as 48, the lowest they ever fell to. The possession of prior or exclusive intelligence enables persons to speculate with great success. A broker who casually became acquainted with the failure of Lord Macartney's negotiation with the French Directory, made £16,000 while breakfasting at Batson's Coffee-house, Cornhill, and had he not been timid, might have gained half a million, so great was the fluctuation, owing to the news being entirely unexpected.

But the magnates of the money market did not rely on casual intelligence. They left no stone unturned to obtain reliable information in advance even of Government. Thus Sir Henry Furnese, a bank director, paid for constant despatches from Holland, Flanders, France and Germany. He made an enormous haul by his early intelligence of the surrender of Namur in 1695. King William gave him a diamond ring as a reward for early information; yet he was not above fabricating false news, and he had his tricks for influencing the funds. If he wished to buy, his brokers looked gloomy, and, the alarm spread, they concluded their bargains. Marlborough had an annuity of £6,000 from Medina, the Jew, for permission to attend his campaigns. During the troubles of 1745, when the rebels advanced towards London, stocks fell terribly. Sampson Gideon, a famous Jew broker, managed to have the first news of the Pretender's retreat. He hastened to Jonathan's, bought all the stock in the market, spending all his cash, and pledging his name for more. This stroke of business made him a millionaire.

During the last years of the French wars a difference of 8 per cent., and even 10 per cent., would occur within an hour, and thus great fortunes might be won or lost within that short time. It was also a period of gigantic frauds, but of these later on.

Of all the sons of Maier Amschel Rothschild, Nathan, born in 1777, was undoubtedly the most prominent. Inheriting his father's spirit, he left his home at the early age of twenty-two, and in 1798 opened a small shop as a banker and money-lender at Manchester. He had left Frankfurt, where his father's house had just been knocked into ruins by the bombardment of Marshal Kleber, with only a thousand florins in his pocket. But the cotton interest was just then beginning to develop itself, and Nathan took such clever advantage of the opportunities this offered him, that at the end of five years he came from Manchester to London with a fortune of £200,000, where he became the son-in-law of Levi Barnett Cohen, one of the Jewish City magnates. The report of his Manchester successes had preceded him to the Capital, and he immediately engaged largely in Stock Exchange speculations. Whilst houses of the oldest standing were tottering or falling, owing to the State loan of 1810 having turned out a failure, and the fortunes of the Peninsular War seemed most doubtful, some drafts of Wellington to a considerable amount came over here, and there was no money in the Exchequer to meet them. Nathan Rothschild, satisfied as to England's final victory, purchased the bills at a large discount, and finally found the means of redeeming them at par. It was a splendid speculation, which resulted in his entering into closer intercourse with the Ministry, and he was chiefly employed in transmitting the subsidies which England furnished—most foolishly indeed—to the Continental Powers. The circumstance that Nathan was supplied by his brothers at Frankfurt and elsewhere with the earliest and most reliable intelligence, and his trustworthy connections and arrangements in London, enabled him to turn such knowledge to immediate and profitable account. But there being then neither railways nor telegraphs, news was slow in coming. Nathan trained carrier pigeons, and organized a staff of agents, whose duty it was to follow the march of the armies, and daily and hourly to send reports in cipher, tied under the wings of the pigeons. His agents, by means of fast-sailing boats, taking the shortest routes, indicated by Nathan himself—the mail-boats between Folkestone and Boulogne of the present day follow one of these routes—carried large sums between the coasts of Germany, France, and England. And when events on the Continent were coming to a crisis, Nathan on more than one occasion hurried over to the Continent to watch the course of affairs. It is said that Nathan Rothschild, on June 18, 1815, was on the field of Waterloo,[#] and watched the battle till he saw the French troops in full retreat, when he immediately rode back to Brussels, whence a carriage took him to Ostend. The sea was stormy; in vain Nathan offered 500 francs, 600 francs, 800 francs, to carry him across; at last a poor fisherman risked his life for 2,000 francs, and his frail barque, which carried Cæsar and his fortunes, landed Nathan in the evening at Dover. When he appeared on June 20, leaning against his usual pillar in the Stock Exchange, everything and everybody looked gloomy. He whispered to a few of his most intimate friends that the allied army had been defeated. The dismal news spread like wildfire, and there was a tremendous fall in the funds. Nathan's known agents sold with the rest, but his unknown agents bought every scrap of paper that was to be had. It was not till the afternoon of June 21 that the news of the victory of Waterloo became known. Nathan was the first to inform his friends of the happy event, a quarter of an hour before the news was given to the public. The funds rose faster than they had fallen, and Nathan still leant against his pillar in the southern corner of the Stock Exchange, but richer by about a million sterling. From that day the career of Nathan was one of ever-increasing prosperity; his firm became the agents of all European Governments; he made bargains with the Czar of Russia and with South American Republics, with the Pope and the Sultan. About the morality of the Waterloo episode the less said the better, but peers and princes of the blood, bishops and archbishops, partook of his sumptuous banquets, whilst he calculated to a penny on what a clerk could live!

[#] To an article I wrote twenty-five years ago on this topic I find appended the following note: 'We give the following on the authority of Martin, but must add that a private friend, who formerly filled an office of trust in the firm of Rothschild Brothers, declares the whole to be a fiction.' But who this friend was we cannot now remember.

Another financier, who almost rivalled Rothschild as a speculator, was Abraham Goldsmid, who was ruined by a conspiracy. He, in conjunction with a banking establishment, had taken a large Government loan. The conspirators managed to cause the omnium stock to fall to 18 discount. The result was Goldsmid's failure and eventually his suicide, whilst the conspirators made a profit of about £2,000,000.

Among other notable stockbrokers we must not omit Francis Bailey, F.S.A., President of the Royal Astronomical Society, who retired from the Stock Exchange in 1825. In 1851 he repeated at his house in Tavistock Place, Russell Square, the Cavendish experiment of weighing the earth, and calculating its bulk and figure, and at the same time verifying the standard measure of the British nation, and rectifying pendulum experiments. In the garden of the house a small observatory was erected for those purposes, and is, we believe, still standing.

We alluded a little while ago to some gigantic frauds in Stock Exchange operations. One of the most extraordinary and elaborate of such frauds was that carried out by De Berenger and Cochrane-Johnstone in 1814. Napoleon's military operations against the allies had greatly depressed the funds. On February 21, 1814, about one o'clock a.m., a violent knocking was heard at the door of the Ship Inn, then the chief hotel at Dover. When the door was opened, a person in a richly-embroidered scarlet uniform announced himself as an aide-de-camp of Lord Cathcart (who was aide-de-camp to the Duke of Wellington in 1815), and as the bearer of important news. The allies had gained a great victory, and entered Paris; Napoleon had been captured and killed by Cossacks, who had cut his body into a thousand pieces. Immediate peace was now certain. The stranger ordered a post-chaise, and departed for London, but before leaving, he sent a note containing the news to the Port Admiral, who received it about four a.m.; but the morning being foggy, the telegraph could not be worked. The sham aide-de-camp—really De Berenger, an adventurer, afterwards a livery stable-keeper—dashed along the road, throwing napoleons to the post-boys whenever he changed horses. At Bexley Heath it was clear to him that the telegraph could not have worked, so he moderated his pace, spreading at the same time the news of Napoleon's defeat and death. At Lambeth he entered a hackney-coach, telling the post-boys to spread the news, which reached the Stock Exchange about ten o'clock, in consequence of which the funds rose, but fell again when it was found that the Lord Mayor had had no intelligence. But about twelve o'clock three persons, two of whom were dressed as French officers, drove in a post-chaise over London Bridge; their horses were bedecked with laurels. The officers scattered papers among the crowd, announcing the death of Napoleon and the fall of Paris. They then paraded through Cheapside and Fleet Street, passed over Blackfriars Bridge, and drove rapidly to the Marshgate, Lambeth, got out, changed their cocked hats for round ones, and disappeared as mysteriously as their confederate, De Berenger, had done a few hours earlier.

The funds now rose again, but when, after hours of anxious expectation, it was discovered that the news, on which many bargains had been made, was false, there was, of course, wailing and gnashing of teeth. A committee was appointed by the Stock Exchange to track out the conspiracy, as on the two days before stocks to the amount of £826,000 had been purchased by persons implicated. One of the gang had, for a blind, called on Lord Cochrane, and Cochrane-Johnstone, a relation of his, had purchased Consols for him, that he might unconsciously benefit by the fraud. The Tories, eager to destroy a political enemy, concentrated all their rage on him, and he was tried, fined £1,000, and sentenced to stand for one hour in the pillory; but this latter part of the sentence was not carried out, as Sir Francis Burdett had declared that if it was done he would stand beside his friend on the scaffold of shame. Cochrane was further stripped of his knighthood, and his escutcheon kicked down the steps of St. George's Chapel at Windsor. But in his old age his innocence and the injustice done to him were recognised, and his coronet restored to him unsoiled. But could this atone for all the wrong inflicted, and all the misery endured? Those who wish to know all the details of this remarkable fraud will find them in the two volumes of the Gentleman's Magazine for 1814. The first volume gives a full account of the evidence produced at the trial.

X.

WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY.

A mere beau, a 'man of dress,' as our dictionaries define him, is a pitiful object—a walking and talking doll, painted and bedizened, and as imbecile-looking as a wax figure. The man who chooses to go in for being a beau should, if he does not wish to be thoroughly contemptible, possess, besides physical beauty, a stock of brains, elegant manners, ready wit, and moral courage. The gentleman who at the seaside dresses altogether in white must have a personally distinguished appearance not to be taken for his own chef de cuisine. Beaux are rather out of fashion just now—mashers and fops replace them. In the last century they were more plentiful. Perhaps the then prevailing popinjay style of dress, with its embroidered and many-coloured coats and waistcoats, gaudy breeches, wigs and swords, lent itself more readily to the assumption of the character than does our more subdued costume. In those days the aspirants to the title of beau were termed bucks, gallants, macaronis; and one of their distinguishing features, as the plays and portraits of those days abundantly demonstrate, was their having small legs with slender calves—possibly to show they were not footmen in disguise. And, as a rule, in those days the valet had more brains than his master.

Beaux have always been a fruitful and pleasant theme for the satirist's pen. The Spectator, in No. 275, describes the dissection of a beau's head, which is found to contain no brain, but in the usual place for one, smelling strongly of essences and orange-flower water, a kind of horny substance, cut into a thousand little faces or mirrors. Further, a lot of ribbons, laces, and embroidery, billets-doux, love-letters, snuff, fictions, vows, oaths, and a spongy substance, known as nonsense. A muscle, not often discovered in dissections, was found, the os cribriforme, which draws the nose upwards when by that motion it intends to express contempt. The ogling muscles were very much worn with use. The individual to whom this head had belonged had passed for a man for about thirty years, and died in the flower of his youth by the blow of a fire-shovel, he having been surprised by an eminent citizen as he was paying some attentions to his wife. This analysis of a beau's head, or character, was written in 1712. In 1757 an essayist described him thus in doggerel:

'Would you a modern beau commence,

Shake off that foe to pleasure, sense.

Scorn real, unaffected worth,

Despise the virtuous, good and brave,

To ev'ry passion be a slave....

Be it your passion, joy and fame

To play at ev'ry modish game....

Harangue on fashion, point and lace....

Affect to know each reigning belle

That throngs the playhouse or the Mall.

Though swearing you detest a fool,

Be versed in Folly's ample school....

These rites observed, each foppish elf

May view an emblem of himself.'

 

The combination of wit and beau in one person has, nevertheless, occasionally been seen, and the ordinary, or numskulled, beau has shared in the reputation created by such a combination, just as all judges are assumed to be sober. But in the days when beaux flourished wit of a very attenuated kind tickled the fancy of the public, who haunted the taverns patronized by the so-called wits. Even the jokes which passed at the Mermaid between Shakspere, Ben Jonson, and other professed jesters must appear to modern readers who are not absurdly prepossessed in favour of all that savours of antiquity, as heavy, dull, and often far-fetched. To justify what may appear rank heresy, let me quote one of Tarleton's 'witty' sayings. Tarleton was Shakspere's friend and fellow-actor, the low comedian of Queen Elizabeth's reign, who probably suggested to Shakspere some of his jesters and fools. Now, this is what is transmitted to us as a specimen of his wit: Tarleton, keeping an ordinary in Paternoster Row, would approve of mustard standing before his customers to have wit. 'How so?' inquired one. 'It is like a witty scold, meeting another scold, begins to scold first. So,' says he, 'the mustard, being licked up and knowing that you will bite it, begins to bite you first.' 'I'll try that,' says a gull, and the mustard so tickled him that his eyes watered. 'How now?' says Tarleton. 'Does my jest savour?' 'Ay,' says the gull, 'and bite too.' 'If you had had better wit,' says Tarleton, 'you would have bit first. So, then, conclude with me that dumb, unfeeling mustard has more wit than a talking, unfeeling fool, as you are.' And this was considered 'a rare conceit' in the days of Shakspere. We are rather more exacting now.

The beaux of the days we are speaking of were, indeed, poor specimens of humanity. They were a noisy, swaggering lot, as we learn from the author of 'Shakspere's England.' 'If a gallant,' he says, 'entered the ordinary ... he would find the room full of fashion-mongers ... courtiers, who came there for society and news; adventurers who have no home ... quarrelsome men paced about fretfully fingering their sword-hilts, and maintaining as sour a face as that Puritan moping in a corner, pent up by a group of young swaggerers, disputing over cards.... The soldiers bragged of nothing but of their employment in Ireland and in the Low Countries.... The mere dullard sat silent, playing with his glove, or discussing at what apothecary's the best tobacco was to be bought.'

But let us, in the career of an individual, Beau Fielding, famous in his day, show how beaux then acquired a reputation. Scotland Yard was so called from a palace which stood there, and was the residence of the Kings of Scotland on their annual visit to do homage for their kingdom to the Crown of England. On the union of the Scottish and English Crowns the palace was allowed to go to decay. Parts of it served as occasional residences for various persons, one of whom was Robert Fielding, who died there in the early part of the last century. This Fielding was generally known as Beau Fielding. The Tatler, in August, 1709 (Nos. 50 and 51), thus describes him: 'Ten lustra and more are wholly passed since Orlando (R. Fielding) first appeared in the metropolis of this island, his descent noble, his wit humorous, his person charming. But to none of these advantages was his title so undoubted as that of his beauty. His complexion was fair, but his countenance manly; his stature of the tallest, his shape the most exact; and though in all his limbs he had a proportion as delicate as we see in the work of the most skilful statuaries, his body had a strength and firmness little inferior to the marble of which such images are formed. This made Orlando the universal flame of all the fair sex; innocent virgins sighed for him as Adonis, experienced widows as Hercules. Thus did this figure walk alone, the pattern and ornament of our species, but, of course, the envy of all who had the same passions, without his superior merit, and pretences to the favour of that enchanting creature, woman. However, the generous Orlando believed himself formed for the world, and not to be engrossed by any particular affection.... Woman was his mistress, and the whole sex his seraglio. His form was always irresistible; and if we consider that not one of five hundred can bear the least favour from a lady without being exalted above himself ... we cannot think it wonderful that Orlando's repeated conquests touched his brain. So it certainly did, and Orlando became an enthusiast in love.... He would still add to the advantages of his person that of a profession which the ladies always favour, and immediately commenced soldier.... Our hero seeks distant climes ... after many feats of arms ... Orlando returns home, full, but not loaded, with years.... The beauteous Villaria (Barbara, daughter and heiress of William Villiers, Lord Viscount Grandison, of the Kingdom of Ireland) ... became the object of his affection.... According to Milton,

'"The fair with conscious majesty approved."

Fortune having now supplied Orlando with necessaries for his high taste of gallantry and pleasure, his equipage and economy had something in them more sumptuous and gallant than could be conceived in our degenerate age, therefore ... all the Britons under the age of sixteen ... followed his chariot with shouts and acclamations.... I remember I saw him one day stop, and call the youths about him, to whom he spoke as follows: "Good youngsters, go to school, and do not lose your time in following my wheels. I am loath to hurt you, because I know not but you are all my own offspring.... 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." ... Fortune being now propitious to the gay Orlando, he dressed, he spoke, he moved as a man might be supposed to do in a nation of pigmies ... he sometimes rode in an open tumbril, of less size than ordinary, to show the largeness of his limbs, and the grandeur of his personage, to the greater advantage.... In all these glorious excesses did ... Orlando live ... until an unlucky accident brought to his remembrance that ... he was married before he courted the nuptials of Villaria. Several fatal memorandums were produced to revive the memory of this accident, and the unhappy lover was for ever banished her presence, to whom he owed the support of his first renown and gallantry.... Orlando, therefore, now rages in a garret.' The Barbara Villiers mentioned by the Tatler was identical with Lady Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, whose scandalous history is notorious. She was sixty-five years old when she fell in love with Fielding and married him. The 'unlucky accident' of the Tatler was the fact that a few weeks before Fielding had been taken in by an adventuress, one Mary Wadsworth, whom, taking her for a rich widow, he had married. On his second—bigamous—marriage, the first wife revealed the fact to Lady Castlemaine, who, having been shamefully treated by Fielding, was glad to get rid of him. The first marriage was proved in a court of law, and sentence passed on Fielding to be burnt in the hand. By interest in certain quarters he was spared this ignominious punishment; but he was left destitute, and died forgotten and forsaken.

The Tatler gave Fielding a noble descent, and he, in fact, claimed descent from the Hapsburgs; and on the strength of his name ventured to have the arms of Lord Denbigh emblazoned on his coach, and to drive about the ring in Hyde Park. At the sight of the immaculate coat-of-arms on the plebeian chariot, 'all the blood of the Hapsburgs' flew to the head of Basil, fourth Earl of Denbigh. In a high state of fury, he at once procured a house-painter, and ordered him to daub the coat-of-arms completely over, in broad daylight, and before all the company in the ring. The beau tamely submitted to the insult.

Fielding had several competitors in the beau-ship; contemporary with him were Beau Edgeworth and Beau Wilson. Of the former but little is on record; the latter's career was cut short at an early date, for when he was not much beyond his twentieth year he was killed in a duel between him and John Law, afterwards so famous as the originator of the Mississippi scheme. The duel took place on the site of the present Bloomsbury Square. A mushroom growth of beaux arose about the year 1770, some of whom having travelled in Italy, and introduced macaroni as a new dish, they came to be designated by that name. They dressed in the most ridiculous fashion, wearing their hair in a very high foretop, with long side-curls, and an enormous chignon behind. Their clothes were tight-fitting, while silk stockings in all weathers were de rigueur. This folly was of but short duration.

In the first half of the eighteenth century flourished Beau Nash—a great contrast in manners, character, social position, and conduct to Beau Fielding; but as his life was passed at Bath he cannot be reckoned among London beaux. Yet we mention him, as in his earlier years he was slightly connected with the Metropolis, by the fact that he was entered for the Temple, though he never followed the law as a profession.

We have to come down to comparatively recent times to encounter a beau of some note; that beau was known as Beau George Brummel. He was born in 1777, and sent to Eton, where he enjoyed the credit of being the best scholar, the best oarsman, and the best cricketer of his day. His father was Under-Secretary to Lord North, and left each of his children some £30,000. At Eton he made many aristocratic friends, and thus obtained the entrée to Devonshire House, where the beautiful Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, held her court, and where she introduced Brummell to the Prince Regent, who gave him a commission in the 10th Hussars. But the army, with its restraints, did not suit the beau; he left it, and then resided in Chesterfield Street, where the Prince, finding in him a kindred spirit of vanity and frivolity, used to visit him in the morning to see him make his toilet, and to learn the art of tying his neckerchief fashionably. And frequently the Prince would stay all day to enjoy his friend's intellectual discourse, stopping to take a chop or steak with him, and not returning home till the next morning, half-seas over. The beau spent his time chiefly at Brighton and at Carlton House, and regularly established himself as a leader of fashion, his horses and carriages, his dogs, walking-sticks and snuff-boxes, but especially his clothes, becoming patterns to all the empty-headed noodles who required guidance in such matters. But such show could not be supported on the income derived from his patrimony; Brummell therefore went in heavily for gambling, with varying luck. Once at Brooks's he played with Alderman Combe, nicknamed 'Mash-tub,' Lord Mayor and brewer. The dice-box circulated. 'Come, Mash-tub,' said the beau, who was the caster, 'what do you set?' 'Twenty-five guineas,' said the Alderman. The beau won, and eleven more similar ventures. As he pocketed the money, he said: 'Thank you, Alderman; henceforth I shall drink no porter but yours.' 'I wish, sir,' replied Combe, 'that every other blackguard in London would say the same.' At the Watier Club, established at the instigation of the Prince of Wales, Brummell suffered heavy losses, so that ever after he was in constant pecuniary difficulties, though Fortune smiled on him at times. Indulging in all the superstitious tendencies of gamblers, he at one time attributed his luck to the finding of a crooked sixpence in the kennel, as he was walking with Mr. Raikes, who tells the story, through Berkeley Square. He had a hole bored in the coin, and attached it to his watch-chain. As for the succeeding two years he had great luck at the table and on the turf, he attributed it to the lucky sixpence. He is supposed to have made nearly £30,000 during that time.

A coolness between the Prince and the beau arose after a few years; various reasons are assigned for it. He was, for instance, said to have taken the part of Mrs. Fitzherbert, who had been privately married to the Prince Regent at Carlton House; he is reported to have asked Lady Cholmondeley, in the hearing of the Prince, and pointing to him, 'Who is your fat friend?' Though it is also reported that this question was put to Jack Lee, as he was walking up St. James's Street, arm-in-arm with the Prince, a few days after the beau had quarrelled with the latter. But this blew over, and Brummell was again invited to Carlton House, where he took too much wine. The Prince said to his brother, the Duke of York: 'I think we had better order Mr. Brummell's carriage before he gets quite drunk.' Another version of the second rupture is that Brummell took the liberty of saying to the Prince: 'George, ring the bell.' The Prince rang it, and told the servant who answered it: 'Mr. Brummell's carriage.' This Brummell always denied; however, he was a second time forbidden Carlton House. For a few years he was a hanger-on at Oatlands, the seat of the Duke of York, then, having lost large sums at play, he was obliged to fly the country, and having lived for some years in obscurity at Calais, he obtained the post of British Consul at Caen—for which his previous career, of course, eminently fitted him! He died in that town in poor circumstances in 1840.

Let us conclude this short account of the poor moth, basking in the royal sunshine for awhile, with one or two anecdotes. One day a youthful beau approached Brummell, and said: 'Permit me to ask you where you get your blacking?' 'Ah,' said the beau, 'my blacking positively ruins me. I will tell you in confidence—it is made with the finest champagne!' He was once at a party in Portman Square. On the cloth being removed, the snuff-boxes made their appearance; Brummell's was particularly admired; it was handed round, and a gentleman, finding it somewhat difficult to open, incautiously applied a desert-knife to the lid. Brummell was on thorns, and at last could contain himself no longer, and addressing the host, he said, loud enough to be heard by the company: 'Will you be good enough to tell your friend that my snuff-box is not an oyster?'

England has had no regular beau since the time of Brummell, though occasionally some crack-brained individual has attempted to wear his mantle. Such a one was Ferdinand Geramb, a tight-laced German General and Baron, who in the second decade of this century strutted about the parks, conspicuous for his ringlets, his superb moustaches, and immense spurs. It was asserted that he was a German Jew, who, having married the widow of a Hungarian Baron, assumed her late husband's title. His fiery moustaches were closely imitated by many illustrious personages, and gold spurs several inches long became the fashion—one fool makes many. It is to him the British army is indebted for the introduction of hussar uniforms. Having to leave England under the Alien Act, he went to Hamburg, where he set himself to writing against the Emperor Napoleon, who shut him up in the Castle of Vincennes. There, in terrible fear of being shot, he made a vow that should he regain his liberty he would renounce the devil and his works, and join the Trappist community. He was released at the Restoration, and at once entered a Trappist monastery, under the name of Brother Joseph, and in course of time became Abbot and Procurator-General of the Order. No more fighting of duels now, no more keeping the bailiffs who wanted to seize him for debt at bay for twelve days in an English country house which he had fortified; he submitted to the severest rules of the Order, and in 1831 made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, and died at Rome in 1848.

XI.

LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.

In the year 1765 a Frenchman, who did not give his name, visited London, and afterwards published in Paris an account of his visit.

'I reached London,' he says, 'towards the close of the day ... and at last, quite by chance, I found myself settled in an apartment in the house of the Cruisinier Royal in Leicester Fields. This neighbourhood is filled with small houses, which are mostly let to foreigners.' On the following day he walked down Holborn and the Strand to St. Paul's, then crossed London Bridge, and returned to his hotel by walking through Southwark and Lambeth to Westminster, 'a district full of mean houses and meaner taverns.' The localities named have not greatly altered their character since then. In another place our traveller says: 'Even from the bridges it is impossible to get a view of the river, as the parapets are ten feet high.... The reason given for all this is the inclination which the English, and the Londoners especially, have for suicide. It is true that above and below the town the banks are unprotected, and offer an excellent opportunity to those who really wish to drown themselves; but the distance is great, and, besides, those who wish to leave the world in this manner prefer doing so before the eyes of the public. The parapets, however, of the new bridge [Blackfriars] which is being built will be but of an ordinary height.' Suicidal tendencies must indeed have greatly declined, since the most recently erected bridges, the new Westminster and Blackfriars, have particularly low parapets.

Of the streets our author says: 'They are paved in such a manner that it is barely possible to ride or walk on them in safety, and they are always extremely dirty.... The finest streets ... would be impassable were it not that on each side ... footways are made from four to five feet wide, and for communication from one to the other across the street there are smaller footways elevated above the general surface of the roadway, and formed of large stones selected for the purpose.... In the finest part of the Strand, near St. Clement's Church, I noticed, during the whole of my stay in London, that the middle of the street was constantly covered with liquid stinking mud, three or four inches deep.... The walkers are bespattered from head to foot.... The natives, however, brave all these disagreeables, wrapped up in long blue coats, like dressing-gowns, wearing brown stockings and perukes, rough, red and frizzled.'

Well, we cannot find much fault with this description, unflattering as it is, for in the last century London certainly was one of the most hideous towns to live in, and its inhabitants the most uncouth, repulsive set of 'guys'! Concerning Oxford Street our author makes a false prognostic: 'The shops of Oxford Street will disappear as the houses are sought after for private dwellings by the rich. Soon will the great city extend itself to Marylebone, which is not more than a quarter of a league distant. At present it is a village, principally of taverns, inhabited by French refugees.'

Our traveller sees but four houses in London which will bear comparison with the great hotels in Paris. To the inconvenience of mud, he says, must be added that of smoke, which, mingled with a perpetual fog, covers London as a pall. We, to our sorrow, know this to be true even now.

But we have improved in one respect: our old watchmen or 'Charleys' have disappeared before the modern police. Concerning these watchmen our author says: 'There are no troops or guard or watch of any kind, except during the night by some old men, chosen from the dregs of the people. Their only arms are a stick and a lantern. They walk about the streets crying the hour every time the clock strikes ... and it appears to be a point of etiquette among hare-brained youngsters to maul them on leaving their parties.'

Our Frenchman formed a correct estimate of the London watchman of his day—nay, it held good to the final extinction of the 'Charleys.' In December, 1826, a watchman was charged before the Lord Mayor with insubordination. On being asked who had appointed him watchman, the prisoner replied that he was in great distress and a burden to the parish, who therefore gave him the appointment to get rid of him. The Lord Mayor: 'I thought so; and what can be expected from such a system of choosing watchmen? I know that most of the men who are thus burdens on the parish are the vilest of wretches, and such men are appointed to guard the lives and property of others! I also know that in most cases robberies are perpetrated by the connivance of watchmen.'

But in some cases our author is really too good-naturedly credulous. Says he: 'The people of London, though proud and hasty, are good at heart, and humane, even in the lowest class. If any stoppage occurs in the streets, they are always ready to lend their assistance to remove the difficulty, instead of raising a quarrel, which might end in murder, as is often the case in Paris.' This is really too innocent! And our French visitor must have been very fortunate indeed never to have got into a London crowd of roughs or of pickpockets, who create stoppages in the streets for the only purpose of pursuing their trade, and who seldom hesitate to commit violence if they cannot rob without it. Our author's belief, indeed, in London honesty is boundless. 'In order that the pot-boys,' he says, 'may have but little trouble in collecting them [the pewter pots in which publicans send out the beer], they are placed in the open passages, and sometimes on the doorsteps of the houses. I saw them thus exposed ... and felt quite assured against all the cunning of thieves.' But more astounding is the statement that there are no poor in London! 'A consequence,' says our visitor, 'of its rich and numerous charitable establishments and the immense sums raised by the poor-rates, which impost is one which the little householders pay most cheerfully, as they consider it a fund from which, in the event of their death, their wives and children will be supported.' Fancy a little householder paying his poor-rate cheerfully! And what a mean opinion must our author have had of the spirit of the householder who calmly contemplated his family, after his death, going to the parish!

The Frenchman returns once more to our usual melancholy, 'which,' he says, 'is no doubt owing to the fogs' and to our fat meat and strong beer. 'Beef is the Englishman's ordinary diet, relished in proportion to the quantity of fat, and this, mixed in their stomachs with the beer they drink, must produce a chyle, whose viscous heaviness conveys only bilious and melancholic vapours to the brain.'

It certainly is satisfactory to have so scientific an explanation of the origin of our spleen.

Another French writer in 1784—M. La Combe—published a book, entitled 'A Picture of London,' in which, inter alia, he says: 'The highroads thirty or forty miles round London are filled with armed highwaymen and footpads.' This was then pretty true, though the expression 'filled' is somewhat of an exaggeration. The medical student of forty or fifty years ago seems to have been anticipated in 1784, for M. La Combe tells us that 'the brass knockers of doors, which cost from 12s. to 15s., are stolen at night if the maid forgets to unscrew them'—a precaution which seems to have gone out of fashion. 'The arrival of the mails,' our author says, 'is uncertain at all times of the year.... Persons who frequently receive letters should recommend their correspondents not to insert loose papers, nor to put the letters in covers, because the tax is sometimes treble, and always arbitrary, though in a free country. But rapacity and injustice are the deities of the English.' M. La Combe does not give us a flattering character. 'An Englishman,' he says, 'considers a foreigner as an enemy, whom he dares not offend openly, but whose society he fears; and he attaches himself to no one.' Perhaps it was so in 1784, but such feelings have nearly died out—at least, among educated people. M. La Combe, in another part of his book, exclaims: 'How are you changed, Londoners! ... Your women are become bold, imperious, and expensive. Bankrupts and beggars, coiners, spies and informers, robbers and pickpockets abound.... The baker mixes alum in his bread ... the brewer puts opium and copper filings in his beer ... the milkwoman spoils her milk with snails.'

Do more recent writers judge of us more correctly? We shall see.

I have lying before me a French book, the title of which, translated into English, runs, 'Geography for Young People.' It is in its eighth edition, and written by M. Lévi, Professor of Belles-Lettres, of History and Geography in Paris. The date of the book is 1850. The Professor in it describes London, and if his pupils ever have, or rather had, occasion to visit our capital, they must have been unable to recognise it from their teacher's description of it. Among the many blunders he commits, there are some which are excusable in a foreigner, because they refer to matters which are often misapprehended even by natives; but to describe London as possessing a certain architectural feature which a mere walk through the streets with his eyes open would have shown him to have no existence at all is rather unpardonable in a professor who takes on himself to teach young people geography. But what does M. Lévi say? He says: 'In London you never see an umbrella, because all the streets are built with arcades, under which you find shelter when it rains, so that an umbrella, which to us Parisians is an indispensable article, is perfectly useless to a Londoner.' M. Lévi evidently, if ever he was in London, visited the Quadrant only, before the arcade was pulled down, and thereupon wrote his account of London. Yet he must have looked about a bit, for he tells us of splendid cafés to be met with in every street; the nobility patronize them; 'one of them accidentally treads on the toes of another, a duel is the consequence, and to-morrow morning one of them will have ceased to live.'

M. Lévi reminds us of the Frenchman who came over to England with the object of writing a book about us. He arrived in London one Saturday night, and being tired, at once went to bed. At breakfast next morning he asked for new bread; the waiter told him they only had yesterday's. Out came the Frenchman's note-book, in which he wrote: 'In London the bread is always baked the day before.' He then asked for the day's paper, but was again told they had yesterday's only. A memorandum went into the note-book: 'The London newspapers are always published yesterday.' He then thought he would present the letter of introduction he had brought with him to a private family, so having been directed to the house, he saw a lady near the window, reading. Not wishing to startle or disturb her, he gave a gentle single rap. This not being answered, he had to give a few more raps, when at last a servant partly opened the door and asked his business. He expressed his wish to see the master of the house. 'Master never sees anybody to-day, but he will perhaps to-morrow,' replied the servant, and shut the door in his face. Another memorandum was added to the previous ones: 'In London people never see anyone to-day, but always to-morrow.' Having nothing to do, he thought he would go to the theatre. He inquired for Drury Lane, and was directed to it. The doors being shut, he lounged about the neighbourhood till they should open. As it grew later and later, and there was no sign of a queue, he at last addressed a passer-by, and asked him when the theatre would open. 'It won't open to-day,' was the reply. This was the last straw that broke the camel's back. Our Frenchman hurried back to his hotel, wrote in his note-book, 'In London there are theatres, but they never open today,' took a cab, caught the night mail, and hastened to leave so barbarous a country.

This description of London life is about as correct as that recently given in Max O'Rell's 'John Bull and his Womankind.' What kind of people did O'Rell visit?

I look at another book before me, written in Italian, and entitled: 'Semi-serious Observations of an Exile on England.' The book was published at Lugano in 1831, but the author—Giuseppe Pecchio—dates his preface from York in 1827.

He speaks thusly of the approach to London by the Dover road: 'If the sky is gloomy, the first aspect of London is no less so. The smoky look of the houses gives them the appearance of a recent fire. If to this you add the silence prevailing amidst a population of a million and a half of inhabitants, all in motion (so that you seem to behold a stage full of Chinese shadows), and the uniformity of the houses, as if you were in a city of beavers, you will easily understand that on entering into such a beehive pleasure gives way to astonishment. This is the old country style, but since the English have substituted blue pills for suicide, or, still better, have made a journey to Paris—since, instead of Young's "Night Thoughts," they read the novels of Walter Scott, they have rendered their houses a little more pleasing in outward appearance. In the West End especially they have adopted a more cheerful style of architecture. But I do not by this mean to imply that the English themselves have become more lively; they still take delight in ghosts, witchcraft, cemeteries, and similar horrors. Woe to the author who writes a novel without some apparition to make your hair stand on end!'

In speaking of the thinness of the walls and floors of London houses, he says: 'I could hear the murmur of the conversation of the tenant of the room above and of that of the one below me; from time to time the words "very fine weather," "indeed," "very fine," "comfort," "comfortable," "great comfort," reached my ears. In fact, the houses are ventriloquous. As already mentioned, they are all alike. In a three-storied house there are three perpendicular bedrooms, one above the other, and three parlours, equally so superposed.' We know how much of this description is true.

'Why are the English,' he asks, 'not expert dancers? Because they cannot practise dancing in their slightly-built houses, in which a lively caper would at once send the third-floor down into the kitchen. This is the reason why the English gesticulate so little, and have their arms always glued to their sides. The rooms are so small that you cannot move about rapidly without smashing some object,' or, as we should say, you cannot swing a cat in them.

'Strangers are astounded,' continues our author, 'at the silence prevailing among the inhabitants of London. But how could a million and a half of people live together without silence? The noise of men, horses, and carriages between the Strand and the Exchange is so great that it is said that in winter there are two degrees of difference in the thermometers of the City and of the West End. I have not verified it,' our author is candid enough to admit, 'but considering the great number of chimneys in the Strand, it is probable enough. From Chering [sic] Cross to the Exchange is the cyclopedia of the world. Anarchy seems to prevail, but it is only apparent. The rules which Gray gives (in his "Trivia; or, the Art of Walking the Streets of London") seem to me unnecessary.'

Signor Pecchio pretty well describes the movements of 'City men':

'The great monster of the capital,' he says, 'similar to a huge giant, waking up, begins by giving signs of life at its extremities. The movement begins at the circumference, gradually extending to the centre, until about ten o'clock the uproar begins, increasing till four o'clock, which is the hour for going on 'Change. The population seems to follow the law of the tides. Up to that hour the tide rises from the periphery to the Exchange. At half-past four, when the Exchange closes, the ebb sets in, and currents of men, horses, and carriages flow from the Exchange to the periphery.'

Like all foreigners, he has something to say about the dulness of an English Sunday. 'This country, all in motion, all alive on other days of the week,' he observes, 'seems struck with an attack of apoplexy on the Lord's day.' Foreigners pass the day at Greenwich or Richmond, where 'they pay dearly for a dinner, seasoned with the bows of a waiter in silk stockings and brown livery, just like the dress of a Turin lawyer.' But if you want to see how John Bull spends the day, it is not in Hyde Park or Kensington Gardens you must look for him. 'If you want to see that marvellous personage who is the wonder and laughing-stock of all Europe, who clothes all the world, wins battles on land and sea without much boasting, who works like three and drinks like six, who is the pawnbroker and usurer of all Kings and all Republics, whilst he is bankrupt at home, and sometimes, like Midas, dies of hunger in the midst of gold, you must look for him elsewhere. In winter you must descend into underground cellars. There, around a blazing fire, you will behold the English workman, well dressed and shod, smoking, drinking, and reading.... For this class of readers special Sunday newspapers are published.... It is in these taverns, and amidst the smoke of tobacco and the froth of their beer, the first condition of public opinion is born and formed. It is there the conduct of every citizen is discussed and appraised; there starts the road which leads to the Capitol or the Tarpeian rock; there praise or blame is awarded to a Burdett issuing triumphantly from the Tower, or to a Castlereagh descending amidst curses to the tomb.... There are no rows in these taverns ... more decency of conduct is observed in them than in our [Italian] churches. When full of spirit and beer the customers, instead of fighting, fall down on the pavement like dead men.'

After having so carefully observed the conduct of the British workman, our Italian friend watches him in the suburban tea-garden, which he visits with his family to take tea in the afternoon, or drink his nut-brown ale. 'One of the handsomest,' he says, 'is Cumberland Gardens,[#] close to Vauxhall ... there he sits smoking long pipes of the whitest clay, which the landlord supplies, filled with tobacco, at one penny each. Between his puffs of smoke he occasionally sends forth a truncated phrase, such as we read in "Tristram Sandi" [sic] were uttered by Trion and the captain. It being Sunday, which admits of no amusement, no music or song is heard.' Pretty much as it is at the present day!

[#] In the early part of 1825, therefore shortly after our author wrote, the tavern was burnt to the ground, and the site taken possession of by the South London Waterworks.

Having heard what both Frenchmen and an Italian had to say about London, let us listen to what a German authoress has to tell us on the subject.

Johanna Schopenhauer, in her 'Travels through England and Scotland' (third edition, 1826), says: 'The splendid shops, which offer the finest sights, are situate chiefly between the working City and the more aristocratic, enjoying Westminster,' a statement which, as every Londoner knows, is only partially correct. 'The English custom of always making way to the right greatly facilitates walking, so that there is no pushing or running against anyone.' Did our author ever take a walk in Cheapside or Fleet Street? 'Even Italians probably do not fear rain so much as a Londoner; to catch a wetting seems to them the most terrible misfortune; on the first falling of a few drops everyone not provided with an umbrella hastens to take refuge in a coach.' How well the lady has studied the habits of Londoners! What will they say to this?

'The police exercise a strict control over hackney-coaches. Woe to the driver who ventures to over-charge!' And again: 'You may safely enter, carrying with you untold wealth, a coach at any time of the night, as long as someone at the house whence you start takes the number of the coach, and lets the driver see that it is taken.'

Mrs. Schopenhauer tells us that it is customary to go for breakfast to a pastry-cook's shop, and eat a few cakes hot from the pan. Truly, we did not know it. Of course, she agrees with other writers as to the smallness of the houses, every room of which you can tell from the outside; but we were not aware that, as she informs us, all the doors are exceedingly narrow and high, and that frequently the front-doors look only like narrow slits in the wall.

'Bedrooms seldom can contain more than one bed; but English bedsteads are large enough to hold three persons. And it is a universal custom not to sleep alone; sisters, relations, and female friends share a bed without ceremony, and the mistress of the house is not ashamed to take her servant to bed with her, for English ladies are afraid of being alone in a room at night, having never been brought up to it.... The counterpane is fastened to the mattress, leaving but an opening for slipping in between the two.'

Again, we are told to our astonishment: 'The majority of Londoners, workmen and shopkeepers, who form but one category, on the whole lead sad lives. Heavy taxes, the high prices of necessaries, extravagance of dress, compel them to observe a frugality of living which, in other countries, would be called poverty.

'The shopkeeper, for ever tied to his shop and the dark parlour behind, must deny himself every amusement. Theatres are too far off and too expensive; the wife of a well-to-do tradesman seldom can visit one more than twice a year.

'During the week they cannot leave the shop between nine in the morning and twelve at night. The wife generally attends to it, while the husband sits in the parlour behind and keeps the accounts. True, on Sundays all the shops are closed, but so are the theatres, and as all domestics and other employés insist on having that day to themselves, the mistress has to stay at home to take care of the house.

'Merchants lead lives nearly as dull. They have to deny themselves social pleasures indulged in by the rich merchants of Hamburg or Leipsic. English ladies are more domesticated, and not accustomed to the bustle of public amusements. But their husbands, after business hours, occasionally seek for recreation in cafés and taverns.'

How very one-sided and imperfect a view of English middle life, even as it was seventy years ago, when these remarks were written, is presented to us by them is self-evident!

English ladies, according to our author, 'seldom go out, and when they do, they prefer a shopping excursion to every other kind of promenade. They also are fond of visiting pastry-cooks' shops, and as these are open to the street, ladies may safely enter them. But that is not allowable at Mr. Birch's in Cornhill, whose shop ladies cannot visit without being accompanied by gentlemen, the breakfast-room being at the back of the house, at the end of a long passage, and lit up all the year round (as daylight does not penetrate into it) with wax candles, by the light of which ladies and gentlemen—usually amidst solemn silence—swallow their turtle-soup and small hot patties. The house supplies nothing else ... but its former proprietor, Master Horton, by his patties and soup made a fortune of one hundred thousand pounds, and his successor seems in a fair way of doing the same.' We hope the assumption was verified.

According to Mrs. Schopenhauer, Londoners are not very hospitable, and 'prefer entertaining a friend they invite to dinner at a coffee-house or tavern, rather than at their own homes, where the presence of ladies is a restraint upon them. Ladies are treated with great respect, but, like all personages imposing respect, they are avoided as much as possible.'

Our traveller must have come in contact with some very ungallant Englishmen. She describes a dinner at a private house; we are told that 'there are twelve to fourteen guests, who fill the small drawing-room, the ladies sitting in armchairs, whilst the gentlemen stand about, some warming themselves by the fire, often in a not very decent manner. At the dinner-table napkins are found only in houses which have acquired foreign polish, and they are not many. The tablecloth hangs down to the floor, and every guest takes it upon his knee, and uses it as a napkin.... The lady of the house serves the dishes, and there is no end to her questions put to her guests as to the seasoning, the part of the joint, the sauce, etc., they like,' questions which are exceedingly troublesome to a foreigner who is not up to all the technical terms of English cookery. Of course, the hobnobbing and taking wine with everybody—a fashion now happily abolished—comes in for a good deal of censure, which, indeed, is richly deserved. 'Conversation on any subject of interest is out of the question during dinner; were anyone to attempt it, the master would immediately interrupt him with, "Sir, you are losing your dinner; by-and-by we will discuss these matters." The ladies from sheer modesty speak but little; foreigners must beware from saying much, lest they be considered monstrous bold.'

Whilst, after dinner, the gentlemen sit over their wine, the ladies are yawning the time away in the drawing-room, until their hostess sends word down to the dining-room that tea is ready. 'It is said,' continues our author, 'that the slow or quick attention given to this message shows who is master in the house, the husband or the wife.' Long after midnight the guests drive home 'through the streets still swarming with people. All the shops are still open, and lighted up; the street-lamps, of course, are alight, and burn till the rising of the sun.' Has any Londoner ever seen all the shops open and lighted up all night? Did our author have visions?

A London Sunday, of course, is commented on. The complaint raised quite recently by some of our bishops seems but a revival of wailings uttered long ago, for we learn from Mrs. Schopenhauer that in her time (sixty years ago) 'some of the highest families in the kingdom were called to account for desecrating the Sabbath with amateur concerts, dances, and card-playing,' so that it would indeed seem there is nothing new under the sun. 'The genuine Englishman,' says our authoress, 'divides his time on Sundays between church and the bottle; his wife spends the hours her religious duties leave her with a gossip, and abuses her neighbours and acquaintances, which is quite lawful on Sundays.'

We allow Mrs. Schopenhauer to make her bow and retire with this parting shot. Still, that lady was not singular in attributing great drinking powers to Englishmen. M. Larcher, who in 1861 published a book entitled 'Les Anglais, Londres et l'Angleterre,' says therein that in good society the ladies after dinner retire into another room, after having partaken very moderately of wine, while the gentlemen are left to empty bottles of port, madeira, claret, and champagne. 'And it is,' he adds, 'a constant habit among the ladies to empty bottles of brandy.' And he quotes from a work by General Fillet: 'Towards forty years of age every well-bred English lady goes to bed intoxicated.'

M. Jules Lecomte says in his 'Journey of Troubles to London' ('Un Voyage de Désagréments à Londres,' 1854) that he accompanied a blonde English miss to the Exhibition in Hyde Park, where at one sitting she ate six shillings' worth of cake resembling a black brick ornamented with currants.

According to M. Francis Wey's account of 'The English at Home' ('Les Anglais chez Eux,' 1856), at Cremorne Gardens the popular refreshment, and particularly with an Oxford theologian, is ginger-beer. M. Wey probably means shandy-gaff. He agrees with M. Lecomte: the consumption of food by one English young lady would suffice for four Paris porters!

A Russian visitor to London, the 'Own Correspondent' of the Northern Bee Russian newspaper, who inspected London in 1861, asserts, in his 'England and Russia,' that any English miss of eighteen is capable of imbibing sundry glasses of wine 'without making a face.'

In the Daily Graphic of November 1, 1893, a statement appeared, according to which a French journalist at this present day informs the world, through Le Jour, that in London—nay, in all England—not one cyclist is to be found, the Government having rigidly suppressed them. Well, M. Lévi has told us that there are no umbrellas in London; now we learn that there are no cyclists (how we wish this were true!). What curious information we get from France about ourselves!

When will travellers leave off being Münchausens?

XII.

OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS.[#]

I.—THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.

[#] This chapter is based on ancient and modern histories of London; on works treating of special localities; on essays in periodical publications; on the Transactions of Antiquarian and other Societies, and as it is not a product of imagination, but of research, nothing new to the student, but a great deal new to the general reader, may be expected; though the stones are old, the house is new.

London abounded in taverns. A folio volume might be filled with accounts of the more important of them, but as we have only a limited number of pages at our command, we shall confine ourselves to the description of one peculiarly characteristic sort of them, namely, the taverns with galleried courtyards, and, in consequence of their great number, our notice of each will have to be brief.

These old taverns, very few of which are now left standing, formed, architecturally, squares, the buildings surrounding a yard, furnished on three sides with outer galleries to the floors above; and the reason why this form of construction was adopted was because then the yards were rendered suitable for theatrical representations, which, before the erection of regular theatres, were usually given in inn-yards. Access to these yards was obtained either through the part of the tavern facing the street, or through the gateway, through which coaches, carts and waggons entered the yard. The stage was erected, in a primitive and temporary manner, behind the front portion of the square, and faced the galleries at the back and sides of it. The yard itself then formed the pit, and the galleries the boxes of the theatre. A yard so surrounded by galleries, with their banisters or open panels, often of elegant design, looked very picturesque; but did this style of construction contribute to the comfort of the guests? Scarcely. The ground-floors of the inn-buildings, on the level of the yard, were given up to stables, coach-houses, store-rooms, etc. Access to the galleries was obtained by staircases, often steep, twisted and narrow; along the galleries were the bedrooms, the doors, and frequently the windows, of which opened on to them, and there were no other means of reaching these rooms. Now, consider that these galleries were open, exposed to all the changes of the weather, to wind, rain, hail, sleet and snow, which must have been very trying, especially at night, when the bedrooms had to be entered by the light of a candle, difficult to keep burning, whilst the wind was driving rain or snow into the gallery. Remember also that the roughly paved yard and the stables surrounding it were full of noises, not only during the day, but all the night through. There were the horses kicking, coaches and waggons constantly coming in through the gateway, or going out, stablemen, coachmen, carters shouting, horses being harnessed to carts, and other vehicles starting early in the morning on their journeys, and the rest of the sleepers in the bedrooms along the galleries must have been sadly interfered with. Nor can the smell arising from the stables and from the manure heap, all confined within the well formed by the surrounding buildings, have added to the comfort of the guests staying at the inn. As the bar of the inn frequently was in the yard, the noises made by its visitors, and the quarrels they occasionally indulged in, and which often would be settled by a fight in the yard, were not calculated to promote sound sleep. But our ancestors were not so particular in these matters; even aristocratic quarters of London were given up to dirt and rowdyism. In St. James's Square offal, cinders, dead cats and dogs were shot under the very windows of the gilded saloons in which the first magnates of the land—Norfolks, Ormonds, Kents and Pembrokes—gave banquets and balls. Lord Macaulay quotes the condition of Lincoln's Inn Fields as a striking example of the indifference felt by the most polite and splendid members of society in a former age to what would now be deemed the common decencies of life. But the poorest cottage and the meanest galleried inn-yard look well in a picture. Be glad that you have not to live in either. But a few generations ago, as we have pointed out, tastes and habits were different, and even now there are old fogeys so wedded to ancient customs that they still patronize the dark boxes yet found in some antiquated taverns, which afford room for four or six customers, who have to sit upright against the perpendicular backs of the boxes, lest they slide off the twelve-inch-wide shelves on which they have to perch and disappear under the table. Strange were the customs of the days referred to. The people seemed to live in taverns, physicians met their patients and apothecaries there, lawyers their clients, business men their customers, people of fashion their acquaintances. 'Even men of fortune,' says Macaulay, 'who might in their own mansions have enjoyed every luxury, were often in the habit of passing their evenings in the parlour of some neighbouring house of public entertainment,' in the company of ill-bred, loud talking, roisterous and spittoon-patronizing smokers. Johnson declared that the tavern chair was the throne of human felicity. To him it was, because there he found his toadies, whom he could bully to his heart's content. But the man who could say

'My mind to me a kingdom is'

did not care to sit on such a throne.

But we have insensibly strayed into side-openings; let us return to the main avenue of galleried taverns. We shall have to mention so many, that we see no better means of preventing our getting confused and losing our way altogether than to arrange them alphabetically according to the signs they were known by.

The first inn thus on our list is the Angel, at Islington. Its establishment dates back two hundred years. Originally it presented the usual features of a large country inn, having a long front, with an overhanging tiled roof; the principal entrance was beneath a projection, which extended along a portion of the front, and had a wooden gallery at top. The inn-yard, approached by a gateway in the centre, was nearly a quadrangle, having double galleries supported by plain columns and carved pilasters, with caryatides and other figures. This courtyard, as it was more than a hundred years, was preserved by Hogarth in his print of a 'Stage Coach.' There is also a view of it in Pinks's 'History of Clerkenwell.' In olden days the inn was a great halting-place for travellers from London, and from the northern and western counties. On the King's birthday the royal mail coaches used to meet there, as shown in an engraving of 1812, in the Crace collection in the British Museum. In 1819 the old house was pulled down, and the present ordinary-looking building erected in its stead, a grand opportunity, afforded by its commanding position, ninety-nine feet above the Trinity high water-mark, at the meeting of so many important roads, being thus stupidly lost.

There was another Angel inn, in St. Clement's, Strand, 'behind St. Clement Kirk.' To this also was attached a galleried yard, but, according to the woodcut in Diprose's 'St. Clement Danes,' there were galleries to the first and second floors on one side of the yard only. And from this house also seven or eight mail-coaches were despatched nightly, and from here also the royal mails used to start on the King's birthday for the West of England. Concerning the public conveyances of those days, the following curious announcement reads amusing: 'On Monday the 5th April, 1762, will set out from the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church, a neat flying machine, carrying four passengers, on steel springs, and sets out at four o'clock in the morning and goes to Salisbury the same evening, and returns from Salisbury the next morning at the same hour; and will continue going from London every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and return every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Performed by the proprietors of the stage coach, Thomas Massey, Anthony Coack. Each passenger to pay twenty-three shillings for their fare, and to be allowed fourteen pounds' weight baggage; all above to pay for one penny a pound. Outside passengers and children in lap to pay half fare. N.B.—The masters of the machine will not be accountable for plate, watches, money, jewels, bank-notes, or writings, unless booked as such, and paid for accordingly.' Why the proprietors should have called their coach a 'machine' is a riddle, and as it took a whole day, from four in the morning till the evening, to get over the eighty-four miles between London and Salisbury, its rate of progress could hardly be called a 'flying' one.

The Angel inn was of very ancient origin, being mentioned in a correspondence dated 1503. In the Public Advertiser of March 28, 1769, appeared the following advertisement: 'To be sold a Black Girl, the property of J.B., eleven years of age, who is extremely handy, works at her needle tolerably, and speaks English perfectly well; is of an excellent temper and willing disposition. Inquire of Mr. Owen, at the Angel Inn, behind St. Clement's Church.' The inn was closed in 1853, the freehold fetching £6,800, and on its site the legal chambers known as Danes Inn were erected.

In Philip Lane, London Wall, anciently stood the Ape, an inn with a galleried yard; all that now remains of this ancient hostelry is a stone carving of a monkey squatted on its haunches and eating an apple; under it is the date 1670 and the initial B. It is fixed on the house numbered 14. The courtyard, where the coaches and waggons used to arrive and depart, is now an open space, round which houses are built. A view of the Ape and Cock taverns as they appeared in 1851 is in the Crace collection.

We should be trying the reader's patience were we to enter into a discussion as to the origin of the sign of the Belle Sauvage, the inn which once stood at the bottom of Ludgate, and whose site is now occupied by the establishment of Messrs. Cassell and Company. The name was derived either from one William Savage, who in 1380 was a citizen living in that locality, or, more probably, from one Arabella Savage, whose property the inn once was. The sign originally was a bell hung within a hoop. As already mentioned, inn-yards were anciently used as theatres. The Belle Sauvage was a favourite place for dramatic performances, its inner yard being spacious, and having handsomely carved galleries to the first and second floors at the back of the main building. An original drawing of it is in the Crace collection. In this yard Banks, the showman, so often mentioned in Elizabethan pamphlets, exhibited his trained horse Morocco, the animal which once ascended the tower of St. Paul's, and which on another occasion delighted the mob by selecting Tarleton, the low comedian, as the greatest fool present. Banks eventually took his horse to Rome, and the priests, frightened at the circus tricks, burnt both Morocco and his master as sorcerers. Close by the inn lived Grinling Gibbons, and an old house, bearing the crest of the Cutlers' Company, remains.

The old Black Bull (now No. 122), Gray's Inn Lane, was, in its original state, as shown by a woodcut in Walford's 'Old and New London,' a specimen, though of the meaner sort, of the old-fashioned galleried yard.

The Black Lion, on the west side of Whitefriars Street, was a quaint and picturesque edifice, and its courtyard showed a gallery to the first-floor of the building, rather wider than usual, and with massive banisters, pillars supporting the roof. The old house was pulled down in 1877, and a large tavern of the ordinary uninteresting type now occupies its site.

One of the once famous Southwark inns was the Boar's Head, which formed a part of Sir John Fastolf's benefactions to Magdalen College, Oxford. This Sir John was one of the bravest Generals in the French wars under Henry IV. and his successors. The premises comprised a narrow court of ten or twelve houses, and two separate houses at the east end, the one of them having a gallery to the first-floor. The property was for many years leased to the father of Mr. John Timbs, which latter, in his 'Curiosities of London,' gives a lengthy account of the premises. They were taken down in 1830 to widen the approach to London Bridge. The court above mentioned was known as Boar's Head Court, and under it and some adjoining houses, on their demolition, was discovered a finely-vaulted cellar, doubtless the wine-cellar of the Boar's Head.

Most noted among theatrical inns was the Bull, in Bishopsgate Street, so much so that the mother of Anthony Bacon (the brother of the great Francis), when he went to live in the neighbourhood of the inn, was terribly frightened lest he and his servants should be led astray by the actors performing at the inn. Tarleton, the comedian, often acted there. It was while giving representations at the Bull that Burbage, Shakespeare's friend, and his fellows obtained a patent from Queen Elizabeth for erecting a permanent building for theatrical performances, though the Bull afforded them every convenience, its yard and galleries being on a large scale and in good style. It was at the Bull that the Cambridge carrier Hobson, of 'Hobson's choice,' used to put up.[#] A portrait and a parchment certificate of Mr. Van Harn, a customer of the house, were long preserved at the Bull inn; this worthy is said to have drunk 35,680 bottles of wine in this hostelry.

[#] Though I find it stated in other authorities that he put up at the Four Swans; possibly he resorted to both.

The Bull and Gate, in Holborn, probably took its name from Boulogne Gate, as the Bull and Mouth in Aldersgate Street was a corruption of Boulogne Mouth, and both were, no doubt, intended as compliments to Henry VIII., who took that town in 1544. Tom Jones alighted at the Bull and Gate when he first came to London.

Holborn at one time abounded in inns. Says Stow: 'On the high street of Oldbourne have ye many fair houses builded, and lodgings for gentlemen, inns for travellers and such like up almost (for it lacketh but little) to St. Giles' in the Fields.' We shall have to mention one or two more as we go on.

The Bull and Mouth inn alluded to above in the olden time was a great coaching-place. It had a large yard and galleries, with elegantly designed galleries to the first, second, and third floors. There is a view of it in the Crace collection. Its site was afterwards occupied by the Queen's Hotel, which was pulled down in 1887 to make room for the post-office extension.

The Catherine Wheel was a sign frequently adopted by inn-keepers in former days. Mr. Larwood, in his 'History of Signboards,' assumes that it was intended to indicate that as the knights of St. Catherine of Mount Sinai protected the pilgrims from robbery, he, the innkeeper, would protect the traveller from being fleeced at his inn. But this surmise seems too learned to be true. What did the bonifaces of those days know of the knights of St. Catherine? But in Roman Catholic countries saints were, and are still, seen on numerous signboards, and so the one in question may have descended in English inns from ante-Reformation times, or it may have been the fancy of one particular man, who may have read the story of St. Catherine, and been moved by it to adopt the wheel. St. Catherine was beheaded, after having been placed between wheels with spikes, from which she was saved by an angel. But to come to facts.

There were two inns in London with that sign. One was in Bishopsgate Street, and was in the last century a famous coaching inn, built in the style of such inns, with a coach-yard and galleried buildings round. It has disappeared. The other was in the Borough, and was a much larger establishment, and a famous inn for carriers during the last two centuries. It remains, but has lost its galleries and other distinctive features.

One of the oldest inns in London, bearing the sign of the Cock, stood till 1871 on the north side of Tothill Street. It was built entirely of timber, mostly cedar-wood, but the outside was painted and plastered, and an ancient coat of arms, that of Edward III. (in whose reign the house is said to have been built), carved in stone, discovered in the house, was walled up in the front of the house. Larwood says that the workmen employed at the building of the east end of Westminster Abbey used to receive their wages there, and at a later period, about two centuries ago, the first Oxford stage-coach is reported to have started from that inn. In the back parlour there was a picture of a jolly and bluff-looking man, who was said to have been its driver. The house was built so as to enclose a galleried yard, and it no doubt originally was one of some importance. Under the staircase there was a curious hiding-place, perhaps to serve as a refuge for a 'mass priest' or a highwayman. There were also in the house two massive carvings, the one representing Abraham about to offer up his son, and the other the adoration of the magi, and they were said to have been left in pledge for an unpaid score. There is a water-colour drawing of the house as it appeared in 1853 in the Crace collection. It is supposed that the sign of the Cock was here adopted on account of its vicinity to the Abbey, of which St. Peter was the patron. In the Middle Ages a cock crowing on the top of a pillar was often one of the accessories in a picture of the Apostle.

A sign frequently adopted by innkeepers was the Cross Keys, the arms of the Papal See, the emblem of St. Peter and his successors. There was an inn with that sign in Gracechurch Street, having a yard with galleries all round, and in which theatrical performances were frequently given. Banks, already mentioned, there exhibited his wonderful horse Morocco; it was here the horse, at his master's bidding to 'fetch the veriest fool in the company,' with his mouth drew forth Tarleton, who was amongst the spectators. Tarleton could only say, 'God a mercy, horse!' which for a time became a by-word in the streets of London. At this inn the first stage-coach, travelling between Clapham and Gracechurch Street once a day, was established in 1690 by John Day and John Bundy; but the house was well known as early as 1681 as one of the carriers' inns.

The Four Swans (demolished) was a very fine old inn, with courtyard and galleries to two stories on three sides complete.

Whether St. George ever existed is doubtful; probably the story of this saint and the dragon is merely a corruption of the legend of St. Michael conquering Satan, or of Perseus' delivery of Andromeda. The story was always doubted, hence the lines recorded by Aubrey:

'To save a maid St. George the dragon slew,

A pretty tale if all is told be true.

Most say there are no dragons, and it's said

There was no George; pray God there was a maid.'

 

But the George is, and always has been, a very common inn sign in this as well as in other countries. We are, however, here concerned with one George only, the one in the Borough. It existed in the time of Stow, who mentions it in the list of Southwark inns he gives, and its name occurs in a document of the year 1554. It stood near the Tabard. It had the usual courtyard, surrounded by buildings on all sides, with galleries to two stories on three sides giving access to the bedrooms. The banisters were of massive size, of the 'footman leg' style. In 1670 the inn was in great part burnt down and demolished by a fire which broke out in the neighbourhood, and it was totally consumed by the great fire of Southwark some six years later. The fire began at one Mr. Welsh's, an oilman, near St. Margaret's Hill, between the George and Talbot inns. It was stopped by the substantial building of St. Thomas's Hospital, then recently erected. The present George inn, although built only in the seventeenth century, was rebuilt on the old plan, having open wooden galleries leading to the bedchambers. When Mrs. Scholefield, descended from Weyland, the landlord of the inn at the time of the fires, died in 1859, the property was purchased by the governors of Guy's Hospital. The George now styles itself a hotel, but still preserves one side of its galleries intact.

Dragons, though fabulous monsters, asserted themselves on signboards; green appears to have been their favourite colour. When Taylor, the water poet, wrote his 'Travels through London,' there were no less than seven Green Dragons amongst the Metropolitan taverns of his day. The most famous of them, which is still in existence, was the Green Dragon in Bishopsgate Street, which for two centuries was one of the most famous coach and carriers' inns. It is even now one of the best examples of the ancient hostelries, its proprietor having strictly retained the distinctive features of former days, the only innovation introduced by him being a real improvement, in the removal of one of the objections to the open galleries of the old inns. He has enclosed these with glass, and on a trellis-work leading up to them creeping plants have been made to twine, so as to give a cool and refreshing aspect to the old inn yard in summer time. Troops of guests now daily dine in its low-ceilinged rooms with great beams in all sorts of angles, and shining mahogany tables. The Dragon is great in rich soups and mighty joints of succulent meat; in old wines, appreciated by amateurs.

The King's Head was another of the many inns once to be found in the Borough. Their great number is easily explained by the fact that London Bridge was then the only bridge from south to north, and vice versâ, and that therefore the traffic of horses and men had to pass through Southwark—of course, necessitating much hotel accommodation. The King's Head was a great resort of big waggons, for the loading of which a large crane stood in the yard, in consequence of which one side of the yard had a gallery to the second floor only, the crane occupying the space of the lower one, whilst on the other side there were galleries to the first and second floors.

The Old Bell in Holborn, recently pulled down, bore the arms of the Fowlers of Islington, the owners of Barnsbury Manor and occupiers of lands in Canonbury. In its galleried yard the boys used to meet to go in coaches to Mill Hill School.

The Oxford Arms stood south of Warwick Square and the College of Physicians, and is mentioned in a carrier's advertisement of 1672. Edward Bartlet, an Oxford carrier, started his coaches and waggons thence three times a week. He also announced that he kept a hearse to convey 'a corps' to any part of England. The Oxford Arms had a red-brick façade, of the period of Charles II., surmounting a gateway leading into the yard, which had on three sides two rows of wooden galleries with exterior staircases, the fourth side being occupied by stabling, built against a portion of old London Wall. This house was consumed in the great fire, but was rebuilt on the former plan. The house always belonged to the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's, and the houses of the Canons Residentiary adjoin the Oxford Arms on the south, and there is a door from the old inn into one of the back-yards of the residentiary houses, which is said to have been useful during the riots of 1780 for facilitating the escape of Roman Catholics from the fury of the mob, by enabling them to pass into the residentiary houses; for which reason, it is said by a clause always inserted into the leases of the inn, it is forbidden to close up the door. John Roberts, the bookseller, from whose shop most of the libels and squibs on Pope were issued, lived at the Oxford Arms.

The Queen's Head was another of the Southwark inns. Its inner yard had galleries on one side only, one to the first and another to the second floor. Like all others, the yard was approached by a high gateway from the street, and another under the building between the outer and inner yards.

At Knightsbridge there stood till about 1865, when it was pulled down, the Rose and Crown, anciently called the Oliver Cromwell. It was one of the oldest houses in the High Street, Knightsbridge, having been licensed above three hundred years. The Protector's bodyguard is said to have been stationed in it, and an inscription to that effect was, till shortly before its demolition, painted on the front. This is merely legendary, but there are grounds for not entirely rejecting the tradition. In 1648 the Parliament army was encamped in that neighbourhood; Fairfax's headquarters were for a while at Holland House. There was a house not far from the inn called Cromwell House, and at Kensington there still exists a charity called Cromwell's Gift, originally a sum of £45, but, having been invested in land in the locality, of great value now. Cromwell House was also known as Hale House; a portion of the South Kensington Museum now occupies the site.

To return to the Rose and Crown. Two sides of the yard had a gallery to the first floor, but it was of the poorest description. There were no elegant banisters, the lower part of the gallery was closed up with boards of the roughest kind, about breast high, and irregularly nailed on to the posts supporting the roof. Two water-colour drawings, dated 1857, showing the exterior of the house and the yard, are in the Crace collection. Corbould painted this inn under the title of the 'Old Hostelrie at Knightsbridge,' exhibited in 1849; but he transferred its date to 1497, altering the house according to his fancy. In 1853 the inn had a narrow escape from destruction by fire. Before its final demolition it had been much modernized, though leaving enough of its original characteristics to testify to its antiquity and former importance. The Royal Oak at Vauxhall was an old inn with a galleried yard. It was taken down circa 1812 to make the road to Vauxhall Bridge, then in course of construction.

One of the oldest of galleried inns in London was the Saracen's Head, on Snow Hill. In 1377 the fraternity founded in St. Botolph's Church, Aldersgate, in honour of the Body of Christ and of the saints Fabian and Sebastian, were the proprietors of the Saracen's Head inn. In the reign of Richard II. they granted a lease of twenty-one years to John Hertyshorn of the Saracen's Head, with appurtenances, consisting of two houses adjoining on the north side, at the yearly rent of ten marks. In the reign of Henry VI. Dame Joan Astley (some time nurse to that King) obtained a license to refound the fraternity in honour of the Holy Trinity. In the reign of Edward VI. it was suppressed, and its endowments, valued at £30 per annum, granted to William Harris. The antiquity of the inn was thus beyond question. Stow, describing this neighbourhood, mentions it as 'a fair large inn for receipt of travellers.' The courtyard had to the last many of the characteristics of an old English inn: there were galleries all round leading to the bedrooms, and a spacious gateway through which the mail-coaches used to pass in and out. It was at this inn that Nicholas Nickleby and his uncle waited on Squeers, the schoolmaster of Dotheboys Hall. It was demolished in 1863, when the Holborn Valley improvements were undertaken. A view of the inn as it appeared in 1855 is in the Crace collection.

As there were many inns on the Southwark side of London Bridge for the reasons given when we spoke of the King's Head, so for the same reason a number of inns, some of which we have already mentioned, were on the northern side of the bridge. Besides those already named, there was the Spread Eagle, in Gracechurch Street. The original building had perished in the great fire, but the inn was rebuilt after it. It had the usual yard and galleries to the two floors. At first only a carriers' inn, it became famous as a coaching-house, the mails and principal stage-coaches for Kent and other southern counties arriving and departing from here. It was long the property of John Chaplin, cousin of William Chaplin, of the firm of Chaplin and Horne. The inn was taken down in 1865; the plot of ground which it occupied contained 12,600 feet, and was sold for £95,000.

The Swan with Two Necks is a curious sign, variously explained. It is supposed to mean the swan with two nicks or notches cut into swans' bills, so that each owner might know his. But these nicks being so small as not to be discernible on an inn sign hung high up, there seems no sense in referring to them. More likely two swans swimming side by side, and the neck of one of them protruding beyond that of the other, took some artist's fancy, and induced him to produce the illusion in a picture. However, the origin of the sign does not concern us, but the inn with that sign. There was a famous one in what was Lad Lane, and is now Gresham Street. It was for a century and more the head coach-inn and booking-office for the North. Its courtyard was of great size; the galleries were of somewhat irregular arrangement, there being one only at the back, communicating at one end with a lower and an upper gallery on one side, whilst on the other side there was a gallery unconnected with the others, and which also was wider and more elaborately decorated than the others. A view of it appeared in the Illustrated London News, December 23, 1865.

An inn which has been rendered famous by Chaucer's rhymed tales—we cannot honestly call them poetry—of the Canterbury pilgrims is the Tabard, in the Borough. Its history must be pretty familiar to most people. It originally was the property of William of Ludegarsale, of whom the Tabard and the adjoining house, which the Abbots made their town residence, were purchased in 1304 by the Abbot and convent of Hyde, near Winchester. The pilgrimage to Canterbury is said to have taken place in 1383. Henry Bailly, Chaucer's host of the Tabard at that time, was a representative of the Borough of Southwark in Parliament during the reign of two Kings, Edward III. and Richard II. After the dissolution of the monasteries, the Tabard and the Abbot's house were sold by Henry VIII. to John Master and Thomas Master; the Tabard afterwards was in the occupation of one Robert Patty, but the Abbot's house, with the stable and garden belonging thereto, were reserved to the Bishop Commendator, John Saltcote, alias Casson, who had been the last Abbot of Hyde, and who surrendered it to Henry VIII., and who afterwards was transferred to the See of Salisbury. The original Tabard was in existence as late as the year 1602. On a beam across the road, whence swung the sign, was inscribed: 'This is the inn where Sir Jeffry Chaucer and the nine-and-twenty pilgrims lay in their journey to Canterbury, ANNO 1383.' On the removal of the beam the inscription was transferred to the gateway. The house was repaired in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and from that period probably dated the fireplace, carved oak panels, and other portions spared by the fire of 1676, which were still to be seen at the beginning of this century. In this fire some six hundred houses had to be destroyed to arrest the progress of the flames, and as the Tabard stood nearly in the centre of this area, and was mostly built of wood, there can be no doubt that the old inn perished. It was, however, soon rebuilt, and as nearly as possible on the same spot; but the landlord changed the sign from the Tabard to the Talbot; there is, nevertheless, little doubt that the inn as it remained till 1874, when it was demolished, with its quaint old timber galleries, with two timber bridges connecting their opposite sides, and which extended to all the inn buildings, and the no less quaint old chambers, was the immediate successor of the inn commemorated by Chaucer. According to an old view published in 1721, the yard is shown as apparently opening to the street; but in a view which appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine of September, 1812, the yard seems enclosed. A sign, painted by Blake, and fixed up against the gallery facing you as you entered the yard, represented Chaucer and his merry company setting out on their journey. There was a large hall called the Pilgrims' Hall, dating of course from 1676, but in course of time it was so cut up to adapt it to the purpose of modern bedrooms, that its original condition was scarcely recognisable. There are various views of the old inn in the Crace collection: one without date, one of 1780, another of 1810, another of 1812 (the Gentleman's Magazine print), one of 1831, and yet another of 1841. The site is now occupied by a public-house in the gin-palace style, which presumes to call itself the Old Tabard.

In Piccadilly, No. 75, there formerly stood on part of the site for so short a time occupied by Clarendon House (1664-1683) the Three Kings tavern. At the gateway to the stables there were seen two Corinthian pilasters, which originally belonged to Clarendon House. The stable-yard itself presented the features of the old galleried inn-yard, and it was the place from which the first Bath mail-coach was started. Later, Mr. John Camden Hotten, and afterwards Messrs. Chatto and Windus, carried on their publishing business on this spot.

In the seventeenth century the Three Nuns was the sign of a well-known coaching and carriers' inn in Aldgate, which gave its name to Three Nuns Court close by. The yard, as usual, was galleried, but within recent years the inn was pulled down and rebuilt in the form of a modern hotel. Near this inn was the dreadful pit in which, during the Plague of 1665, not less than 1,114 bodies were buried in a fortnight, from September 6 to 20.

The Criterion Restaurant and Theatre stands on the site of an old inn, the White Bear, which for a century and more was one of the busiest coaching-houses in connection with the West and South-West of England. In this house Benjamin West, the future President of the Royal Academy, put up on his arrival in London from America. Here died Luke Sullivan, the engraver of some of Hogarth's most famous works. The inn yard had galleries to two sides of the bedchambers on the second floor, connected by a bridge across.

We must once more return to Southwark, for besides the inns already mentioned as existing in that locality, there was another famous one, namely, the White Hart. It had the largest inn sign except the Castle in Fleet Street. Much maligned Jack Cade and some of his followers put up at this inn during their brief possession of London in 1450. The original inn which sheltered them remained standing till 1676, when it was burnt down in the great fire already mentioned. It was rebuilt, and was in existence till a few years ago, when it was pulled down. It consisted of several open courts, the inner one having handsome galleries on three sides to the first and second floors. There are two views of it, taken respectively in 1840 and 1853, in the Crace collection, and it was in the yard of this inn that Mr. Pickwick first encountered Sam Weller.

The White Lion, in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, was originally an inn frequented by drovers and carriers, and covered a good deal of ground; but before its demolition it had already been greatly reduced in size, the gateway leading into the yard having been built up and formed into an oil-shop. Inserted in the front wall was the sign in stone relief, representing a lion rampant, painted white, and with the date 1714. A house on the other side of the central portion also seems to have formed part of the original White Lion. The gate just mentioned led into a yard similar to those attached to other ancient inns. There were, in the east front of the inn, strong wooden beams, which no doubt supported the erection over the gateway, and that there was a yard surrounded by a gallery is proved by the remains of door openings in the upper parts of the back walls of the premises, which had been bricked up. At one time a bowling-green was attached to the tavern, and by the side of it a pond, in which Anthony Joyce, the cousin of Pepys, drowned himself. He was a tavern keeper, and kept the Three Stags in Holborn, which was burnt down in 1666. Pepys records in his Diary, under September 5 of that year: 'Thence homeward ... having ... seen Anthony Joyce's house on fire.' The loss incurred by the fire preyed on Joyce's mind, and is supposed to have led him to commit the rash act.

Here we will close our selection, which embraces all the most important galleried taverns once existing in London. Their disappearance is much to be regretted, though with the requirements of modern travellers it was scarcely to be avoided. But they formed picturesque features of London, which has so very few of them, especially as regards hotels, which in their modern style remind us only of slightly decorated barracks, if they are not perfectly hideous, as, for instance, the architectural nightmare in Victoria Street. But there are plenty of people yet who delight in old-fashioned houses and surroundings—the revival of stage-coaches is proof of it. A galleried tavern with modern improvements would, we fancy, not be a bad spec.

II.—OLD LONDON TEA-GARDENS.

Names are often misleading. Mr. Coward is a fierce fire-eater; Mr. Gentle's family tremble when they hear his footsteps on the pavement on his return home from his office, for they know that immediately on his entrance he will kick up a row with every one of them; whilst Mr. Lion lives in awe of his termagant better, or worse, half. We are led into these reflections by the term 'tea-gardens.' It sounds so very innocent; it calls up visions of honest citizens, surrounded by their wives and olive-branches, enjoying, amid idyllic scenes of rural beauties, their fragrant bohea, bread-and-butter, cream and sillabub. But the vision is delusive. Noorthouck, who wrote about 1770, when the tea-gardens were most abundant and flourishing, speaks of them thus: 'The tendency of these cheap catering places of pleasure just at the skirts of this vast town is too obvious to need further explanation; they swarm with loose women and with boys whose morals are depraved, and their constitutions ruined, before they arrive at manhood. Indeed, the licentious resort to the tea-drinking gardens was carried to such excess every night that the magistrates lately thought proper to suppress the organs in their public rooms; it is left to their cool reflection whether this was discharging all the duty they owe to the public.' Certes, the remedy seems hardly adequate when the grand jury of Middlesex, as far back as 1744, had complained of 'advertisements inviting and seducing not only the inhabitants, but all other persons, to several places kept apart for the encouragement of luxury, extravagance, idleness, and other wicked illegal purposes, which go on with impunity to the destruction of many families, to the great dishonour of the kingdom, especially at a time when we are involved in an expensive war, and so much overburdened with taxes of all sorts,' etc. With such an indictment before them, the magistrates must have been wooden-headed indeed if they thought to stop the evil by forbidding the playing of organs at such places. And the evil must have been not only serious, but widespread, seeing there were upwards of thirty of these tea-gardens around London. But our object is not to preach a sermon on the wickedness of the world, but to describe the places where it was practised. We begin with Bagnigge Wells tea-gardens.

Who now, wandering about dreary King's Cross, unacquainted with the history of the place, would believe that this was once a picturesque rural spot? But such it was, and here Nell Gwynne had a summer residence amidst fields and on the banks of the River Fleet, then a clear stream, occasionally flooding the locality. The ground on which the house, a gabled building, stood was then called Bagnigge Vale. Early in the eighteenth century the house was converted into a place of public entertainment, in consequence of the timely discovery on the spot of two wells, one of which was said to be purging and the other chalybeate, and the water of which was sold at threepence a glass or at eightpence by the gallon. But one of the wells seems to have been known by the name of Black Mary's Well or Hole, which may have been a corruption of Blessed Mary's Well, or due to the alleged fact that a black woman leased the well. The gardens, it seems, were largely patronized, hundreds of persons visiting them in the morning to drink the waters, and on summer afternoons to drink tea, and something stronger, too. The grounds were ornamented with curious shrubs and flowers, a small round fish-pond, in the centre of which was a fountain, representing Cupid bestriding a swan, which spouted the water up to a great height. The Fleet flowed through a part of the gardens, and was crossed by a bridge. Two prints are extant (reproduced in Pinks's 'Clerkenwell'), showing the gardens as they were in 1772 and again early in the present century. But in December, 1813, the gardens came to grief; the whole of the furniture and fittings were sold by auction by order of the assignees of Mr. Salter, the tenant, a bankrupt. The fixtures and fittings were described as comprising the erection of a temple, a grotto, alcoves, arbours, boxes, green-house, large lead figures, pumps, cisterns, sinks, counters, beer machine, stoves, coppers, shrubs, 200 drinking tables, 350 forms, 400 dozen bottled ale [which shows that tea was not the only drink consumed there], etc. The house itself remained standing till 1844, when it was demolished; the Phoenix brewery afterwards occupied the site, which is now covered with dreary streets. All that reminds you now of the gardens is a stone tablet set into the wall of a dull house in the neighbourhood, which shows a grotesque head and the inscription: 'This is Bagnigge House, neare the Finder a Wakefield, 1680.' It may be added that at the time the gardens were in existence the place was environed with hills and rising ground, every way but to the south, and consequently screened from the inclemency of the more chilling winds. Primrose Hill rose westward; on the north-west were the more distant elevations of Hampstead and Highgate; on the north and north-east were pretty sharp ascents to Islington. But the ground, which, as shown then, was in a deep hollow, has in modern times been considerably raised above the former level, and no vestige remains of the gardens or the springs. But the gardens were so famous in their day as to cause their name to be adopted by a similar establishment in a totally different direction. Towards the end of the last century the New Bagnigge Wells tea-gardens were opened at Bayswater. Whether these were identical with the new Bayswater tea-gardens mentioned in a London guide we have not been able to ascertain, but probably they were. Sir John Hill, born about 1716, had a house in the Bayswater Road, in whose grounds he cultivated the medicinal plants from which he prepared his tinctures, balsams, and water-dock essence, and though the profession called him a charlatan and a quack, he must have been a learned botanist. His 'Vegetable System' extends to twenty-six folio volumes. His garden is now covered by the long range of mansions called Lancaster Gate, but towards the close of the last century the site was opened to the public as tea-gardens. The grounds were spacious, and contained several springs of fine water lying close to the surface. The Bayswater Bagnigge Wells was opened as a public garden as late as 1854, shortly after which time, the visitors having grown less and less, it was shut up, and eventually seized by the land-devouring speculating builder.

The similarity of names has carried us from the north of London to the west, but as the former locality, in consequence of its natural features, always was a favourite one for tea-gardens, we will return to it. On the top of the hill we referred to as rising from Bagnigge Wells to Islington there stood, where the Belvedere Tavern now stands, a house of entertainment known as Busby's Folly, so called after its owner, one Christopher Busby, whose name is spelt Busbee on a token, 'White Lion at Islington, 1668,' of which he was the landlord. Why the cognomen of Folly was given to it is not very apparent, since, to judge by the prints extant, there was nothing foolish about the building. But it appears that then, as it is now, it was customary to call any house which was not constructed according to a tasteless, unimaginative builder's ideas a Folly; at Peckham there was Heaton's Folly. From Busby's Folly the Society of Bull Feathers' Hall used to commence their march to Islington to claim the toll of all gravel carried up Highgate Hill, to which they asserted a right in a tract published by them and entitled 'Bull Feather Hall; or, the Antiquity and Dignity of Horns amply shown. London, 1664.' Busby's Folly retained its name till 1710, after which it was called Penny's Folly, and here men with learned horses, musical glasses, and similar shows entertained the public. The gardens were extensive, and about 1780 the house seems to have been rebuilt and christened Belvedere Tavern, which name it still bears. Close to it was another tavern known as Dobney's, and which originally was called Prospect House, because in those days, standing as it did on the top of what was then styled Islington Hill, it really commanded a fine prospect north and south. In 1770 Prospect House was taken for a school, but soon reopened as the Jubilee Tea-Gardens, in commemoration of the jubilee got up at Stratford-on-Avon by Garrick in honour of Shakespeare, and the interior of the bowers was painted with scenes from his plays. In 1772 one Daniel Wildman here performed 'several new and amazing experiments never attempted by any man in this or any other kingdom before. He rides, standing upright, one foot on the saddle and the other on the horse's neck, with a curious mask of bees on his head and face ... and by firing a pistol makes one part of the bees march over a table and the other swarm in the air and return to their proper hive again.' He also advertised that he was prepared to supply the nobility and gentry with any quantity of bees from one stock in the common or newly-invented hives. In 1774 the gardens fell into a ruinous condition, but there were still two handsome tea-rooms. In 1780 the house was converted into a discussion and lecture room, but the speculation did not answer; the place was cleared, and about 1790 houses, known as Winchester Place, were erected on it. But a portion of the gardens remained open till 1810, when that also disappeared, and the only remains on the site of this once famous tea-garden is a mean court in Penton Street called Dobney's Court. The Prospect House to which the gardens belonged still stands behind the present Belvedere Tavern, but there is no sign of antiquity about it.

In 1683 the well known as Sadler's Well was discovered, and Sadler's Musick-House, as it was originally called, thenceforth became Sadler's Well. But as it was, as its name implied, rather a house for musical entertainment than a tea-garden, and as its history is pretty well known, we pass it by to speak of a well adjoining it, namely, Islington Wells or Spa, or New Tunbridge Wells.

This well was already in repute when the well on Sadler's land was discovered, and as the two wells were contiguous, the Spa was frequently mistaken for Sadler's. About the year 1690 it was advertised that the Spa would open for drinking the medicinal waters. In 1700 there was 'music for dancing all day long every Monday and Thursday during the summer season; no masks to be admitted.' A few years later the Spa became fashionable, being patronized by ladies of such position as Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. In 1733 the Princesses Amelia and Caroline, daughters of George II., came daily in the summer and drank the waters; in fact, such was the concourse of nobility and others that the proprietor took upwards of thirty pounds in a morning. Whenever the Princesses visited the Spa they were saluted with a discharge of twenty-one guns, and in the evening there was a bonfire. Ned Ward described the place:

'Lime trees were placed at a regular distance,

And scrapers were giving their awful assistance.'

It also furnished a title to a dramatic trifle, by George Colman, called 'The Spleen, or Islington Spa,' acted at Drury Lane in 1776. The proprietor, Holland, failing, the Spa was sold to a Mr. Skinner in 1778, and the gardens were reopened every morning for drinking the waters, and in the afternoon for tea. The subscription for the season was one guinea; non-subscribers drinking the waters, sixpence each morning. At the beginning of this century part of the garden was built on, and about 1840 what remained was covered by two rows of cottages, called Spa Cottages. At present there is at the corner of Lloyd's Row a small cottage with the inscription on it, 'Islington Spa, or New Tunbridge Wells.'

The Islington Spa must not be confounded with a similar neighbouring establishment in Spa Fields, adjoining Exmouth Street. The locality was originally called Ducking Pond Fields. Hunting ducks with dogs was one of the barbarous amusements our ancestors delighted in. The public-house to which the pond belonged was taken down in 1770, and on its site was erected the Pantheon, built in imitation of the Oxford Street Pantheon. It was a large round building, with a statue of Fame on the top of it. Internally it had two galleries and a pit, and in the winter it was warmed by a stove, having fireplaces all round, the smoke from which was carried away under the floor. To the building was attached an extensive garden, disposed in fancy walks, and having on one side of it a pond, at one end of which was a statue of Hercules, at the other end stood a summer-house for company to sit in. There were also boxes of alcoves all round the gardens, and two tea-rooms in the main building itself. The place was well patronized, the company usually consisting, as described in the Sunday Ramble, of some hundreds of persons of both sexes, the greater part of which, notwithstanding their gay appearance, were evidently neither more nor less than journeymen tailors, hair-dressers, and other such people, attended by their proper companions, milliners, mantua-makers, and servant-maids, besides other and more objectionable characters of the female sex. According to a letter addressed to the St. James's Chronicle, 1772, the Pantheon was a place of 'infamous resort,' the writer declaring that of all the tea-houses in the environs of London, the most exceptional he ever had occasion to be in was the Pantheon. He was particularly annoyed at being frequently asked by the Cyprian nymphs swarming in the place to be treated with 'a dish of tea.' He ought to have heard the requests of our modern Cyprians! The place, however, did not prosper; the Rotunda had been built by a Mr. Craven; whilst it was being erected Mrs. Craven visited it, and was so overcome by the gloomy thoughts that troubled her mind that she gave vent to tears, and remarked to a friend of hers: 'It is very pretty, but I foresee that it will be the ruin of us, and one day or other be turned into a Methodist meeting-house.' The lady had a prophetic mind, for in 1774 her husband became bankrupt, and the Pantheon, 'with its four acres of garden, laid out in the most agreeable and pleasing style, refreshed with a canal abounding with carp, tench, etc., and commanding a pleasing view of Hampstead, Highgate, and the adjacent country,' were sold by auction, and finally closed in 1776. The Rotunda, as foreseen by Mrs. Craven in 1779, became one of the chapels of Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, under the name of Spa Fields Chapel. It is now replaced by the Episcopal Church of the Holy Redeemer.

To the south of the Pantheon, in Bowling Green Lane, stood, in the middle of the last century, the Cherry Tree Public House and Gardens, with their bowling-green. The gardens took their name from the large number of trees bearing that fruit which grew there. There were subscription grounds for the game of nine-pins, knock-'em-downs, etc., and the house was much resorted to by the inhabitants of Clerkenwell. But there was yet another well in this locality, which seems to have been a very solfatara for springs, for near King's Cross there was a chalybeate spring, known as St. Chad's Well, supposed to be useful in cases of liver attacks, dropsy, and scrofula. St. Chad[#] was the founder of the See and Bishopric of Lichfield, and was cured of some awful disease by drinking the waters of this well, wherefore his name was given to it. He died about 673, and in those days the names of saints were as commercially valuable in starting a well or other natural or unnatural phenomenon as the names of lords are on modern business prospectuses. And St. Chad brought lots of custom to the well, for as late as the last century eight or nine hundred persons a morning used to come and drink these waters. Nay, fifty years ago they drew visitors to themselves and the gardens surrounding the well. On a post might be seen an octagonal board, with the legend, 'Health preserved and restored.' Further on stood a low, old-fashioned, comfortable-looking, large-windowed dwelling, and frequently there might also be seen standing at the open door an ancient dame, in a black bonnet, a clean blue cotton gown, and a checked apron. She was the Lady of the Well. The gardens might be visited and as much water drunk as you pleased for £1 1s. per year, 9s. 6d. quarterly, 4s. 6d. monthly, and 1s. 6d. weekly. A single visit and a large glassful of water cost 6d. The water was warmed in a large copper, whence it was drawn off into the glass. The charge of 6d. was eventually reduced to 3d. There was a spacious and lofty pump-room and a large house facing Gray's Inn Road, but all that now remains is the remembrance of the well in the name of a narrow passage, called St. Chad's Place, closed at its inner end by an old-fashioned cottage with green shutters.

[#] He is a saint in the English calendar, and his day is March 2.

We will ascend Pentonville Hill again to Penton Street, at the corner of which stands Belvedere Tavern, formerly Busby's Folly, and, going up Penton Street a little way, we come to what was once the site of White Conduit House, the present White Conduit House, tavern covering a portion of the old gardens. It took its name from a conduit, built in the reign of Henry VI., and repaired by Sutton, the founder of the Charter House. The house was at first small, having only four windows in front; but in the middle of the last century the then owner could advertise that 'for the better accommodation of gentlemen and ladies he had completed a long walk, with a handsome circular fish-pond, a number of shady, pleasant arbours, enclosed with a fence seven feet high to prevent being incommoded by people in the fields; hot loaves and butter every day, milk directly from the cows, coffee, tea, and all manners of liquors in the greatest perfection; also a handsome long-room, from whence is the most copious prospects and airy situation of any now in vogue.' A long poem in praise of the house appeared in the Gentleman's Magazine in 1760. It was written by William Woty, a Grub Street poet. A frequent visitor to White Conduit House was Goldsmith, who used to repair thither with some of his friends, after he had discovered the place, as he relates in Letter 122 of the 'Citizen of the World.' The passage, I must confess, does little honour to his genius or his taste, and I wonder he did not have it expunged from his collected writings. As is customary with such places of amusement, in course of time the company did not improve, though in 1826 it was attempted to revive the reputation of the place, partly by calling it a Minor Vauxhall; but nightly disturbances and the encouragement of immorality thereby, caused it to be suppressed by magisterial authority on the proprietor's application for the renewal of his license. About 1827 the grounds were let for archery practice, and in 1828 the old house was pulled down and a new one erected in its place, which was opened in 1829. The new building was somewhat in the gin-palace style: stucco front, pilasters, cornices and plate glass. It contained large refreshment rooms, and a long and lofty ballroom above, where the dancing, if not very refined, was vigorous. Gentlemen went through country dances with their hats on and their coats off. Eventually the master of the ceremonies objected to the hats, and they were left off, as the coats continued to be. In 1849 this elegant place of amusement was demolished and streets built on its grounds, as also the present White Conduit Tavern.

A former proprietor of White Conduit House, Christopher Bartholomew, died in positive poverty in Angel Court, Windmill Street, 'at his lodgings, two pair of stairs room,' as the Gentleman's Magazine, March, 1809, says. He once owned the freehold of White Conduit House and of the neighbouring Angel inn, and was worth £50,000; but he was seized with the lottery mania, and paid as much as £1,000 a day for insurances. By degrees he sank into poverty, but a friend having supplied him with the means of obtaining a thirty-second share, that number turned up a prize of £20,000. He purchased an annuity of £60 per annum, but foolishly disposed of it and lost it all. A few days before he died he begged a few shillings to buy him necessaries. But does his fate, and that of many others equally deluded, act as a warning to anyone? We fear not.

White Conduit House was sold in 1864, by order of the proprietor, in consequence of ill-health. The lease had then about eighty years to run, at the rent of £80 per annum. The property fetched £8,990. What price would it fetch now? Public-houses have gone up tremendously since then.

Close to White Conduit House was another famous house of entertainment, that is to say, Copenhagen House, which was opened by a Dane when the King of Denmark paid a visit to James I., but the house did not attract much attention till after the Restoration, when the once public-house became a tea-garden, with the customary amusements, fives-playing being a favourite. Hazlitt, who was enthusiastic about the game, immortalized one Cavanagh, an Irish player, who distinguished himself at Copenhagen House by playing matches for wagers and dinners. The wall against which they played was that which supported the kitchen chimney, and when the ball resounded louder than usual the cooks exclaimed, 'Those are the Irishman's balls!' 'And the joints trembled on their spits,' says Hazlitt. The next landlord encouraged dog-fighting and bull-baiting, in consequence of which he lost his license in 1816. The fields around Copenhagen House, now all built over, were the scene of many riotous assemblies at the time of the French Revolution, Thelwall, Horne Tooke, and other sympathizers with France being the chief instigators and leaders of those meetings.

Going considerably northward, we reach Highbury Barn, which, with lands belonging thereto, was leased in 1482 by the Prior of the monastery of St. John of Jerusalem to John Mantell, described as citizen and butcher of London. The property thus leased comprised the Grange place, with Highbury Barn, a garden, and 'castell Hilles,' two little closures containing five acres, and a field called Snoresfeld, otherwise Bushfield. Highbury Barn was at first a small ale and cake house, and as such is mentioned early in the eighteenth century. Gradually it grew into a tavern and tea-garden. A Mr. Willoughby, who died in 1785, increased the business, and his successor added a bowling-green, a trap-ball ground, and more gardens. The barn could accommodate 2,000 persons at once, and 800 people have been seen dining together, with seventy geese roasting for them at one fire. Early in this century a dancing and a dining room were added. Near this house there was, in 1868, found in a field a vase containing nearly 1,000 silver coins, consisting of silver pennies, groats and half-groats, two gold coins of Edward III., and an amber rosary. The manor of Highbury having, as we have seen, belonged to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, the coins may have been buried by them at the time of the insurrection of Wat Tyler, whose followers destroyed the monastery and also made an attack on the Prior's house at Highbury. The coins are now in the British Museum.

But we find we have got to the end of the space allotted to us, and though we have only, as it were, dipped into the bulk of our subject, we must defer for some other opportunity the description of the large number of old tea-gardens still to be noticed. We will here only indicate the most important of them: Camberwell Grove, Cuper's Gardens, Chalk Farm, Canonbury House, Cumberland Gardens, Cupid Gardens, Sluice House, Eel-pie House, St. Helen's, Hornsey Wood, Hoxton, Kilburn Wells, Mermaid, Marylebone, Montpellier, Ranelagh, Paris Gardens, Shepherd and Shepherdess, Union Gardens, Yorkshire Stingo, Jew's Harp, Adam and Eve, Tottenham Court Road; Adam and Eve, St. Pancras; the Brill, Mulberry Gardens, Springfield, and others of less note.

XIII.

WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

Some London streets have strange and unsuitable names; thus you will find an alley of wretched hovels, with muddy yards, containing nothing but cabbage-stumps and broken dustbins, called Prospect Place; whilst a lane adjoining the shambles styles itself Paradise Row. And what a curious name for a street is that of Threadneedle[#] Street! How came the street to be so named? However, such is its name, and in this case it is not inappropriate. For lives there not in that street the Old Lady who is, year in, year out, everlastingly threading her diamond needle with gold and silver threads, and working the gorgeous embroidery of the financial flags of her own and of almost every other country in the world? Her dwelling is palatial; to be merely admitted into her parlour is in itself a positive proof of your respectability, for you gain no entrance thereto unless you are a stockholder; as to her drawing-room, the glories of Versailles and the Escurial are as miserable shanties, for her drawing-room contains, leaving alone other treasures, engravings worth from five pounds each to fifty thousand—nay, a hundred thousand pounds each. There is no five o'clock tea there, but plenty of music all day long; its notes, indeed, are silent, but the gold and silver instruments, whose fascinating and entrancing sounds have more magic in them than has the finest orchestra, vocal or instrumental, are audible enough. And as to her cellars, the treasures the Old Lady keeps there would buy up half a dozen such caves as that into which Aladdin descended.

[#] Stow calls it Three Needle Street, as Hatton supposes, from such a sign. It has also been written Thrid Needle and Thred Needle Street, but our ancestors were not so particular as to spelling as we are.

The reader has by this time discovered who the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street is—namely, the Bank of England—the most gigantic monetary establishment in the world, the financial reservoir, the opening or shutting of whose sluices causes not only the commercial ebb and flow of east and west, of north and south, but sets in motion or prevents the 'pomp and circumstance of glorious war.'

The history of this mighty establishment has often been told, but it seems to us that but scant justice has as yet been done to its founder, William Paterson. The injustice done to him, in fact, dates from an early day, for soon after the foundation of the Bank, of which he naturally was one of the directors, intrigue drove him from that position, and envy and obloquy pursued him ever after. But let us briefly recount his early history.

Born on a farm in Dumfriesshire in 1658 of a family notable in old Scottish history, he was, at the age of sixteen, transferred to the care of a kinswoman at Bristol, on whose death he inherited some property. Bristol was then a great commercial emporium, doing with much legitimate business a little in the slave trade, and his connection with that town was afterwards injurious to him, for whilst his friends said that he visited the New World as a missionary, his enemies asserted that he was mixed up with slave-dealing, and occasionally indulged in piracy. But the fact of his marrying the widow of a Puritan minister at Boston is more in accordance with the statements of his friends than with those of his enemies. Anderson, the historian of commerce, who as a lad must have known him in his old age, speaks of him as 'a merchant who had been much in foreign countries, and had entered far into speculations relating to commerce and the colonies.'

He was in England in 1681, and, among the various schemes he started, he took a leading part in the project for bringing water into the north of London from the Hampstead and Highgate hills. He made a heavy investment in the City of London Orphans' Fund; in the improved management and distribution of that charity he took a profound interest, a fact which leaves no doubt of his philanthropic and public spirit. It was in 1684 that he first conceived the idea of the Darien scheme, and though this turned out so unfortunate, he from first to last acted with rare disinterestedness; his errors were those such as a well-balanced and generous mind might fall into without reproach. Nor is the failure of that enterprise to be attributed to him, but to the conduct of William III., who had sanctioned, but afterwards, at the instigation of the East India Companies of England and Holland, discouraged and positively thwarted, it. How deeply he felt the disastrous results of the expedition is shown by the fact that for a time his mind was deranged in consequence of it. And who will now deny that Paterson was right in calling the Isthmus of Panama the 'door of the seas and the key of the universe'? In 1825 Humboldt recommended the scheme of a canal from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and the enterprise of Lesseps will yet be carried to a successful issue.

However, we have to deal with Paterson chiefly as the founder of the Bank of England, and with the long and fierce battle he had to fight to accomplish his object, for there was great opposition to it from interest and prejudice. Paterson had been long in Holland, and when he propounded his scheme of a Bank of England, the people objected to it as coming from Holland; 'they had too many Dutch things already,' just as now there is a prejudice against things 'made in Germany.' Moreover, they doubted the stability of the Government of William III. At last, however, they consented to the Bank, on the express condition that £1,200,000 should be subscribed and lent to the Government. The money was subscribed in ten days. The Bank Act was obtained in spite of all opposition, which perhaps would have prevailed had not Queen Mary, acting on the instruction of William (then in Flanders), during a six hours' sitting, carried the point, and the company received their royal charter of incorporation in July, 1694. Almost as soon as it had been established the Bank was called upon to assist the Government in the re-coinage of the silver money. The notes of the new Bank were destined to fill up the vacuum occasioned by the calling in of the old coin, but as the notes were payable on demand, they were returned faster than coin could be obtained from the Mint; a crisis ensued, during which the notes of the Bank fell to a discount of 20 per cent. But the Bank passed safely through its difficulties, as also through the troubles caused by the South Sea Bubble. The opposition in the first crisis was due chiefly to the goldsmiths, who detested the new corporation because it interfered with their system of private banking, hitherto monopolized by them. Paterson's advice was of the greatest assistance in his capacity of director, yet such was the animus against him that, as we mentioned above, in 1695 he sold out the stock he held (£2,000), which from the first was a director's qualification, and retired from his office. But he did not withdraw from public life. The Darien Expedition already referred to was organized by him in 1698, and its disastrous results were, as we have shown, in nowise attributable to him, and this was, in fact, eventually admitted by the nation, Parliament in 1715 passing an Act awarding him an indemnity of upwards of £18,000 for his losses in that enterprise. In other ways Paterson continued to interest himself in matters affecting the public welfare; he rendered his Sovereign signal services by the wise and shrewd advice he gave him during the latter part of his troubled reign; he published many tracts on the management of the National Debt and the system of auditing public accounts; he was a zealous advocate of Free Trade, and his views on the subject of taxation were far ahead of the ideas of his day. His undoubtedly great talents, his thorough honesty and genuine patriotism, fully entitle him to the praise given him by his friend Daniel Defoe, as 'a worthy and noble patriot, one of the most eminent, to whom we owe more than ever he would tell us, or, I am afraid, we shall ever be sensible of, whatever fools, madmen, or Jacobites may asperse him with.'

We cannot attempt to give a history of the Bank of England in our limited space, but a short account of the Bank building may not unfitly close this notice of the founder of the establishment. The business was originally started at Mercers' Hall, and next removed to, and for many years carried on at, Grocers' Hall in the Poultry. In August, 1732, the governors and directors laid the first stone of their new building in Threadneedle Street, on the site of the house and garden formerly belonging to Sir John Houblon, the first Governor of the Bank. At first the buildings comprised only the centre of the principal or south front, the Hall, Bullion Court, and the Courtyard, and were surrounded by St. Christopher-le-Stocks Church, three taverns, and several private houses. From the year 1766 onwards considerable additions were made to the building. All the adjoining houses on the east side to Bartholomew Lane, and those occupying the west side of that lane almost to Lothbury, were taken down, and their places occupied by offices of the Bank. The south side buildings, forming the eastern continuation of the establishment, presented a range of fluted columns in pairs, with arched intervals between, pointing out where windows should have been placed, which, however, were filled up with stone. This necessitated the rooms within being lighted by small glass domes in the roof, a circumstance much complained of at the time by the clerks as injuriously affecting their eyes. It was intended to extend the façade on the western side by taking down the Church of St. Christopher, which by the removal of that part of Threadneedle Street had been deprived of a great part of its parish. Noorthouck, who wrote in 1773, says: 'How far so extensive a plan may answer the vast expense it will call for to complete it is a question proper for the consideration of those who are immediately concerned; an indifferent spectator cannot view this expanded fabric without comparing it with the growth of public debts negotiated here, and trembling more for the safety of the one than of the other.' Could he see the Bank now, covering nearly four acres of ground, what would he say?

One Ralph, architect, whose 'Critical Review of the Buildings, Statues, and Ornaments in and about London' was published in 1783, says: 'The building erected for the Bank is liable to the very same objection, in point of place, with the Royal Exchange, and even in a greater, too. It is monstrously crowded on the eye, and unless the opposite houses could be pulled down, and a view obtained into Cornhill, we might as well be entertained with a prospect of the model through a microscope. As to the structure itself, it is grand ... only the architect seems to be rather too fond of decoration; this appears pretty eminently by the weight of his cornices ... rather too heavy for the building.' The objectionable buildings here referred to were the triangular block of houses which formerly stood in front of the old Royal Exchange, but was removed on the building of the new.

At the beginning of this century the Bank on the south side was of the same extent as now; on the east side also it extended to Lothbury, on the west it reached to about half the length of the present Princes Street, which, however, then did not proceed in a straight line, as it does now, but took a sharp turn to north-east, coming into Lothbury at a point nearly opposite St. Margaret's Church, and thus cutting off a corner of the Bank site, which would otherwise have been nearly square. But when, early in this century, Princes Street was extended in a straight line to Lothbury, the condensed portion of the street, together with a block of houses on the west side of it, were added to the Bank site, and the Bank assumed its present shape. But great architectural improvements had in the meantime been introduced. The original or central portion, eighty feet in length, which was of the Ionic order raised on a rusticated basement, was altered to what it now is; the attic seen on it was added in 1850. This original portion was from the design of George Sampson. The east and west wings were added by Sir Robert Taylor, after whom Sir John Soane was appointed the Bank architect, and he rebuilt many of those parts constructed by Sampson and Taylor; and on Sir John's death in 1837 Mr. Cockerell succeeded him in the position. He again greatly modified many features of the building. The eighty feet of the original south side now extend to 365 feet; the length of the west side is 440 feet, of the north side 410 feet, and of the east side 245 feet. Both internally and externally classical models have been followed. The hall known as the Three Per Cent. Consol (three per cent., alas! gone) Office, ninety feet long by fifty wide, is designed from models of the Roman baths, as are the Dividend and Bank Stock Offices. The chief cashier's office is forty-five feet by thirty, and designed after the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome. The Court Room of the composite order, about sixty feet long and thirty-one wide, is lighted by large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking what once was the churchyard of St. Christopher's Church, and into which in 1852 a fountain was placed, which throws a single jet, thirty feet high, amongst the branches of two of the finest lime-trees in London. The north side of the Court Room is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble. The original Rotunda was roofed in with timber, but in 1794 it was found advisable to take it down, and the present Rotunda was built, which measures fifty-seven feet in diameter, and about the same in height; it is of incombustible material, as are all the offices erected by Sir John Soane. There are a number of courts within the outer walls of the buildings; they are all of great architectural beauty; the one entered from Lothbury is truly magnificent. It has screens of fluted Corinthian columns, supporting a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, an imitation of the arch of Constantine at Rome, gives access to the Bullion Court, in which is another row of Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature, decorated with statues representing the four quarters of the globe. The north-west corner of the Bank is modelled on the temple of Vesta at Rome. We have yet to mention the Old Lady's Drawing-Room, or the pay-office, where bank-notes are issued, or exchanged for cash. It is a fine hall, seventy-nine feet long by forty wide, and we have left the mention of it to the last because it suggests to us some particular reflections. We have seen that Paterson was the real founder of the Bank of England, and we may take this opportunity of adding that Charles Montague and Michael Godfrey are entitled to share in Paterson's glory for the assistance they lent him in this undertaking; but the Bank ignores its founder, and had not even a portrait of him till Mr. James Hogg, the founder of London Society, presented them with one. In the Pay Hall stands the statue of William III., and in the Latin inscription underneath he is called 'founder of the Bank.' It is the old story: when a prize is taken at sea the biggest share of it, the lion's share, goes to the 'Flag'; the real fighters must put up with the leavings.

Let us end with another philosophical reflection. Facts are more astounding than fiction, as we will show by two facts. Gaboriau's novel 'La Dégringolade' (The Downfall), in one of its earliest chapters describes the opening of a grave in the Parisian cemetery of Montmartre, to discover whether it contains the body of a certain person or not. The coffin is found to be empty. This is a fiction, but are we not likely to see its realization shortly? Paul Féval's romance 'Les Mystères de Londres' gives a long account of the fictitious attempt of some villains to get at the treasures in the cellars of the Bank of England by digging a tunnel under Threadneedle Street; they are, of course, foiled in the end. But now, according to accounts published at the end of the month of November, 1898, in the Daily Mail, the tunnel is actually dug by a railway company, and so close to the walls of the Bank as to actually compel its governors and directors to call in the assistance of Sir John Wolfe Barry to advise means to avert the danger which threatens the building, already affected by the excavations. Truly fact is stranger than fiction.

XIV.

THE OLD DOCTORS.

The lines of modern doctors have fallen in pleasant places. Their position is certainly somewhat different from what it was in the days when they were contemptuously called leeches, when their scientific investigations exposed them to persecution and death. Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, was condemned to death by the Inquisition for dissecting a human body, but by the intervention of King Philip II., whose physician he was, the punishment was reduced to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; on his return the ship was lost on the island of Zante, where he perished of starvation in 1564. Now Government licenses doctors to practise vivisection! At Dijon, in 1386, a physician was fined by the bailiff fifty golden francs, and imprisoned for not having completed the cures of some persons whose recovery he had undertaken. In a schedule of the offices, fees, and services which the Lord Wharton had with the Wardenry of the city and castle of Carlisle in 1547, a trumpeter was rated at 16d. per day, and a surgeon only at 12d. Edward III. granted Counsus de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, 6d. a day for his care and attendance on him while he formerly lay sick in Scotland. A knowledge of astrology was in those days requisite for a physician; the herbs were not to be gathered except when the sun and the planets were in certain constellations, and certificates of their being so were necessary to give them reputation. Sometimes patients applied to astrologers, who were astrologers only, whether the constellations were favourable to the doctor's remedies. Then, if the man died, the astrologer ascribed the death to the inefficacy of the remedies, while the doctor threw the blame on the astrologer, he not having properly observed the constellations. Then the latter would exclaim that his case was extremely hard; if he made a mistake, his calculation being wrong, heaven discovered it, whilst if a physician was guilty of a blunder, the earth covered it. Even then doctors were considered like the potato plant, whose fruit is underground. To see the doctor's carriage, whose motto should be 'Live or die,' or 'Morituri te salutant,' attending a funeral, reminds a cynic of a cobbler taking home his work.

In England the medical profession rose in public estimation from the time when Henry VIII., with that view, incorporated several members of the profession into a body, community, and perpetual college, since called the College of Physicians. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their opposite characteristics of vulgarity and romance, of squalor and luxury, of ignorance and grand discoveries in science, of prejudice and intelligence, were highly conducive to the formation and cultivation of individualism and originality of character; hence those two centuries abounded in 'oddities' and 'eccentricities,' and in no section of society more than in the medical. The members of that profession could very readily and appropriately then be divided into two great schools—the Rough and the Smooth, the fierce dispensers of Brimstone and the gentle administrators of Treacle. The present century, with its levelling tendencies, opposed to all originality and so-called eccentricity in speech, custom, and costume, reducing all gentlemen in full dress to the rank of waiters, has nearly abolished the sulphury Galen; in fact, he would scarcely be tolerated now. People submit to certain foolish pretensions now, such as those of thought-reading and pin-hunting cranks, and similar mental eccentricities; but they must be administered mildly, there must be a treacly flavour about them, for—

'This is an age of flatness, dull and dreary,

Society is like a washed-out chintz,

Which scandal renders somewhat foul and smeary;

And yet, without its malice, lies, and hints,

E'en fashion's children would at last grow weary

Of looking at the faded cotton prints

To which respectability subdues

Our uncontrolled imagination's hues.'

Hence the medical showmen of the present day must accompany the 'exhibition' of their nostrums with dulcet sounds and honeyed speeches, especially when treating those nursed in the lap of affluence; and, accustomed as they are to adulation, the medico who can condescend to feed them with well-disguised flattery, or assume the tone of abject servility, has too often the credit of possessing superior skill and science. And the patients, in the words of Byron, travestied—

'They swallow filthy draughts and nauseous pills,

But yet there is no end of human ills.'

 

It was, of course, not every doctor who could, at the beginning of his career, go in for the brimstone system. Unless he was backed by very powerful patronage, or wrote a book or pamphlet which attracted attention—as Elliotson's practice rose from £500 to £5,000 a year through his papers in the Lancet—or was by some lucky accident pitched into a position which by itself alone inspired the public with an overwhelming belief in his skill, the experiment of treating his patients with rudeness and indifference would have been fatal to his prospects. But let him once make a hit, either by being luckily on the spot when a king or prince was thrown off his horse, or by a successful operation, or by writing a book which 'caught on,' and the public were at his feet, and he could trample on them as much as he liked. But it did not follow that, after such success, he must necessarily abuse his privileges. Dr. Arbuthnot, the son of a non-juring clergyman in Scotland, came to London about the time of the Restoration, and at first earned a living by teaching mathematics, though he had studied medicine. He happened to be at Epsom on one occasion when Prince George, who was also there, was suddenly taken ill. Arbuthnot was called in, and having effected a cure, was soon afterwards appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to the Queen. And, of course, his practice was established on a solid foundation, and he carried it on with considerable professional distinction. But his success did not spoil him, for he was a man of a genial disposition, who turned neither to brimstone nor to treacle, but always maintained a dignified demeanour. He was a wit and a man of letters, and enjoyed the esteem of such men as Swift, Pope, and Gay. Before coming to London he had chosen Dorchester as a place to practise as a physician, but the salubrity of the air was opposed to his success, and he took horse for London. A friend meeting him, asked him where he was going. 'To leave your confounded place, where I can neither live nor die.' It was said of him that his wit and pleasantry sometimes assisted his prescriptions, and in some cases rendered them unnecessary. He died at the age of sixty from a complication of disorders, so little is the physician able to cure himself.

Sir Astley Cooper (b. 1768, d. 1841) also did not belong to the brimstone school. His surgical skill was very great, and he liked to display it. He always retained perfect self-command in the operating theatre, and during the most critical and dangerous performances on a patient, he tried to keep up the latter's courage by lively and facetious remarks. When he was in the zenith of his fame, a satirical Sawbones said of him:

'Nor Drury Lane nor Common Garden

Are, to my fancy, worth a farden;

I hold them both small beer.

Give me the wonderful exploits,

And jolly jokes between the sleights,

Of Astley's Amphitheatre.'

 

When Sir Astley lived in Broad Street, City, he had every day a numerous morning levee of City patients. The room into which they were shown would hold from forty to fifty people, and often callers, after waiting for hours, were dismissed without having seen the doctor. His man Charles, with more than his master's dignity, would say to disappointed applicants when they reappeared on the following morning: 'I am not sure that we shall be able to attend to you, for our list is full for the day; but if you will wait, I will see what we can do for you.' During the first nine years of his practice Sir Astley's earnings progressed thus: First year, £5 5s.; second, £26; third, £64; fourth, £96; fifth, £100; sixth, £200; seventh, £400; eighth, £600; ninth, £1,100. Eventually his annual income rose to more than £15,000; the largest sum he ever made in one year was £21,000. A West Indian millionaire gave him his highest fee; he had successfully undergone a painful operation, and sitting up in bed, he threw his nightcap at Cooper, saying, 'Take that!' 'Sir,' replied Sir Astley, 'I'll pocket the affront;' and on reaching home he found in the cap a cheque for one thousand guineas.

Dr. Matthew Baillie (b. 1761, d. 1823) was a physician who occasionally indulged in the brimstone temper, and was disinclined to attend to the details of an uninteresting case. After listening on one occasion to a long-drawn account from a lady, who ailed so little that she was going that evening to the opera, he had made his escape, when he was urged to step upstairs again that the lady might ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat some oysters. 'Yes, madam,' said Baillie; 'shells and all!'

Dr. Richard Mead (b. 1673, d. 1754) was physician to George II., and the friend of Drs. Radcliffe, Garth, and Arbuthnot, and a great patron of literary and artistic genius. In his house in Great Ormond Street he established what may be called the first academy of painting in London. His large collection of paintings and antiquities, as well as his valuable library, was sold by auction on his death in 1754. In 1740 he had a quarrel with Dr. Woodward, like himself a Gresham professor; the two men drew their swords, and Mead having obtained the advantage, he commanded Woodward to beg his life. 'No, doctor,' said the vanquished combatant, 'that I will not till I am your patient.' But, nevertheless, at last he wisely submitted. In Ward's 'Lives of the Gresham Professors' is a view of Gresham College, with a gateway, entering from Broad Street, marked 25. Within are the figures of two persons, the one standing, the other kneeling; they represent Dr. Mead and Dr. Woodward. Dr. Mead was of a generous nature. In 1723, when the celebrated Dr. Friend was sent to the Tower, Mead kindly took his practice, and, on his release by Sir Robert Walpole, presented the escaped Jacobite with the result, £5,000.

Dr. Mead, about 1714, lived at Chelsea; about the same date there lived in the same locality Dr. Alexander Blackwell, whom we introduce here chiefly on account of his singularly unfortunate life and very tragical end. Blackwell was a native of Aberdeen, studied physic under Boerhaave at Leyden, and took the degree of M.D. On his return home he married, and for some time practised as a physician in London. But not meeting with success, he became corrector of the press for Mr. Wilkins, a printer, and some time after commenced business in the Strand on his own account, and promised to do well, when, under an antiquated and unjustly restrictive law, a suit was brought against him for setting up as a printer without his having served his apprenticeship to it. Mr. Blackwell defended the suit, but at the trial in Westminster Hall a dunderheaded jury, probably of narrow-minded tradesmen, all anxious to uphold their objectionable privileges, found a verdict against him, in consequence of which he became bankrupt, and one of his creditors kept him in prison for nearly two years. By the help of his wife, who was a clever painter and engraver, he was released. She prepared all the plates for the 'Herbal,' a work figuring most of the plants in the Physic Garden at Chelsea, close to which she lived. A copy of this book eventually fell into the hands of the Swedish Ambassador, who sent it over to his Court, where it was so much liked that Dr. Blackwell was engaged in the Swedish service, and went to reside at Stockholm. He was appointed physician to the King, who under his treatment had recovered from a serious illness. Dr. Blackwell had left his wife in England; she was to follow him as soon as his position was placed on a solid basis. But ere this could take place he was accused of having been engaged with natives and foreigners in plotting to overturn the constitution of the kingdom. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, his heart and bowels to be torn out and burnt, and his body to be quartered. He was said, under torture, to have made confession of such an attempt, but the real extent of his guilt must always remain problematical. That he, a person of no influence, and unconnected with any person of rank, should have aimed at overthrowing the constitution seems very improbable. It is more likely that he was made a scapegoat to strike terror into the party then opposed to the Ministry. The awful sentence passed on him, however, was commuted to beheading, which fate he underwent on July 29, 1747. He must have been a man of great nerve and a humorist, for, having laid his head wrong, he remarked jocosely that this being his first experiment, no wonder he should want a little instruction!

The Dr. Woodward we mentioned above seems to have been a very irascible and objectionable individual. He so grossly insulted Sir Hans Sloane, when he was reading a paper of his own before the Royal Society in 1710, that, under the presidency of Sir Isaac Newton, he was expelled from the Society.

Among medical oddities of the rougher sort we may reckon Mounsey, a friend of Garrick, and physician to Chelsea Hospital. His way of extracting teeth was original. Round the tooth to be drawn he fastened a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he fastened a bullet, with which and a strong dose of powder he charged a pistol. On the trigger being pulled, the tooth was drawn out. Of course, it was but seldom he could prevail on anyone to try the process. Once, having induced a gentleman to submit to the operation, the latter at the last moment exclaimed: 'Stop! stop! I've changed my mind.' 'But I have not, and you are a fool and a coward for your pains,' answered the doctor, pulling the trigger, and in another instant the tooth was extracted.

Once, before setting out on a journey, being incredulous as to the safety of cash-boxes and safes, he hid a considerable quantity of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them with cinders and shavings. A month after, returning luckily sooner than he was expected, he found his housemaid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. She was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized a pail of water which happened to be standing near, and throwing its contents over the fuel and the servant, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes were injured, and the Bank of England made some difficulty about cashing them.

'When doctors disagree,' etc. Do they ever agree? Yes, when, after a consultation over a mild case which has no interest for any of them, they over wine and biscuits agree that the treatment hitherto pursued had better be continued. To discuss it further would interrupt the pleasant chat over the news of the day! But when they meet over a friendly glass at the coffee-house they go at it hammer and tongs. Dr. Buchan, the author of 'Domestic Medicine,' of which 80,000 copies were sold during the author's lifetime, and which, according to modern medical opinion, killed more patients than that—doctors like cheap medicine as little as lawyers like cheap law—Dr. Gower, the urbane and skilled physician of Middlesex Hospital, and Dr. Fordyce, a fashionable physician, whose deep potations never affected him, used to meet at the Chapter Coffee-House, and hold discussions on medical topics; but they never agreed, and with boisterous laughter used to ridicule each other's theories. But they all agreed in considering the Chapter punch as a safe remedy for all ills.

Dr. Garth, the author of the 'Dispensary,' a poem directed against the Apothecaries and Anti-Dispensarians, a section of the College of Physicians, was very good-natured, but too fond of good living. One night, when he lingered over the bottle at the Kit-Kat Club, though patients were longing for him, Steele reproved him for his neglect of them. 'Well, it's no great matter at all,' replied Garth, pulling out a list of fifteen, 'for nine of them have such bad constitutions that not all the physicians in the world can save them, and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world cannot kill them.' The doctor here plainly admitted the uselessness of his supposed science, as in his 'Dispensary' he admitted drugs to be not only useless, but murderous.

'High where the Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,

To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames,

There stands a structure[#] on a rising hill,

Where Tyros take their freedom out to kill.'

 

[#] Apothecaries' Hall. A doctor, I forget his name, having obtained some mark of distinction from the Company of Apothecaries, mentioned at a party that the glorious Company of Apothecaries had conferred much honour on him. 'But,' said a lady, 'what about the noble army of martyrs of patients?'

In Blenheim Street lived Joshua Brookes, the famous anatomist, whose lectures were attended by upwards of seven thousand pupils. His museum was almost a rival of that of John Hunter, and was liberally thrown open to visitors. One evening a coach drew up at his door, a heavy sack was taken out and deposited in the hall, and the servants, accustomed to such occurrences, since their master was in the habit of buying subjects, were about to carry it down the back-stairs into the dissecting-room, when a living subject thrust his head and neck out of one end and begged for his life. The servants in alarm ran to fetch pistols, but the subject continued to beg for mercy in such tones as to assure them they had nothing to fear from him. He had been drunk, and did not know how he got into the sack. Dr. Brookes ordered the sack to be tied loosely round his chin, and sent him in a coach to the watch-house. How he got into the sack may easily be surmised: Some body-snatchers, a tribe then very much to the fore, had no doubt found the man dead drunk in the street, and knowing the doctor to be a buyer of subjects, had taken him there, in the hope that the doctor might begin operating on the body before it recovered consciousness, so as to enable them afterwards to claim the price. In the days when there were dozens of executions in one morning at Newgate, the doctors had a good time of it, for the bodies of the malefactors were handed over to them for dissection. In fact, under the steps leading up to the front-door of Surgeons' Hall, a handsome building which stood next to Newgate Prison, there was a small door, through which the corpses were introduced into the building. Surgeons' Hall was pulled down in 1809, to make room for the new Sessions House.

The doctors of the previous two centuries were mostly Sangrados, who bled and purged their patients most unmercifully; but we must say this to their credit, they did not descend to the sublime atrocity of microbes, bacilli, and all the other horrors of the microscopic mania now sending unnumbered nervous people into lunatic asylums. And so they had not, like their modern compeers, the chance of amusing themselves and paying one another professional compliments by sending glass tubes, filled with the deadly spawn, from one country to another by ship and rail. Fancy one of those tubes getting accidentally broken, or being intentionally smashed for a lark on board a passenger steamer. Why, this would speedily become a vessel laden with corpses! At least, according to modern teaching, which, entre nous, we have no more faith in than we have in many other medical dicta. A man is ill from over gorging or drinking, a child ails from a surfeit of sweets or from catching a disease playing with other children in the streets or at school. The doctor is called in, and instead of telling the man, 'You have made a beast of yourself,' or correctly indicating the cause of the child's illness, he sniffs about and says: 'There is something the matter with your drains: I can smell sewer-gas.' And presently the sanitary inspector arrives, and orders the pulling up and renewal of the drains, and for days the house is filled with the effluvia supposed to be poisonous. How is it the whole family do not die off? Well, scavengers who daily deal with offal and garbage of the most offensive kind, the men who work down in the sewers, enjoy robust health; the latter only suffer when they are suddenly plunged into an excess of sewer-gas, but it is the quantity and not the quality that injures.

The excessive treacliness of modern doctors, as we have just shown, is as objectionable as was the brimstone treatment of some of their predecessors. A principle with modern doctors is never to acknowledge themselves nonplussed. The old doctors now and then confessed themselves beaten. Said an Æsculapius who had been called in to prescribe for a child, after diagnosing, as the ridiculous farce of tongue-speering and pulse-squeezing is called: 'This here babe has got a fever; now, I ain't posted up in fevers, but I will send her something that will throw her into fits, and I'm a stunner on fits.' And modern doctors, indeed, have no occasion to admit ignorance since the invention of the liver. When they cannot tell what is the matter with a man, or they are too urbane to reproach him with his excesses, his liver is out of order—and that is an organ which cannot possibly be examined and its condition be verified so as to prove or disprove the practitioner's assertion. I assume that nine out of ten people don't know where or what the liver is—I'm sure I don't, and don't want to; but as Sancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep, the doctors should bless their colleague who invented the liver! Abernethy, of whom more hereafter, with all his eccentricity, was honest enough to confess that he never cured or pretended to cure anyone, which only quacks did. He despised the humbug of the profession, and its arts to mislead and deceive patients. He only attempted to second Nature in her efforts. He admitted that he could not remove rheumatism, that opprobrium of the faculty, and no doctor can; a residence in a warm and ever sunny clime, or a long course of Turkish baths, can do it. Hence sings Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd':

'I sits with my feet in a brook,

And if they ax me for why,

In spite of the physic I took,

It's rheumatiz kills me, says I.'[#]

 

[#] In searching for material for these pages I had occasion to read the lives of a good many doctors; half of them, I should say, died of rheumatism and gout.

This was the desperate remedy taken by Caroline, Queen of that brute George II., when he expected her to take her usual walk with him, though both her feet were swollen with rheumatism. She plunged them in a bath of cold water, and managed to go out with him that afternoon.

I read in some publication—London Society, I think—in an article on medicine, that it is a sensible plan, adopted by some wise people, to pay a medical man a yearly sum to look up a household periodically and keep them in good health. This seems to me as insane a plan as can well be imagined. Fancy the physicking such a family, especially the children and servants, must all the year round undergo! For the doctor does not like to take his money and do nothing for it; so, if there happens to be no real illness, he must exhibit his draughts and pills, just to show that he is honestly earning his fee. The regular attendant, the family doctor, means that the family are hospitalizing all the year round. Better go and live in the island of Sark. Sir Robert Inglis, in his account of the Channel Islands, says that at Sark there is no doctor, and that in the years 1816 and 1820 there was not one death on the island, containing a population of five hundred persons, and that on an average of ten years the mortality is not quite one in a hundred. But let us return to the old doctors.

Dr. George Fordyce, who came in 1762 from Edinburgh to London, very speedily made himself a name by a series of public lectures on medical science, which he afterwards published in a volume entitled 'Elements of the Practice of Physic,' which passed through many editions. Unfortunately he was given to drink, and though he never was known to be dead drunk, yet he was often in a state which rendered him unfit for professional duties. One night when he was in such a condition, he was suddenly sent for to attend a lady of title who was very ill. He went, sat down, listened to her story, and felt her pulse. He found he was not up to his work; he lost his wits, and in a moment of forgetfulness exclaimed: 'Drunk, by Jove!' Still, he managed to write out a mild prescription. Early next morning he received a message from his noble patient to call on her at once. Dr. Fordyce felt very uncomfortable. The lady evidently intended to upbraid him either with an improper prescription or with his disgraceful condition. But to his surprise and relief she thanked him for his prompt compliance with her pressing summons, and then confessed that he had rightly diagnosed her case, that unfortunately she occasionally indulged too freely in drink, but that she hoped he would preserve inviolable secrecy as to the condition he had found her in. Fordyce listened to her as grave as a judge, and said: 'You may depend upon me, madam; I shall be as silent as the grave.'

Another doctor who made his reputation by lecturing was Dr. G. Wallis, of Red Lion Square. He had originally established himself at York, where he was born, but being much attached to theatrical amusements, and a man of wit, he had written a dramatic piece, entitled 'The Mercantile Lovers: a Satire.' It contained a number of highly caustic remarks, either so directly levelled at certain persons of that city, or taken by them to themselves, that he lost all professional practice, and had to leave York, when he came to London, and, as already mentioned, commenced lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic. He published various medical works, and died in 1802.

In the reign of James I. lived Dr. Edward Jorden, whom we mention on account of two curious circumstances in his life. The doctor, being on a journey, benighted on Salisbury Plain, and not knowing which way to ride, met a shepherd of whom he made inquiry what places were near where he could pass the night. He was told there was no house of entertainment for travellers near, but that a gentleman of the name of Jordan, and a man of great estate, lived close by. Looking on the similarity of the names as a good omen, Jorden applied at the house, where he was kindly received, and made so good an impression on his host that the latter bestowed on him his daughter with a considerable fortune.

The second circumstance was this: James, as is well known, was a firm believer in witchcraft. Now, it happened that a girl in the country was said to have been bewitched by a neighbour. The King had her sent for, and placed under the care of Dr. Jorden, who very soon discovered the girl to be a cheat; in fact, she confessed as much, saying that her father, having had a quarrel with a female neighbour, had induced her (his daughter) to accuse the woman of having bewitched her and brought upon her the fits she simulated. This confession Jorden reported to the King, the doctor not being courtier enough to see what James wanted, namely, a witch to burn. But as the girl had for a short time given him the prospect of such a treat, the King, though she by her own confession was a diabolical liar—for everyone in those days knew that the charge of witchcraft involved the risk of losing life by a fiery death—James actually gave her a portion, and she was married, 'and,' as the account naïvely observes, 'thus was cured of her inimical witchery.'

Of Dr. Francis J. P. de Valangin (b. 1719, d. 1805), of the College of Physicians, London, though a native of Switzerland, it was said that to his patients he was kind and consolatory in the extreme—nothing of the rough element in him; he was, as the obituary notice of him says, the friend of mankind and an honour to his profession. About the year 1772 de Valangin purchased ground in Pentonville, near White Conduit House, where he erected a residence on a plan laid down by himself; and as the design was not that of ordinary builders or architects it was called fanciful, chiefly because of a high brick tower rising from it, which the doctor built for an observatory. Of course the next tenant, a timber merchant, had nothing more pressing to do than immediately to pull down the features which distinguished the building from the dulness of orthodox architecture. Valangin had christened the elevation on which his house stood 'Hermes Hill,' after Hermes Trismegistus, the fabled discoverer of the chemist's art.

Dr. Anthony Askew, one of the celebrities of St. Bartholomew's in the last half of the last century, was as famous in literature as he was in medicine. He had a collection of Greek MSS., purchased at great expense in the East, more numerous and more valuable than that of any other private gentleman in England. His house in Queen Square was, moreover, crammed with printed books; the sale of his library in 1775, which lasted twenty days, was the great literary auction of the time.

Another famous physician of St. Bartholomew's was Dr. David Pitcairn, who died in 1809. He also was distinguished as a literary man and lover of art. His earnings were very large, for he was frequently requested by his brethren for his advice in difficult cases. His manners as a physician were simple, gentle, and dignified, and always sufficiently cheerful to inspire confidence and hope. It is said that he was occasionally affected in his speech; thus he is reported to have asked a lady for a pinch of snuff in the following terms: 'Madam, permit me to immerse the summits of my digits in your pulveriferous utensil, to excite a grateful titillation of my olfactory nerves.'

Of Dr. John Radcliffe, the physician of the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne, many strange anecdotes are told, for he was a man of rough Abernethy manners, even with kings. When called in to see King William at Kensington, finding his legs dropsically swollen, he said: 'I would not have your two legs, your Majesty, not for your three kingdoms.' The remark gave great offence. But on another occasion he was even more brusque. 'Your juices,' he said to the King, 'are all vitiated, your whole mass of blood corrupted, and the nutriment mostly turned to water. If your Majesty will forbear making long visits to the Earl of Bradford' (where the King was wont to drink very hard), 'I'll engage to make you live three or four years longer, but beyond that time no physic can protract your Majesty's existence.' On one occasion, when he was sent for from the tavern, to which he resorted but too often, by Queen Anne, he flatly refused to leave his bottle. 'Tell her Majesty,' he bellowed, 'that it's nothing but the vapours.' He advised a hypochondriacal lady, who complained of nervous singing in the head, to 'curl her hair with a ballad.' He cured a gentleman of a quinsy by making his own two servants eat a hasty-pudding for a wager, which caused the patient to break out into such a fit of laughter as to burst the quinsy. Sir Godfrey Kneller and Radcliffe were at one time neighbours in Bow Street, Covent Garden, and the painter having beautiful pleasure-grounds, a door was opened for the accommodation of his neighbour. But in consequence of damage done to his flower-beds, Sir Godfrey threatened to close the door, to which Radcliffe replied, he might do anything with it but paint it. 'Did Dr. Radcliffe say so?' cried Sir Godfrey. 'Go and tell him, with my compliments, that I can take anything from him but his physic.' In spite of his cynicism and rudeness, he made a very large income, on the average twenty guineas a day, and when he was told that the £5,000 he had invested in South Sea stock was lost, he could with placid sangfroid say: 'Well, it is only going up another 5,000 stairs.' But though he so heavily taxed his patients, he was very much opposed to paying his debts, especially such as he owed to tradespeople. A pavior, whom he had employed and constantly put off paying, at last waited for him at his (the doctor's) door, and, when his carriage drove up, roughly asked for his money. 'Why, you rascal,' said the doctor, 'do you expect to get paid for such a bad piece of work? You have spoiled my pavement, and covered it with earth to hide your bad work!' 'Doctor,' replied the pavior, 'mine is not the only bad work the earth hides.' 'You dog, you!' cried the doctor, 'you must be a wit, and want the money. Come in.' And he paid him. Curiously enough, the man who left the splendid library, known by his name, to Oxford, at one time, on being asked where his library was, pointed to a few phials, a skeleton, and a herbal, in one corner of his apartment, and said, 'Sir, there is my library!' He was a Tory in politics, and it was said that he kept Lady Holt alive out of pure political animosity to the Whig Chief Justice Holt, because she led her lord such a life.

Of a more genial disposition, though no less original character, was Dr. John Cookley Lettsom. He was born in a small island near Tortola, called Little Van Dyke, which belonged to his father. A view of it may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine, December Supplement, 1815. When only six years of age he was sent to England for his education, being entrusted to the care of a Mr. Fothergill, then a famous preacher among the Quakers. His father dying before he came of age, that gentleman became his guardian, and with a view to his future profession sent him to Dr. Sutcliffe. For two years he attended St. Thomas's Hospital, and then returned to his native place in the West Indies to take possession of any property that might remain; but on his arrival he found himself £500 worse than nothing, his elder brother, then dead, having run through an ample fortune, leaving to his younger brother only a number of negro slaves, whom he at once emancipated. He entered on the medical profession, and in five months made the astonishing sum of £2,000, with which he returned to Europe, visited the medical schools of Paris and Edinburgh, took his degree of M.D. at Leyden in 1769, and was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London in the same year. His rise in his profession was rapid. In 1783 he earned £3,600; in 1784, £3,900; in 1785, £4,015; in 1786, £4,500; and in some years his income reached £12,000. But he was at the same time giving away hundreds—nay thousands—in gratuitous advice, and the poorer order of the clergy and struggling literary men received not only gratuitous advice, but substantial aid. He was one of the original projectors and supporters of the General Dispensary, of the Finsbury and Surrey Dispensaries, of the Margate Sea-Bathing Infirmary, as well as of many other charitable institutions. In 1779 he purchased some land on the east side of Grove Hill, Camberwell, where he erected the villa which for years was associated with his name, and where he entertained some of the most eminent literati of his time. The house contained a library of near ten thousand volumes, and a museum full of natural and artistic curiosities. The grounds were most tastefully laid out and adorned with choice trees, shrubs and flowers. The avenue of elms, still retaining the name of Camberwell Grove, formed part of the small estate and the approach to the house. It is sad to relate that Dr. Lettsom's excessive devotion to science and literature impaired his resources, and compelled him eventually to quit Grove Hill. He died in 1815, aged seventy-one years. He being in the habit of signing his prescriptions 'J. Lettsom,' some wag, putting forth the lines as the doctor's own composition, wrote thus:

'When patients comes to I,

I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em;

Then, if they choose to die,

What's that to I? I lets 'em.'

 

Everyone has heard, and has a story to tell, of Dr. John Abernethy (b. 1764, d. 1831), so we do not know whether in telling our stories of him we shall be able to tell the reader anything new; but as he was a medical eccentricity, we cannot omit him from our portrait gallery. But let us premise that if we call him eccentric we refer to his manners only, in which he did not take after his chief instructor, Sir Charles Blick, who was a fashionable physician of the extra-courteous school. In scientific knowledge Abernethy greatly excelled all his colleagues, though he got less fame by that than by his oddities. When he had made up his mind to marry he wrote off-hand to a lady a note of proposal, saying that he was too busy to attend in person, but he would give her a fortnight for consideration. His irritable temper at times rendered him very disagreeable with patients and medical men who consulted him. When the latter did so, he would walk up and down the room with his hands in his pockets and whistle all the time, and end by telling the doctor to go home and read his (Abernethy's) book. On being asked by a colleague whether a certain plan he suggested would answer, the only reply he could obtain was: 'Ay, ay, put a little salt on a bird's tail, and you will be sure to catch him.' He could hardly be induced to give advice in cases which appeared to depend on improper diet. A farmer of immense bulk came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed an immense amount of animal food, Abernethy said: 'Go away, sir; I won't attempt to prescribe for such a hog!' A loquacious lady he silenced by telling her to put out her tongue; she having done so, 'Now keep it there till I have done talking,' said Abernethy. A lady having brought her daughter, he refused to prescribe for her, but told the mother to let the girl take exercise. Having received his guinea, he gave the shilling to the mother and said: 'Buy the girl a skipping-rope as you go along.' When the late Duke of York consulted him, he stood whistling with his hands in his pockets, and the Duke said: 'I suppose you know who I am?' 'Suppose I do,' was the uncourtly reply, 'what of that?' To a gentleman who consulted him for an ulcerated throat, and wanted him to look at it, he said: 'How dare you suppose that I would allow you to blow your stinking, foul breath in my face!' But sometimes he met a Tartar. A gentleman who could not succeed in getting the doctor to listen to his case, suddenly locked the door, put the key into his pocket, and took out a loaded pistol. Abernethy, alarmed, asked if he meant to murder him. No, he only wanted him to listen to his case, and meant to keep him a prisoner till he did. The patient and the surgeon afterwards became great friends. The Duke of Wellington having insisted on seeing him out of his usual hours, and abruptly entering his room, was asked by the doctor how he got in. 'By that door,' was the reply. 'Then,' said Abernethy,' I recommend you to make your exit by the same way.' He refused to attend George IV. until he had delivered his lecture at the hospital, in consequence of which he lost a royal appointment. To a lady who complained that on holding her arm over her head she felt pain, he said: 'Then what a fool you must be to hold it up!' He was fond of calling people fools. A countess consulted him, and he offered her some pills, when she said she could never take a pill. 'Not take a pill! What a fool you must be!' was the courteous reply.

Abernethy usually cut patients short by saying: 'I have heard enough. You have heard of my book?' 'Yes.' 'Then go home and read it.' This book gives admirable rules for dieting and general living, though few persons would be willing to comply with them rigidly; he himself did not. When someone told him that he seemed to live like most other people, he replied: 'Yes, but then I have such a devil of an appetite!' One day a lawyer suffering from dyspepsia, brought on by want of exercise and good living, went to consult Abernethy. As he came out of the consulting-room he met another lawyer, a friend of his. 'What the devil brought you here?' said one, and the other echoed the question, and the reply of each was the same. 'What has he prescribed for you?' asked the newcomer. The prescription was produced and read as follows: 'Read my book, p. 72. J. Abernethy.' The first lawyer agreed to wait for his friend whilst he went to consult the doctor. In about a quarter of an hour he came out, well pleased apparently with his interview. 'Well, what is your prescription?' inquired lawyer number one. Number two produced a slip of paper, on which was written: 'Read my book, p. 72. J. Abernethy.' That was what each got for his guinea. But Abernethy deserves praise for three utterances, viz., that mind is a miraculous energy added to matter, and not the result of certain modes of organization, as modern scientists maintain; that an operation is a reproach to surgery, and that a patient should be cured without recourse to it; and that vivisection experiments are morally wrong and physiologically unsafe, because unreliable.

That Dr. Abernethy, with his uncouth manners and vulgar repartee, should have been so successful in his profession is a marvel; certainly few people of the present day would tolerate such rudeness as his. Possibly in former days the doctor's distinctive dress had a secret influence of its own. The gold-headed cane, the elaborate shirt-frill, the massive snuff-box, tapped so argumentatively in consultation, the pompous manner and overbearing assurance, no doubt exercised a spell with which we are unacquainted now.

Abernethy had imitators, but they had been pupils of his. Tommy Wormald, or 'Old Tommy,' as the students called him, was Abernethy over again in voice, style, appearance and humour. To an insurance company he reported on a bad life proposed to them: 'Done for.' When an apothecary wanted to put him off with a single guinea at a consultation on a rich man's case, he said: 'A guinea is a lean fee, and the patient is a fat patient. I always have fat fees from fat patients. Pay me two guineas instantly; our patient is a fat patient.' Some rich but mean people would drive to St. Bartholomew's to get advice gratis as out-patients. To this Tommy meant to put a stop. Seeing a lady dressed in silk, he thus addressed her before a roomful of people: 'Madam, this charity is for the poor, destitute invalids; I refuse to pay attention to destitute invalids who wear rich silk dresses.' The lady quickly disappeared. Will no Old Tommy arise at the present day and put an end to the abuse, which is as rampant as ever?

Doctors are not agreed as to what constitutes medical science. By an empiric a quack is meant. Now, an empiric goes by observation only, without rational grounds; yet Sir Charles Bell asserted that physiology was a science of observation rather than of experiment, which is the rational ground the quack is said to disregard. Who is right? Without attempting to answer the question, which would lead us too far, we must rest satisfied with the fact that the profession and the public have agreed to stigmatize certain individuals as quacks who, with or without any medical training, pretend to cure diseases by charms, manipulations, or nostrums, which have no scientific or rational basis. Quacks have existed at all times, for mankind, especially suffering mankind, has ever been credulous. Henry VIII. endeavoured to put down those of his own times by establishing censors in physic, but the public would not be enlightened, and so the quacks flourished. In 1387 one Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, pretending to be a physician, got twelve pence in part payment from one Roger atte Haccke, in Ironmonger Lane, for undertaking the cure of his wife, who was ill. He put a charm, consisting of a piece of parchment, round her neck, but it did her no good, whereupon Roger brought him before the chamber at Guildhall for his deceit and falsehood, and Roger Clerk was sentenced to be led through the middle of the city with trumpets and pipes, he riding on a horse without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone[#] for his lies being hung about his neck, a urinal also being hung before him, and another on his back. In the reign of Edward VI. one Grig, a poulterer in Surrey, was set in the pillory at Croydon, and again in the Borough, for cheating people out of their money by pretending to cure them by charms or by only looking at the patient.

[#] Early in English history we find the whetstone as the symbol of a liar. Why? Does lying imply a sharpened wit, as a whetstone sharpens a blade? The custom is referred to in 'Hudibras,' II., i. 57-60.

Was Valentine Greatrakes, whom Charles II. invited to his Court, a quack? If he was, he was a harmless one, since he gave no physic, but only pretended to cure by magnetic stroking. Our modern magnetizers are not so modest; they have added much hocus-pocus to Valentine's simple process.

From among the medical oddities of the latter part of the last century we must not omit Dr. Von Butchell, who lived in Mount Street, and pretended to cure every disease. He applied for the post of dentist to George III., but when the King's consent was obtained he said he did not care for the custom of royalty. When his wife died, he had her embalmed and kept in his parlour, where he allowed his patients to see the body; so that the modern showman who exhibited the dead body of his wife at Olympia was, after all, only a copyist. But whilst the doctor was half-mad, the world was altogether mad; for his exhibiting the corpse of his wife was not considered as eccentric as his letting his beard grow, which then was held to be the height of madness. And there seems to have been method in his madness, for he sold the hairs out of his beard at a guinea each to ladies who wished to have fine children. He used to ride about the West End on a pony painted with spots by the doctor himself. There is an engraving extant of him, showing him astride on it. The horse was afterwards, in consequence of a dispute with the stable-keeper who had charge of it, sold at Tattersall's, where, as a curiosity, it fetched a good price. There was a wonderful inscription on the outside of his house, extending over the front of the next, and his neighbour rebuilding his frontage, half the inscription was obliterated. Butchell was also a great advertiser, and his advertisements even now afford amusing reading. He never would visit a patient, though as much as £500 was offered him for a visit—patients had to go to his house. 'I go to none,' he said in his advertisements. Many persons used to visit him, not for getting advice, but simply to converse with such an original. He was twice married. His first wife he dressed in black, and his second in white, never allowing a change of colour. He was one of the earliest teetotalers. The profits he and some of his contemporaries made on their quack draughts and pills led, in 1788, to the imposition of the tax on 'patent medicines.'

But to come down to more recent times, in 1700 one John Pechey, living at the Angel and Crown, in Basing Lane, an Oxford graduate and member of the College of Physicians, London, advertised that all sick people might for sixpence have a faithful account of their diseases and plain directions for their cure, and that he was prepared to visit any sick person in London for 2s. 6d.; and that if he were called by any person as he passed by, he would require but one shilling for his advice. A physician who in our day advertised like this would be deprived of his diploma. In 1734 one Joshua Ward became a celebrity even among quacks by his pills, which he extensively advertised, and which were patronized by the Queen herself. There was a rhyming quack, Dr. Hill, who also wrote a farce, and wanted Garrick to produce it, till the latter published the following distich on him:

'For farces and physic his equal there scarce is,

His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.'

 

A Dr. Hannes, a contemporary of Dr. Radcliffe, ordered his servant to stop a number of coaches between Whitehall and the Royal Exchange, and to inquire at each whether it belonged to Dr. Hannes, as he was called to a patient. Entering Garraway's Coffee-House, the servant put the same question. Dr. Radcliffe happening to be there, he asked who wanted Dr. Hannes. The servant named several lords who all wanted him. 'No, no, friend,' said Radcliffe; 'Dr. Hannes wants the lords.'

Quacks were never more flourishing than they are now, and they always will be, for the public like mysterious remedies, and are anxious to recommend them and to force them on their friends. In nothing is a little knowledge more dangerous than in medicine; mothers and nurses especially, who have acquired some smattering of it from their conversations with doctors, may do a lot of mischief. To them are due nearly all so-called diseases of children—as if children must necessarily have diseases—a superstition which is shared by some doctors, who also encourage the reading of their books. The reading of those books has physically the same effect on the body that the reading or hearing of ghost stories has morally on the mind: the reader or hearer everywhere feels dis-ease and sees ghosts; ergo beware of medical books and goblin stories—both are unwholesome. Modern invalids are fortunate in escaping the tortures inflicted on patients in earlier days. Edmund Verney thus writes concerning his father, Sir Ralph Verney, of Claydon House, in 1686: 'He hath been blooded, vomited, blistered, cupt and scarified, and hath three physicians with him, besides apothecary and chirurgian.' And then he wonders that 'he still continues very weak.' The marvel was that he survived at all. Had not Molière a few years before the above date said: 'You must not say that a man died of such and such a disease, but of so many physicians, surgeons and apothecaries'?

The most pungent and most witty definition of the doctor's character probably is that given, I think, by Talleyrand. When Napoleon, in a fit of despondency, said that he would forsake war and turn physician, the sarcastic courtier said sotto voce: 'Toujours assassin?'

XV.

THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON.

London is deficient in two conditions to render it picturesque: it lacks diversity of surface, and it lacks water. In so vast an expanse of ground as is covered by London, Ludgate Hill and Notting Hill are mere molehills.[#] As to water, it has the Thames, but that is accessible at short and broken intervals only. There is the Embankment from Blackfriars to Westminster; a short bit at Chelsea, and the Albert Embankment. But the City people during the day have no time to waste on their Embankment, and in the evening they are gone to the suburbs, and so this grand promenade is given up to occasional country cousins' visits, and to permanent ruffianism. For, of course, no one from the more northern parts of London ever thinks of coming so far to take a stroll on that Embankment, from which nothing is to be seen but mud-banks in the near prospect, as by a perverse arrangement of nature it is generally low water when you want to take a walk; on the opposite bank only dismal wharves present themselves. As to the Chelsea Embankment, that is patronized by the dwellers in that region only, if they do not neglect it altogether, as people generally do who live in a rather picturesque locality. The less we say about the Albert Embankment the better; its characteristics are dingy hovels and smoke-belching pottery chimneys on one side, smoke and cinders from passing steam-barges and penny steamers on the river, and a dreary outlook on the opposite side, scarcely relieved by the Tate Gallery, which, for reasons unknown to the general public, but self-evident to those who can see the wire-pulling behind, has been pitched, like a King Log, into the Pimlico swamp. All other parts of the river are inaccessible to the public, and therefore as good as non-existent for the Londoner.

[#] The highest point north is Hampstead Hill, 400 feet above sea-level; to the south Sydenham Hill, 365 feet; Primrose Hill, about 260 feet; Herne Hill, about 180 feet; Denmark, about 100 feet; Orme Square, 95 feet; Broad Walk, 90 feet; North Audley Street, 83 feet; Tottenham Court Road, 85 feet; Regent Circus, 90 feet; Cornhill, 60 feet; Charing Cross, 24 feet; Euston Road, 90 feet; Cheapside, 59 feet; Farringdon Street, 28 feet; St. Katherine's, Regent's Park, 120 feet; Camberwell Green, 19 feet.

Thus much for the Thames. As to other pieces of water to be found in public parks, they are mere ponds, and of benefit only locally. As to public fountains, which form the peculiar charm of so many Continental cities, where the melodious splash of water is heard day and night, London possesses none. True, there are two squirts in Trafalgar Square, and the Shaftesbury fountain is making asthmatic efforts to assert itself, whilst the Angel at the top seems to be shooting Folly as it flies all around him in the savoury purlieus of the Haymarket. The small drinking fountains found here and there are evidences of philanthropy, which may be grateful to children and tramps, to horses and dogs, but do not add much to the aquatic features of London. There are canals, it is true, but they are private property, and so fenced, hoarded, and walled in, as to be of no use to the public. And as a rule their water is so dirty that no one with a nose would walk by the side of them, even if allowed to do so.

But London was not always so deadly level and so waterless as it is now. In ancient days there were high hills and deep valleys in the very heart of it. From the river Lea to the river Brent on the northern side of London there were numerous rivulets and brooks descending from the northern heights through the City and its western outskirts into the Thames, brooks and rivulets which at times assumed such dimensions as to cause serious inundations. It was the same in the south of London, where from the Ravensbourne to the Wandle similar watercourses reached the Thames from the southern hills.

All those brooks between the four rivers we have named, and which alone are still existing, have totally disappeared. What were their features, when they still flowed from northern and southern heights, and what were the causes and the process of their disappearance, we now intend to investigate, by proceeding from east to west, and taking the northern shore of the Thames first.

The site on which the Romans founded London was the rising ground on the northern bank of the Thames, from the present Fish Street Hill, or Billingsgate, to the Wallbrook. At a later date of their occupation they extended the City eastward to the Tower, and westward to the valley of the Fleet. Then the valley of the Wallbrook divided the City into two portions of almost equal size. To the north the buildings extended to the present Aldgate and to Moorfields, and westward to Newgate and Ludgate. The wall which encompassed the town began at the Tower, and in a line with various bends in it terminated at the Arx Palatina, somewhere near the present Times office. On the east of the town, where the country was flat, there was a marsh, extending to the river Lea. To the north-west were dense forests stretching far into Middlesex, and abounding with deer, wild boar, and other savage animals. This forest was partly the cause of the many brooks, which in those days watered London from the northern heights; it being a well-known fact that trees absorb and retain moisture.

It is doubtful whether there were any Roman buildings west of the Fleet; Fleet Street and the Strand certainly were then undreamt of, and did not come into existence till centuries after the Romans had left our island. To the west of the present Strand, the ground lying very low, it was frequently inundated by the river, and there are persons still living who can remember Belgravia and Pimlico as a dismal swamp. Westminster Abbey stood on an island, which rose above the marshy environs, and even as late as the times of Charles II. occasional high tides converted the palace of Whitehall into an island.

The great forest of Middlesex above mentioned came close to the City wall; it had, in fact, occupied a portion of the site on which the City was built, and as much of it had been cut down, and so much space cleared, as the builders required for their operations. But the nature of the forest ground could not be as readily changed. It was still full of moisture, and numerous rills continued to flow through it. Now, one of the most important of them was the Langbourne.

This watercourse, so called because of its length, took its rise in ground now forming part of Fenchurch Street. It ran swiftly through that street in a westward direction, across Grass, now Gracechurch Street, into and down Lombard Street—where many Roman remains have been discovered—to the west of St. Mary Woolnoth Church, where it turned sharply round to the south and gave name to Sherbourne Lane, so termed of sharing or dividing, because there it broke into a number of rills and so reached the Thames. From this watercourse Langbourne Ward took its name. Thus says Stow, but he adds that in his day (1598) this bourne had long been stopped up at the head, and the rest of the course filled up and paved over, 'so that no sign thereof remaineth more than the name aforesaid.'

Some modern historians, Mr. Loftie, for instance, deny the existence of the Langbourne altogether. 'Stow says that the Langbourne rose in Fenchurch Street and ran down Lombard Street. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the course indicated is up hill,' Mr. Loftie objects. But Fenchurch Street was then, as it is now, considerably higher than the outfall of the Langbourne into the Thames, and what do we know of the then levels of the streets through which it was said to have run? Upwards of thirty feet under the present level of Lombard Street Roman remains have been found, and the Langbourne, as we know from various documents, was covered in as early as the latter part of the twelfth century, a time when building increased rapidly under Fitz-Alwyn, the first Mayor of London; moreover, the fenny condition of Fenchurch Street is said to have been due to the overflowing of the Langbourne at its source. Mr. Loftie says that the original name of the Langbourne was Langford; but a ford implies a watercourse, and not a mere ditch or artificial trench, which, receiving the drainage of the immediate locality, fell into the Wallbrook, as Mr. Burt would have us believe. If the Langbourne never existed, whence did Langbourne Ward derive its name?

Proceeding westward, we come to a much more important stream, namely, the Wallbrook.

No more striking instance of the changes which Time will effect in the topographical aspect of a locality can be found than that which the disappearance of the Wallbrook has produced within the limits of its own course and in its surroundings. Where now a smooth expanse of asphalte paving covers firm ground (except where rendered treacherously dangerous by sewer-like railway tunnels, in which human beings are shot to and fro like so many rats enclosed in traps in a drain!), extending from Princes Street right across to the Mansion House, and to and down the street called Wallbrook, there, centuries ago, yawned a wide ravine with precipitous sides, at the bottom of which flowed the brook called the Wall-brook, because, rising in the upper fenny grounds of Moorfields, it entered the city through an opening in the wall, somewhere near the northern end of the present Moorgate Street. The brook, towards its southern termination, must have been of considerable width, for barges could be rowed up to Bucklersbury—a fact commemorated by Barge Yard, formerly a kind of dock, but now solid ground, opening into Bucklersbury. The width of the Wallbrook near its outfall was no doubt increased by tributaries, which, flowing from the opposite portion of the City, found an exit on the western bank. There is no doubt that there was a watercourse along the line of Cheapside; the fact is stated positively by Maitland. He says: 'At Bread Street corner, the north-east end, in 1595, one Thomas Tomlinson causing in the High Street of Chepe a vault to be digged, there was found at fifteen feet deep a fair pavement, like that above-ground, and at the further end, at the channel, was found a tree, sawed into five steps, which was to step over some brook running out of the west towards Wallbrook. And upon the edge of the said brook there was found lying the bodies of two great trees, the ends whereof were then sawed off, and firm timber as at the first when they fell. It was all forced ground until they went past the trees aforesaid, which was about seventeen feet deep, or better. Thus much has the ground of this city been raised from the main. And here it may be observed that within fourscore years and less, Cheapside was raised divers feet higher than it was when St. Paul's was first built, as appeared by several eminent marks discovered in the late laying of the foundation of that church.' The mention of Cheapside as a highway does not go back to very early times. In the eleventh century it must have been a mere bog; for, when in 1090 the roof of Bow Church was blown off by a tempest, the rafters, which were twenty-six feet long, penetrated more than twenty feet into the soft soil of Cheapside. The course of the brook just mentioned west of Bread Street is not known; it is doubtful whether it struck off northward by about Gutter Lane, and so towards springs known to exist near Cripplegate, or whether it came from further westward, from the springs which supply the ancient baths in Bath Street (formerly called Bagnio Court), north of Newgate Street.

But we must return to the Wallbrook itself; and, first, as to its course. After entering the City through the opening in the wall, it curved eastward, ran along Bell Alley, crossed Tokenhouse Yard and Lothbury, close by St. Margaret's Church, curved westward again, passing through ground now covered by the north-west corner of the Bank of England; crossing the present Princes Street and the Poultry, it ran under what is now the National Safe Deposit, whence, by an almost semicircular bend, it reached Cannon Street, which it crossed, turning westwardly towards St. Michael's Church, and crossing Thames Street, flowed past Joiners' Hall into the Thames. There were various bridges over the said watercourse. There was one close to Bokerelsberi (Bucklersbury), which in 1291 four occupiers of tenements adjoining the bridge were ordered to repair, according to clauses in their tenancies. There was another over against the wall of the chancel of the church of St. Stephen, which it was the duty of the parishioners to repair, as they were ordered to do, for instance, in 1300. At Dowgate Hill, at the outfall of the Wallbrook into the Thames, there was discovered in 1884 an ancient landing-stage, a Roman pavement in tile, set upon timber piles, with mortised jointing. The stage stood on the left bank of the Wallbrook, facing not the Thames, but the brook. It was twenty-one feet below the present level of Dowgate Hill, and below the churchyard of St. John's. A large quantity of stout oak-piling was also in situ, and the sill of the bridge which crossed from east to west at this spot was seen very plainly. Another landing-stage appears to have existed on the brook at a spot now covered by the National Safe Deposit: it consisted of a timber flooring supported by huge oak timbers, and running parallel with the stream. Adjoining this were evidences of a macadamized roadway, which extended in a line with Bucklersbury, until it reached the apparent course of the brook. Upon the opposite side similar indications appeared, so that here also a bridge may have existed. Another bridge seems to have spanned the brook near London Wall, in Broad Street Ward, with yet another a little more south. It appears that in the year 1300 both these bridges required repairs, and that the Prior of the Holy Trinity, who was liable for those of the first, and the Prior of the New Hospital without Bishopsgate, who was bound to do those of the second, were in that year summoned by the Mayor and Aldermen of London 'to rebuild the said bridges and keep them in repair.'

When in the seventies the National Safe Deposit Company dug down some forty feet into the ground, and reached the ancient course of the Wallbrook, they found in its bed, among other debris, enormous quantities of broken vessels and kitchen utensils. No doubt the careless cooks and housemaids of the ancient Romans found the brook handy for getting rid of the evidences of mishap or recklessness; but their successors on the banks of the stream seem to have treated it with even greater disrespect. In the records of the City we find constant references to the disgraceful condition of the Wallbrook. In 1288 the Warden and Sheriffs of the City of London had to order that the watercourse of the Wallbrook should be made free from dung and other nuisances, and that the rakes should be put back again upon every tenement extending from Finsbury Moor to the Thames. In 1374 the Mayor and Aldermen granted to Thomas atte Ram, brewer, a seven years' lease of the Moor, together with charge of the watercourse of Wallbrook, without paying any rent therefor, upon the understanding that he should keep the said Moor well and properly, and have the Wallbrook cleansed for the whole of the term, clearing it from dung and other filth thrown therein, he taking for every latrine built upon the said watercourse twelve pence yearly. And if, in so cleansing it, he should find aught therein, he should have it for his own. But it would seem that Thomas atte Ram did not properly perform his contract, for at the expiration of it, namely in 1383, we find by an Ordinance of the Common Council that, 'whereas the watercourse of the Wallbrook is stopped up by divers filth and dung thrown thereinto by persons who have houses along the said course, to the great nuisance and damage of all the City, the Aldermen of the Wards of Coleman Street, Broad Street, Chepe, Wallbrook, Vintry and Dowgate, through whose wards the said watercourse runs, shall inquire if any person dwelling along the said course has a stable or other house, whereby dung or other filth may fall into the same; or otherwise throws therein such manner of filth by which the said watercourse is stopped up, and they (the Aldermen) shall pursue all such offenders. But it shall be lawful for those persons who have houses on the said stream to have latrines over it, provided they do not throw rubbish or other refuse through the same ... and every person having such latrines shall pay yearly to the Chamberlain two shillings for each of them.'

With such arrangements, and the constant increase of buildings on the brook, and the decrease of water supplied to it by the springs in Moorfields, which were gradually being laid dry, the Wallbrook, from a clear stream, became a foul ditch, an open sewer, so that it was found necessary to convert it into a covered one in reality. The brook was filled up with all kinds of debris and partially bricked over, so that when Stow wrote (in 1598) he was obliged to say: 'This watercourse ... was afterwards vaulted over with brick, and paved level with the streets and lanes ... and since that houses also have been built thereon, so that the course of Wallbrook is now hidden underground, and thereby hardly known.' The stream was covered in at least three centuries before the covering in of the Fleet river, but its course can still be traced by the many important buildings which lined its banks. Commencing at its influx to the Thames, there were along its course on the western side the halls of the Innholders, the Dyers, the Joiners, the Skinners, the Tallow-chandlers, and the Cutlers; the churches of St. John, St. Michael, St. Stephen (which originally stood on the western side), St. Mildred, and St. Margaret; also the Grocers' and the Founders' Halls, the estates of the Drapers and Leathersellers, and in Bucklersbury Cornet's Tower, a strong stone tower which was erected by Edward III. as his 'Exchange of money there to be kept.' In the sixteenth century it seems to have come into the possession of one Buckle, a grocer, who intended to erect in its place a 'goodly frame of timber,' but, 'greedily labouring to pull down the tower,' a part thereof fell upon and killed him.

In 1835 a curious discovery, the import of which was then unsuspected, was made close to the Swan's Nest, a public-house in Great Swan Alley, Moorgate Street. A pit or well was laid open, in which was found a large quantity of earthen vessels of various patterns. This well had been carefully planked over with stout boards; the vases it contained were placed on their sides, embedded in mud or sand, which had settled so closely round them that a great number were broken in the attempt to extricate them. A coin and some iron implements were also found in the well, which was about three feet square, and boarded on each side with narrow planks about two feet long. The object with which these vessels, etc., had been deposited in this well was not at the time surmised, but it was made clear by a subsequent discovery. When the National Safe Deposit Company's premises, already referred to, were built, a similar wooden framework was discovered at a depth of about thirty feet below the present level of the street. It was of oak, and about three feet square, and the contents of the box were similar to those found at the Swan's Nest. Fortunately this find came under the observation of Mr. John E. Price, F.S.A., and Honorary Secretary of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, who recognised the remains as those of an arca finalis, a monument employed by the Roman surveyors to indicate the situation of limits of public or private property, answering to a landmark or boundary stone. Similar structures, occasionally of stone or tiles, have been discovered in other parts of England, as also on the Continent. It is therefore evident that the box found higher up the stream was also such an area.

To return once more to Wallbrook. A bridge across it we have not yet mentioned was Horseshoe Bridge, situate where the brook crossed Cloak Lane, which was a famous shopping-place of the ladies of those early days, fancy articles being mostly on sale there. It is, however, time to leave the Wallbrook; let us part from it with such a picture on our minds as will leave a vivid and pleasant impression. Remember that its banks were favourite sites for villas, as is proved by all the evidences of wealth and luxury of the ancient dwellers on the Wallbrook ravine and adjoining streets, now buried fathoms deep underground, which have been found on and near the banks of the river. 'A villa in beautiful grounds on the Wallbrook to be let'—think of that!

From the valley of the Wallbrook the ground of the City rises gently towards St. Paul's, and Panyer's Alley, the highest point; thence it falls almost precipitously towards the valley of the Fleet River, so precipitously, indeed, that one of the descents from the Old Bailey to Farringdon Street obtained the name of Breakneck Steps. When the increase of the population of the old City rendered it desirable to seek new habitations, the citizens looked across the river Fleet, and saw the opposite Holborn, Back, and Saffron Hills as yet unoccupied, stretching out as open country—though roads had begun to be established thereon, such as Field Lane, then in the fields—and began to erect dwellings on the western bank of the river. This led to the erection of bridges; we think Holborn Bridge was the first to be built. But before we enter into an account of the bridges, it is necessary to speak of the river itself.

The Fleet, then, which once formed so important a feature of London topography, took its rise in the dense clay of the district just below Hampstead; at Kentish Town its volume was increased by an affluent from Highgate Ponds; it then made its way through the hill near College Street—whence some writers infer that the name of Oldbourne, by which the river was known for some distance, was really a corruption of Hole-bourne—and entered the valley formed by the hills of Camden Town and the Caledonian Road, pursuing its course to Battle Bridge—since 1830 known as King's Cross—where it received an affluent from the west, which rose in the high ground to the south of the Hampstead Road. From Battle Bridge the river bent round to the east, and flowed through the grounds of Bagnigge Wells, once the residence of Nell Gwynne, and thence, still with an easterly trend, past the walls of the House of Correction, thence across Baynes Row, where it received another western affluent, taking its rise at the western end of Guilford Street. Thence it flowed to the northern end of Little Saffron Hill, and in this part of its course it sometimes was called the River of Wells, because it was fed by a number of wells or springs, all situate in Clerkenwell, and known as Clerks' Well, Skinners' Well, Faggs' Well, Loder's Well, Rad Well, and Todd's Well, this latter a corruption of its proper name, God's Well, from which Goswell Street took its name. The river thence flowed down the valley between the old City and the Holborn hills, and here it occasionally went by the name of Turnmill Brook, because of the mills which here stood on its banks. On its eastern side was a street called Turnmill Street, which in later days acquired a very bad reputation, its inhabitants being abandoned characters. Originally it was a respectable street, the houses having gardens going down to the river, which was fenced on both sides. In its southward course the river presently reached Holborn Bridge, where it received the affluent called the Hol-bourne, which rose somewhere near St. Giles'. The existence of this brook is denied by some topographers, but it is distinctly shown in a very old map of the manor of Blemundsbury (Bloomsbury), reproduced in Mr. W. Blott's 'Chronicle of Blemundsbury,' 1892. And we see no reason for doubting the correctness of the map, and therefore adopt the Holbourne as a fact. The Fleet then passed under Chick Lane, afterwards called West Street, which crossed the river at right angles, and in quite recent times was the refuge of thieves, burglars, and other criminals; and means of concealment and of escape by way of the river were revealed when, in the forties and fifties, West Street was pulled down for the improvements then in progress in that locality. After passing under Holborn Bridge, the river was known as the Fleet, not because of the fleetness of its course, as some writers would have it, for it never had much of that quality, but because of the flood or high tide it participated in with the rise of the Thames.

Having thus traced the river from its source to its mouth, we may describe the bridges which crossed it.

In the northern part of its course the river, where it passed through what in the early days was still country, was no doubt here and there crossed by bridges, but they were probably wooden bridges of light construction, as the traffic was but limited. The first solid bridge we have any record of is the one which existed at Battle Bridge, which derived its name from the battle between Suetonius Paulinus and Boadicea, the Queen of the Iceni, which is said to have been fought on the spot, and from the brick bridge which in early times there crossed the Fleet. Originally it was built of wood, but at an uncertain date later on it was replaced by one of brick, consisting of a number of arches. Battle Bridge, from the lowness of its situation, was exposed to frequent inundations. In the Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1818, we read: 'From the heavy rain which commenced yesterday ... Battle Bridge, St. Pancras, and part of Somers Town was inundated. The water was several feet deep in many of the houses, and covered an extent of upwards of a mile. The carcases of several sheep and goats were found ... and property was damaged to a very considerable amount.' Various Acts were passed at the beginning of this century for the improvement of the locality: the river was completely arched over, and in 1830 the spot assumed the name of King's Cross from the ridiculous structure erected in the centre of the cross roads; it was of octagon shape, surmounted by a statue of George IV. The basement was for some time occupied as a police-station, then as a public-house, and the whole was taken down in 1845, and a tall lamp erected on the spot.

The Fleet was next crossed by an ornamental, somewhat rustic bridge in the grounds of Bagnigge Wells; of course it disappeared with the gardens and buildings of the Wells in 1841. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Clerkenwell, from an almost rural became an urban district, streets began to cross the Fleet, such as Baynes Row, Eyre Street Hill, Mutton Hill, Peter Street, and others. The next old bridge we came to was Cow Bridge, by Cow Lane, or the present Cow Cross. It dated from the middle of the sixteenth century. Stow, writing, it will be remembered, in 1598, says: 'This bridge being lately decayed, another of timber is made by Chick Lane.' In the time of Elizabeth the ground from Cow Cross towards the Fleet River, and towards Ely House, on the opposite bank, was either entirely vacant or occupied with gardens.

We next come to Chick Lane, afterwards known as West Street. Stow, writing in 1603, refers to Chicken Lane, 'toward Turnmill Brook, and over that brook by a timber bridge into the field.' This must have been Chick Lane, which was really a bridge of houses, the most noticeable of which was one which once had been known as the Red Lion Inn, and which at its demolition is supposed to have been three hundred years old. For the last hundred years of its existence it was used as a lodging-house, and was the resort of thieves, coiners, and other criminals. Its dark closets, trap-doors, sliding panels, and secret recesses rendered it one of the most secure places for robbery and murder; openings in the walls and floors afforded easy means of getting rid of the bodies by dropping them into the Fleet, which for many years before its final abolition was only known as the Fleet Ditch. The history and description of the houses in West Street were rendered so well known at the time of their demolition that we need not enter into them here; besides, they are beyond the scope of our inquiries.

South of Chick Lane was Holborn Bridge, which was built of stone, and, according to Aggas' map of London in 1560, had houses on the north side of it. The date of its original foundation is not given in any chronicle, but it must have gone far back, probably was coeval with the building of London Bridge, since it was on the great highway from east to west. At first it was, like all the other bridges on the Fleet, constructed of wood; after its erection in stone, with a width of some twelve feet, it seems to have been gradually widened to accommodate the increasing traffic. According to Mr. Crosby, a great authority on the antiquities of the Fleet valley, Holborn Bridge consisted of four different bridges joined together at the sides. Yet in 1670 the bridge was found to be too narrow for the traffic, and it had to be rebuilt, so that the way and passage might run in a 'bevil line' from a certain timber-house on the north side, known by the name of the Cock, to the Swan Inn. Wren built the new bridge on the north or Holborn side accordingly, and the name of William Hooker, Lord Mayor in 1673-74, was cut on the stone coping of the eastern approach. What was meant by the 'bevil line' is to us obscure, and we are not much enlightened by what Sir William Tite says, who in 1840 was present at the opening of a sewer at Holborn Hill, and saw the southern face of the old bridge disinterred. 'The arch,' he says, 'was about twenty feet span. The road from the east intersected the bridge obliquely, and out of the angle thus formed a stone corbel arose to carry the parapet.' Of course, with the disappearance of the Fleet Ditch the bridge also vanished.

The next bridge we come to started from Fleet Lane on the east side to Harp Alley on the Holborn side. As it was about half-way between Holborn and Fleet Street bridges, it was sometimes called Middle Bridge. It was built of stone, with a stone rail and banister, and was ascended by fourteen steps, and as high as Bridewell and Fleet bridges, to allow vessels with merchandise to pass under it. It had been erected in 1674, and disappeared with the other bridges on the covering in of the Fleet.

The Fleet Bridge, which we reach next, joined Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street. This bridge was, in 1431, repaired at the charges of John Wels, Mayor. It was destroyed by the Great Fire, and the new one erected in its stead was of the breadth of the street, and ornamented with pineapples and the City arms. But though larger in breadth, it had not the length of the old bridge, the channel having then been already considerably narrowed. The bridge was taken down in 1765.

To the south of Fleet Bridge the river was spanned by a building, which seems to have been a dwelling or a warehouse. It is distinctly shown on Aggas' map.

Bridewell Bridge, the last over the Fleet before its entering the Thames, and the last built (in the sixteenth century), was at first a timber bridge, between Blackfriars and the House of Bridewell, on the site of the Castle Mountfiquet, which originally stood there. In 1708, or thereabouts, it was replaced by one of stone, much higher than the street, being ascended by fourteen steps. It was for foot passengers only. It was pulled down in 1765.

We may now conclude our account of the Fleet with a few statements concerning the vicissitudes it passed through.

A great many antiquities—British, Saxon, and Roman—have been found in the bed of this river, such as coins of silver, copper, and brass, but none of gold; lares, spur rowels, keys, daggers, seals, medals, vases, and urns. An anchor, three feet ten inches in height, encrusted with rust and pebbles—a sketch of which is given in the October number of the Gentleman's Magazine, 1843—is said to have been discovered near the site of Holborn Bridge, which may be genuine, as ships are known to have ascended so far up the river in the fourteenth century. But early in that century already the river was choked up 'by the filth of the tanners and others, and by the raising of wharves, and especially by a diversion of the water in the first year of King John (1200) by them of the New Temple for their mills without Baynard's Castle, and by other impediments, the course was decayed, and ships could not enter as they were used.' Upon this complaint of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, the river was cleansed, the mills removed, and other means taken for its preservation; but it was not brought to its former depth and width, and so was soon filled with mud again. The scouring of the river seems to have been necessary every thirty or forty years, at a great expense to the City. We find that it was so cleansed in 1502, and once more rendered navigable for large barges, but the dwellers on its banks would continue to make it the receptacle of all the refuse, and the wharves built on its banks proved unsuccessful, as vessels could not approach them. Consequently, in 1733 the City of London, seeing that all navigation had ceased, and that the ditch, as it was then called, was a danger to the public on account of its unsanitary state, and because persons had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud, began covering it in, commencing with the portion from Fleet Bridge to Holborn Bridge, and the new Fleet Market was erected on the site in 1737. The part from Fleet Street to the Thames was covered in when the approaches to Blackfriars were completed between 1760 and 1768. One stubborn citizen, however, would not surrender a small filthy dock; a barber, from Bromley, in Kent, was, in 1763, found in it standing upright and frozen to death.

Like all brooks descending from hills, the Fleet was liable to sudden increases of volume, causing inundations.[#] The melting of snow and ice by a sudden thaw and heavy and long-continued rains have frequently turned the Fleet into a mighty and destructive torrent flood. In 1679 it broke down the back of several wholesale butcher-houses at Cow Cross, and carried off cattle dead and alive. At Hockley-in-the-Hole barrels of ale, beer, and brandy floated down the stream. In 1768 the Hampstead Ponds overflowing after a severe storm, the Fleet grew into a torrent, and the roads and fields about Bagnigge Wells were inundated; in the gardens of the latter place the water was four feet deep; in Clerkenwell many thousand pounds' worth of damage was done. In 1809 a sudden thaw produced a flood, and the whole space between St. Pancras and Pentonville Hill was soon under water, and for several days people received their provisions in at their windows. In 1846 a furious thunderstorm caused the Fleet Ditch to blow up. The rush from the drain at the north arch of Blackfriars Bridge drove a steamer against one of the piers and damaged it. The water penetrated into basements and cellars, and one draper had £3,000 worth of goods ruined. From Acton Place, Bagnigge Wells Road, to King's Cross, the roads were impassable. In 1855 the Fleet, as one of the metropolitan main sewers, became vested in the then newly-established Metropolitan Board of Works. Shortly after the Metropolitan Railway was planned, and in 1860 the work was commenced. One of the greatest initial difficulties the engineers of that enterprise had to contend with was the irruption of the Fleet Ditch into their works; the Fleet gave, as does the last flare of an expiring candle, its 'last kick,' made a final effort to assert itself. The ditch, under which the railway had to pass two or three times, suddenly though not unexpectedly filled the tunnel with its dark foetid liquid, which carried all before it; scaffoldings constructed of the stoutest timbers and solid stone and brick walls and piers. But the Metropolitan Board of Works and the railway company, by gigantic and skilfully-conducted efforts, succeeded in forming an outlet for the flood into the Thames; the damage was made good, and the work was successfully carried out.

[#] Wherever there are such brooks the same phenomenon appears. Visitors to Nice may have witnessed the sudden rise of the Paillon, and the Birsig at Basle, usually a fine thread of water, has repeatedly risen five or six feet high in the market-place of that town.

Here we take our leave of the Fleet, and proceeding westward, find nothing to arrest our steps till we come to a spot which once went by the name of the Strand Bridge; not Waterloo Bridge, which originally was so called, but a 'fair bridge,' as Stow calls it, erected many hundred years ago over a brook which crossed the Strand opposite to the present Strand Lane, and descended from the ponds in Fickett's Fields, part of Lincoln's Inn Fields, now all built over. This bridge probably disappeared about the year 1550, when an Act was passed for paving the streets east and west of Temple Bar, and 'Strand Bridge' is specially mentioned in the Act; the paving of the Strand seems to have done away with the brook and the bridge over it. The name of Strand Bridge was also given to the landing-stage at the bottom of Strand Lane, which descends in a tortuous line from the Strand down to the Thames. In this lane there is at the present day the old Roman bath, which, it is supposed, is supplied from the well which gave its name to Holywell Street, and which supply never fails.

There are no written records or other traces of any brook descending from the northern heights through London west of the Strand, till we come to the Tyburn.

This brook, like the Fleet, took its rise near Hampstead, but turning westward, and receiving several tributary streamlets, it ran due south through the Regent's Park, where it was joined by another affluent from the site of the present Zoological Gardens, from which point it turned to the west and crossed the Marylebone Road opposite Gloucester Terrace, and after running parallel with it for a short distance it took a sharp turn to the east, following the hollow in which the present Marylebone Lane stands, the windings of which indicate the course of the brook. On reaching the southern end of High Street, it again turned to the south, crossed Oxford Street, ran down part of South Molton Street, turned west again to the south of Berkeley Square; thence it flowed through the narrow passage between the gardens of Lansdowne House and Devonshire House, whose hollow sound seems to indicate the existence of the watercourse below. It next crossed Piccadilly, ran due south through the Green Park, passed under Buckingham Palace, directly after which it divided into three branches, one of which ran through the ornamental water in St. James's Park, whence it fell into the Thames: the middle branch ran into the ancient Abbey at Westminster, where it turned the mills the monks had erected there. But from old maps it appears that this arm of the Tyburn, at a point a little north-west of the Abbey, threw out a branch which in a northerly course rejoined the park, and then in a curved line to the east reached the Thames at a point not far from Westminster Bridge, and to the north-east of it. The spot where this branch touched St. James's Park was close to Storey's Gate. Now last year (1898) when the ground was being excavated for the foundations of the new Institute of Mechanical Engineers, the workmen came upon the piles and brickwork of an ancient wharf. The structure was wonderfully well preserved; it had evidently been well constructed, probably by the monks, and may have been for the accommodation of the fishermen bringing their goods to the monastery. But at present, and until further information is obtained, if ever it is obtained, we can only form conjectures as to the purposes of the wharf; but its discovery on that spot is curiously illustrative of the history which still lies hidden under our streets.

We have yet to mention the third branch of the Tyburn, which started south of Buckingham Palace. It ran in a southerly direction across Victoria Street, for a short distance skirted the Vauxhall Bridge Road, then crossed it and ran through the marshy grounds then existing down to the Thames a little to the west of Vauxhall Bridge.

Such was the course of the Tyburn. Of the bridges that once must have crossed it not a vestige remains; but we have the record of one which was at the spot which is now Stratford Place, and where the Lord Mayor's Banqueting-house stood, to which he resorted when he, the Aldermen, and other distinguished citizens went to inspect the head conduits from which the City conduits were supplied, on which occasions they combined pleasure with business, hunting the hare before and the fox after dinner. The Tyburn must at one time have been a stream of considerable size; in the year 1238 it was so copious as to furnish nine conduits for supplying the City with water. It had rows of elms growing on its banks, and as it generally, but erroneously, is supposed to have flowed past the southern corner of the Edgware Road, the name of Elm Place was given to a street (now pulled down) west of Connaught Place. How this error arose we shall show when speaking of the West Bourne. On the Tyburn stood the church of St. Mary la bonne; by the vulgar omission of letters 'burn' became 'bone,' hence Marylebone. The Tyburn, like the other brooks already discussed, is now a mere sewer.

Proceeding still further west, we come to the Westbourne, which, like the other brooks, rose in the northern heights above London. Around Jack Straw's Castle at Hampstead various rills sprang from the ground, which, forming a united stream a little north of the Finchley Road, that stream, flowing west towards the spot known as West End, continued its western course till it reached Maygrove Road; it crossed that road, and taking a sudden turn south, it ran through Kilburn down to Belsize Road, south of which a small lake was formed, by its confluence there with a considerable tributary in the form of a two-pronged fork and its handle, coming from the lower southern heights of Hampstead. From the lake the Westbourne flowed in a westerly course, and near Cambridge Road received another affluent from the high ground where Paddington Cemetery now stands; still running west at Chippenham Road, its volume was further increased by the reception of a stream coming from the neighbourhood of Brondesbury, and from this point it ran due south, but with many windings, through Paddington, and across the Uxbridge Road, through part of Kensington Gardens, through the Serpentine in Hyde Park and across the Knightsbridge Road, and what was then called the Five Fields, a miserable swamp, and formed the eastern boundary of Chelsea till it discharged itself into the Thames, west of Chelsea Bridge, but divided into a considerable number of small streams.

Such was its course, and from its description we see that it was no insignificant stream, and may assume that the first settlers in those northern parts of London must be looked for on its banks. Like the Fleet, it had various names in different localities; thus at Kilburn it was known as the Keele Bourne, Coldbourne, and Kilbourne; at Bayswater it was called the Bayswater Rivulet; the name of Bayswater itself is supposed to be derived from Baynard, who built Baynard Castle on the Thames, and also possessed lands at Bayswater. At the end of the fourteenth century it was called Baynard's Watering-place, which in time was shortened to its present appellation.

The bridge which gave Knightsbridge its name was a stone bridge; by whom or when erected is not on record, but probably Edward the Confessor, who conferred the land about here on the Abbots of Westminster, also built the bridge for their accommodation. The road was the only way to London from the west, and the stream was broad and rapid. The bridge was situated in front of the present entrance into the Park by Albert Gate, and part of it still remains underground, while the other portion was removed for the Albert Gate improvements. In the churchwardens' accounts of St. Margaret's, Westminster, are the following entries regarding the bridge:

1630.  Item, received of John Fennell and Ralph        £ s. d.
       Atkinson, collectors of the escheat, for repair
       of Brentford Bridge and Knightsbridge . . . .  23 6  4

1631.  Item, paid towards the repairs of Brentford
       Bridge and of Knightsbridge, etc. . . . . . .  24 7 10

The Westbourne was occasionally a source of inconvenience and even danger to the inhabitants of Knightsbridge. After heavy rains or in sudden thaws it overflowed. On September 1, 1768, it did so, and did great damage, almost undermining some of the houses; and in January, 1809, it overflowed again, and covered the neighbouring fields so deeply that they resembled a lake, and passengers were for several days rowed from Chelsea to Westminster by Thames boatmen.

On the site now covered by St. George's Row, Pimlico, there stood in the middle of the last century a house of entertainment known as 'Jenny's Whim.' A long wooden bridge over one of the many arms of the Westbourne led up to the house. The present Ebury Bridge over the Grosvenor Canal, which this river-branch has become, occupies the site of this old bridge. 'Jenny's Whim' had trim gardens, alcoves, ponds, and facilities for duck-hunting; in the gardens were recesses, where, by treading on a spring, up started different figures, some ugly enough to frighten people, a harlequin, a Mother Shipton, or some terrible animal. Horace Walpole occasionally alludes to 'Jenny's Whim'; in one of his letters to Montagu, he says: 'Here (at Vauxhall) we picked up Lord Granby, arrived very drunk from Jenny's Whim.' Towards the beginning of this century 'Jenny's Whim' began to decline; at last it sank down to the condition of a beershop, and in 1804 it was finally closed. The origin of the name is doubtful. Davis, the historian of Knightsbridge, accepts the account given him by an old inhabitant, that it was so called from its first landlady, who directed the gardens to be laid out in so fantastic a manner as to cause the noun to be added to her own Christian name. Other reports say that the place was established by a celebrated pyrotechnist in the reign of George I.; but that does not account for the name.

Like other London rivers, the Westbourne in the end became a sewer; it was gradually covered up; of the two chief branches by which it reached the Thames, the eastern one became the Grosvenor Canal, and the western the Ranelagh Sewer. The canal was crossed by several other bridges, Stone Bridge being one of them.

We stated above that the Westbourne formed the western boundary of Chelsea; its eastern boundary was also a river, or rather rivulet, which it appears never even had a name, though in one old map I find it called Bridge Creek. It rose in Wormwood Scrubs, skirted the West London and Westminster Cemetery, and entered the Thames west of Battersea Bridge, where, in fact, there is still a creek going some distance inland. The rest of the stream has been absorbed by the West Kensington Railway. No vestige of it remains, and it has no history.

Brook Green took its name from a brook which once rose near Shepherd's Bush, but it has no records.

The next river we should come to, if we pursued our journey westward, would be the Brent; but as that is still existing—how long will it continue to do so?—it does not enter into the scope of our investigations.

Having now given an account of all the extinct brooks north of the Thames, we will cross that river and see what watercourses formerly existed on the Surrey side.

The southern banks of the Thames, being low and flat, originally were a swamp, continually overflowed by the river—Lambeth Marsh commemorates that condition of the locality. Down to Deptford, Peckham, Camberwell, Stockwell, Brixton, and Clapham did the flood extend. But by the gradual damming up of the southern bank of the Thames, the erection of buildings on the Surrey side, and the draining of the soil, the latter was gradually laid dry, and the numerous rivulets which meandered through the marsh were reduced to three between the still-existing rivers—namely, the Ravenscourt to the east, and the Wandle to the west. The first brook, again going from east to west, is the Neckinger, which rose at the foot of Denmark Hill and adjacent parts, and, after passing in two streams under the Old Kent Road, united north of it, and reached the Thames at St. Saviour's Dock, which, in fact, is the enlarged mouth of the old river. But according to some old maps we have consulted, it had a branch running in a more easterly direction, and entering the Thames at a point near the present Commercial Docks Pier. But of this latter branch no trace remains, whilst the northerly course to the Thames is indicated by various roads, such as the Grange and the Neckinger Roads. The brook ran past Bermondsey Abbey, up to the gates of which it was navigable from the Thames. The Grange Road took its name from a farm known as the Grange, and here the Neckinger was spanned by a bridge. When Bermondsey Abbey was destroyed, a number of tanneries were established on the site, which took their water from the Neckinger, in connection with which a number of tidal ditches, to admit water from the Thames, were cut in various directions. Near the Upper Grange Road stood a windmill, and at the mouth of the Neckinger a water-mill, the owner of which shut off the tide when it suited his purpose, which led to frequent disputes between him and the tanners. But in time the latter sank artesian wells, the mill was driven by steam-power, and the water of the Neckinger being no longer required for manufacturing purposes, the river was neglected and finally built over. The Neckinger Mills had been erected in the last century by a company to manufacture paper from straw; but, this enterprise failing, the premises passed into the hands of the leather manufacturers. A street to the east of St. Saviour's Dock, and parallel with it, is still known as Mill Street. There was another bridge over the Neckinger where it crossed the Old Kent Road, near the spot where the Albany Road joins the latter road. It was known as Thomas-a-Watering, from St. Thomas, the patron of the dissolved monastery or hospital of that name in Southwark. The bridge was the most southern point of the boundary of the Borough of Southwark, and in ancient days the first halting-place out of London on the road to Kent. Chaucer's pilgrims passed it on their way to the shrine of St. Thomas-a-Becket at Canterbury:

'And forth we riden ...

Unto the watering-place of St. Thomas,

And then our host began his hors arrest.'

 

Deputations of citizens used to go so far to meet royal or other distinguished personages who came to visit London. From the end of the fifteenth century the spot was set apart for executions, and numerous are the records of criminals who were hanged there until about the middle of the last century.

In 1690 two very handsome Janus heads—i.e., heads with two faces—were discovered near St. Thomas-a-Watering. They were found near two ancient piers of a large gate—Janus was the God of Gates. One was taken up and set up on a gardener's door; but the other, being embedded in quicksand, from which springs flowed out pretty freely, was left. Dr. Woodward, who founded the Professorship of Geology in the University of Cambridge, afterwards purchased the head which had been saved, and added it to his collection of curiosities. At the beginning of this century there was still a brook running across the Kent Road on the spot mentioned above, with a bridge over it, and the current from the Peckham and Denmark hills was at times so strong as to overflow at least two acres of ground. East of the Mill Street above mentioned there is a spot which has been rendered famous by Dickens in 'Oliver Twist'—namely, Jacob's Island. As the description he gives of it is known to everyone, we need not here repeat it; it applies, partially only, to the locality now.

It is, or to speak correctly was, a 'Venice of drains.' But it was not always so; in the reign of Henry II. the foul, stagnant ditch, which till recently made an island of this pestilential spot, was a running stream, supplied with the waters which were brought down in the Neckinger from the southern hills. On its banks stood the mills of the monks of St. John and St. Mary, dependencies of the Abbey of Bermondsey, which were worked by it. In those days the neighbourhood consisted of blooming gardens and verdant meadows. Close to Jacob's Island were Cupid's Gardens, a kind of Ranelagh on a small scale, but still a very pleasant place of public entertainment. Tanneries, and many still more objectionable trades now carried on in the locality, were then undreamt of.

Many of the horrors of Jacob's Island are now things of the past. The foul ditch, in whose black mud the juveniles used to disport themselves, undeterred by the close proximity of the unsavoury carcasses of dead dogs and cats, is now filled up and turned into a solid road. Many of the tumble-down houses have been pulled down—in fact, the romance of the place is gone.

Let us proceed westward; we come to the once important Effra, which remained a running stream till within the sixties, when it, like others, became a mere sewer. It rose in the high grounds of Norwood, and ran down Croxted Lane, till within the last two or three years a perfectly rural retreat; at the Half Moon Inn at Herne Hill it received an affluent, which rose between Streatham Hill and Knight's Hill. Skirting the park of Brockwell Hall, it ran along Water Lane, past the police-station in the Brixton Road. Here it took a sharp turn to the north, and ran parallel to the Brixton Road, access to the houses on the eastern side being gained by little bridges, till it reached St. Mark's Church, where it took a sharp turn to the west. But before reaching that point, a branch of the river, at a spot somewhere between the present Clapham and South Lambeth Roads, in what used formerly to be called Fentiman's Fields, turned in a northerly direction towards the South Lambeth Road, flowing through what was then Caroon Park, afterwards the Lawn Estate, a portion of which has recently become Vauxhall Park. The river ran along the lane leading by the side of the present Vauxhall Park to the Crown Works of Messrs. Higgs and Hill, at the corner of the lane turning almost at right angles up the South Lambeth Road towards Vauxhall Cross. As in the Brixton Road, little bridges here gave access to the houses on the eastern side of the South Lambeth Road. According to an old map, this branch of the Effra sent off another across the South Lambeth Road and a Mr. Freeman's land, lying between it and the Kingston Highway, as the Wandsworth Road was then called, and thus reached the Thames. The main stream, which we left at St. Mark's Church, continued its course along the south side of the Oval, sending off in a north-westerly direction a branch which fell into a circular basin, probably on the spot where the great gas-holders now stand in Upper Kennington Lane. It then turned towards Vauxhall, where it passed under a bridge, called Cox's Bridge, and fell into the Thames a little northward of Vauxhall Bridge.

At Belair, one of the show-houses of Dulwich, a branch of the Effra ran through the grounds; the Effra itself also traversed the Springfield Estate near Herne Hill, now given up to the builders. The river there appears to have been much wider than elsewhere, and in depth about nine feet, with banks shaded by old trees. The present writer remembers the Effra as a river, and was told by a gardener, now deceased, who had worked on the Caroon Estate, which extended from the present Dorset Road to the Oval, for more than fifty years, that he had often seen the Effra along Lawn Lane assume the proportions of a river, wide and deep enough to bear large barges, which statement gives countenance to the tradition that Queen Elizabeth frequently in her barge visited Sir Noel Caroon, the Dutch Ambassador, who lived at Caroon House, on the site of which stand the mansion and factory of Mark Beaufoy, Esq., who is also the owner of the Belair House above-mentioned. Dr. Montgomery, sometime Vicar of St. Mark's, and now Bishop of Tasmania, in his 'History of Kennington,' says that, in 1753, the whole space occupied by the Oval and a number of streets was open meadow through which the Effra meandered at will. It was a sparkling river running over a bright gravelly bottom, and supplied fresh water to the neighbourhood. A bridge crossed the Effra at St. Mark's, and was called Merton Bridge, from its formerly having been repaired by the Canons of Merton Abbey, who had lands for that purpose. Curiously enough, the author from whom we take this, Thomas Allen, in his 'History of Lambeth,' published in 1827, when the Effra was yet a running stream, refers to it only on the above occasion, when he calls it a 'small stream.' 'Et c'est ainsi qu'on écrit l'histoire.'

One more 'lost river' remains on our list, the Falcon Brook, which, rising on the south side of Balham Hill, flowed almost due north between Clapham and Wandsworth Commons to Battersea Rise, which it crossed, after which it turned sharply to the west, ran along Lavender Road, crossed the York Road, and discharged itself into the Thames through Battersea Creek, which is all that now remains of the river, except the underground sewer which represents its former course. Once many pleasant villas stood on its banks; at the present day the entire valley through which it flowed is covered by one of the densest masses of dingy streets to be seen anywhere near London. Nothing remains to recall even its name, except the Falcon Road, and a newly-erected public-house which has supplanted the original Falcon, a somewhat rustic building, which, however, harmonized well with the then surroundings, which were of a perfectly rural aspect, such as, looking at the present scene, we can scarcely realize. But it can be seen in a rare print of the river, engraved by S. Rawle, after an original drawing by J. Nixon. He was an artist, who, passing the Falcon, which was then kept by a man named Robert Death, saw a number of undertaker's men regaling themselves after a funeral on the open space in front of the inn. They were not only eating and drinking and smoking, but indulging in various antics, endeavouring to make the maids of the inn join in their hilarity. This scene, and the queer coincidence of the landlord's strange name, induced Nixon to make a sketch of it, which was engraved and published in 1802, the following lines from Blair's poem 'The Grave' being added to the print:

'But see the well-plumed hearse comes nodding on,

Stately and slow, and properly attended

By the whole sable tribe, that painful watch

The sick man's door, and live upon the dead,

By letting out their persons by the hour

To mimic sorrow, when the heart's not sad.'

 

A cantata was also published about the same time, supposed to be sung by undertakers' merry men, to celebrate the pleasure and benefit of burying a nabob, and drink to their

'...next merry meeting and quackery's increase!'

 

Here we close our journey and our records at a funeral. Well, the finale is not inappropriate. Have we not been attending the funerals of so many gay and bright and sparkling, joyfully leaping and rushing, and sometimes roaring, brooks and rivers, descending from the sunny hillsides, finally to be buried in dark and noisome sewers? And the lost river, alas! is but too often the type of the lost life. But moralizing is not in our line—we think it sad waste of time; it is no better than doctors' prescriptions. We would rather remind the reader, who in these notes may miss elegance of style and picturesqueness of description, that such qualities were incompatible with the compactness of details the space at our command imposed upon us. Besides, a more florid style must borrow something from imagination; but here we had only to deal with facts, and if the reader finds as much pleasure in studying as we did in collecting them, though the labour was great, he will not regret the time bestowed on their perusal.

XVI.

ROGUES ASSORTED.

On Horwood's Map of London, dated 1799, just one hundred years ago, there is shown a road, starting from Blue Anchor Lane, Bermondsey, at almost a right angle to the latter, and running in an easterly direction, but with a considerable curve in it, and this road is called Rogues' Lane. It is more than half a mile long, perfectly solitary, not a house on or near it, the land around it being a wild waste, and as deserted as a lonely moor in the recesses of Wales or Cornwall. How did this lane acquire its name? Did the inhabitants of the East End of London construct it as a kind of sewer for carrying off into the outlying wilderness the rogues who infested their streets? or did the rogues of that day, openly or tacitly acknowledging themselves to be such, choose the lane as a kind of rendezvous, as a sort of peripatetic exchange for the transaction of their rascally schemes? The East End of London seems, indeed, in those days, to have been a favourite resort of rogues—Stepney had its Rogues' Well—now they prefer the West End. But the rogues of old were somewhat different from the modern specimens; they were chiefly thieves, footpads, burglars, sneaks, low cheats, sham cripples, and such mean fry—modern civilization, with its panacea of education, had not yet asserted itself. Culture, which licks all the world into shape, has even reached the rogues; the petty scoundrels of old are replaced by the magnificent swindlers of the present day, who deal not in paltry pence, but in weighty sovereigns—who do not cheat a silly countryman out of the few shillings his purse may contain, but wheedle trusting spinsters and mad and greedy speculators out of thousands of pounds. The modern rogue is either a promoter of bogus companies, or a director who issues bogus shares, an embezzling bank-manager or trustee, or a man who lives far beyond his means, even when he knows that all his available assets are gone in betting, racing, and Stock Exchange speculation, or a fraudulent bankrupt. And there is no slitting of noses, no whipping, not even exposure on the pillory ominously looming at the end of their career; when the game is up, no more cash to be obtained by loans, and the infuriated creditors become troublesome, he attempts one more big haul, the proceeds of which, if successful, he prudently settles on his wife, and then the unfortunate victim of circumstances, over which, as he pathetically says, he had no control, leisurely takes a walk to Carey Street, has a comfortable wash and brush up in the financial lavatory which hospitably stands open there, and he comes out, thoroughly whitewashed and rid of all importunate claims upon him, after which he hires a fine mansion in Belgravia, fares sumptuously every day, and bespatters with the mud of his chariot-wheels the deluded shareholders and tradespeople whom his wily schemes have ruined. It is all, or nearly all, the outcome of modern education, which, by ramming notions totally unsuited to the minds and characters under tuition into juvenile minds, bears such bitter fruit. But educational cranks have it all their own way now, though it is wrong to call them 'educational'; they fancy that education means 'cramming,' never mind whether the food is assimilated with the body, whilst education really means the very opposite—namely, a drawing out, not a putting in: a drawing out of the hidden properties of mind and character. But let us come to our theme—the London rogues of old; their evil deeds were done long ago, and will therefore not rile as does the rascality we see around us now. We will take the beggars first: not all beggars are rogues, but the majority are. They fared variously under various Kings; some protected, some persecuted them. Strange it is that, under the juvenile, gentle Edward VI., one of the most severe laws was passed against them: a servant absenting himself for three days or more from his work was to be, on his re-capture, marked with a hot iron with the letter V (vagabond), and be his master's slave for two years, and fed on bread and water; should he run away again, he was, on being caught, to be marked on his forehead or cheek with a hot iron with the letter S (slave), and be his master's slave for life; for a third escape the punishment was death. This diabolical law was repealed two years after. Under Elizabeth sturdy beggars were whipped till the blood came. James I. rather sympathized with them; he, like them, always was in need of 'siller.' Hence the country, and especially London, swarmed with rogues of every description, known by various cant terms, such as Rufflers, Upright Men, Hookers, Rogues, Pallyards, Abraham Men, Traters, Freshwater Mariners or Whipjacks, Dommerars, Swadders, Bawdy Baskets, Doxies, with many other names of the same slang category; and, of course, the object of all the members of these various associations was to cheat the unwary and charitable. In course of time some of these terms went out of use—the cant of rogues is always on the move—but new ones took their places; and, in spite of all the laws passed against them, beggars continued to flourish. In 1728 a spirited presentment to the Court of King's Bench was made by the Grand Jury of Middlesex against the unusual swarms of sturdy and clamorous beggars, as well as the many frightful objects exposed in the streets; and, the nuisance not abating, a similar presentment was made in 1741, with the same unsatisfactory result. And as long as there are people who will not, and people who cannot, work, and as long as there are thoughtless people who will indiscriminately give alms, beggars will infest our streets. Referring to such, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning's Walk from London to Kew' (1820), tells us that the passage from Charing Cross to St. James's Park through Spring Gardens was a favourite haunt of beggars. Says he: 'A blind woman was brought to her post by a little boy, who, carelessly leading her against the step of a door, she gave him a smart box on the ear, and exclaimed, "Damn you, you rascal! can't you mind what you are about?" and then, leaning her back against the wall, in the same breath she began to chaunt a hymn.' Even now you may hear a psalm-singing woman, who has hired two or three children to render the show more effective, when these get weary, growl, in a hoarse whisper between her Hallelujahs, 'Sing out, ye devils!' The Rookery in St. Giles's, demolished to make room for New Oxford Street, was the very paradise of beggars. They there held an annual carnival, to which Major Hanger on one occasion accompanied George IV., when still Prince of Wales. The chairman, addressing the company, and pointing to the Prince, said: 'I call upon that 'ere gemman with a shirt for a song.' The Prince got excused on his friend agreeing to sing for him, who then sang a ballad called 'The Beggar's Wedding; or, the Jovial Crew,' with great applause. The beggars drank his health, and he and the Prince soon after managed to make good their retreat.

Among the most infamous rogues of the last century were men of the Jonathan Wild stamp—agents provocateurs, as we should now style them—who not only led people into crime, but shared the proceeds of it with the felons; nay, worse, they got persons who were quite innocent convicted, by perjured witnesses, of crimes which had never been committed. It was practices like these which at last brought Jonathan Wild himself to the scaffold.

The tricks of rogues change their names, but remain the same; what is now known as the 'confidence trick,' which, though it has been exposed in police-courts and reported in the press thousands of times, even in our day finds ready victims, was formerly called 'coney-catching,' and there were generally three confederates—the Setter, the Verser, and the Barnacle. The Setter, strolling along the Strand, Fleet Street, or Holborn, on the look-out for flats, on espying a coney, whom his dress and general appearance pronounced to be a man from the country, would make up to him, and, as a rule, quickly find out what county he came from, his name, and other particulars. If he could not induce him to have a drink with him, he would manage to convey to his confederate, the Verser, close by, the information gained, whereupon the Verser would suddenly come upon the countryman, salute him by his name, and ask after friends in the country. He proclaimed himself the near kinsman of some neighbour of the coney, and asserted to have been in the latter's house several times. The countryman, though he could not remember these visits, was yet taken unawares, and readily accepted the invitation to have a drink. They then induced him to play at cards, and soon left him as bare of money as an ape is of a tail, for in those days coney-catching was practised by the assistance of a pack of cards. But if all these lures were wasted on the coney, the Setter or Verser would drop a shilling in the street, so that the coney must see it fall, when he would naturally pick it up, whereupon one of the confederates would cry out, 'Half-part!' and claim half the find. The countryman would readily agree to exchange the money, but the Setter or Verser would say, 'Nay, friend; it is unlucky to keep found money,' and the farce would end in the money being spent in drink at a tavern; then cards would be called for, and the coney induced to take an interest in them by being initiated into a new game called 'mum-chance,' at which he was allowed to win money. While so engaged, the door would be opened by a stranger, the Barnacle, who, on seeing the players, would say, 'Excuse me, gentlemen: I thought a friend of mine was here.' The stranger would be invited to have a glass of wine, and join in the game, which he would readily do, 'to oblige the company'; and the end would be that the coney, after having been allowed to win for some time, would gradually begin to lose his money, then his watch, or any other valuables he might have about him, and finally be left with no property but the clothes he was standing up in. This, as we have stated, was called 'coney-catching,' or 'coney-catching law,' for those rogues possessed a great regard for law; all their practices went by the name of 'law'—'high law' meant highway robbery; 'cheating law,' playing with false dice; 'versing law,' the passing of bad gold; 'figging law,' the cutting of purses.

Vagrants and tramps in those days called themselves by the more dignified appellation of 'cursitors'; and the counterfeiter of epilepsy was a 'counterfeit crank'; money-dropping and ring-dropping were even then old tricks of cozenage. Those who are acquainted with the modern way of coney-catching, or the confidence trick—and who is not that lives in London?—will know that the trick is now much simplified, and yields much quicker and more satisfactory results—to the rogues. And though, as we mentioned above, the trick has been exposed over and over again, new fools are found every day to go into the trap. In fact, all the old rogueries flourish at the present time, besides a few new ones invented in this century. The holders of sham auctions; the horse-makers, who, by means of drugs and other devices, make old horses look as good as new till they are sold; the free foresters, who during the night rob suburban gardens of roots and flowers, and sell them next day off their barrows, all 'a-growing and a-blowing'; the dog stealers; the beer and spirit doctors, who double and treble Master Bung's stock by vile adulteration; the sellers of established businesses, which never had any actual existence—all these are types of venerable institutions which survive to this day, and not only survive, but flourish in everlasting youth. The racing, betting and Stock Exchange swindles perform their eternal merry-go-round, as they did when first started several centuries ago, and the home employment deception still draws the last shillings from the purses of poor people. And in most cases, unfortunately, the law is powerless to reach the rogues; our foolish humanitarianism, the interests of trade, the freedom of the subject to contract, the technicalities and quibbles of legislative acts, and the uncertainty as to their meaning, are at the bottom of all this failure of justice. We ought to cease prating about the dignity of man—as if there were any dignity in such paltry rogues!—and return, perhaps in a modified form, to the drastic remedies of our forefathers, who retaliated on those who made their neighbour suffer in health or in purse by inflicting on them bodily pain and personal disgrace, and not merely fining them, as is the custom with us. In the 'Memorials of London and London Life,' extracted from the City Archives, and extending from the years 1272 to 1419, will be found between twenty and thirty condemnations to the pillory, the stocks, imprisonment, and being drawn through the city on a hurdle, for deficiency of weight in bread, coals, etc., for false measure, for enhancing the price of wheat, for swindling, such as selling brass rings and chains for gold, for selling false bowstrings, putrid meat, fowls and fish, and in these latter cases the articles condemned were burnt under the noses of the culprits, as they stood in the pillory. Even women had to undergo the punishment of the pillory, one specially constructed for them being used on such occasions; it was called the thewe.

At the commencement we referred to a Rogues' Lane at Bermondsey, but there was another lane of that name in the very centre of London, Shire Lane, which was close to Temple Bar, and pulled down when room had to be made for the new Law Courts. The Kit-Kat Club held its meetings in that lane; but in spite of the dukes and lords frequenting that club, the lane never was considered respectable, and in the days of James I. was known as Rogues' Lane, it being then the resort of persons coming under that denomination. In the Bible public-house—a printers' house of call—there was a room with a trap in it, by which Jack Sheppard, who used the house, could drop into a subterranean passage which led to Bell Yard. The Angel and Crown, another public-house in the same lane, was the scene of the murder of a Mr. Quarrington, for which Thomas Carr and Elizabeth Adams were hanged at Tyburn. One night a man was robbed, thrown downstairs and killed in one of the dens of Rogues' Lane. Nos. 13 and 14 were bad houses; Nos. 9, 10 and 11, where thieves used to meet, was known as 'Cadgers' Hall'; Nos. 1, 2 and 3 were houses of ill-fame, and there existed a communication with the house No. 242, Strand, through which the thieves used to escape after ill-treating their victims. In Ship Yard, close to Shire Lane, there stood a block of houses which were let out to vagrants, thieves, sharpers, smashers and other disreputable characters. Throughout the vaults of this rookery there existed a continuous passage, so that easy access could be obtained from one to the other, facilitating escape or concealment in the case of pursuit. The end house of this block was selected for the manufacture of bad coin, and was known as the 'Smashing Lumber.' Every room had its secret trap or panel, and from the upper story, which was the workshop, there was a draft connected with the cellar, to which the base coin could be lowered in case of surprise.

It is astonishing, and shows us the hollowness of the pretence to civilization and decency set up on behalf of the velvet-dressed, lace and gold-bedizened aristocrats of those days, that persons, not only of respectability, but of rank and title, could live in such close quarters with thieves and vagabonds of the lowest grade. Yet, as already mentioned, the Kit-Kats had their club in Shire Lane; in 1603 there was living in it Sir Arthur Atie, in early life secretary to the Earl of Leicester; Elias Ashmole also inhabited the lane, so did Hoole, the translator of Tasso, and James Perry, the editor of the Morning Chronicle, who died worth £130,000.

London in the last century, and even in this, was full of retreats for criminals. The demolition of West Street, formerly Chick Lane, and of Field Lane, so recent as to be still fresh in the memory of living persons, brought many of them to light. The Dog, a low public-house in Drury Lane, was known as the 'Robbers' Den'; in fact, the whole street had a bad reputation, and is even now a disgrace to London. But beside these private retreats, the rogues and villains of the past had their public refuges, where even the officers of the law had to leave them unmolested—the sanctuaries at Westminster, St. John of Jerusalem, St. Martin's-le-Grand, Whitefriars and the Mint, and Montague Close in Southwark, some of which retained their privileges to the middle of the last century. The name Sanctuary, still given to a certain spot near Westminster Abbey, commemorates the actual sanctuary formerly existing in that locality, and the narrow street called Thieving Lane, now demolished, received that name because thieves, on their way to Gate House Prison, were taken through it, to prevent their escape into the sanctuary.

It is said that when rogues fall out honest men come to their own again. Yes, when their 'own' is still come-atable, but as a rule it is not; rogues seldom keep what they gain by trickery—lightly earned, lightly spent is the rule with them. Rogues are as great fools as are the fools they cheat, and the fools at heart are rogues too, without the wit of the rogues. The fool who is done out of his money or other property by trusting a perfect stranger is so done because he fancies himself more clever than the cheat, and hopes to beat him. The victim scarcely deserves any pity, for it is only a case of diamond cut diamond. And unfortunately, as we intimated above, honest men do not come to their own again, when rogues fall out, or are detected. The rogue who has cheated a commercial firm out of goods to the value of thousands of pounds, which he immediately pawns for half they are worth, rushes off to a turf tipster or bookie, and though his betting turns out lucky, he cannot get his winnings from the said bookie, who resists payment on the plea that the transaction was illegal. The rogues fall out, a lawsuit is the result, the speculator loses his case, but the firm do not get their money; that is irretrievably gone. Plenty of such cases happened hundreds of years ago, and continue to happen to the present day, and there are various resorts in the City and West End of London where it might truthfully be written up, Si sceleratos quœris, circumspice!

XVII.

BARS AND BARRISTERS.

The profession of a barrister is a curious one. Theoretically, he is the champion and protector of right and justice; but, practically, he often is but the hired advocate of wrong and injustice. It is only when he has attained high distinction at the Bar that he can, like Serjeant Ballantine, be independent enough to say that he will undertake no case of the justice of which he is not fully satisfied. True, counsel is assumed to base his arguments on behalf of his client on the instructions he receives from the solicitor who employs him; yet he, counsel, having had a legal education, and practice, too, cannot fail to see the weak points, supposing there are any, in the case before him, and the evidence adduced in examination and cross-examination must very soon satisfy him as to the real merits of his case; hence we often see counsel throwing up his brief. It is related in Laud's Diary that, when he was standing one day near his unfortunate master, then Prince Charles, the Prince said that, if necessity compelled him to choose any particular profession, he could not be a lawyer, 'for,' said he, 'I could neither defend a bad cause, nor yield in a good one.' By the Roman laws every advocate was required to swear that he would not undertake a cause which he knew to be unjust, and that he would abandon a defence which he should discover to be supported by falsehood and iniquity. This is continued in Holland at this day, and if an advocate brings forward a cause there which appears to the court plainly to be iniquitous, he is condemned in the costs of the suit; and if, in consequence of this, a cause, just in itself, should not be able to find a defender because of some strong and general prejudice concerning it, the court has authority to appoint a counsel.

The universal opinion that advocates are ready to support injustice for the sake of gain—that they will undertake more work than they can possibly attend to—is of very ancient date. The Lord Keeper Puckering, directing attention to the grasping habits which too frequently disgraced the leaders of the Bar, observed: 'I am to exhort you also not to embrace multitude of causes, or to undertake more places of hearing causes, than you are well able to consider of or perform, lest thereby you either disappoint your clients, when their causes be heard, or come unprovided, or depart when their causes be in hearing.' That the administration of justice is much improved in modern days is sufficiently proved by the fact that now no judge would be allowed, as he was in the closing years of the fourteenth century, to give opinions for money to his private clients, although he was forbidden to take gold or silver from any person having 'plea or process hanging before him.'

It is, in fact, still a moot point, and, we suppose, always will be, what lengths an advocate may go to, consistently with truth and honour, in pleading the cause of a client whom he knows to be guilty. The conduct of Charles Phillipps, in defending Courvoisier, has always been condemned. Courvoisier did not confess his guilt to his counsel, but admitted to him that he had made away with some plate from Lord William Russell's house immediately after the murder. This was damning evidence, but the communication was made by the prisoner not to admit his guilt, but merely to prepare his counsel to deal with the evidence. But Phillipps made a remark in his speech which the Bar considered as unjustifiable. He said: 'Supposing him to be guilty of the murder, which is known to God Almighty alone, I hope, for the sake of his eternal soul, he is innocent.' These words were not only in bad taste, but conveyed a positive falsehood. Counsel's part is to lay before the jury possibilities, and not his own opinion of the prisoner's guilt or innocence; and a strange feature of the etiquette of the Bar is that if counsel is prepared to throw up his brief because he sees his cause to be bad, yet he is bound, after accepting the retainer, to continue defending the case if his client insists on his doing so. He may then be compelled to go on arguing on behalf of a man whom he knows to be a thorough scoundrel.

Barristers were first appointed by Edward I. about 1291, but there is an earlier mention of professional advocates in England, who were of various ranks, as King's or Queen's Counsel, Serjeants, etc. At more recent dates we read of utter or outer and inner barristers; these terms appear to have been derived from local arrangements in the halls of the Inns of Court. In the public meetings held in these halls, the benchers and readers—superior to barristers—occupying the daïs, which was separated by a bar, some of the barristers who had attained a certain standing were called from the body of the hall to the bar—that is, to the first place outside the bar—for the purpose of arguing doubtful questions and cases, whence they probably obtained the name of outer barristers. The course of legal education consisted principally of readings and mootings. The readings were expositions of important statutes. These readings being accompanied by costly entertainments, especially at Lincoln's Inn, their original object was forgotten in the splendour of the tables, for which the benchers were severely reprimanded by Charles I. The readings were eventually suspended, but were revived about 1796. Mootings were questions on doubtful points of law, argued between certain of the benchers and barristers in the hall. There was also another exercise in the Inns of Court, called 'bolting'—not gastronomically—which was a private arguing of cases by some of the students and barristers. The term was probably derived from 'bolter,' a sieve, with reference to the sifting of cases.

As to the fees paid to barristers, how they have altered! In 1500 the Corporation of Canterbury paid for advice regarding their civic interests 3s. 4d. to each of three Serjeants, and gave the Recorder of London 6s. 8d. as a retaining-fee. Five years later Mr. Serjeant Wood received a fee of 10s. from the Goldsmiths' Company. In the sixteenth century it was customary for clients to provide food and drink for their counsel. In a bill of costs in the reign of Edward IV. we find:

                                                s. d.
For a breakfast at Westminster to our counsel . 1  6
To another time for boat hire and breakfast . . 1  6

In like manner the accountant of St. Margaret's, Westminster, entered in the parish books: 'Paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel given, 3s. 8d., with 4d. for his dinner.'

In Elizabeth's reign, and during the time of her successors, barristers' fees showed a tendency to increase. Counsel then received 20s. fees, though 10s. was the usual fee. A ten-shilling piece was then called an 'angel,' whence arose the witty saying: 'A barrister is like Balaam's ass, only speaking when he sees the angel.' When Francis Bacon was created King's Counsel to James I., an annual salary of £40 was assigned to him; but at present the status of a Q.C. is simply an affair of professional precedence, to which no fixed emolument is attached. But Francis Bacon, though he received as his official salary £40 only, made £6,000 in his profession; other King's Counsel earned even larger sums in fees. But the barristers were not all greedy. In the days of Sir Matthew Hale, professional etiquette permitted clients and counsel to hold intercourse without the intervention of an attorney. When those who came to Hale for his advice gave him a sovereign, he used to return half, saying his fee was 10s. When appointed arbitrator, he would take no fees, because, as he said, he acted in the capacity of a judge, and a judge should take no money. If he took bad money, as he often did, he would not pass it on again, but kept it by him. At last he had a great heap of it, and his house being once entered by burglars, this accumulation of bad money attracted their attention, and they carried it off in preference to other valuables, fancying that this must be the lawyer's hoarded treasure.

Readers who wish to know in what estimation lawyers were held in the seventeenth century should study the pamphlets and broadsides of the Commonwealth, which show how universal was the belief that wearers of ermine and gentlemen of the long robe would practise any sort of fraud or extortion for the sake of personal advantage. How happy we are to live in this century, when the legal profession is in a state of high purification! It does, indeed, sometimes surprise an outsider that so many barristers should be necessary to carry through one case—it looks as if they were brought in merely for the benefit of the lawyers; but, in justice to the profession, let us say that this is not so. Barristers have their special gifts, and a long and involved case brings them all into play to the advantage of the client. One man has unrivalled powers of statement; another is sound in law; another excels in cross-examination; another in reply; another has the ear of the court, or is all-persuasive with the jury. A barrister, to be successful at the Bar, needs, indeed, many qualifications. Lord Brougham states that Mansfield's powers as an advocate were great; he possessed an almost surpassing sweetness of voice, and it was said that his story was worth other men's arguments, so clear and skilful were his statements. Concerning Lord Erskine, another famous debater in the forensic lists, juries declared that they felt it impossible to remove their looks from him when he had riveted and, as it were, fascinated them by his first glance; and it used to be a common remark of men, who observed his motions, that they resembled those of a blood-horse—as light, as limber, as much betokening strength as speed. His voice was of surpassing sweetness, clear, flexible, strong, less fitted, indeed, to express indignation or scorn than pathos. Lord Sandwich, First Lord of the Admiralty, having brought an action for libel against persons who had charged him with having appointed landsmen as Greenwich pensioners to serve his own electioneering purposes, Erskine undertook the defence, and such was the effect of his speech that, before he left the court, thirty retainers were presented to him. Fortune comes to those who can wait. Lord Ellenborough first distinguished himself as the leading counsel for Warren Hastings, and soon after rose to the head of the Northern Circuit; Lord Brougham attained his subsequent position by his defence of Queen Caroline.

But counsel must not only be able to expound his case clearly, bringing into prominence all its favourable points, and effacing or putting out of sight all those of an opposite character, but he must also be observant and quick enough on the spur of the moment to take advantage of any rift in his opponent's flute, of any weakness in his argument; he must be sharp in dealing with the plaintiff, supposing he is for the defendant, and especially so with his witnesses. He should, in civil cases, by skilful cross-questioning, entrap the principal or his witnesses into damaging admissions and contradictions. The following case, if not vero, is ben trovato to illustrate our meaning. A man brought an action against a coach proprietor, for having by the carelessness of the latter's servants suffered bodily hurt, to wit, been thrown from the coach on to the ground, the hind wheels of which passed over his body, and injured his chest and lungs. In his examination-in-chief he testified to these facts. Then the defendant's counsel took him in hand. As the plaintiff was about to leave the box, 'One moment, my friend,' said counsel quite blandly. 'According to the evidence you have just given, you obviously have suffered much; your voice is gone, you say?'

'Yes, sir; I cannot speak above a whisper.'

'Very sad. The coach, you say, gave a sudden lurch backwards, and thus threw you off the hind seat under the coach wheels? Were you sitting or standing just then?'

'Well, I was standing up just then.'

'What made you stand up whilst the coach was in motion?'

'Well, you would have stood up had you been there.'

'Just answer my question; never mind what I should have done.'

'I don't know why I should answer this question.'

The judge pointed out to him that he must answer it.

'Well, I wanted to look at a pretty girl who had passed the coach; you would have done so.'

'Possibly.' Counsel might have given him a sharper reply, but he did not want to lose his hold over the witness by riling him. So he went on: 'Possibly. And then, like the gallant gentleman you are, you kissed your hand to the lady, and then the accident happened?'

'That's about it,' innocently replied the plaintiff.

'That's how it happened,' said counsel, turning to the jury.

And then, turning to the plaintiff again: 'And the coach-wheels passing over you broke no bones, but ruined your voice, which we all can hear is very weak; this must be a sad affliction, for you especially, because I am given to understand that you were before this accident a famous singer at free-and-easies and other convivial meetings, and made much money by your voice?'

'That's the fact,' hoarsely whispered the plaintiff.

'Very sad. I am told your voice was not only melodious, but very powerful. Perhaps,' continued counsel in the most insidiously flattering tones, 'you might give his Lordship and the jury a specimen of what your voice was before this unlucky accident.'

And the fool, entrapped by counsel's apparent sympathy and the petty vanity clinging to all singing men to show off, actually broke forth into a rollicking drinking song, which shook the walls of the building. Thereupon counsel asked for a verdict for his client the defendant, and for costs, and got the first, if not the second.

The terms barrister and counsel are often used indiscriminately; every barrister is a counsel, but not every counsel a barrister. There are barristers whose names are in everybody's mouth, and who earn their thousands a year; there are counsel unknown to the public, who never, or only under peculiar circumstances, appear at the Bar, but who are well known to the legal profession, and make more than twice as much as the barrister practising at the Bar; they are 'consulting' counsel. When you go to a joiner and tell him to make you a cabinet, he takes your order, and sets about making the piece of furniture you want; he does not say that, as such an article is not one he ever heard of in his trade, he will go and learn from someone more experienced than himself how to execute your order, and that you will have to pay for his improving himself in joinery. But if you go to your lawyer with a case which is not of the most usual description, he informs you that he must have counsel's opinion, for which you have to pay from two to five guineas, to improve your lawyer's legal knowledge. And he sends a number of questions to a 'consulting' counsel. Now, as every lawyer of any standing has in his library all the legal handbooks and reports of cases which are the consulting counsel's only guides, the lawyer might as well look up the precedents himself, but that would not be etiquette, nor so profitable all round, and so the more expensive method must be followed. The consulting counsel sits in his chambers as the soothsayers of old sat in their temples, whence, like them, he sends forth oracular utterances as obscure and ambiguous as those of the ancient mummers, and straightway solicitors and clients feel relieved of all anxiety: they have counsel's opinion and their case is as good as won. For their counsel's opinion is favourable, or, at all events, this is the interpretation they put on it, though counsel's opinion on the same case on the other side reads the very reverse. Should it so happen that on the day in which counsel has given his opinion a case should be decided in a law-court, which shows that his opinion is not worth a rap, will counsel rush off to the lawyer to tell him so? Not he; he is not going to admit that he is fallible. And he will not give his opinion on the same case twice. A lawyer's clerk having obtained such an opinion from counsel, and passing a pub, where he had agreed to meet a friend of his to settle a little betting transaction, left the opinion in the omnibus in which he had come, and did not discover his loss till it was too late to go to counsel again the same day. So he went the next day, prepared to pay out of his own pocket for another copy of the document. Counsel honestly said: 'I could not do that, my friend, for to-day I might give you an opinion totally opposed to the one I gave you yesterday, which would be awkward if the first should turn up.'

Sometimes consulting counsel will condescend to come into court to argue some disgustingly technical point about 'contingent remainders' or 'conveyancing.' On such occasions they evince unbounded contempt for the court, whose ignorance necessitates their presence. They will consume a whole day in dull and dry arguments, and send some judges to sleep, and those who remain awake after counsel's speech know less of the matter than they knew before; their brains are muddled with the legal rigmarole they have been listening to. The ecclesiastical counsel, who flourished in the days before the Probate and Divorce Courts were established, and from 'doctors' became 'counsel,' when called out into the general practice of the new system, were like so many owls suddenly brought into daylight, Sir Cresswell Cresswell so bedevilled them, and yet did it so politely that they could not complain.

Barristers had a good time of it in those old days of the Ecclesiastical Courts; the system of appeal was splendidly organized—the pettiest case could gradually be raised into one of great importance. There were courts throughout the country—royal, archiepiscopal, episcopal, decanal, sub-decanal, prebendal, rectorial, vicarial, and manorial. A case arises in any one of these courts, and the verdict being unsatisfactory to one of the parties, he appeals to the courts of the archdeacons and others, where the case is again heard, decided, and again appealed against. Poor men, who cannot go on for ever, must stop; but the party who can afford it goes to the Consistorial Court, where the whole process of hearing, deciding, and appealing is repeated. The third step is the Chancellor's Court; the fourth the Court of Arches. If the appellant still has some money left, he may go to the Privy Council—formerly to the Court of Delegates at Doctors' Commons, now abolished. This is no mere imaginary case. 'There was a case,' says Dr. Nicholls, 'in which the cause had originally commenced in the Archdeacon's Court at Totnes, and thence there had been an appeal to the Court at Exeter, thence to the Arches, and thence to the Delegates; and the whole question at issue was simply the question which of two persons had the right of hanging his hat on a particular peg. Fancy, what an army of barristers must have grown fat on this oyster!'

Success at the Bar comes to barristers in the most capricious manner. In this profession, as in many other pursuits, modest merit but slowly makes its way. Manners make the man, but impudence an advocate; without this latter quality even high connections and powerful patronage often seem ineffectual. Earl Camden, the son of Chief Justice Pratt, was called to the Bar in his twenty-fourth year, and remained a briefless barrister for nine long years, when he resolved to abandon Westminster Hall for his College Fellowship; but at the solicitation of his friend Healey, afterwards Lord Chancellor Northington, he consented once more to go the Western Circuit, and through his kind offices received a brief as his junior in an important case. His leader's illness threw the management of the case into Mr. Pratt's hands; his success was complete, and, after many years' lucrative practice, he was made Attorney-General, and three years after, in 1762, raised to the Bench as Chief Justice of the Common Pleas. In 1766 he was made Lord Chancellor, and raised to the peerage. The Earl of Eldon was on the point of retiring from the contest for clients, when fortune unexpectedly smiled upon him, and the records of the Bar are full of similar instances.

We have spoken of cross-examination. Its legitimate object is not to produce startling effects, but to elicit facts which will support the theory intended to be put forward; but in most cases the first is aimed at, and frequently with success. Counsel, however, must perform this operation with much discretion. To a barrister who was recklessly asking a number of questions in the hope of getting at something, Mr. Baron Alderson said: 'You seem to think that the art of cross-examination consists in examining crossly.' Judges frequently give hints to counsel; to one who was terribly long-winded, the judge said: 'You have stated that before, but you may have forgotten it—it was so long ago.' Counsel must not allow himself to be carried away by the fervour of his oratorical powers, and thus overshoot the mark. Arabin, the Commissioner, a shrewd, quaint little man, uttered absurdities without knowing he did so. 'I assure you, gentlemen,' he one day said to the jury, 'the inhabitants of Uxbridge will steal the very teeth out of your mouth as you walk through the streets. I know it from experience.' When technical expressions are likely to be brought up in a case before the court, counsel should be careful to get posted up in them, or he may make a strange and laughable mess of it. A question of collision between two boats down the river Thames was being investigated. The master of one of the boats was in the witness-box.

'Now,' said counsel, cross-examining him, 'what time was it when the other boat ran into you, as you say?'

'It was during the dog-watch,' replied the mariner.

'You hear this, gentlemen?' said counsel, turning to the jury. 'According to this man's evidence, a boat, laden with valuable merchandize, is left in charge of a dog! And, guilty of such contributory negligence, this man has the impudence to come into court and claim compensation and damages!' And, turning to the witness again: 'Was your boat attached to a landing-stage?'

'No; to a buoy.'

'A boy! These are curious revelations. A mere boy is made to hold the boat! And where was the boy?'

'Why, in the water, of course!'

'This is getting more strange every moment. The poor boy is actually kept standing in the water whilst he is holding the boat! I had no idea such cruelties were practised in the shipping—shipping interest. The Legislature should see to this.' Then, fumbling among his papers, counsel went on: 'You said, when questioned by my learned friend, that you had gone on shore? Why did you go on shore?'

'To get a man to bleed the buoy. It wanted bleeding very much.'

'You went to get a surgeon, you mean?'

'No; a workman from the yard.'

'What, to bleed a boy! To perform so delicate an operation on a boy, then standing in the water, and, in the state of health he was in, no doubt in great pain, whilst holding the boat all the time—shocking inhumanity!'

Here judge and jury thought it time to interfere. They all knew the meaning of the technical terms; but as they enjoyed the fun of seeing counsel getting deeper and deeper into the mire, they allowed him to go on, and the court being full of sailors, who cheered counsel vociferously as he stumbled from blunder to blunder, the trial was one of the most amusing in that court, and gave judge and jury a splendid appetite for their lunch.

Some counsel are very fond of reminding a witness at every other question they put to him that he is 'on his oath.' The practice is absurd, the very reminder sounds sarcastic. This 'taking the oath' is a relic of ancient barbarism and superstition; for the man who means to tell the truth it is unnecessary, and on the man who intends to tell a lie it is no check; he looks on the proceeding as a ridiculous ceremony. The very official who administers the oath in court, by the way he rattles it off, shows in what estimation he holds it. Nay, in matters far more important than the mere stealing of a piece of cheese off a counter, on occasions when one would expect taking the oath to be invested with some solemnity, how is it done? I once accompanied an Italian friend of mine, who was being naturalized in this country, to the court where he was to take the oath of allegiance. This is how the official authorized to administer the oath rushed through it: 'I A. B. do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Victoria her heirs and successors according to law so help me God it will be half a crown.' My friend produced the half-crown, which, I suppose, stood in place of a seal, and the performance was over. With the court 'So help me God it will be half a crown' was evidently the chief point, the crowning glory and confirmation of the allegiance business.

Swearing children as witnesses leads to very ludicrous scenes, enough to cover the whole proceeding with contempt, and show its utter futility. Montagu Williams, Q.C., tells a good story:

At a trial a discussion arose as to whether or no a boy of very tender age was old enough to be sworn. The judge, at the suggestion of counsel for the prosecution, interrogated the boy: 'Do you know what will become of you if you tell an untruth?'

The boy, evidently brought up in the Spurgeon school, replied: 'Hell fire.'

'What will become of you if you play truant, and do not go to school?'

'Hell fire,' again answered the boy.

'What if you spill the milk?'

'Hell fire.'

His lordship ran through a list of trifling faults; the punishment was always the same—'Hell fire.'

Counsel then suggested that the boy was scarcely intelligent enough to be sworn. But the judge thought otherwise, and expected he would grow up a very good man, seeing he believed that the most trifling error involved the penalty of hell fire, and the boy was sworn. The boy, of course, was a fool, through no fault of his, but through that of his bigoted teachers.

It was mentioned above that in the days of Sir Matthew Hale professional etiquette allowed clients to have interviews with counsel without the intervention of a solicitor. But gradually, after his time, the public were deprived of this privilege, and a rigid rule was enforced that all communications to counsel must be through the solicitor only, a rule highly detrimental to litigants, since it caused constant misunderstandings and misleading instructions. It is a roundabout way of doing business, which would not be tolerated for a day in any commercial transaction. It was from the first a tyrannical assumption on the part of the profession that the public should submit to a restriction, based nominally on professional etiquette, but really on professional interest. The public have begun to object to the rule, and in 1888 the Attorney-General (Sir R. Webster), on being asked to express his views in reference to the occasions when a barrister may advise and otherwise act for a client without the intervention of a solicitor, replied that in contentious business, necessitating inquiry into facts, which could not possibly be undertaken by a barrister, it was essential that the latter should have the advice of a solicitor. But might this advice not be given in the presence of the client to exclude the possibility of misapprehension? As to non-contentious business Sir Richard allowed of direct communication between counsel and client. My own rule, whenever it has been my misfortune to be involved in a legal dispute, has always been to push aside this bogie of professional etiquette, and insist on telling counsel my own story myself.

The profession, as we hardly need remind the reader, has produced many distinguished characters; to choose from amongst them those most deserving of praise would be difficult, and perhaps invidious; still, the actions of those whose conduct has not imparted to them the mere splendour of passing meteors, but has conferred permanent benefits on the country, seem to entitle them to a certain pre-eminence. A man entitled to such pre-eminence and the grateful remembrance of Englishmen was Sir Samuel Romilly. His father was a jeweller in Frith Street, Soho; the boy was first placed with a solicitor, then with a merchant, and finally articled to one of the sworn clerks of Chancery. At the expiration of his articles he qualified himself for the Bar, but he had to wait long before he was rewarded with any practice. But when briefs came, they came in a flood; his income rose to about £9,000 a year. He was returned to Parliament in 1806 by the electors of Westminster, without the expenditure of a shilling on his part—a significant fact of his merits in those days of bribery and corruption. He was also appointed Solicitor-General and knighted. He distinguished himself in the House by his speeches in favour of the abolition of the slave trade, but his great claims to the gratitude of the nation are the efforts he made to mitigate the Draconic code of the criminal law, in which nearly three hundred offences, varying from murder to keeping company with a gipsy, were punishable with death. The first success he had was the repeal of the statute of Elizabeth which made it a capital offence to steal privately from the person of another. He next tried to get several statutes repealed which made it a capital offence to privately steal from a house or a shop goods to the value of five shillings. But this Bill was lost. What bloodthirsty savages the members of the House must have been in those days! Some of this savagery remains in their blood now, for when the abolition of training children to become acrobats, contortionists and similar horrors, the abolition of vivisection and such-like cruelties, are mooted in the House, the introducer of the Bill is hooted down. Romilly, as we have seen, did not succeed in all his humane efforts, but he kept on agitating session after session, and cleared the way for the modification and mitigation of the ferocious laws which turned England into human shambles. And what Romilly had been striving for was a long time in coming. In the first decades of this century it was no unusual sight to see from a dozen to twenty criminals, many for slight offences only, hanged in one morning in front of Newgate. The end of Romilly was sad; it showed the malignity of fate. He who had spent his life in endeavouring to lighten the lot of others was terribly stricken himself. In 1818 he lost his wife, whom he had married twenty years before, and her loss was such a shock to him that he fell into delirium, and in an unwatched moment he sprang from his bed, cut his throat, and expired almost instantly.

Nowadays briefless barristers utilize their legal knowledge as financiers and company promoters; before those two honest pursuits had been invented they had to turn their attention to other specs. Thus Francis Forcer the younger, the son of Francis Forcer, a musician, had received a liberal education, and, on leaving Oxford, entered Gray's Inn, and was afterwards called to the Bar, where he practised for a short time. He was very gentlemanly in his manners, and in person remarkably tall and athletic. In 1735, having been disturbed by legal interference, or some other cause, he petitioned Parliament for a license for Sadler's Wells, which application, we are told, was rejected at first, but in the end it must have been granted, for we are informed that he was the first who exhibited there the diversions of rope-dancing and tumbling, and performances on the slack wire. It is doubtful whether the speculation paid, for at the time of his death (he died in 1743) he directed by his will that the lease of the premises, together with the scenery, implements, stock, furniture, household stuff and things thereunto belonging, should be sold for the purpose of paying his debts, which direction was carried out soon after his decease. This seems as if the refreshment bar, for which Mr. Forcer had left the legal Bar, had not proved very remunerative; perhaps he had better have stuck to the litigation oyster, than to the native he dispensed at Sadler's Wells.

XVIII.

THE SUBLIME BEEFSTEAKERS AND THE
KIT-KAT AND ROTA CLUBS.

The last two centuries were very prolific in the production of clubs, founded to gratify rational purposes or fanciful whims. In those days, as soon as a set of men found themselves agree in any particular, though ever so trivial, they immediately formed themselves into a fraternity called a club. The Apollo Club, which held its meetings at the Devil tavern in Fleet Street, comprised all the wits of Ben Jonson's day; the Cauliflower in Butcher Hall Lane was the sober symposium of Paternoster Row booksellers. Humdrum clubs were composed of peaceable nobodies, who used to meet at taverns, sit and smoke and say nothing. A few of these latter clubs survive. But Addison, who knew something of the club life of his day, said: 'All celebrated clubs were founded on eating and drinking, which are points wherein most men agree, and in which the learned and the illiterate, the dull and the airy, the philosopher and the buffoon can all of them bear a part.' Just so, though not every club would acknowledge it; but the Beefsteakers boldly proclaimed their object in the name they assumed; theirs was the worship of beef-steaks.

Now, chops and steaks are relics of barbarism, of ages when men, having not as yet invented cooking apparatus, made a fire between some stones, and laid their slices of raw meat on the top, and ate them when half burnt and blackened. Steaks done on a gridiron are antediluvian enough, but mutton chops diffusing, when undergoing this roasting process, throughout the room the stench of a tallow candle just blown out, are enough to turn the stomach, not of the refined gourmet only, but of the untutored savage. It is only custom which enables the visitor to the grill-room to stand its effluvium, and to eat the food placed before him. Steaks are not so bad, because they have not the sickening smell of the chop, and so they actually found a set of worshippers, who formed themselves into a society to pay due adoration to their idol. Of course, in this age of higher culture and more widely diffused intelligence, such a proceeding must appear to us not only childish, but somewhat degrading; it was, however, a phase of the convivial life and tendency of the Georgian era, and as such merits a record; but lest we, in producing it, should be suspected of sympathizing with it, we deem it necessary to preface it with the above remarks.

The Beefsteak Club[#] was founded in the reign of Anne, and was composed of the 'chief wits and great men of the nation,' who were, however, silly enough to wear suspended from the neck by a green silk ribbon a small gridiron of gold, the badge of the club. Dick Estcourt the player, and landlord of a tavern called the Bumper, in Covent Garden, was made caterer of the club. He was, we are told, a man of good manners and of infinite wit, or of what in those days passed for wit, though much of it at the present time would be declined by the editor of the poorest comic paper. Steele, however, grows quite enthusiastic over him. The club first established itself at the sign of the Imperial Phiz, just opposite the famous conventicle in the Old Jewry; here the superintendent of the kitchen was wont to provide several nice specimens of their beef-steak cookery. Eventually the boys of Merchant Taylors' School were accustomed to regale the club on its nights of meeting with uproarious shouts of 'Huzza, Beefsteak!' But these attentions in course of time became irksome, and the club withdrew to more quiet quarters, but its final fate is left in the dark. Ned Ward, in his 'Secret History of Clubs,' from whom we get our chief information concerning the Beefsteak Club, simply says: 'So that now, whether they have healed the breach, and are again returned into the Kit-Kat community, whence it is believed, upon some disgust, they at first separated ... I shan't presume to determine, ... but, though they are much talked of, they are difficult to be found.'

[#] Not to be confounded with the 'Sublime Society of Steaks,' founded a few years after the club, and of which we shall speak more fully presently as the more important of the two associations.

The Beefsteak Society, or the 'Sublime Society of Beefsteaks,' as they chose to designate themselves, whilst severely objecting to be called a club, originated with George Lambert, the scene-painter of Covent Garden Theatre during Rich's management (1735), where Lambert often dined from a steak cooked on the fire in his painting-room, in which he was frequently joined by his visitors. This led to the foundation of the society in a room in the theatre. Afterwards the place of meeting was at the Shakespeare tavern in the Piazza, and subsequently at the Lyceum, and on its destruction by fire (1830), at the Bedford Hotel, and on its being rebuilt in 1834, at the theatre again. The members used to meet on Saturdays, from November to the end of June, to partake of a dinner of beefsteaks. The room in which they met was appropriately fitted up, the doors, wainscoting and roof, of English oak, being ornamented with gridirons; Lambert's original gridiron, saved from two fires, formed the chief ornament in the centre of the ceiling.

Among the members of this society, restricted to twenty-five, were George, Prince of Wales, and his brothers, the Dukes of York and Sussex, Sheridan, Lord Sandwich, Garrick, John Wilkes, the Duke of Argyle, the Duke of Leinster, Alderman Wood, and many other men of note. The club had its president and vice-president, its bishop, who said grace, and its 'boots,' as the steward was called; the Dukes of Sussex and Leinster in their turn discharged the office of 'boots.' Its festivals were of a somewhat bacchanalian character; the chief liquors consumed were port and punch, and fun, the more rampant the more relished, followed the feast. They had their bard, or laureate, Captain Morris, who had been in the Life Guards. Here is a stanza of one of his songs:

'Like Britain's island lies our steak,

A sea of gravy bounds it;

Shallots, confusedly scattered, make

The rockwork that surrounds it.

Your isle's best emblem there behold,

Remember ancient story;

Be, like your grandsires, first and bold,

And live and die with glory.'

 

Now what can we think of the literary taste then prevailing in the highest quarters, when we are told that this song rendered Morris so great a favourite with the Prince of Wales that he adopted him in the circle of his intimate friends, and made him his constant guest both at Carlton House and the Pavilion at Brighton? Truly, in those days fame and distinction were lightly earned! But does not our own time admire, or pretend to admire, the jerky platitudes of a Tennyson, and the jejune prose, cut up into measured lines, of a Browning as poetry? By the society Morris was presented with an elegant silver bowl for his 'pottery.'

In the decline of life and fortune Morris was handsomely provided for by his fellow-steak, the Duke of Norfolk, who conferred upon him a charming retreat at Brockham in Surrey, which he lived to enjoy until the year 1838, surviving his benefactor by twenty-three years, whilst hundreds of men of real merit were left to fight the battle of life unaided and unrewarded. But those who amuse the idle hours of fools with foolish nonsense are always more highly thought of than those who instruct and impart useful knowledge. There is more money spent at a State or Municipal banquet in one evening than would suffice for maintaining a scientific institution for a whole year. What did the Queen's Jubilee cost the nation, and what lasting benefit has this extravagant expenditure conferred on the nation? Of all this firework, what remains but the sticks and the burnt-out cartridge tubes? Carlyle, with whom we agree in few things, was right in what he said about the aggregate of fools. But return we to the 'sublime' Beefsteakers. The epithet they assumed reminds us that there is indeed but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous. When a society, formed for the mere purpose of gorging and swilling, and howling drinking songs, the most stupid of all songs, calls itself 'sublime,' may we not ask, Where are the 'Lofty Taters-all-'ot' and the 'Exalted Tripe and Onioners?'

There were some queer members in the society. A wealthy solicitor, named Richard Wilson, popularly called Dick, having been to Paris, and not knowing a word of French, praised French cookery, and said that its utmost perfection was seen in the way in which they dished up a 'rendezvous'; he meant a ris de veau. Being asked if he ate partridge in France, Dick said 'Yes,' but he could not bear them served up in 'shoes'; he meant perdrix aux choux. William Taylor, another member, believed firmly that Stonehenge was formed by an extraordinary shower of immense hailstones which fell two thousand years ago. The society, we know, claimed to be a literary society, and had actually offered a prize of £400 for the best comedy. It had many dramatic authors among its members. One of them was Cobb, who, among other plays, wrote 'Ramah Drug'—drug or droog meaning in India, where the scene was laid, a hill-fort;[#] he was complimented by his fellow-members on the happy titles he always chose for his pieces. 'What could be better for your last attempt to ram a drug down the public throat than "Ramah Drug"?' said one of the Beefsteakers. But Arnold, a rival dramatist, disputed Cobb's claim to admiration on this account. 'What worse title,' said he, 'could he have chosen for his "Haunted Tower"? Why, there is no spirit in it from beginning to end!'

[#] The tower known as Severndroog on Shooter's Hill commemorates the taking of the fort of that name on the coast of Malabar.

When the Beefsteak Society was broken up in 1869, the pictures of the former members, mostly copies, were sold for only about £70. The plate, however, brought high prices; the forks and table-spoons, all bearing the emblem of the club, a gridiron, fetched about a sovereign apiece; the punch-ladle realized £14 5s.; a cheese-toaster brought £12 6s.; an Oriental punch-bowl, £11 15s. Wine-glasses, engraved with the gridiron, sold for from 27s. to 34s. a pair. The actual gridiron, plain as it was, fetched 5-½ guineas. Eulogies have been written on the society, as if it had been a really meritorious institution, and endless anecdotes are told, chiefly illustrating the gluttony of the members; but such details are neither attractive in themselves nor profitable to the reader, and we will not enter into them. We agree with Thackeray's estimate of the club-life of the last century: 'It was too hard, too coarse a life.... All that fuddling and punch-drinking, that club and coffee-house boozing, reduced the lives and enlarged the waistcoats of the men of that age.' But such were the convivial clubs of the past; it is as well to see the other side of things.

Addison, in support of his assertion that all clubs were founded on eating and drinking, says that the Kit-Kat Club itself is said to have taken its original from mutton-pies. If he means its name, he is, as far as can now be known, right; but if he means that its object was the consumption of pies, as the consumption of steaks was that of the 'Sublime' Beefsteaks, he was wrong. The Kit-Kat was the great Whig club of Queen Anne's time; it consisted of the principal noblemen and gentlemen who had opposed the arbitrary measures of James II., and was instituted about the year 1700 for the purpose ostensibly of encouraging literature and the fine arts, but really for promoting loyalty and allegiance to the Protestant succession in the House of Hanover. Among the forty-eight members were the Dukes of Marlborough and Newcastle; the Earls of Halifax, Dorset, and Wharton; Sirs Robert Walpole, John Vanbrugh, Richard Steele, Samuel Garth, Godfrey Kneller; Addison, Congreve, Pulteney, Walsh, and other persons, illustrious for rank or talent.

The real founder of the club is said to have been Jacob Tonson, the bookseller; he was for many years their secretary, and, in fact, the very pivot upon which the society revolved. Their meetings were originally held at a house in Shire Lane, close to Temple Bar, a lane which in time became infamous as the resort of thieves, rogues, and ruffians of every kind, though in previous years it had been fashionable. The house where they met was kept by one Christopher Katt, a pastrycook, famous for his mutton pies, which immortalized his name, since they became known by it, Kit being then a vulgar abbreviation of Christopher, and Katt being his surname, and from these pies the club took its name, the pies always forming part of its bill of fare. It seems strange that with so simple a derivation the origin of the name Kit-Kat should have been unknown even to Pope or Arbuthnot—it is uncertain to whom the lines are attributable—who wrote:

'Whence deathless Kit-Kat took his name

Few critics can unriddle:

Some say from pastrycook it came,

And some from Cat and Piddle.

From no trim beans its name it boasts,

Grey statesmen or green wits,

But from this pell-mell pack of toasts,

Of old Cats and young Kits.'

Surely the name is simply that of the pastrycook, Kit (Christopher) Katt, given to his pies, and has no reference to old cats or young kits or kittens.

As regards the pies, Dr. King, in his 'Art of Cookery,' wrote:

'Immortal made as Kit-Kat by his pies;'

and in the prologue to 'The Reformed Wife,' a comedy, 1700, is the line:

'A Kit-Kat is a supper for a lord.'

 

Tonson had his own and the portraits of all the members painted by Sir Godfrey Kneller; each member gave him his.[#] The canvas was 36 inches by 28 inches, sufficiently long to show a hand, and the size is still known as the Kit-Kat. There were forty-two of those portraits, and they were first hung up in the club-room, but Tonson in time removed them to his country-house at Barn Elms, where he built a handsome room for their reception, and where the club frequently met. At his death in 1736, Tonson left them to his great-nephew, also an eminent bookseller, who died in 1767. The paintings were then removed to the house of his brother at Water-Oakley, near Windsor, and on his death to the house of Mr. Baker, one of the sons of Sir William Baker, who had married the elder of the two daughters of old Tonson; the house of this Mr. Baker is called the Park, situate at Hertingfordbury, where they still remain.

[#] They were all engraved in mezzotinto by the younger Faber.

As regards the room at Barn Elms referred to above, Sir Richard Phillips, in his 'Morning Walk from London to Kew,' in 1816, gives an account of his visit to it.

'A lane,' he says, 'brought me to Barn Elms, where now resides a Mr. Hoare, a banker, of London. The family were not at home, but on asking the servants if that was the house of Mr. Tonson, they assured me, with great naïveté, that no such gentleman lived there. I named the Kit-Kat Club as accustomed to assemble here, but the oddity of the name excited their ridicule, and I was told that no such club was held there; but perhaps, said one to the other, the gentleman means the club that assembles at the public-house on the common.... One of them exclaimed: "I should not wonder if the gentleman means the philosopher's room." "Aye," rejoined his comrade, "I remember somebody coming once before to see something of this sort, and my master sent him there." I requested, then, to be shown to this room, distinguished by so high an appellation, when I was conducted across a detached garden and brought to a handsome erection in the architectural style of the early part of the last century, evidently the establishment of the Kit-Kat Club! ... The man unfastened the decayed door of the building, and showed me the once elegant hall filled with cobwebs, a fallen ceiling, and accumulated rubbish. On the right the present proprietor had erected a copper, and converted one of the parlours into a wash-house. The door on the left led to a spacious and once superb staircase, now in ruins, presenting pendant cobwebs that hung from the lofty ceiling, and which seemed to be deserted even by the spiders.... I ascended the staircase; here I found the Kit-Kat Club-room nearly as it existed in its days of service. It was about 18 feet high, 40 feet long, and 20 wide. The mouldings and ornaments were in the most superb fashion of the day, but the whole was tumbling to pieces from the effects of the dry rot.... The marks and sizes [of the portraits] were still visible, and the numbers and names remained as written in chalk for the guide of the hanger.... On rejoining Mr. Hoare's man in the hall below ... he told me that his master intended to pull [the room] down.... Mr. Tonson's house had a few years since been taken down.'

In 'A Pilgrimage from London to Woolstrope,' communicated to the Monthly Magazine of June, 1818, the then home of the Kit-Kat Club pictures is thus referred to: 'I reached Hartingfordbury, and the magnificent seat of Wm. Baker, Esq.... Here I paid my homage to the forty-two portraits of the Kit Kat Club, and found myself in a splendid apartment. They [the portraits] are all in as fine a condition as though they had been painted but last year. I regretted, however, that the characteristic features are lost or disguised by the enormous perukes which disfigured the human countenance in their age. The whole looked like a wiggery, and the portrait of Tonson in his velvet cap was the only relief afforded by the entire assemblage.'

But even the Kit-Kat Club in time

'Descended from its high politic flavour,

Down to a sentimental toasting savour.'

Byron improved.

The club was invaded by a spirit of gallantry. When a number of fashionable gentlemen meet, politics are all very well for a time; horses will afford the next subject of entertainment, but the women must come in in the end. And so the members of the Kit-Kat Club established the custom of every year electing some reigning beauty as a toast. To the queen of the year the members wrote epigrammatic verses, which were etched with a diamond on the club glasses, or a separate bowl was dedicated to her worship, and the lines engraved thereon. Some of the most celebrated of the toasts had their pictures hung up in the club-room. How Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when only eight years old, was introduced and declared the beauty of the year, has often been told. Of course, to our more refined ideas of propriety the conduct of her father, the Duke of Kingston, in thus thrusting his infant daughter into the society of his roistering boon-companions, cannot but appear as highly reprehensible. Among the more celebrated of the toasts were the four daughters of the Duke of Marlborough: Lady Godolphin, Lady Sunderland, generally known as the Little Whig, Lady Bridgewater, and Lady Monthermer. Swift's friend, Mrs. Long, and the niece of Sir Isaac Newton were two others. Others were the Duchesses of Bolton, St. Albans, Richmond and Beaufort; also Lady Molyneux, who, Walpole says, died smoking a pipe.

We will conclude our account of this club with a few stray notes.

Three o'clock in the morning seems to have been no uncommon hour for the club to break up. Addison and Steele usually got drunk, so did Dr. Garth, the poet laureate of the club, wherefore a Tory lampooner said that at this club the youth of Anne's reign learned

'To sleep away the days, and drink away the nights.'

When Tonson had gone to live at Barn Elms, the members generally held their meetings at his house. In the summer they would resort to the Upper Flask tavern, near Hampstead Heath; but this practice did not continue long: there was too much difficulty in getting home after strong potations. The Upper Flask eventually became a private house, and was occupied by George Steevens, the celebrated critic and antiquary, till his death. The Kit-Kat Club died out before the year 1727, and we now take leave of it.

We have given accounts of a purely convivial, of a literary and artistic, and now will shortly describe a purely political club, of which, however, but little is known, namely, the Rota. It took its name from its object, namely, to promote the changing of certain Members of Parliament annually by rotation. It held its meetings at the Turk's Head, otherwise known as Miles' Coffee-house, in New Palace Yard, not far from the residence of James Harrington, which was in the Little Ambry (Almonry), looking into the Dean's yard. It was founded in 1659 for the dissemination of republican ideas, which Harrington had glorified in his 'Oceana,' and for resisting Cromwell's attempt to do without a Parliament and to establish an undisguised military despotism. The republicans took the alarm, and formed themselves into a debating society, says the Royalist Anthony Wood, to discuss the best form of government. Their discourses, according to this author, of ordering a commonwealth were the most ingenious and smart ever heard, for the arguments in the Parliament House were flat to these. This gang had a balloting box ... the room was every evening very full. Beside James Harrington and Henry Nevil, who were the prime men of the club, were Cyriac Skinner, Major Wildman, Roger Coke, author of the 'Detection of the Four Last Reigns,' William Petty and Maximilian Petty, and a great many others. The doctrines were very taking, and the more so because to human foresight there was no possibility of the King's return. The greatest of the Parliament men hated this rotation and balloting, as being against their power. Henry Nevil proposed it to the House; the third part of the House should vote out by ballot every year, and not be re-eligible for three years to come, so that every ninth year the Senate would be wholly changed. No magistrate was to continue above three years, and all were to be chosen by a sort of ballot. It is probable that Milton was a member of the Rota; Aubrey belonged to it in 1659. After the death of Cromwell the Rota gave great publicity to its proceedings, and acquired a high reputation for learning, talent, and eloquence, so that it became a question whether it were more honourable to belong to the Rota or the Society of Virtuosi, which had been designated by Boyle in 1646 'the Invisible or Philosophical Society.' The members of the Rota threw into the teeth of their rivals that they had an excellent faculty of magnifying a louse and diminishing a commonwealth. Charles II., who was a virtuoso himself, avenged this taunt by erecting, in 1664, the Virtuosi into the Royal Society, by dispersing the members of the Rota, and exiling Harrington for life to the island of St. Nicholas, near Plymouth; but he was afterwards released on bail, and died at his house in the Almonry in 1677. The statement that the Royal Society was established for political reasons, though it has often been contradicted, would thus seem not to be without foundation. In the third canto of the second part of 'Hudibras,' Sidrophel is said to be

'... as full of tricks,

As Rota-men of politicks.'

XIX.

HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS.

I.—HAMPTON COURT PALACE.

The environs of London are very beautiful, and full of scenic and architectural contrasts. Let us render our exact meaning clear by taking two of the most striking contrasts. To the north of London lies the vast expanse of Hampstead Heath, a locality famous for charms due to Nature alone, whilst to the south of London we have Hampton Court, which all the arts of the highest civilization and noblest genius have for centuries striven to invest with a grandeur and loveliness found in few other spots. Painting and sculpture, architecture and horticulture, have here found their grandest exponents, and Time, which alone could do it, has added thereto the dignity of historic interest and the fascination of romantic associations. Not only are the rooms and halls, the corridors and courtyards of the palace, artistic caskets in themselves, they are filled with treasures of art. And how easily can imagination re-people these now usually deserted chambers and passages, and with the mind's eye see again the famous—and sometimes infamous—men who here disported themselves, the charming lovely—and sometimes the reverse—women, whose dazzling beauty, lofty demeanour, dangerous and bewitching glances, led those men to fortune or the scaffold. But that imagination may do this, not only is an accurate knowledge of the localities needed, but also of the historic occurrences which have taken place therein, wherefore our account of Hampton Court Palace, which we have undertaken to give in a necessarily condensed form, will after describing the structure architecturally record, briefly also, the events it has been the scene of.

We assume the local position of the Palace to be sufficiently well known, and therefore not necessary to be described. It has, not inappropriately, been called the St. Cloud of Londoners. In the time of Edward the Confessor Hampton Manor belonged to Earl Algar, a powerful Saxon nobleman, and its value then was estimated at £40 per annum. After the Norman Conquest it is mentioned in Doomsday Book as held by Walter de St. Valeri, who probably gave the advowson of the living to the Priory of Takeley, in Essex, which was a cell to the Abbey of St. Valeri, in Picardy; from the port adjoining it William the Conqueror sailed for England. Hampton Manor subsequently became the property of Sir Robert Gray, whose widow in 1211 left by her will the whole manor and the manor-house of Hampton, the site of the present Hampton Court Palace, to the Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, whose chief residence in England was the Hospital of St. John, Clerkenwell, and of which now nothing but the gate remains. The manor thus bequeathed was of enormous extent. It comprised within its boundaries the lesser manors of Kingston-on-Thames, Walton Legh, Byflete, Weybridge, East and West Moulsey, Sandon, Weston, Innworth, Esher, Oatlands, together with the manors of Hampton, Hanworth, Feltham, Teddington, and even Hounslow Heath.

Tradition says that Cardinal Wolsey, at the summit of his power, was desirous of building a palace suitable to his rank; but he was equally desirous of enjoying health and long life, and employed the most eminent physicians in England, and even called in the aid of learned doctors from Padua, to select the most healthy spot within twenty miles of London. They agreed that the parish of Hampton was the most healthy soil, and the springs in Coombe Wood, south of Richmond Park, the purest water within the limits assigned to their researches. Upon this report the Cardinal bargained for a lease with the prior of St. John of Jerusalem, and the following is a précis of the lease as still extant in the Cottonian MS. in the British Museum, and first published in the Gentleman's Magazine for January, 1834.

The indenture was made between Sir Thomas Docwra, prior of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem and his brethren knights of the one part, and Cardinal Wolsey, Primate of England, of the other part. It granted a lease of ninety-nine years, to date from January 12, 1514, to Cardinal Wolsey at a yearly rent of £50, the lessee agreeing to the usual covenants of a repairing lease. If the rent should remain unpaid during two whole years, the lessors to have the right of re-entry, and a new lease to be granted for another ninety-nine years should such be desired by the lessee. The lessors did not foresee the future, which would, by force majeure, put an end to all their lease-granting.

As soon as Wolsey had obtained the lease, he pulled down the old manor-house, in which hitherto a prior and a few knights had been accommodated, and began erecting in a style of grandeur, heretofore unsurpassed in this country, a mansion of unparalleled magnificence. But who was this Wolsey?

A most unmitigated villain, on a par with that other villain, Henry VIII., whose master, through being his pimp, he was for a time, till, in perfect accordance with his character, he became his abject whining slave. I am well aware that it is not usual to apply such a term as villain to a King or his chief adviser—courtly historians have flowery terms for the crimes of Kings by the 'grace of God,' and holy 'Fathers-in-God,' who misuse the powers foolish nations have entrusted them with to the vilest purposes—but the spirit of justice, which directs thinking and logical minds, rejects the flimsy arguments of sycophantic apologists; it will not have Nero whitewashed.

Thomas Wolsey was born at Ipswich in March, 1471. He was the son of a butcher, who also possessed some land, and was sufficiently well off to send his son to the University of Oxford. In those days the chief and easiest avenue to distinction, office, and wealth was through the Church, and Thomas appears to have been an apt scholar, for at fourteen years of age he was Bachelor of Arts, and thence was called the Boy Bachelor. He soon after became Master of Arts, and had charge of the school adjoining Magdalen College, where he educated the three sons of Thomas Grey, Marquis of Dorset, who presented him in 1500 to the rectory of Lymington. This was indeed a rapid rise for the son of a butcher. But he had not long resided on his benefice when Sir Amias Paulet, a justice of the peace, set him in the stocks for being drunk and making a disturbance at a fair in the neighbourhood. Wolsey was mean enough to take a cruel revenge for this punishment, which, no doubt, he richly deserved, and which must at the time have been approved by the community, for it was no trifling thing in those days to set a rector in the stocks. When Wolsey was Lord Chancellor he sent for Sir Amias, and after a severe jobation confined him for six years in that part of the Temple which long passed for Henry VIII. and Wolsey's palace, and afterwards was Nando's, a famous coffee-house. Wolsey compelled Paulet to almost entirely rebuild the house. When Wolsey's patron, the Marquis of Dorset, died, the former looked out for new means to push his fortunes, for his avarice was boundless. He accordingly got himself admitted into the family of Henry Dean, Archbishop of Canterbury; but that prelate dying in 1502, he found means of ingratiating himself with Sir John Nanfan, treasurer of Calais, who being weakened by age and other infirmities, committed the direction of his post to Wolsey, who by his recommendation was made one of the King's chaplains, and in 1506 was instituted to the rectory of Redgrave, in the diocese of Norwich. But it was on the accession of Henry VIII. that he had the opportunity of developing his ambitious and covetous schemes by the vilest means. He recommended himself to the King's favour by adapting himself to his capricious temper and vicious inclinations, acting as his pimp, and participating in all his debaucheries. And so well did he play his cards with the King that shortly after the attainder of Sir Richard Empson—executed with his coadjutor Dudley in 1510, nominally for extortion, but really because that extortion was not practised on the King's behalf, but on their own—shortly after this attainder the King conferred on Wolsey a grant of several lands and tenements in the parish of St. Bride's, Fleet Street, which by the knight's forfeiture devolved to the Crown. In the grant Wolsey is styled counsellor and almoner to the King. In the same year he was presented by his royal master to the rectory of Torrington, in the diocese of Exeter. Early in the following year he was made a Canon of Windsor and Registrar of the Order of the Garter. In 1512 he was advanced by Archbishop Bambridge to the prebend of Bugthorp, in the church of York, of which afterwards he also was made a Dean. In 1513 he attended the King in his expedition to France, who committed to him the direction of the supplies and provisions to be made for the army—a profitable concession, which Wolsey knew how to turn to his own good account. On the taking of Tournay Henry VIII. made Wolsey Bishop of that city, and not long after Bishop of Lincoln. In 1814, on the death of Cardinal Bambridge, he was translated to the Archbishopric of York. The utter recklessness with which the King bestowed on one man so many high offices, the duties of which from their very multiplicity must be totally neglected by this one man, this recklessness in the bestowal of ecclesiastical dignities and emoluments on an upstart whose moral character was of the vilest in every respect, and openly known to be such, was only equalled by the greed and vanity of the recipient. But Fortune had greater favours yet in store for him. In September, 1515, he was, by the interest of the two Kings of England and France, made Cardinal of St. Cecilia, and in December of the same year Lord Chancellor of England, which dignity had been resigned by the Archbishop of Canterbury, who resented the arrogance of, and the powers conferred on, Wolsey. The Archbishop's resignation led to the retirement of all the other great officers of the Crown, and thus Wolsey became absolute master of the situation, and whilst he was really carrying out his own schemes, he had the address to persuade the King, jealous of his own power, that he was only blindly executing his royal master's behests and wishes. The position of England between the Emperor and the King of France rendered Henry VIII. to some extent the arbitrator of Europe. Wolsey cleverly exploited the situation; he first secured the goodwill of Francis I. of France by restoring to him, in 1516, Tournay, receiving in return an annuity of 12,000 livres. But the Pope was the most anxious to secure the Minister's friendship, and therefore, after the recall of Cardinal Campeggio, made Wolsey his Legate a Latere, or Extraordinary Envoy, which virtually raised him to the rank of Pope of England. Though Wolsey's income was already tremendous from the various bishoprics and other high offices he held, and the presents and pensions he received from foreign princes, the Pope granted him an annuity of 7,500 ducats on the bishoprics of Toledo and Placentia. With Wolsey's increase of power rose his arrogance, his covetousness, and his love of ostentation; the beggar was put on horseback. His revenues almost exceeded those of the Crown; the splendour displayed in his mode of living was greater than that of many Kings. When, after the election of Charles V. as Emperor of Germany, the latter quarrelled with Francis I., each endeavoured to draw the Cardinal to his side. In 1520 he arranged an interview between the three Sovereigns, but at last sided with the Emperor, who granted him an annuity of 7,000 ducats, and held out to him the prospect of the Papal crown. After having, in 1521, attempted at Calais a reconciliation between Henry VIII. and Francis I., he entered into a secret treaty with the Emperor, according to which the English King was to declare war against France. The death of Leo X. and the subsequent election of Hadrian VI. to the Papal dignity almost led to a breach between him and the Emperor; but the latter's promise that after old Hadrian's death he would certainly procure him the Papal crown satisfied Wolsey, especially as the Emperor added 2,500 ducats to the former annuity, and gave him besides another of 9,000 dollars in gold for his loss of the French pension. In 1522 Henry VIII. commenced the war against his former ally by entering and devastating France. Wolsey having to find money for this war, he had recourse to financial oppression, which roused the indignation of the English people. But at the new Papal election in 1523 Wolsey saw himself again passed over, which induced him to lead the King to take the part of Francis I., who was then a prisoner. Henry VIII. had to retire from the war, to enter in 1525 into an alliance with the French Regency, for which service Wolsey received a present of 100,000 crowns, and in 1528 to declare war against the Emperor. Thus the proud and blustering Henry VIII. became the mere tool of an ambitious and disappointed priest, who used him and the resources of England to avenge the slight the Emperor had put upon him at the last Papal election. After the peace of Cambray in 1529, Wolsey was on the summit of his power, but also terribly near to his fall. At first he had, from hatred of her nephew, Charles V., not opposed the King's desire to obtain a divorce from Catherine of Aragon; but when he found that the King wanted to marry Anne Boleyn, he disapproved of the divorce, as he feared that Anne's relatives might endanger his position at Court. In obedience to the King's orders, he indeed for some time urged on the suit, but grew less zealous when he found that the Pope himself, out of consideration for the Emperor, was against the divorce. Henry VIII. looked upon the delay as due to the intrigues of Wolsey, in which opinion he was strengthened by Anne Boleyn, who had a special reason to hate him, for it was through him that her marriage with young Lord Percy, a member of Wolsey's establishment, one of the many scions of the nobility who were placed under the guidance of the Cardinal, had been broken off. When Anne, who had been dismissed the Court, after her recall found it necessary to augment her rising influence over the King to dissemble, and therefore treated Wolsey with the greatest outward respect, she secretly took every opportunity to foster the dislike Henry had taken to him, and it was her underhand influence which hastened his downfall, and not reasons of statecraft, as 'philosophical' historians would have us believe. Long before the catastrophe Wolsey, who had not failed to notice that the brutal tyrant's favourable sentiments towards his minion were on the wane, had tried to conciliate the King by presenting Hampton Court to him in 1526; but the gift had not been one of love, but of fear and despair, and the chief cause of the surrender, according to tradition, was the following:

The King's fool was paying a visit to the Cardinal's fool—for both the King and the Cardinal were such fools themselves as to find pleasure in the gabbling of professional fools—and the couple went down into the wine vaults. For fun one of them stuck a dagger into the top of a cask, and, to his surprise, touched something that gave a metallic sound. The fools thereupon set to work, got the head of the cask out, and found it to be full of gold pieces. Other casks, by the sound, indicated that they held wine. The King's fool stored up the fact in his memory, and one day when the King was boasting about his wine, the fool said, 'You have not such wine as my Lord Cardinal, for he has casks in his cellar worth a thousand broad pieces each;' and then he told what he had discovered. Whether this be true or not, it is certain that Wolsey was awake to the fact that he was losing his power over the King, and so he threw him the magnificent sop of his palace, which, however, did not save him; the King was determined to be rid of him. In October, 1529, the Great Seal was demanded of him, his palace at Whitehall and all his goods were seized for the King's use, and he was ordered to retire to his palace at Esher. The King, indeed, promised Wolsey his protection, and that he should continue to hold the bishoprics of York and Winchester.

As Wolsey was travelling towards Esher, he was overtaken by a messenger from the King, who brought him that comfortable assurance, whereupon the Cardinal dismounted from his mule, knelt down, and blessed the ground on which he had received so gracious a message; and to show his gratitude to his King, he made him a present of—what do you think?—his fool. Had Wolsey in his disgrace shown any manliness or dignity of character, we might think that this present to the King was 'kinder sarcastic,' intimating that a fool was about the only individual fit to be Henry's companion, and whom he could appreciate. But from Wolsey's conduct during the closing years of his life, we cannot give him credit for so much wit and moral courage as the attempt to give the King such a hint would have implied, and we must therefore assume that the gift was a bonâ fide one; and as in those days it was considered the proper thing for great people to associate with fools, and take delight in their forced and artificial jokes, too poor for a halfpenny comic paper of the present day, there was nothing extraordinary in the gift, and no doubt the King thought it highly complimentary to himself. But however favourably the King might at certain moments feel disposed towards Wolsey, and though, from his influence in the country as head of the Church, it was necessary to go to work cautiously, his ruin was determined on. Parliament, which, after an interval of seven years, was allowed to reassemble in 1529, impeached him by a charge of forty-four articles, relating chiefly to the exercise of his legatine power contrary to law, and the scandalous irregularities of his life. The impeachment passed the House of Lords; but when it came to the House of Commons it was effectually defeated by the energy and address of Thomas Cromwell, who had been his servant, so that no treason could be fixed upon him. He remained in his retirement at Esher until about Easter, 1530, when he was ordered to repair to his diocese of York, where, in November of the same year, he was arrested by the Earl of Northumberland for high treason, and committed to the custody of the Lieutenant of the Tower, who had orders to bring him to London. This so affected his mind that he fell sick at Sheffield, in the Earl of Shrewsbury's house, whence, by short stages, he went as far as Leicester, where he is said to have taken poison, which no one knowing his really pusillanimous character will believe; however, he died on November 29, 1530, and was buried in the Abbey of Leicester. The words attributed to him as his last utterances, that if he had served God as he had served his King, he would not be thus forsaken, were false in substance and contemptible in form. He never served the King but when it served his own purposes, and a mean-spirited coward only would have attributed his fall to such a cause. He fell most ignominiously, without even an attempt of resistance against the King's arbitrary decrees, without a struggle to reassert his former ascendancy over his royal master. But probably the ascendancy was irrecoverable; he had himself resigned it when he surrendered his palace of Hampton Court to Henry in an access of cowardly panic; and no ascendancy which is not moral or intellectual ever has any vitality in it, and that of Wolsey over the King had never been any other than that of the practised debauchee over the unpractised one. Wolsey was Henry's senior by twenty years. When the pupil had become as depraved as his teacher, he required his assistance no longer, and in moments of reflection, which come to the most frivolous, he must have felt how debased such teaching had been, and the greater its iniquity the greater the pupil's abhorrence of the instructor, whose constant presence must act as a perpetual reproach; when the orange is sucked dry, the shapeless husk becomes an offensive object to look at.

Cardinal Wolsey is credited with a love of learning and schemes to promote it, as his foundation of a college at Oxford, now Christ Church, which, however, he only partly accomplished, and his school at Ipswich. But these were not so much establishments to advance learning as to support and glorify the Church, of which he was the chief pillar and personal representative, and which therefore it was his pride and interest to strengthen and exalt, even at some personal sacrifice.

Such was the man who built the palace of Hampton Court, to the description and history of which we must now proceed.

We stated above that immediately on having entered into possession of the estate, Wolsey pulled down the ancient manor-house; early in 1515 he began the new buildings. All researches have failed to bring to light the architect employed by the Cardinal. The name of James Bettes occurs as master of the works, as also that of Nicholas Townley as chief comptroller, and that of Laurence Stubbes, paymaster of the works, and that of Henry Williams, surveyor; but probably the design of Hampton Court must be attributed to Wolsey himself, who had the examples of other mediæval prelatic builders to guide him. In fact, we are inclined to think that the entrance to the first court was somewhat of an imitation of the centre of Esher Place, on the river Mole, a building erected by William of Waynfleet, Bishop of Winchester, in 1447. Of this building nothing now remains but the two octagonal towers of the centre, just as the gateway of Wolsey's college at Ipswich only remains, which also bears a striking resemblance to that of Esher Place.

One of the distinguishing features of Wolsey's palace at Hampton Court was that it did not present to the beholder a moat,[#] a drawbridge, or loopholes, or frowning battlements or watch-towers, without which up to that time no nobleman had thought of erecting a mansion. Wolsey, being a Churchman, naturally selected the monastic style, and the first and second courts, all that remains of Wolsey's original building, display it in all its picturesque features. At present the palace consists of three courts, the two just referred to, and the third, built by William III., comprising the buildings surrounding the Fountain Court. On the north side of the palace there are a number of minor courts and passages, around which are grouped domestic offices, stables, and other dependencies of a large mansion.

[#] In Law's 'History of Hampton Court Palace' we are told that a moat surrounded the whole of the palace, but Hollar's view of it (temp. Henry VIII.) shows no indication of one.

And here by way of interscript, though the reader may have seen that we hold Cardinal Wolsey's character as a Churchman in but slight estimation, we must give him credit for proofs of æsthetic culture, which was unusual in his age, when even the most affluent nobles of the land lived in a state of rude habits and surroundings. At the conclusion of the reign of Henry VII. the annual expenses of the powerful family of Percy scarcely exceeded the sum of £1,100. The furniture of even princely households was coarse and comfortless; homely plenty and stately reserve in their entertainments was the rule. The love of pomp and refined pleasure must have been acquired by Wolsey through his visits and residences abroad, and though he indulged in both from personal inclination and political purpose, yet, whatever his motive, his practice led to the amelioration of national taste and manners favourable to the growth of art and the development and advance of home industries. His palace became an example of an interior arrangement suited to liberal, polished, and dignified entertainment. It afforded hints for the improvement of domestic architecture. Till then the attainment of security had been the chief object of the builder; the times having become less turbulent, the external and internal embellishment and comfort of the mansion, no longer a mere castle, became the ruling principle, and Wolsey led the way in these improvements in the palace he built at Hampton.

Originally, as Camden and Hentzner assert, there were five courts. Camden calls them 'large' courts, and the palace is traditionally said to have extended further towards the east, but this is very doubtful; probably the ground-plan of the palace now embraces as much space as it did at any time. As stated above, it now consists of three courts; but there are several minor courts appertaining to parts of the original structure, and it is possible that Camden, when he called the courts large, had the really large ones in his mind, and that Hentzner, the German traveller, who visited England in 1598, and greatly admired all he saw amongst us, included them in his enumeration, so as to justify the eulogy he bestows on the palace. 'The rooms,' he said, 'being very numerous [there are altogether about 1,000 rooms in the palace], are adorned with tapestry of gold, silver, and velvet, in some of which were woven history pieces; in others, Turkish and Armenian dresses, all extremely natural. In one chamber are several excessively rich tapestries, which are hung up when the Queen [Elizabeth] gives audience to foreign ambassadors. All the walls of the palace shine with gold and silver. Here is likewise a certain cabinet, called 'Paradise,' where, besides that everything glitters so with silver, gold, and jewels as to dazzle one's eyes, there is a musical instrument made all of glass except the strings.... The chapel of this palace is most splendid, in which the Queen's closet is quite transparent, having its windows of crystal.... In her bedchamber the bed was covered with very costly coverlids of silk. At no great distance from this room we were shown a bed, the tester of which was worked by Anne Boleyn, and presented by her to her husband, Henry VIII.... In the hall are these curiosities: a very clear looking-glass, ornamented with columns and little images of alabaster; a portrait of Edward VI., brother to Queen Elizabeth; the true portrait of Lucretia; a picture of the battle of Pavia; the history of Christ's passion, carved in mother-of-pearl; the portrait of Mary Queen of Scots; the picture of Ferdinand, Prince of Spain, and of Philip, his son; that of Henry VIII., under which was placed the Bible, curiously written upon parchment; an artificial sphere; several musical instruments. In the tapestry are represented negroes riding upon elephants; the bed in which Edward VI. is said to have been born, and where his mother, Jane Seymour, died in childbed.' Grotius (b. 1583, d. 1645) also described it as the most splendid palace in Europe. Says he: 'If e'er a Briton what is wealth don't know, let him repair to Hampton Court, and then view all the palaces of the earth, when he will say: "Those are the residences of Kings, but this of the gods."'

The above descriptions, of course, apply to a period posterior to the occupation of the palace by Wolsey, but we shall presently see how great was its splendour in the days of the Cardinal, before the alterations made by Henry VIII., who wished as much as possible to extinguish Wolsey's memory; but the old dark-red brick walls, with still darker lines of bricks in diamond shapes running along them, the mixture of Gothic archways and square mullioned windows, the turrets and cupolas, and tall twisted and cross-banded chimneys of the first and second courts, all belong to the period of Wolsey.

Let us enter these courts.

The usual approach to the palace is from the west. Here on the right and left are seen ranges of subordinate chambers and domestic offices, which, it would seem, appear formerly to have taken a wider circuit than at present, as on Hampton Court Green are many coeval buildings, including a handsome gateway. The kitchens with their dependent offices were on the north side of the palace, where they still remain, and are provided with avenues and suitable passages, communicating with the great hall and principal rooms. The entrance to this office range is by a plain but handsome gateway in the western front, to the left of the chief gateway, which gives admittance to the first court. This gateway, built of brick, with stone embellishments, has over the portal a bay-window, adorned with the royal arms, and divided by mullioned compartments into two series of lights. This central division of the west front is flanked by octagon towers. The gateway was originally provided with fine oak gates; these were for many years put aside as lumber, but have lately been rehung, after undergoing careful repair. They are of massive dimensions, are ornamented with the usual linen-fold pattern, and are evidently of Wolsey's time. Their outer face is pierced with shot and bullet holes, which may have been occasioned during the skirmishes in the civil wars, when fighting was going on outside the palace between the Cavaliers and Roundheads, or, as has been suggested, the holes may have been made through the gates having been set up as targets for the villagers of Hampton. Before then bows and arrows were the arms used in war, but it appears that during the great rebellion the practice of archery fell into disrepute. However, at the restoration of Charles II. the noble sport was again revived; in 1682 the Finsbury archers marched to Hampton Court, and there, in front of the palace, shot for prizes. Charles II. patronized their exercise by his presence, but the day being rainy, after staying for about two hours he was obliged to quit the field. There is nothing new under the sun; a modern military commander stopped a review on account of the rain! He should have taken an example by the British workman, who scorns to carry an umbrella, whilst the foreign mason or carpenter never goes to his work without one should the day look threatening.

Through the portal just mentioned you enter the first or entrance court, which is 167 feet 2 inches from north to south, and 162 feet 7 inches from east to west. On the west side of this court is a bay-window, corresponding in character with that over the west front of the arched entrance, and, like that, enriched with the royal arms; on the turrets are placed the initials E.R. Over the portal in the centre is a bay-window of considerable beauty, with octangular towers on each side, and on the face of the towers are introduced busts of Roman emperors in terra cotta, which had been sent to Cardinal Wolsey by Leo X. On the left is seen the western end of the Great Hall, which here has a broad and richly designed window. In this court also are rooms appropriated to families who have obtained small Government pensions.

Through a groined archway, finely ornamented, we pass to the second or middle, or Clock Tower court. This court is somewhat smaller than the former, measuring 133 feet from north to south, and about 100 feet from east to west. The exterior of the buildings surrounding this court appears to have experienced little alteration since the days of the founder. The general effect of this court is superb. The eastern side comprises a third portal, flanked with octangular turrets, and is of greater richness than the preceding fronts. On the face of each turret are again introduced busts of the Cæsars. Some repairs were effected in this division by George II. in 1732, as is signified by an inscription on the exterior. On the north side is the Great Hall. Wolsey had projected it; it formed so important a feature in the design of the mansion, that the exterior walls may safely be ascribed to the Cardinal, but he did not live to finish the work; the interior was not completed till 1536, by Henry VIII. It is 106 feet long, 40 wide, and 60 high. The roof is elaborately carved. There are seven large windows on one side and six on the other, with a large window at each end. A bay-window on the daïs, extending from the upper part of the wall nearly to the floor, contributes greatly to the cheerful aspect of the hall. The window at the eastern end is an oriel window, divided into compartments by mullions of stone. There was formerly a lantern in the roof, but, for some reason unexplained, it was removed; the compartment, however, whence it took its springing remains. Near the east end of the hall is the withdrawing room, of noble dimensions, and displaying externally, as well as internally, more of the character of the ancient structure than any other room of equal extent throughout the palace.

A highly interesting object in this court is the astronomical clock in the tower and gateway giving access to the third court. The original clock was, according to a notice engraved on the wrought-iron framework, put up in 1540 by N.O. Who is meant by these initials is quite unknown. It was, till its removal, the oldest clock in England that kept pretty correct time. From an entry mentioned in Wood's 'Curiosities of Clocks and Watches,' we learn that a payment was made in 1575 to one George Gaver, 'serjeant painter,' 'for painting the great dial at Hampton Court Palace, containing hours of the day and night, the course of the sun and moon.' No doubt since Gaver decorated the dial-plate many clockmakers must have repaired and altered the works. In 1649 a striking part had been added to the works. In 1711 it was found that in consequence of the removal of certain wheels and pinions, probably by ignorant or careless workmen, the clock could not for a long time past have performed its functions correctly. It seems indeed to have been left neglected for many years. Somewhere in the thirties of this century G. P. R. James, the novelist, addressed a poem of eleven stanzas to the 'Old Clock without Hands at Hampton Court.' The first and last stanzas we reproduce, not for their merit, but because apposite to our subject:

'Memento of the bygone hours,

Dost thou recall alone the past?

Why stand'st thou silent midst these towers,

Where time still flies so fast?

*      *      *      *      *

'The future? Yes! at least to me

Thus plainly thus thy moral stands!

Good deeds mark hours! Let not life be

A dial without hands!'

 

In 1835 the works of the old clock were removed, but what became of them is not known; probably they were sold for old brass and iron. A new clock was put up, and on the removal of this in 1880 there was found this inscription on the works: 'This clock, originally made for the Queen's Palace in St. James' Park, and for many years in use there, was A.D. 1835, by command of His Majesty King William IV., altered and adapted to suit Hampton Court Palace by B. L. Vulliamy, clockmaker to the King'; and on another plate on the clock: 'Vulliamy, London, No. 352, A.D. 1799.' Vulliamy's address was 74, Pall Mall, which was then the first house at the south-western end of the street, next to the entrance-gates to Marlborough House. The motive power of this clock had evidently not been sufficient to drive in addition the astronomical dial, and the useless dial had been taken down and stowed away in a workshop in the palace, the gap left being filled by a painted board. This antiquated timepiece was entirely removed, and in 1880 a new clock erected by Messrs. Gillett and Bland, which shows not only the hours of the day and night, but also the day of the month, the motion of the sun and moon, the age of the moon, its phases and quarters, and other interesting matters connected with lunar movements. The dial is composed of three separate copper discs of various sizes, with a common centre, but revolving at various rates.

We have yet to notice on the south side of this court the colonnade, supported by Ionic columns, built by Sir Christopher Wren; the effect produced by the introduction of this classical colonnade amidst the venerable turrets and parapets of Wolsey's building is discordant and unpleasing. But William III. would have it so, and the great architect had to comply.

We will now pass through the gateway leading into the third or Fountain Court. Here we are surrounded by a totally different style of architecture, again that of William III. Wren had been appointed to the office of Surveyor-General of His Majesty's Works in 1668, and employed by him to pull down part of the old palace, and to build in its place the quadrangle now under notice. It is not a favourable specimen of his art. The studies made by him from the buildings of Louis XIV. had but too visible an effect on his palaces and private buildings, so that, as Horace Walpole says, 'it may be considered fortunate that the French built only palaces, and not churches, and therefore St. Paul's escaped, though Hampton Court was sacrificed to the god of false taste.' But the King's fancies were paramount, though he readily took the blame on himself, for when the arrangement of the low cloisters in the Fountain Court was criticised, he admitted that it was due entirely to his orders.

The Fountain Court is nearly a square, more than 100 feet each way. In the centre there is a fountain playing in a circular basin. This court occupies the site of the chief or grand court, which was described by Hentzner in the reign of Queen Elizabeth as 'paved with square stone, and having in its centre a fountain, finished in 1590, which throws up water, covered with a gilt crown, on the top of which is a statue of Justice, supported by columns of black and white marble.' The alterations were made gradually; the south and east sides of the old court were first taken down, and the present state apartments in those divisions erected. The west and north sides, comprising a room of communication 109 feet in length, and the Queen's Guard Chamber and Great Presence Chamber, retain internal marks of ancient structure; but a new front was given to the whole by Sir Christopher Wren. As we are not writing a guide-book, we need not enter into a description of the state apartments, or of the external appearance of the building containing them; it will be sufficient to mention that this modern portion of Hampton Court was commenced in 1690, and finished in 1694; that the south and eastern façades are each about 330 feet long; that the eastern front faces the grand gravel walk, open to the public; whilst the south front opens on the Privy Garden, which was sunk 10 feet for the purpose of obtaining from the lower apartments a view of the river Thames.

Of the state of the gardens and park, about 44 acres in extent, surrounding the palace and forming a regular peninsula, the east and west sides being entirely enclosed by the Thames, whilst the northern boundary is formed by the road from Kingston—of the then state of the gardens and park we have but scanty accounts, but they no doubt corresponded in beauty, as far as the comparatively short time of his occupancy of the palace would allow him, with Wolsey's sumptuous pile. Certes the situation did not seem inviting. The Thames, so lovely in many of its windings, is here skirted on both shores by a dull expanse of level woodless soil, which the utmost efforts of taste and skill seemed scarcely able to render picturesque, and in the time of the founder of the palace, and even in the days of Henry VIII., landscape gardening had not yet become an art. At that period a park was chiefly valued for the security of lair it afforded to the deer sheltered in the royal chase. An old guide to Hampton Court of the year 1774 says that 'notwithstanding the immediate vicinity of the Thames, the park and garden are not in the least incommoded by the rise of the waters, which in other places is too often occasioned by sudden floods, and though not far from the reflux of the tides, yet they are at such a convenient distance as never to be influenced by any impurities which the flowing of the tides is apt to create.' This may have been one of the reasons which induced Wolsey's hygienic advisers to select the spot for its salubrity.

The gardens were greatly improved by Elizabeth and Charles II. Norden, writing in the time of the former, describes the enclosures appertaining to the palace as comprising two parks, 'the one of deer, the other of hares,' both of which were environed with brick walls, except the south side of the former, which was paled and encircled by the Thames. A survey, made in 1653, divides these enclosures nominally into Bushey Old Park, the New Park, the Middle or North Park, the Hare-warren and Hampton Court course. This latter division seems to have comprised the district now termed Hampton Court Park. But it was not till the reign of William III. that the grounds were brought to the perfection in which we see them now. They are in his favourite, the Dutch, style—lawns, shaped with mathematical precision, bordered by evergreens, placed at regular distances; straight canals; broad gravel walks, statues, and vases. At this period the art of clipping yew and other trees into regular figures and fantastic shapes reached its highest point, and was greatly favoured by the King. But he also laid out and planted the 'Wilderness' to hide the many smaller buildings, outhouses, courts, and passages to the north of the palace. In this part of the grounds is the maze. A broad gravel walk extends from the Lion Gates, which give admission from the Kingston road to the gardens and to the Thames. These gates, adjoining the King's Arms inn, are very handsome, being designed in a bold and elegant style. The large stone piers are richly decorated, their cornices supported by fluted columns, and surmounted by two colossal lions, couchant. The elegant ironwork of the gates was the work of Huntingdon Shaw.[#] At the south-west corner of the gardens is the pavilion, erected by Sir Christopher Wren, and occasionally occupied by the rangers of the park. Throughout the park there are fine trees, and here and there masses of verdure less formally disposed. There may also be seen some lines of fortifications, which were originally constructed for the purpose of teaching the art of war to William, Duke of Cumberland, when a boy—the same Duke who afterwards became so famous in the Scottish rising of 1745. In the centre of the park there is a stud-house, founded by the Stuarts, but greatly extended in its operations of breeding race-horses by George IV. The cream-coloured horses used on state occasions by the Sovereign are kept here. They are descended from those brought over from Hanover by the princes of the Brunswick line; they are the last representatives of the Flemish horses, once so fashionable. The canal in the grounds is fed by the Cardinal's or Queen's River, issuing from the river Colne, near Longford, and passing over Hounslow Heath and through Hanworth and Bushey Parks.

[#] Or, according to Mr. Law, of Jean Tijou, a Frenchman.

We stated, when mentioning the reasons which induced Cardinal Wolsey to fix on Hampton Court as his future residence, that the springs in Coombe Wood supplied excellent water; with this water the palace is supplied. It is brought to it in leaden pipes, for which some 250 tons of lead were employed, and as that metal was then £5 per ton, the cost of the material alone amounted to a large sum; the pipes pass under the Hogsmill River, near Kingston, and under the Thames at a short distance from the palace, and their whole length is upwards of three miles, so that Mr. Law, the latest historian of Hampton Court, may not be far out in estimating the cost of the whole work at something like £50,000 of our present money.

The tennis-court, said to be the largest and most complete in Europe, is where Charles I. passed many hours of his captivity when detained a prisoner, or quasi-prisoner, by the Parliament.

The Home Park is separated from the gardens by a modern iron railing, 600 yards long, having at every 50 yards wrought-iron gates, 7 feet high, of most elegant workmanship, and some ornamented with the initials of William and Mary; others with the thistle, rose, and harp. They were erected by William III.

II.—ITS MASTERS.

In the foregoing description of the palace and grounds several historical incidents have already been introduced, but such casual notices are insufficient for our purpose; the topographical warp and woof of our canvas has to be embroidered with the facts—nay, the romance—of human action to present a living picture of the past, to put animation and reality into the silent shadows which flit around us on all sides. We therefore proceed to enter into details, within the limits of our space, of the lives and fortunes of those persons whose connection with the palace invest it with a personal interest.

We have seen that Wolsey lived in regal splendour at Hampton Court—nay, his train, his furniture, were more numerous and gorgeous than that of the King, which at an early stage roused the latter's envy. The Cardinal had no less than 800 persons in his suite. In his hall he maintained three boards with three several officers: a steward who was a priest, a treasurer who was a knight, and a comptroller who was an esquire; also a confessor, a doctor, three marshals, three ushers of the halls, and two almoners and grooms. In the hall kitchen were two clerks, a clerk comptroller and surveyor of the dresser, a clerk of the spicery; also two cooks with assistant labourers and children turnspits, four men of the scullery, two yeomen of the pastry, and two paste-layers under them. In his own kitchen was a master cook, who was attired daily in velvet or satin, and wore a gold chain, under whom were two cooks and six assistants; in the larder, a yeoman and a groom; in the scullery, a yeoman and two grooms; in the ewry (linen-room), two yeomen and two grooms; in the cellar, three yeomen and three pages; in the chandry (candle-room), two yeomen; in the wardrobe of the dormitory, the master of the wardrobe and twenty different officers; in the laundry, a yeoman, groom and thirteen pages, two yeomen purveyors and a groom purveyor; in the bakehouse, two yeomen and two grooms; in the wood-yard, one yeoman and a groom; in the barn, one yeoman; at the gate, two yeomen and two grooms; a yeoman in the barge and a master of the horse; a clerk of the stables and a yeoman of the same; a farrier and a yeoman of the stirrup; a maltster and sixteen grooms, every one keeping four horses. In the Cardinal's great chamber and in his privy chamber were the chief chamberlain, a vice-chamberlain, and two gentlemen ushers; there were also six gentlemen waiters and twelve yeomen waiters. At the head of all these people, ministering to the state of this priest of a religion whose founder had not where to lay His head, as he must often have proclaimed from the pulpit in his preaching days, were nine or ten lords, with each their two or three servants. There were also gentlemen cup-bearers, gentlemen carvers, six yeomen ushers and eight grooms of his chamber. In addition to these there were twelve doctors and chaplains, the clerk of the closet, two secretaries, two clerks of the signet, and four counsellors learned in the law. He also retained a riding-clerk, a clerk of the crown, a clerk of the hamper, fourteen footmen 'garnished with rich riding-coats.' He had a herald-at-arms, a physician, an apothecary, four minstrels, a keeper of his tents; he also kept a fool. All these were in daily attendance, for whom were continually provided eight tables for the chamberlains and gentlemen officers, and two other tables, one for the young lords and another for the sons of gentlemen who were in his suite.

Such is the account given of the Cardinal's household. Of his own daily habits we are told: The Cardinal rose early, and as soon as he came out of his bed-chamber he generally heard two masses. Then he made various necessary arrangements for the day, and about eight o'clock left his privy chamber ready dressed in the red robes of a Cardinal, his upper garment being of scarlet or else of fine crimson taffeta or satin, with a black velvet tippet of sables about his neck, and holding in his hand an orange, deprived of its internal substance, and filled with a piece of sponge, wetted with vinegar and other confections against pestilent airs (surely there could not be any at Hampton Court, chosen because of its very salubrity!), which he commonly held to his nose when he came to the presses (crowds) or was pestered with many suitors. (Were such unsavoury people allowed to come between the wind and his nobility?) This may account for so many portraits representing him with an orange in his hand. The Great Seal of England and the Cardinal's hat were both borne before him by 'some lord or some gentleman of worship right solemnly,' and as soon as he entered the presence chamber, the two tall priests with the two tall crosses were ready to attend upon him, with gentlemen ushers going before him bare-headed, and crying: 'On, masters, before, and make room for my lord!' The crowd thus called on consisted not only of common suitors, but often of peers of the realm, who chose, or by circumstances were obliged, thus to crouch to an upstart. In this state the Cardinal proceeded down his hall, with a sergeant-at-arms before him, carrying a large silver mace, and two gentlemen, each carrying a large plate of silver. On his arrival at the gate or hall-door, he found his mule ready, covered with crimson velvet trappings. The cavalcade which accompanied him when he took the air or went to preside over some meeting was of course equally pompous, consisting of men-at-arms and a long train of nobility and gentry.

Fancy what a life to lead day after day! None but the vainest of coxcombs, the most conceited, arrogant, and ostentatious of small-minded parvenus, could have borne it for any length of time. But it agreed with Wolsey's shoddy greatness; he delighted in all that has ever delighted small minds—idle show and pompous exhibitions. Both at Whitehall and Hampton Court he held high revel, as we learn from George Cavendish, his gentleman usher, especially when the King paid him a visit. 'At such times,' says Cavendish, 'there wanted no preparations or goodly furniture, with viands of the finest sorts ... such pleasures were then devised for the King's comfort and consolation as might be invented or by man's wit designed.' Of course, Cavendish wrote like the flunkey he was: 'The banquets were set forth with masks and mummeries in so gorgeous a sort and costly manner that it was a heaven to behold.'

Pageantry has indeed at all times been the device of rogues to catch fools. Of course, sometimes the rogue takes as much pleasure in getting up and participating in the show as the fool does in beholding it. Wolsey took delight in it, because it enabled him to display his wealth; but there was also policy in it when such display seemed to prove his loyalty. But the exhibition is not without its dangers. When it is made to a man who is envious and covetous, and, moreover, has not only the will but the power to gratify his avaricious longings, the risk is very great. As we have already seen, it was fatal in Wolsey's case. He had to surrender Hampton Court to Henry VIII. much as a traveller gives up his purse and watch to the well-armed highwayman. True, for this truly princely present Henry bestowed upon Wolsey the manor-house of Richmond, an old and favourite residence of his predecessor, Henry VII., and also of Henry VIII. himself in the early part of his reign; but it was particularly galling to the ancient servants of Henry VII. to see the recent habitation of their Sovereign occupied by one whom they considered an upstart, and they joined in the popular outcry against Wolsey, concerning whom it was remarked that strange things had come to pass since 'a bocher's dog should live in the manor of Richmond.'

But though the palace of Hampton Court was now the King's property, Wolsey's connection with it was not totally severed from it at once. In 1527 Wolsey, by the desire of the King, feasted the ambassadors from the King of France in the building. The preparations for, and the feast itself, are related with terrible prolixity by the gentleman usher Cavendish, already quoted; as his description gives a fair specimen of what was then a grand banquet, we quote from it the following passages:

'Then there was made great preparation for this great assembly at Hampton Court. The Cardinal called before him his principal officers, as steward, treasurer, controller and clerk of his kitchen ... commanding them neither to spare for any cost, expense, or travail, to make such a triumphant banquet as they might not only wonder at it here, but also make a glorious report of it in their country.... They sent out caters, purveyors, and divers other persons; they also sent for all the expert cooks within London or elsewhere. The purveyors provided, and my lord's friends sent in such provision as one would wonder to have seen. The cooks wrought both day and night with subtleties and many crafty devices; the yeomen and grooms of the wardrobe were busy in hanging of the chambers and furnishing the same with beds of silk and other furniture. Then wrought the carpenters, joiners, masons, and all other artificers. There was the carriage and re-carriage of plate, stuff, and other rich implements. There was also provided two hundred and eighty beds furnished with all manner of furniture to them belonging.... The day was come to the Frenchmen assigned, and they ready assembled before the hour of their appointment, whereof the officers caused them to ride to Hanworth, a park of the King's within three miles, there to hunt and spend the day until night, at which time they returned to Hampton Court, and every one of them was conveyed to their several chambers, having in them great fires, and wine to their comfort and relief. The chambers where they supped and banqueted were ordered in this sort: first the great waiting chamber was hanged with rich arras, as all others were, and furnished with tall yeomen to serve. There were set tables round about the chamber, banquetwise covered; a cupboard was there garnished with white plate, having also in the same chamber, to give the more light, four great plates of silver set with great lights, and a great fire of wood and coals. The next chamber, being the chamber of presence, was hanged with rich arras, and a sumptuous cloth of estate furnished with many goodly gentlemen to serve the tables. Then there was a cupboard being as long as the chamber was broad, garnished with gilt plate and gold plate, and a pair of silver candlesticks gilt, curiously wrought, and which cost three hundred marks. This cupboard was barred round about, that no man could come nigh it, for there was none of this plate touched in this banquet, for there was sufficient besides. The plates on the walls were of silver gilt, having in them large wax candles to give light. When supper was ready the principal officers caused the trumpeters to blow; the officers conducted the guests from their chambers into the supper rooms, and when they all had sat down their service came up in such abundance, both costly and full of subtleties, with such pleasant music, that the Frenchmen (as it seemed) were wrapt into a heavenly paradise. You must understand that my lord Cardinal had not yet come, but he came in before the second course, booted and spurred, and bade them "preface" [a contraction of four French words, meaning "Much good may it do you!"], at whose coming there was great joy, every man rising from his place. He, the Cardinal, being in his apparel as he rode [why he did so is not very clear], called for a chair, and sat among them as merry as ever he had been seen. The second course with many dishes, subtleties, and devices, above a hundred in number, which were of such goodly proportion and so costly, that I think the Frenchmen never saw the like. There were castles with images; beasts, birds, and personages most lively made; a chessboard of spiced plate with men thereof, which was put into a case to be taken to France. Then took my lord a bowl of gold filled with ippocrass, and drank to his lord the King, and next to the King of France. The guests, of course, did the same, and the cups went so merrily around that many of the Frenchmen were fain to be led to their beds. Then rose up my lord, went into his privy chamber to pull off his boots, and then went he to supper, making a slight repast, and then rejoined his guests, and used them so lovingly and familiarly that they could not commend him too much.' Cavendish's account of the banquet, which he evidently wrote con amore, is much longer than our extract, and that probably is too long for our readers. To them we apologize for entertaining (?) them with so tedious a description of trivialities,[#] but in a special historic précis of Hampton Court such details must necessarily be inserted, just as in making an inventory of the contents of a mansion, not the grand furniture of the drawing and dining-room only has to be enumerated, but also the humble pots and pans of the scullery.

[#] In the Middle Ages and Renaissance days banquets, masks and revels were thought a great deal of; yea, so great was the rage for them that nowhere were masks more frequently performed than at the very last place one would expect them to be indulged in, namely, at the Inns of Court, where grave and learned lawyers, under the presidency of the Master of the Revels—an office which led more readily to knighthood than professional merit—discussed the cut and colour of the shepherdesses' kirtles. Whoso likes to read of such doings will find plenty about them in the 'Progresses of Queen Elizabeth,' and in Whitelock's 'Memorials.' An account of the revival of the 'Maske of Flowers' at Gray's Inn in July, 1887, will be found in the journals of that date.

The banquet just described took place, as already mentioned, after Wolsey's surrender of the palace to the King, and by the latter's orders. Henry VIII. no doubt knew that the Cardinal was the man to carry them out well, for he would take a personal interest and pleasure in so doing, seeing that the banquets and masques so prevalent in that King's reign had nowhere been more magnificently ordered than at Hampton Court and Whitehall, as already intimated above. But it is strange that the King should have abstained from appearing at the banquet given to his royal friend's ambassadors.

As soon as Henry had obtained possession of Hampton Court, he began making extensive alterations in the buildings; the Great Hall as it now appears was his work. Having a taste for art,[#] he employed Holbein, many of whose works are now at Hampton Court. Items of the expenses of building have come down to us. Thus in 1527, from February 26 to March 25, there was paid to the Freemason builders, to the master, John Molton, at 12d. per day, 6s.; to the warden, William Reynolds, at 5s. the week, 20s.; to the setters, Nicholas Seyworth and three others, at 3s. 8d. per week, 13s. 8d.; to others, at 3s. 4d. the week, 13s. 4d. Some of the workmen evidently took frequent holidays. The clerk of the works had 8d. a day, and the writing clerks 6d. each.

[#] A superstition has been cherished from classical days that artistic and literary culture softens and refines manners. Henry VIII. had both, and yet what a brute, brutal in every respect, he was! Dr. Johnson was another instance of bearishness coupled with learning; and Porson, soaked though he was with Greek and Latin lore and wisdom, was a savage, with whom no gentleman could associate for any length of time. Emolliet mores, what a delusion!

The Great Hall was on many occasions during the reign of Henry VIII. used for royal banquets, but as one banquet is very much like another, the reader need not be wearied with a repetition of the one already described: banquets mean eating and drinking, and undergoing the wet-blanket of dreary speeches one day, and what the Germans elegantly call 'pussy's lamentation' the next. In 1536 Henry married Jane Seymour, and in the following year she died at Hampton Court, after giving birth to Edward VI. On this occasion the English Bluebeard went into mourning, and compelled the Court to do the same. Having been married to Jane but seventeen months, he had probably not had time to get tired of her. He actually remained a widower for some time, but eventually, in order to strengthen the Protestant cause in England, at the suggestion of Thomas Cromwell he married, much against his inclination, the 'Flanders mare,' Anne of Cleves. In less than six months he obtained a divorce from her, and sent Cromwell to the block. Then in 1540 the ill-fated Catharine Howard was openly shown as the future Queen at Hampton Court Palace, and the marriage performed with great pomp and joyous celebrations. But in less than two years the royal voluptuary cut off her head on account of faults she had committed before knowing him. At Hampton Court also Henry married his last wife, Lady Catherine Parr, who survived him, but her head was once in great danger. She opposed the King on some religious question, and in great wrath he ordered an impeachment to be drawn up against her; but she, being warned of her danger, spoke so humbly of the foolishness of her sex that when the Chancellor came to arrest her Henry ordered the 'beast' to be gone.

In 1538 Henry VIII., who was particularly fond of hunting, but who was then so fat and unwieldy that he required special facilities for following his favourite sport, and needed them close at hand, extended his chase through fifteen parishes. These he kept strictly preserved for his own use, and they were enclosed by a wooden paling, which was removed after his death, the deer sent to Windsor, and the chase thrown open.

During the Christmas of 1543, Henry VIII. entertained Francis Gonzaga, the Viceroy of Sicily, at Hampton Court, and Edward VI. on this occasion likewise presided, in puerile magnificence, over the table in the high place of the hall, an occurrence over which grave historians grow quite enthusiastic, whilst at the same time describing the splendour of the entertainment. But after reading all this gush it is quite a relief to come on a passage like the following, showing the seamy side of regal pomp. It is from a curious old manuscript, containing some very singular directions for regulating the household of Henry VIII.:

'His Highness' baker shall not put alum in the bread, or mix rye, oaten or bean flour with the same, and if detected he shall be put in the stocks. [This prohibition implies that the thing had been done, and by the King's own highly-paid baker!] His Highness' attendants are not to steal any locks or keys, tables, forms, cupboards, or other furniture out of noblemen's or gentlemen's houses where they go to visit. [The King's attendants must have been worse than modern burglars, who are not known to steal tables and cupboards!] Master cooks shall not employ such scullions as go about naked, or lie all night on the ground before the kitchen fire. ["High life below stairs" was, it would seem, then in its infancy with scullions going about naked!] The officers of his privy chamber shall be loving together, no grudging or grumbling, nor talking of the King's pastimes. [Fancy the officers of the privy chamber, those grand gentlemen, having to be taught how to behave, and not to indulge in shindies among themselves, nor, like a parcel of low lackeys, to sit in judgment on their master's doings!] The King's barber is enjoined to be cleanly, not to frequent the company of misguided women, for fear of danger to the King's royal person. [A wise King, knowing that his barber was given to such practices, would have sent him to the deuce, and given up being shaved!] There shall be no romping with the maids on the staircase, by which dishes and other things are often broken. [The crockery being smashed was his Majesty's chief concern in this matter!] Care shall be taken that the pewter spoons and the wooden ones used in the kitchen be not broken or stolen. [What a lot of paltry thieves there must have been in the royal household!] The pages shall not interrupt the kitchen maids. [Those pages then, as now, must have been awful fellows!] The grooms shall not steal his Highness' straw for beds, sufficient being allowed for them. [How those grooms, who were, as we have seen, so busy in furnishing the rooms with 280 beds of silk, must have enjoyed the straw they slept on!] Coal only to be allowed to the King's, Queen's, and Lady Mary's chambers. [Rather hard on the other inmates of the palace!] The brewers are not to put any brimstone in the ale. [His Majesty did not want to taste sulphur before his time!]'

When the Knights Hospitallers of St. John granted the lease of Hampton Court to Cardinal Wolsey, they were on or before its expiry prepared to renew it; but they never had the chance of doing so, for as in 1540 Henry VIII. suppressed all the monasteries and confiscated their property, the Knights Hospitallers shared that fate, and Hampton Court became royal property. On Henry's death the palace was chosen by the guardians of Edward VI., then a minor, as his residence; he was placed under the special care of his uncle, the Duke of Somerset, Protector of the Council of Regency. But serious dissensions arose amidst the Council, and it was proposed to deprive the Duke of his royal ward, and an alarm having been given that this was to be done by force, the household and the inhabitants of Hampton armed themselves for the protection of the young King. The Protector, however, removed him to Windsor Castle, lest the Council should obtain possession of his person. In 1550 Edward and his attendants removed from London to Hampton Court, in consequence of an alarm that the 'black death' had made its appearance there—in fact, two of Edward's servants were said to have died of it. In 1552 Edward held a chapter of the Order of the Garter at Hampton Court Palace; the knights went to Windsor in the morning, but returned to this palace in the evening, where they were royally feasted, and where Henry Grey, Marquis of Dorset, was created Duke of Suffolk, and John Dudley, Earl of Warwick, Duke of Northumberland.

In 1553 Mary I. became Queen of England, and in the following year she married Philip, son of the Emperor Charles and heir to the Spanish crown. This alliance with the leading Catholic Power highly displeased the English people, and, in fact, they soon began to feel the effects of Mary's bigoted adherence to her own, the Roman Catholic, faith. She and her husband passed their honeymoon in gloomy retirement at Hampton Court in 1554, but in 1555 they kept their Christmas there with great solemnity, and the Princess Elizabeth, the daughter of Anne Boleyn, was invited as a guest, though there was little love between the two sisters. At this Christmas festivity the great hall was illuminated with 1,000 lamps. The Princess Elizabeth supped at the same table with their Majesties, next the cloth of state, and after supper was served with a perfumed napkin and plate of comfits by Lord Paget; but she retired with her ladies before the revels, maskings, and disguisings began. On St. Stephen's Day she was permitted to hear matins, or more likely mass, in the Queen's closet, where, we are told, she was attired in a robe of white satin, strung all over with large pearls. On December 29 she sat with their Majesties and the nobility at a grand spectacle of jousting, when 200 lances were broken, half the combatants being accoutred as Germans and half as Spaniards.

At her accession to the throne Elizabeth made Hampton Court one of her favourite residences; it was the most richly furnished, and here she caused her naval victories over the Spaniards to be worked in fine tapestries. Here was the scene of her grand festivities, equalling in splendour those of Henry VIII. Her ordinary dinner was a solemn affair. Hentzner thus describes it: 'While she was at prayers, we saw her table set in the following solemn manner: a gentleman entered the room, bearing a rod, and along with him another, who had a tablecloth, which, after they had both knelt down three times with the utmost veneration, he spread upon the table, and, after kneeling again, they both retired. [Oh, the contemptible flunkey souls of those days!] Then came two others, one with the rod again, the other with a saltcellar, a plate, and bread; when they had kneeled, as the others had done, and placed what was brought upon the table, they then 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, who, when she had prostrated herself three times in the most graceful manner, approached the table and rubbed the plates with bread and salt, with as much awe as if the Queen had been present. When they had waited there a little while, the yeomen of the guard entered, bareheaded, clothed in scarlet, with a golden rose upon their backs, bringing in at each turn a course of twenty-four 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 of the guard a mouthful to eat of the particular dish he had brought, for fear of any poison. During the time that this guard, which consists of the tallest and stoutest men that can be found in all England, were bringing dinner, twelve trumpets and two kettle-drums made the hall ring for half an hour together.' No wonder that the Maids of Honour of Queen Elizabeth would, disguised as orange-girls, escape from the purlieus of the palace, and frequent those of the theatres! The tidings of the defeat of the Armada arrived on Michaelmas Day, and were communicated to the Queen whilst she was at dinner at Hampton Court, partaking of a goose; hence the origin of partaking of that savoury dish on Michaelmas Day. Such is the tradition; but geese were eaten on that day and about that time of the year before the Armada was dreamt of; they are then eaten because then in the finest condition.

James I. took up his residence at Hampton Court soon after his arrival in England, and here in 1604 took place, not revels and masques, but a conference of Presbyterians and the members of the Established Church; it lasted three days, and its result was the translation of the Bible, 'appointed to be read in churches.' But even his 'Sowship' James I., who prided himself on his learning and theological knowledge, was satisfied with a three days' conference on so important a question as was involved in his favourite axiom, 'No Bishop, no King,' but when it came to feasting he wanted more time. When in 1606 he entertained Francis, Prince of Vaudemont, son of the Duke of Lorraine, and the noblemen and gentlemen who accompanied him, the feasting and pastimes occupied fourteen days. Queen Anne, the wife of James I., died at the palace of Hampton Court in 1618, and was interred in Westminster Abbey.

Charles I., on his marriage with Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, here spent the honeymoon, and the plague then raging in London (1625) kept the royal pair and the Court, which had followed them, some time longer at Hampton Court. Here the King gave audience to the ambassadors of France and Denmark, as also to an envoy from Gabor, Prince of Transylvania.[#] In 1641, when the strife between the two great political parties—the Cavaliers, siding with the King, and the Roundheads, or the great mass of farmers, merchants, and shopkeepers, the Tories and Whigs of the future—was at its height, the London apprentices, then formidable engines of radical faction, became so threatening in their conduct towards the Court that Charles retired to Hampton Court for a time. But the King's fate could not be averted, and in 1647 he was again brought to Hampton Court by the army, and kept there, not in actual imprisonment, but under restraint, to November 11, when he made his escape. John Evelyn, in his 'Diary,' records a visit he paid Charles on October 10 in these words: 'I came to Hampton Court, where I had the honour to kiss His Majesty's hand, he being now in the power of those execrable villains, who not long after murdered him.'

[#] In 1621 he had been elected King of Hungary, but afterwards had to resign that dignity for the inferior one mentioned above.

After the King's execution, the fine collections of art which once decorated the walls of Hampton Court were scattered abroad, and now form the choicest treasures of foreign and private galleries, and the honour[#] of Hampton Court and the palace were sold in 1651 to a Mr. John Phelps, a member of the House of Commons, for the sum of £10,765 19s. 9d.; but in 1656 Oliver Cromwell, enriched by the wreck of the State, again acquired possession of the palace, for which he had a great predilection, and consequently made it his chief residence. The marriage ceremonies of Elizabeth, daughter of Cromwell, with Lord Falconberg were performed here on November 18, 1657, and in the following year the Protector's favourite daughter, Mrs. Claypole, who disapproved of her father's doings, here breathed her last. Hither Cromwell would repair, when Lord Protector of the realm, to dine with his officers. Thurloe thus records the fact: 'Sometimes, as the fit takes him, he dines with the officers of his army at Hampton Court, and shows a hundred antic tricks, as throwing cushions at them, and putting hot coals into their pockets and boots. At others, before he has half dined, he gives orders for a drum to beat, and calls in his foot-guards to snatch off the meat from the table and tear it in pieces, with many other unaccountable whimsies.... Now he calls for his guards, with whom he rides out, encompassed behind and before ... and at his return at night shifts from bed to bed for fear of surprise.' He was constantly attended by a dog, who guarded his bedroom door. One morning he found the dog dead. He then remembered the prediction a gipsy had made to Charles I., that on the death of a dog in a room the King was then in, the kingdom he was about to lose would be restored to his family. 'The kingdom is departed from me!' cried Cromwell, and he died soon after.

[#] Hampton Court had been erected into an honour when it became the property of Henry VIII. An honour in law is a lordship, on which inferior lordships and manors depend by performance of customs and services. But no lordships were honours but such as belonged to the King.

After the Restoration the palace, which of course reverted to the Crown, was occasionally occupied by Charles II. Here he spent his honeymoon on his marriage with Catherine of Braganza. He had married her for money; he received with her a dowry of half a million, besides two fortresses—Tangier in Morocco and Bombay in Hindostan. He soon neglected her for Lady Castlemaine and hussies of her character. Pepys, indeed, under May 81, 1662, records: 'The Queen is brought a few days since to Hampton Court, and all people say of her to be a very fine and handsome lady, and very discreet, and that the King is pleased enough with her, which I fear will put Madame Castlemaine's nose out of joint.' But Pepys was a bad prognosticator on this matter. The unhappy Queen, neglected and forgotten, spent most of her time in a small building which overlooked the river Thames, and was considered a sort of summer residence. It was known by the name of the Water Gallery, and occupied the site in front of what is now the southern façade of King William's quadrangle, on whose erection the Water Gallery was entirely removed.

When the great plague of 1665 spread westward in the Metropolis, the 'merry monarch' and his suite again retired to Hampton Court, where, like Boccaccio's Florentines under a similar calamity, they sought oblivion of fear in a continual succession of festivities. Persons who are curious on such matters will find an amusing account of those doings in the autobiography of Sir Ralph Esher, edited by Leigh Hunt.

Pepys, it appears, paid frequent visits to Hampton Court, but was, it seems, not always well treated. Thus, on July 23, 1665, he writes: 'To Hampton Court, where I followed the King to chapel and heard a good sermon.... I was not invited any whither to dinner, though a stranger, which did also trouble me; but' (he adds philosophically) 'I must remember it is a Court.... However, Cutler carried me to Mr. Marriott's, the housekeeper, and there we had a very good dinner and good company, among others Lilly, the painter.' Pepys was easily consoled for the snub the 'quality' treated him to.

James II. also occasionally visited Hampton Court, but the palace was neglected, and did not actually again become a royal residence till the accession of William III. and Queen Mary. He, as we have already mentioned on a former occasion, made the palace what it now is by pulling down the buildings erected by Henry VIII., and covering the site with the present Fountain Court and the State apartments surrounding it. According to a drawing by Hollar, showing Hampton Court as furnished by Henry VIII., the eastern front was really picturesque, and agreed perfectly with the architectural features of Wolsey's building. Still, according to the notions of the seventeenth century, the apartments were not suitable for a royal residence, especially as William intended to make it a permanent and not a merely temporary one. Moreover, the King took a personal pleasure in building and planting and decorating his residence. He determined to create another Loo on the banks of the Thames. A wide extent of ground was laid out in formal walks and parterres; limes, thirty years old, were transplanted from neighbouring woods to make shady alleys. The new court rose under the direction of Wren, and with it the grand eastern and southern fronts. It is said that the King once entertained the idea of erecting an entirely new palace at the west end of the town of Hampton on an elevation distant about half a mile from the river Thames, but the design was abandoned from a consideration of the length of time necessary for such an undertaking. Horace Walpole informs us that Sir Christopher Wren submitted another design for the alterations of the ancient palace in a better taste, which Queen Mary wished to have executed; but she was overruled. The same authority says: 'This palace of King William seems erected in emulation of what is intended to imitate the pompous edifices of the French monarch.'

Unfortunately for William, he found after a time that Hampton Court was too far from the Houses of Lords and Commons and the public offices, but being unable to stand the impure air of London, he took up his residence at Kensington House, which was then quite in the country. But he frequently visited Hampton Court, and it was there he met with the accident which caused his death. On February 20, 1702, he was ambling on a favourite horse named Sorrel through the park. He urged the horse to strike into a gallop just at a spot where a mole had been at work. The horse stumbled and went down on his knees; the King fell off and broke his collar-bone. The bone was set, and the King returned to Kensington in his coach; but the jolting of the rough roads made it necessary to reduce the fracture again. He never recovered the double shock to the system, and fever supervening, he died a few days subsequently.

The Princess of Denmark, afterwards Queen Anne, in this palace gave birth on July 24, 1689, to the Duke of Gloucester, who died at eleven years of age, and thus made room for the House of Brunswick. Anne occasionally resided here after her accession to the throne.

The Great Hall had in Queen Elizabeth's time been used as a theatre; it was fitted up for a similar purpose by George I. in 1718. It was intended that plays should have been acted there twice a week during the summer season by the King's company of comedians, but the theatre was not ready till nearly the end of September, and only seven plays were performed in it in that season. The first play, acted on September 23, was 'Hamlet.' On October 1, curiously enough, 'Henry VIII., or the Fall of Wolsey,' was represented on the very spot which had been the scene of his greatest splendour, recalling the events of the life of the founder of the princely pile. The King paid the charges of the representation and the travelling expenses of the actors, amounting to £50 a night, besides which he made a present of £200 to the managers for their trouble. It was never afterwards used but once for a play, performed on October 16, 1731, for the entertainment of the Duke of Lorraine, afterwards Emperor of Germany; but the fittings were not removed till the year 1798.

In 1829 the parish of Hampton obtained permission of George IV. to fit up the hall for divine service during the rebuilding of Hampton Church, and it was so used for about two years.

George II. but seldom visited Hampton Court, and George III. preferred Kew Palace. From his time no Sovereign has occupied Hampton Court as a royal residence.

On November 4, 1793, Richard Tickell, a political writer, who had apartments in Hampton Court Palace, had been accustomed to sit and read on a parapet wall or kind of platform in one of the upper rooms. The spot was filled with flower-pots. On the day in question, while his carriage was waiting to take him and his family to town, his wife having left him for a moment, on her return missed him, and going to the open window, saw her husband lying in the garden below on the ground. Before she could reach him, he had expired. How the accident happened can never be known. He was said to have committed suicide, but there was no assignable reason for such an act.

The famous vine at Hampton Court, the largest in Europe, was planted from a slip in the year 1768. Its fruit, the black Hamburg kind, is reserved exclusively for the Queen's table. The writer of a 'Tour of England,' in 1798, says: 'In these gardens is a most remarkably large vine.... The gardener told me 1,550 bunches of grapes are now hanging upon it, the whole weight of which is estimated at 972 cwt.' It bears the same number of bunches, that is, from 1,500 to 2,000, now.

For the last century or more apartments in Hampton Court Palace have generally been bestowed on the poorer female members of noble families, or on the widows of distinguished generals and admirals who have died in the service of their country. And several of these apartments contain large suites of rooms, some of which are compact and self-contained, whilst in other cases they are inconveniently disconnected. For the accommodation of tenants of such suites there survives an ancient Sedan chair on wheels, drawn by a chairman, and called the 'Push,' which is used by ladies going out in the evening from one part of the building to another. Of the fifty-three apartments into which the palace is now divided, some contain as many as forty rooms, with five or six staircases.

Among the distinguished personages who have at various times found an asylum within the walls of Hampton Court Palace is William, Prince of Orange, Hereditary Stadtholder of Holland. Driven from his country in 1795 by the advancing wave of the French Revolution, he sought refuge in England; the apartments occupied by him in the palace were those on the east side of the middle quadrangle. Gustavus IV., after having in 1810 been deposed from the Swedish throne by Napoleon, came to England, and occupied a set of apartments here. He died in February, 1837.

One of the most curious circumstances in connection with the grant of these apartments is the fact that Dr. Samuel Johnson made application for one; his letter making it is still extant, and was, I think, first made known by Mr. Law in his 'History of Hampton Court.' The letter was addressed to Lord Hertford (then Lord Chamberlain), and dated 'Bolt Court, Fleet Street, 11 April, 1776.' He says in it that hearing that some of the apartments are now vacant, the grant of one to him would be considered a great favour, and he bases his claim on his having had the honour of vindicating his Majesty's Government. The reply to it was: 'Lord C. presents his compliments to Mr. Johnson, and is sorry that he cannot obey his commands, having already on his hands many engagements unsatisfied.' The answer sounds somewhat satirical. But what could Dr. Johnson mean by making the application? If we thought him capable of a huge joke, we might think he meant this for one; but, as he dealt in small jokes only, we are driven to assume that he wrote seriously. Did he know what he was asking for? Supposing his request had been granted, he would very soon have wished it had been refused. Fancy Johnson, the boisterous, arrogant tavern dictator, who considered the chair at a punch-drinking bout in an inn the throne of human felicity, what would he have done shut up in an apartment in the palace, in the midst of haughty dowagers, serious widows, and prim old maids, who would speedily have complained of the noisy companions who would have looked him up there! Had he gone to the King's Arms or some other hostelry in the neighbourhood, he would have had to return at early and regular hours. How could he have submitted to that? Would he have taken all his old women with him, and how long would they have been at peace with the aristocratic ladies inhabiting the palace? The results of their accidentally meeting on staircases or in passages are too awful to contemplate, and Johnson's application remains an inexplicable enigma.

In 1838, whilst removing one of the old towers built by Wolsey, the workmen came upon a number of glass bottles, which lay among the foundation; they were of curious shape, and it has been suggested that they were buried there to denote the date of the building.

On December 14, 1882, the palace had a narrow escape from destruction. A suite of eight or nine rooms, in the occupation of a lady, and overlooking the gardens and the Fountain Court, caught fire at half-past seven in the morning, it is supposed by the upsetting of a benzoline lamp in one of the servants' rooms. That the authorities should permit the use of such lamps in the building seems strange, especially in rooms situate as those were, over the tapestry-room, which adjoins the Picture Gallery, and contains splendid specimens of Gobelin and other ancient needlework. The flames spread rapidly through the rooms, and three of them were entirely burnt out before the firemen, assisted by men of the 4th Hussars, then stationed at the palace, could check the outbreak. All the other rooms were greatly damaged by fire and water. But the saddest part of the occurrence was that one of the servants, the cook, whilst rushing to the assistance of her fellow-servants, fell senseless on the floor, overcome by the smoke, and her charred and lifeless body was only got out when the fire had been subdued. It is to be hoped that a cause which might involve a great national loss has now been removed by prohibition.

In 1839 those parts of the palace which are not occupied by private residents, and the gardens, were thrown open to the public, and during the summer months are visited by thousands, who arrive there by rail, river, van, or, latterly, on the wheel-horse—vulgo bike. The permanent residents bitterly complain of these invasions, and not without reason, seeing how many 'Arrys and 'Arriets come down in holiday time; but as the palace and gardens are maintained at an expense of about £11,000 per annum out of the people's money, the right of visiting them can scarcely be denied to the public. Nor can the amount spent on the place be found fault with; it is a mere trifle in the domestic house-keeping bill of the nation, and a larger sum is annually wasted in useless firing off of cannon. The palace and gardens—

'The pleasant place of all festivity,

The revel of the earth, the masque of'—

Albion, are to us what Venice is to Italy:

'... a boast, a marvel, and a show.'

'But unto us'

Hampton Court

'Hath a spell beyond

A name in story, and a long array

Of mighty shadows.'

 

To us Hampton Court is a type of the progress of the nation from slavery to freedom, from darkness to light. Founded to gratify the pride and self-indulgence of an arrogant and scheming priest, for more than three centuries Hampton Court was the symbol of oppression on the one side, and of subjection on the other. But Time, which works such strange metamorphoses, has, since the last sixty years, transformed what was once the exclusive appanage of kings into the playground of the plebs, and what this change implies may well form a subject of study for inquiring and philosophical minds. But such study must be based on a knowledge of facts, an axiom we have kept in view in the compilation of our topographical and historical notes on the origin, progress, and final realization of the architectural, political, and social idea embodied in the monumental pile we have so concisely attempted to describe, so as to endow the contemplation thereof, in all its phases, with an intelligent appreciation of the physical and ideal beauties, together with their importance as an index of national advancement, which invest with an undying charm the palace and gardens of Hampton Court.[#]

[#] In Herefordshire, not far from Leominster, there is another Hampton Court, a spacious mansion of monastic and castellated architecture, having a fine chapel with open timber roof. It was built by Sir Rowland Lenthall, Yeoman of the Robes to Henry IV., who distinguished himself at the Battle of Agincourt.

THE END.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD.

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