with the composition of which Bolingbroke is said to have found Dryden in a state of emotion one morning, the whole night having been passed, agitante deo, under the fever of inspiration.

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

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

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

The civil and ecclesiastical lawyers, who connect the law with the church, had formerly much more to do than they have at present. The proctors (or attorneys) are said to have been so numerous and so noisy, in the time of Henry VII., that the judge sometimes could not be heard for them. They thrust themselves into causes without the parties' consent, and shouldered the advocates out of their business. The diminution of their body was owing to Cranmer. At present, no lawyers of their class are accounted more respectable. It is a pity as much cannot be said of the causes brought into this court. Doctor's Commons are of painful celebrity in the annals of domestic trouble. We have hardly perhaps among us a remnant of greater barbarism, than "an action for damages," whether considered with a view to recompense or prevention. But the question is one of too great delicacy to be discussed in these pages. Doctor's Commons bind, as well as set loose. "Hence originates," says the facetious Mr. Malcolm, "the awful scrap of parchment, bearing the talismanic mark of John Cantuar (the Archbishop of Canterbury), which constitutes thousands of benedicts the happiest or most miserable of married men in short, it is the grand lottery of life, in which, fortunately, there are far more prizes than blanks." The community ought to be thankful to Mr. Malcolm for this last piece of information, as there is a splenetic notion among them to the contrary.

A history deeply interesting to human nature might be drawn up from the documents preserved in this place; for besides cases of personal infidelity, here are to be found others of infidelity religious, of blasphemy, simony, &c., together with romantic questions relative to kindred and succession; and here

death." Another friend of his, one of the lay vicars of the cathedral, relates of him, that a few weeks before the catastrophe, Clarke had alighted from his horse in a sequestered spot in the country, where there was a pond surrounded by trees, and not knowing whether to hang or drown himself, tossed up a piece of money to see which. The money stuck in the earth edgeways. Of this new chance for life, poor Clarke, we see, was unable to avail himself.

• See Maitland, ii. 949.

↑ Whenever a custom is mentioned in this work, as actually existing, the fact has been ascertained.

Londinium Redivivum, vol. li. p. 473.

are deposited those last specimens of human strength or weakness, last wills and testaments, together with cases in which they have been contested. It was these records that furnished us with accounts of the latest days of Milton (see Bunhill Row ;) and that set the readers of Shakspeare speculating why he should make no mention of his wife, except to leave her his "second best bed." They also perplexed for ever the question as to how he spelt his name, by leaving it doubtful whether he had not written it three different ways in the signatures to one paper. Of the practisers in the civil courts we can call to mind nothing more worthy of recollection than the strange name of one of them, Sir Julius Cæsar (see Great St. Helens, Bishopsgate), and the ruinous volatility of poor Dr. King, the Tory wit, who is conjectured to have been the only civilian that ever went to reside in Ireland, "after having experienced the emoluments of a settlement in Doctor's Commons." The doctor unfortunately practised too much with the bottle, which hindered him from adhering long to anything.

Behind Little Knight Rider's Street, to the east of Doctor's Commons, is the Herald's College. A gorgeous idea of colours falls on the mind in passing it, as from a cathedral window,

"And shielded scutcheons blush with blood of queens and kings."-Keats.

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

Mr. Pennant says, that the Herald's College, "is a foundation of great antiquity, in which the records are kept of all the old blood in the kingdom." But this is a mistake. Heralds, indeed, are of great antiquity, in the sense of messengers of peace and war; but in the modern sense, they are no older than the reign of Edward III., and were not incorporated before that of the usurper Richard. The house which they formerly occupied was a mansion of the Earls of Derby. It was burnt in the Great Fire, and succeeded by the present building, part of which was raised at the expense of some of their officers. As to their keeping records of "all the old blood in the kingdom," they may keep them, or not, as they have the luck to find them; but the blood was old, before they had anything to do with it. Men bore arms and crests, when there were no officers to register them. This, as a writer in the Censura Literaria observes, justly diminishes the pretension they set up, that no arms are of authority which have not been registered among their archives. "If this doctrine," says he, "were just, the consequence would be, that arms of comparatively modern invention are of better authority than those which a man and his ancestors have borne from times before the existence of the College of Arms, and for time immemorial, supported by the evidence of ancient seals, funeral monuments, and other authentic documents. Surely this is grossly absurd; and the more absurd, if we consider, that the heralds seem originally not to have been instituted for the manufacturing of armorial ensigns, but for the recording those ensigns, which had been borne by men of honourable lineage, and which might, therefore, be borne by their posterity. Perhaps it would not be too much to presume, that it will be

On the authority of Langton, Johnson's friend. See Memoirs, Anecdotes, &c., by Letitia Matilda Hawkins, vol. i. D293.

found, on inquiry, that there are no grants of arms by the English Heralds, of any very high antiquity; and that the most ancient which can be produced, either in the original or in well authenticated copies, are of a date when the general use of seals of arms, circumscribed with the names and titles of the bearers, was wearing away." *

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

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

"

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

Censura Literaria, vol. iii. p. 254.

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

⚫ Letter xvi. p. 188, in the duodecimo edition, as above.

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

Familiar in our mouths as household words.

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

We

The most eminent names in the Herald's College are Camden, the great antiquary; Dugdale (whose merits, however, are questionable); King, a writer on political arithmetic; and Vanbrugh, the comic writer, who wore a tabard for a short time, as Clarencieux. Gibbon had an ancestor, a herald, who took great interest in the profession. He had another progenitor, who about the reign of James the First, changed the scallop shells of the historian's coat,

Another opinión, however, is that the spear had been given to one of his ancestors as having been a magistrate of some description. This supposition seems to be supported by the grant of arms to John Shakspeare in 1599, which has been printed by Mr. Malcolm.

↑ Via ea nostra voco-(as above translated.) The effect is stronger, if the whole passage is called to mind. It is in Ovid; Nam genus et proavos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi, Vix ea nostra voco.-Metamor. lib. 13, v. 140.

For birth, and rank, and what our own good powers
Have earned us not, I scarcely call them ours.

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

"into three ogresses, or female cannibals, with a design of stigmatising three ladies, his kinswomen, who had provoked him by an unjust lawsuit."* A good account of heraldry, its antiquities and its freaks, is a desideratum, and would make a very amusing book.

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

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

Rob. O me my shame! I know that voice full well;

I'll help thy wants, although thou curse me still."

Fos.

[He stands where he is unseen by his father. Bread, bread, some Christian man send back Your charity to a number of poor prisoners. One penny for the tender mercy

[Robert puts in money. The hand of heaven reward you, gentle sir! Never may you want, never feel misery; Let blessings in unnumbered measure grow, And fall upon your head, where'er you go.

Rob. Oh, happy comfort! curses to the ground First struck me; now with blessings I am crowned. Fos. Bread, bread, for the tender mercy, one penny for a loaf of bread.

Rob. I'll buy more blessings: take thou all my

store;

it.

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

The wall in which Lud-gate stood was the occasion of the hill's having two names, which is still the case; the upper part, between the Bell-Savage and St. Paul's Churchyard being called Ludgate Street, and only the rest Ludgate Hill. This latter portion went anciently by the name of Bowyers' Row, no doubt from its being principally inhabited by persons of that trade. On Ludgate Hill lived the cobler whom Steele mentions as a curious instance of pride.§ He had a wooden figure of a beau, who stood before him in a bending posture, humbly presenting him with his awl, or a bristle, or whatever else his employer chose to put in his hand, after the manner of an obsequious servant. Steele seems to have thought the man mad; otherwise the conceit would have been an agreeable Ludgate Street, as if to keep up and augment the didactic reputation of the neighbourhood, is now the head-quarters of the Society for the Diffusion of Knowledge, at least as far as regards their publica

one.

tions.

And curiously enough, the house is next. door to old "Newberry's."

Between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, in the district more properly retaining the name, was the monastery of the Black Friars, an order of Domini

* Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum iv. 367.

+ Spectator, vol. i. No. 28.

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

Tatler, No. 127.

of Guido Earl of Warwick, by whose heirs it was sold to Edward III. Mr. Malcolm has printed some extracts from the Manuscript Account Book, since preserved in the Harleian collection, of a keeper of this Wardrobe, from the middle of April to Michaelmas, 1481, (towards the close of the reign of Edward IV.) which are interesting and valuable as memorials, both of the prices and of the fashions of that time. During the period, of less than six months, over which the accounts extend, the sum of £1174. 5s. 2d. appears to have been received by the keeper, for the use of his office. Of this the most considerable portion seems to have been expended in the purchase of velvets and silks from Montpellier. The velvets cost from 8s. to 16s. per yard; black cloths of gold 40s. ; what is called velvet upon velvet, the same; damask 8s.; satins 6s., 103., and 12s.; camlets 30s. a piece; and sarcenets from 43. to 4s. 2d. Feather beds, with bolsters, "for our sovereign lord the king," are charged 16s. 8d. each. A pair of shoes of Spanish leather, double soled, and not lined, cost sixteenpence; a pair of black leather boots 6s. 8d.; hats, a shilling a piece; and ostrich feathers, each 10s. The keeper's salary appears to have been £100. per annum-that of his clerk, a shilling a day; and the wages of the tailors sixpence a day each. The king sometimes lodged at the wardrobe; on one of which occasions the washing of the sheets which had been used, is charged at the rate of three-pence a pair. Candles cost a penny a pound. All the money disbursed by the keeper of the wardrobe, however, was not expended in decorating the persons of his majesty and the royal household. Among other items we find 20s. paid to Piers Bauduyn (or, Peter Baldwin, as we should now call him), stationer, "for binding, gilding, and dressing, of a book called Titus Livius;" for performing the same offices to a Bible, a Froisard, a Holy Trinity, and the Government of Kings and Princes, 16s. each; for three small French books, 6s. 8d.; for the Fortress of Faith, and Josephus, 3s. 4d.; and for what is designated "the Bible Historical," 20s. So that in those days, we see, the binding a book was conceived to be a putting of it into breeches, and the artist employed for that purpose looked upon as a sort of literary tailor.

How impossible it would now be, in a neighbourhood like this, for such nuisances to exist, as a fetid public ditch, and the scouts of degraded clergymen asking people to "walk in and be married!" Yet such was the case a century ago. At the bottom of Ludgate Hill the little river Fleet formerly ran, and was rendered navigable. In Fleet market is Sea-coal Lane, so called from the barges that landed coal there; and Turn-again Lane, at the bottom of which the unadvised passenger found himself compelled by the water to retrace his steps. The water gradually got clogged and foul; and the channel was built over, and made a street, as we have noticed in our introduction. But even in the time we speak of, this had not been entirely done. The ditch was open from Fleet Market to the river, occupying the site of the modern Bridge Street; and in the market, before the door of the Fleet prison, men plied in behalf of a clergyman, literally inviting people to walk in and be married. They performed the ceremony inside the prison, to sailors and others, for what they could get. It was the most squalid of Gretnas, bearding the decency and common sense of a whole metropolis. The parties retired to a gin-shop to treat the clergyman, and there, and in similar houses, the register was kept of the marriages. Not far from the Fleet is Newgate; so that the victims had their succession of nooses prepared, in case, as no doubt it often happened, one tie should be followed by the others. Pennant speaks of this nuisance from personal knowledge. "In walking along the streets in my youth," he tells us, "on the side next this prison, I have often been tempted by the question, Sir, will you be pleased to walk in and be married? Along this most lawless space was frequently hung up the sign of a male and female hand conjoined, with Marriages performed within, written beneath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The parson was seen walking before his shop; a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered plaid night-gown, with a fiery face, and ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of tobacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hardwick, put these demons to flight, and saved thousands from the misery and disgrace which would be entailed by these extemporary thoughtless unions." *

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

• Page 233.

"

'Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet,

Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street; Till showers of sermons, characters, essays, In circling fences whiten all the ways: So clouds replenished from some bog below, Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow." The "well-known Fleet" is the prison just mentioned, the side of which appears to have been visible at that time in Ludgate-hill, and where it was a joke (too often founded in truth) to suppose authors incarcerated.

"Few sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet;

But fifty sons of Phoebus in the Fleet,"

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

"On Ludgate hill who bloody murders write,

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

CHAPTER III.

FLEET STREET.

CONTENTS:

Burning of the Pope.-St. Bride's steeple.-Milton. Illuminated clock.-Melancholy end of Lovelace, the cavalier.-Chatterton.—Generosity of Hardham, of snuff celebrity.-Theatre in Dorset Garden.-Richardson, his habits and character.-White-friars, or Alsatia. -Admirable living description of its old state from Sir Walter Scott.-The Temple.-Its monuments, garden, &c.-Eminent names connected with it.-Goldsmith dies there.-Boswell's first visit there to Johnson.Johnson and Madame de Boufflers.-Bernard Lintot.— Ben Jonson's Devil Tavern.-Other Coffee-houses and shops. - Goldsmith and Temple-bar.- Shire Lane, Bickerstaff, and the deputation from the country. The Kit Kat Club.-Mrs. Salmon.-Isaac Walton.-Cowley. -Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford and Ben Jonson. Serjeant's Inn.-Clifford's Inn.-The Rolls.-Sir Joseph Jekyll.-Church of St. Dunstan in the West.-Dryden's house in Fetter Lane.-Johnson, the Genius Loci of Fleet Street. His way of life. His residence in Gough Square, Johnson's Court, and Bolt Court.-Various anecdotes of him connected with Fleet Street, and with his favourite tavern, the Mitre.

We are now in Fleet Street, and pleasant memories thicken upon us. To the left is the renowned realm

of Alsatia, the Temple, the Mitre, and the abode of Richardson to the right, divers abodes of Johnson; Chancery Lane, with Cowley's birth-place at the corner; Fetter Lane, where Dryden once lived; and Shire or Sheer Lane, immortal for the Tatler.

Fleet Street was, for a good period, perhaps for a longer one than can now be ascertained, the great place for shows and spectacles. Wild beasts, monsters, and other marvels, used to be exhibited there, as the wax-work is now; and here took place the famous ceremony of burning the Pope, with its long procession, and bigoted anti-bigotries. However, the lesser bigotry was useful, at that time, in keeping

out the greater. Roger North has left us a lively account of one of these processions, in his Examen. It took place towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, when just fears were enter

tained of his successor's design to bring in Popery. The day of the ceremony was the birth-day of Queen Elizabeth, the 17th March.

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

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

One of the great figuiers in this ceremony was the doleful image of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a magistrate supposed to have been killed by the papists during the question of the Plot. Dryden has a fine contemptuous couplet upon it, in one of his prologues:—

"Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise,

Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes."

We will begin with the left side, as we are there already; and first let us express our thanks for the neat opening by which St. Bride's church has been rendered an ornament to this populous thoroughfare. The steeple is one of the most beautiful of Wren's productions, though diminished in consequence of its having been found to be too severely tried by the wind. But a beam now comes out of this opening as we pass the street, better even than that of the illuminated clock at night time; for there, in a lodging in the churchyard, lived Milton, at the time that he undertook the education of his sister's children.

He was then young and unmarried. He is said to have rendered his young scholars in the course of a year, able to read Latin at sight, though they were but nine and ten years of age. As to the clock, which serves to remind the jovial that they ought to be at home, we are loth to object to any thing useful; and in fact we admit its pretensions; and yet, as there is a time for all things, there would seem to be a time for time itself; and we doubt whether those who do not care to ascertain the hour beforehand, will derive much benefit from this glaring piece of advice.

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

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

*See Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. x. p. 872. "Abhorrers," were addressers on the side of the court, who had avowed "abhorrence" of the proceedings of the Whigs. The word was a capital one to sound through a trumpet.

This accomplished man, who is said by Wood to have been in his youth "the most amiable and beautiful person that eye ever beheld," and who was lamented by Charles Cotton as an epitome of manly virtue, died at a poor lodging in Gunpowder Alley, near Shoe Lane, an object of charity.* He had been imprisoned by the Parliament and lived during his. imprisonment beyond his income. Wood thinks that he did so in order to support the royal cause, and out of generosity to deserving men, and to his brothers. He then went into the service of the French king, returned to England, after being wounded, and was again committed to prison, where he remained till the king's death, when he was set at liberty "Having then," says his biographer, "consumed all his estate, he grew very melancholy, (which brought him at length into a consumption), became very poor in body and purse, and was the object of charity. went in ragged clothes, (whereas, when he was in his glory, he wore cloth of gold and silver,) and mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more befitting the worst of beggars than poorest of servants, &c."+ "Geo. Petty, haberdasher in Fleet street," says Aubrey, "carried 20 shillings to him every Monday Morning from Sir. Many, and months: but

Charles Cotton, Esq., for

was never repaid." As if it was their intention he should be! Poor Cotton, in the excess of his relish of life, lived himself to be in want; perhaps wanted the ten shillings that he sent. The mistress of Lovelace is reported to have married another man, supposing him to have died of his wounds in France. Perhaps this helped to make him careless of his fortune: but it is probable that his habits were naturally shewy and expensive. Aubrey says he was proud. He was accounted a sort of minor Sir Philip Sydney. We speak the more of him, not only on account of his poetry, (which, for the most part, displays much fancy, injured by want of selectness,) but because his connexion with the neighbourhood probably suggested to Richardson the name of his hero in Clarissa. Grandison is another cavalier name in the history of those times. It was the title of the Duchess of Cleveland's father. Richardson himself was buried in St. Bride's. He was laid, according to his wish, with his first wife, in the middle aisle, near the pulpit. Where he lived, we shall see presently.

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

once.

Circum

If the

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

The pungent grains of titillating dust

are indebted to him for the famous compound entitled "37." Being passionately fond of theatrical entertainments, he was seldom," says his biographer,

without embryo Richards and Hotspurs strutting and bellowing in his dining-room, or in the parlour behind his shop. The latter of these apartments was adorned with heads of most of the persons celebrated for dramatic excellence; and to these he frequently referred, in the course of his instructions.

"There is one circumstance, however, in his private character," continues our authority, "which

deserves a more honourable rescue from oblivion.

His charity was extensive in an uncommon degree, and was conveyed to many of its objects in the most

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

↑ Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses, fol. vol. ii. p. 145.

delicate manner. On account of his known integrity (for he once failed in business, more creditably than he could have made a fortune by it), he was often entrusted with the care of paying little annual stipends to unfortunate women, and others who were in equal want of relief; and he has been known, with a generosity almost unexampled, to continue these annuities, long after the sources of them had been stopped by the deaths or caprices of the persons who at first supplied them. At the same time he persuaded the receivers that their money was remitted to them as usual, through its former channel. Indeed his purse was never shut even to those who were casually recommended by his common acquaintance."* Mr. Hardham died in 772; and by his will bequeathed the interest of £20,000 to a female acquaintance, and at her decease the principal, &c., to the poor of his native city, Chichester.

Returning over the way we come to Dorset Street, and Salisbury Court, names originating in a palace of the Bishop of Salisbury, which he parted with to the

Sackvilles. Clarendon lived in it a short time after the Restoration. At the bottom of Salisbury Court, facing the river, was the celebrated play-house, one of the earliest in which theatrical entertainments were resumed at that period. The first mention we find of it is in the following curious memorandum in the manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert, master of the revels to King Charles the First. "I committed Cromes, a broker in Longe Lane, the 16th of Febru. 1634, to the Marsalscy, for lending a church robe with the name of Jesus upon it to the players in Salisbury Court, to present a Flamen, a priest of the heathens. Upon his petition of submission, and acknowledgement of his fault, I released him, the 17 Febru. 1634." +

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

་་

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

It is a fact not generally known (none of his biographers seem to have known it) that Richardson, who was the son of a joiner, received what education he had (which was very little, and did not go beyond English), at Christ-Hospital § It may be wondered

* Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Reed's edition, 1782, vol. 1. p. 207.

↑ Malone in the Prolegomena to Shakspeare, as above, vol. iii. p. 287.

+ Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, &c., by Anna Letitia Barbauld, vol. i. p. 97.

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

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

At Fulham and Parson's Green (at which latter place he lived for the last five or six years), Richardson used to sit with his guests about him, in a parlour or summer-house, reading, or communicating his manuThe ladies made their rescripts as he wrote them.

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