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.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 44044
   :PG.Title: London Souvenirs
   :PG.Released: 2013-10-26
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Charles William Heckethorn
   :DC.Title: London Souvenirs
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1899
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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LONDON SOUVENIRS
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      LONDON SOUVENIRS

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      BY

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      CHARLES WILLIAM HECKETHORN

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      AUTHOR OF
      'THE SECRET SOCIETIES OP ALL AGES,'
      'LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS,' ETC.

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      LONDON
      CHATTO & WINDUS
      1899

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   CONTENTS

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\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`_

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.. _`GAMBLING-CLUBS AND HIGH PLAY`:

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   LONDON SOUVENIRS

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   \I.

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   GAMBLING-CLUBS AND HIGH PLAY.

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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.





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.. _`WITTY WOMEN AND PRETTY WOMEN`:

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   \II.


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   WITTY WOMEN AND PRETTY WOMEN.

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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!





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.. _`OLD LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES`:

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   \III.


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   OLD LONDON COFFEE-HOUSES.

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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.





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.. _`OLD M.P.S AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS`:

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   \IV.


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

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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*!





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`FAMOUS OLD ACTORS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \V.


.. class:: center large bold

   FAMOUS OLD ACTORS.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.'





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VI.


.. class:: center large bold

   OLD JUDGES AND SOME OF THEIR SAYINGS.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`SOME FAMOUS LONDON ACTRESSES`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \VII.


.. class:: center large bold

   SOME FAMOUS LONDON ACTRESSES.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`QUEER CLUBS OF FORMER DAYS`:

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   \VIII.


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   QUEER CLUBS OF FORMER DAYS.

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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.





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.. _`CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \IX.


.. class:: center large bold

   CURIOUS STORIES OF THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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!

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \X.


.. class:: center large bold

   WITS AND BEAUX OF OLD LONDON SOCIETY.

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES`:

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   \XI.


.. class:: center large bold

   LONDON SEEN THROUGH FOREIGN SPECTACLES.

.. vspace:: 2

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!

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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?





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS`:
.. _`THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XII.


.. class:: center large bold

   OLD LONDON TAVERNS AND TEA-GARDENS.[#]

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: center medium bold

   \I.—THE GALLERIED TAVERNS OF OLD LONDON.

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

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

.. vspace:: 2

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.





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.. _`OLD LONDON TEA-GARDENS`:

.. class:: center medium bold

   \II.—OLD LONDON TEA-GARDENS.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

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

.. vspace:: 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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIII.


.. class:: center large bold

   WILLIAM PATERSON AND THE BANK OF ENGLAND.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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*.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE OLD DOCTORS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIV.


.. class:: center large bold

   THE OLD DOCTORS.

.. vspace:: 2

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.'
   |

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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?'

.. vspace:: 2

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.'[#]
   |

.. vspace:: 1

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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?*'




.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XV.


.. class:: center large bold

   THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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

.. vspace:: 2

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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`ROGUES ASSORTED`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVI.


.. class:: center large bold

   ROGUES ASSORTED.

.. vspace:: 2

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*!





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.. _`BARS AND BARRISTERS`:

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   \XVII.


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   BARS AND BARRISTERS.

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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.





.. vspace:: 4

.. _`THE SUBLIME BEEFSTEAKERS AND THE KIT-KAT AND ROTA CLUBS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XVIII.


.. class:: center large bold white-space-pre-line

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

.. vspace:: 2

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.'

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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!'

.. vspace:: 2

.. class:: noindent small

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

.. vspace:: 2

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.

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

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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.'





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.. _`HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS`:

.. class:: center large bold

   \XIX.


.. class:: center large bold

   HAMPTON COURT PALACE AND ITS MASTERS.

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.. class:: center medium bold

   I.—HAMPTON COURT PALACE.

.. vspace:: 2

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.

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[#] 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.

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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.

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

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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.

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   II.—ITS MASTERS.

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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.

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[#] 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.

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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.

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[#] 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!

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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.'

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

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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.

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[#] 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.

.. vspace:: 2

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.[#]

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[#] 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.

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