was

ether,

he f his

with the composition of which Bolingbroke is said are deposited those last specimens of human strength found, on inquiry, that there are no grants of arms to have found Dryden in a state of emotion one or weakness, last wills and testaments, together with by the English Heralds, of any very high antiquity; morning, the whole night having been passed, agi- cases in which they have been contested. It was and that the most ancient which can be produced, tante deo, under the fever of inspiration.

these records that furnished us with accounts of the either in the original or in well authenticated copies, From Stationer's Hall once issued all the almanacks latest days of Milton (sec Bunhill Row ;) and that are of a date when the general use of seals of arms, that were published, with all the trash and supersti- set the readers of Shakspeare speculating why he circumscribed with the names and titles of the bearers, tiòn they kept alive. Francis Moore is still among should make no mention of his wife, except to leave was wearing away.” their “living dead men.” Francis must now be a her his "second best bed." They also perplexed for We learn from the same writer, that the value of posthumous old gentleman, of at least one hundred ever the question as to how he spelt his name, by “a painted shield of parchment” is fifty pounds. Of and forty years of age. The first blunder the writers leaving it doubtful whether he had not written it the spirit in which these things have been done, the of these books committed, in their cunning, was the three different ways in the signatures to one paper. reader may judge from a letter written by an applicant having to do with the state of the weather; their of the practisers in the civil courts we can call to to one of the most respectable names in the college next was to think that the grandmothers of the last mind nothing more worthy of recollection than the list. His object was to get the illegitimate coat of a century were as immortal as their title-pages, and strange name of one of them, Sir Julius Cæsar (see female friend of his, changed to one by which it was that nobody was getting wiser than themselves. Great St. Helens, Bishopsgate), and the ruinous to appear she was not illegitimate. He offers five The mysterious solemnity of their hieroglyphics, volatility of poor Dr. King, the Tory wit, who is con- pounds for it; and adds, that there is another friend bringing heaven and earth together like a vision in jectured to have been the only civilian that ever went of his, “an Alderman's son, in Chester, whose greatthe Apocalypse, was imposing to the nurse and the to reside in Ireland, “after having experienced the grandfather was baseborn, whom I have bine treating child; and the bashfulness of their bodily sympathies, emoluments of a settlement in Doctor's Commons.” with sev'all tymes about the alteration of his coat, no less attractive. We remember the astonishment The doctor unfortunately practised too much with the telling him for 10'i and not under, it may be accomof a worthy seaman, some years ago, at the claim bottle, which hindered him from adhering long to plished; five he is willing to give, but not above; if which they had put into the mouth of the sign Virgo. anything.

you please to accept of that sume, you may writt me The monopoly is now gone; almanacks have been Behind Little Knight Rider's Street, to the east of a line or two. I desire that you will send the scroll forced into improvement by emulation; and the Sta- Doctor's Commons, is the Herald's College. A gor- down again, as soon as you can.ts tioners (naturally enough at the moment) are angry geous idea of colours falls on the mind in passing it, The truth is, that except as far as their records go, about it. This fit of ill humour will pass; and a as from a cathedral window,

and as they can be turned to account in questions of body of men, interested by their very trade in the

kindred and inheritance, the heralds are of no im" And shielded scutcheons blush with blood of queens portance in modern times. Nor have they anything progress of liberal knowledge, will by and bye, join

and kings.”—Keats. the laugh at the tenderness they evinced in behalf of

to do with the spirit and first principles of the devices, old wives' fables. It is observable, that their friend

The passenger, if he is a reader conversant with old of which they assume the direction. We think it is Bickerstaff (Steele's assumed name in the Tatler) was times, thinks also of bannered halls, of processions of

worth notice, because heraldry itself, or at least the the first to begin the joke against them. chivalry, and of the fields of Cressy and Poictiers,

discussion of coats of arms, of which most people are Knight Riders Street (Great and Little) on the with their vizored knights, distinguished by their observed to be fonder than they choose to coniess, south side of St. Paul's Churchyard, is said to have coats and crests ; for a coat of arms is nothing but a

might be reconciled to the progress ? knowledge, or been named from the processions of Knights from the representation of the knight himself, from whom the made, at any rate, the grow of a pleasing and noi Tower, to their place of tournament in Smithfield. bearer is descended. The shield supposes his body; ungraceful novelty.

To a coat of arms, no man, It must have been a round-about way. Probably the there is the helmet for his head, with the crest upon litera'l, s jeaking, has pretensions, who is not the name originated in nothing more than a sign, or from it; the flourish is his mantle ; and he stands upon representative of somebody that bore arms in the old some reference to the Herald's College in the neigh- the ground of his motto, or moral pretension. The English wärs; but when the necessity for military bourhood. The open space, we may here notice, supporters, if he is noble, or of a particular claus úr irtue decreased, arms gave way to the gown; and around the western extremity of the Cathedral was knighthood, are thought to be the pages that waited shields had honourable, but fantastic augmentations, anciently used by the Citizens for assembling together upon him, designated by ine fantastic dresses of bear, for the peaceful triumphs of lawyers and statesmen. “to make shew of their arms," or to hold what was lion, &c., whićn they sometimes wore. Heraldry is

Meanwhile, commerce was on the increase, and there called among the Scotch “a weapon shaw."

A com

full of colour and imagery, and attracts the fancy like came up a new power in the shape of pounds, shilplaint was made by the Lord Mayor and the Ward in “ book of pictures." The Kings at Arms are lings and pence, which was to be represented also by the reign of Edward I. against the Dean and Chapter romantic personages, really crowned, and have as its coat of arms; how absurdly, need not be added; for having inclosed this ground, which they insisted

mystic appellations as the kings of an old tale,- though the individuals, who got their lions and their the soil and lay.fee of our lord the king,” by a Garter, Clarencieux, and Norroy. Norroy is King of shields behind the counter, were often excellent men, mud wall, and covered part of it with buildings.* the North, and Clarencieux (a title of Norman origin) who might have cut as great a figure in battle as the * The houses immediately to the west of Creed Lane

of the South. The heralds, Lancaster, Somerset, &c., best, had they lived in other times. At length, not and Ave Maria Lane probably occupy part of the have simpler names, indicative of the counties over to have a military coat was to be no gentleman; and space in question.

which they preside ; but are only less gorgeously then the heralds fairly sold achievements at so much Behind Great Knight Rider's Street, is Doctor's dressed than the kings, in emblazorment and satin;

the head. They received their fees, put on their specCommons, so called from the Doctors of Civil Law, and then there are the four pursuivants, Rouge tacles, turned over their books like an astrologer, who dine together four days in each term. The Croix, Rouge Dragon, Portcullis, and Blue Mantle, and found that you were deserving of a bear's paw, Court of Admiralty is also there. The Admiralty with hues as lively, and appellations as quaint, as the or might clap three puppies on your coach. judge is preceded by an officer with a silver oar.t attendants on a fairy court. For gorgeousness of greve,” says Swift, in one of his letters to Stella, There is something pleasing in the parade of a civil attire, mysteriousness of origin, and in fact for simi. gave me a Tatler he had written out, as blind as he officer, thus announced by a symbol representing the larity of origin (a knave being a squire), a knave of is, for little Harrison. ”Tis about a scoundrel that regulation of the most turbulent of elements.

cards is not unlike a herald. A story is told of an was grown rich, and went and bought a coat of arms The civil and ecclesiastical lawyers, who connect Irish King at Arms*, who, waiting upon the Bishop at the herald's, and a set of ancestors at Fleet Ditch." the law with the church, had formerly much more to of Killaloe to summon him to Parliament, and being And this is the case at present. Numbers of

persons do than they have at present. The proctors (or dressed, as the ceremony required, in his heraldic

do not, however, stand on this par attorneys) are said to have been so numerous and so

iemony with the attire, so mystified the bishop's servant with his ap

heralds. Many are cont.cot to receive their exploits noisy, in the time of Henry VII., that the judge pearance, that not knowing what to make of it, and at half-a-quinea the set, from pretenders who undersometimes could not be heard for them. They thrust carrying off but a confused notion of his title, he iake to " procure arms;" and many more assume themselves into causes without the parties' consent, announced him thus : “My lord, here is the King of the arms nearest to their name and family, or invent and shouldered the advocates out of their business. Trumps."

them at once; naturally enough concluding, that The diminution of their body was owing to Cranmer. Mr. Pennant says, that the Herald's College, “is they might as well achieve their own glories, as buy At present, no lawyers of their class are accounted a foundation of great antiquity, in which the records

them of an old gentleman or a pedlar. more respectable. It is a pity as much cannot be said are kept of all the old blood in the kingdom.” But

Now arms were not originally given; they were of the causes brought into this court. Doctor's this is a mistake. Heralds, indeed, are of great an

assumed. Men in battle, when armies fought pellCommons are of painful celebrity in the annals of tiquity, in the sense of messengers of peace and war;

mell, and bodily prowess was more in request than it domestic trouble. We have hardly perhaps among' but in the modern sense, they are no older than the is now, wished to have their persons distinguished; us a remnant of greater barbarism, than" an action reign of Edward III., and were not incorporated before and accordingly they put a device on their shield, or for damages," whether considered with a view to re- that of the usurper Richard. The house which they

some towering symbol on their helmet. This at once compense or prevention. But the question is one of formerly occupied was a mansion of the Earls of served to mark out the bearer, and to express the too great delicacy to be discussed in these pages. Derby. It was burnt in the Great Fire, and suc

particular sentiment or alliance, upon which he was Doctor's Commons bind, as well as set loose. “Hence ceeded by the present building, part of which was to be understood as priding himself. The real spirit originates,” says the facetious Mr. Malcolm, “the raised at the expense of some of their officers. As to

of heraldry consisted therefore, and must always awful scrap of parchment, bearing the talismanic mark their keeping records of "all the old blood in the consist, in distinguishing one person from another, of John Cantuar (the Archbishop of Canterbury), kingdom,” they may keep them, or not, as they have and in expressing his individual sentiments; and as which constitutes thousands of benedicts the happiest the luck to find them ; but the blood was old, before the 'adoption of some device is both an elegant exor most miserable of married men: in short, it is the they had anything to do with it. Men bore arms

ercise of the fancy, and acts as a kind of memento grand lottery of life, in which, fortunately, there are and crests, when there were no officers to register

to the conscience, tending to keep us to what we far more prizes than blanks."I The community them. This, as a writer in the Censura Literaria profess, people who have no certain arms of their ought to be thankful to Mr. Malcolm for this last observes, justly diminishes the pretension they set

own, or who do not care for them if they have, might piece of information, as there is a splenetic notion up, that no afms are of authority which have not not ungracefully, or even uselessly entertain theniamong them to the contrary.

been registered among their archives. “If this doc- selves, with doing, in their own persons, what the A history deeply interesting to human nature trine,” says he, “were just, the consequence would

old assumers of arms did in theirs; that is to say, might be drawn up from the documents preserved in be, that arms of comparatively modern invention are

invent their own distinctions. The emblazonment this place; for besides cases of personal infidelity, here of better authority than those which a man and his

might amuse their fancies, and be put in books, or are to be found others of infidelity religious, ot blas- ancestors have borne from times before the existence elsewhere, like other coats of arms; and a little difphemy, simony, &c., together with romantic ques- of the College of Arms, and for time immemorial, ference in the mode of it could easily set aside the tions relative to kindred and succession ; and here supported by the evidence of ancient seals, funeral pretensions of the heralds to interfere. People might monuments, and other authentic documents. Surely

thus express their views in life, or their particular this is grossly absurd; and the more absurd, if we

tastes and opinions; and the “science of heraldry,” death." Another friend of his, one of the lay vicars of the consider, that the heralds seem originally not to have

which has been so much laughed at, not always with cathedral, relates of bim, that a few weeks before the catas.

been instituted for the manufacturing of armorial justice, be made to accord with the progress of
trophe, Clarke had alighted from his horse in a sequestered spot
in the country, where there was a pond surrounded by trees, ensigns, but for the recording those ensigns, which had knowledge, -or, at all events, with the entertaining
and not knowing whether to hang or drown himself, tossed up been borne by men of honourable lineage, and which part of it.
a piece of money to see which. The money stuck in the earth
edgeways. Of this new chance for life, poor Clarke, we see,

might, therefore, be borne by their posterity. Perhaps
was unable to avail himself.
it would not be too much to presume, that it will be

• Censura Literaria, vol. ill. p. 254.

“ Con

"old

a

As to coats of arms really ancient, or connected "into three ogresses, or female cannibals, with a de- south side of the street, and extended back till it with old virtue, or with modern, we have already sign of stigmatising three ladies, his kinswomen, who almost joined a portion of the old London Wall, shewn, that we are far from pretending to despise had provoked him by an unjust lawsuit." A good which ran nearly parallel to Ludgate Hill. About anything which indulges the natural desire of mor- account of heraldry, its antiquities and its freaks, is the year 1764 this wall is described as being eight tality to extend or elevate its sense of existence. a desideratum, and would make a very amusing book.

feet and a half thick.* Bits of it (as before noticed) We have no respect for shields of no meaning, or for We move westward from St. Paul's, because, still remain in this neighbourhood. bearers of better shields, that disgrace them; but we though the metropolis abounds with interest in every At this gate a stop was put to the insurrection of do not profess to look without interest on very old part of it, yet the course this way is the most gene. Sir Thomas Wyatt against Queen Mary, at the time shields, if only for the sake of their antiquity, much rally known; and readers may choose to hear of the

when her marriage with Philip was in contemplation. less when they are associated with names,

most popular thoroughfares first. The origin of the Sir Thomas was son of the poet who had been friend Familiar in our mouths as household words. word Ludgate is not known. The old opinion re

of the Earl of Surrey, and a warm partisan of Anne specting King Lud has been rejected, and some think Bullen. He led his forces up the Strand and Fleet The lions of the Howards and Herberts affect us it is the same word as Flud or Fludgate, meaning the Street in no very hopeful condition, after suffering a more than those of Cuvier himself, especially when Gate on the Fleet, Floet, or Flood, F being dropt, as

loss in his rear; and on arriving at Ludgate, found it we recollect they were borne by great writers as well in leer for Fleer, Lloyd for Floyd, or Fluyd, &c. It shut against him, and strongly manned. The disapas warriors, men who advanced, not only themselves, may be so; but it is not easy to see, in that case, pointment is said to have affected him so strongly, but their species in dignity. The most interesting why Fleet Street should not have been called Lud that he threw himself on a bench opposite the Bellcoats of arms, next to those which unite antiquity Street. Perhaps the old tradition is right, and some Savage Inn, and mourned the rashness of his hopes. with genius, (that is to say, duration backward with ancient Lud, or Lloyd, was the builder of an He retired, only to find his retreat cut off at Temple duration and utility in prospect,) are such as become original” gate, whether king or not. Its successor

Bar, and being summoned by a herald to submit, reennobled by genius, or present us with some pleasing (which formerly crossed the street by St. Martin's quested it might be to a gentleman; upon which his device. Such is the spear of Shakspeare, whose church) was no older than the reign of King John. sword was received by a person of his own rank. ancestors are thought to have won it in Bosworth It was) rebuilt in 1586, and finally removed in 1760. He was beheaded. It is worth observing, that Mary field* ; the spread eagle of Milton,-a proper epic Pennant says, he remembered it “ a wretched prison alarmed at this insurrection, had pretended, in a device; the plant given to Linnæus for a device,

for debtors." The old chroniclers tells us a romantic speech at Guildhall, she would give up the marriage, when he was ennobled; the philosophical motto of story of a lord-mayor, Sir Stephen Forster, who en- provided it were seriously and properly objected to; the great Bacon, Mediocria firma (Mediocre things larged this prison, and added a chapel to it. He had but called upon the citizens to stand by her against firm, — the Golden Mean); the modest, yet self

been confined in it himself, and, begging at the grate, rebels. When the rebels, however, were put down, respecting one, first used, we believe, by Sir Philip

was asked by a rich widow, what sum would purchase the marriage, though notoriously unpopular, was Sidney, Vix ea nostra voco (I scarcely call these things his liberty. He said, twenty pounds. She paid itconcluded. one's own); and those other mottos taken from took him into her service, and afterwards became his The Belle-Savage is an inn of old standing. The fayourite classics, which argue more taste than an

wife. One of our old dramatists (Rowley), in laying name is now learnedly written over the front-Belle tiquity. We are not sorry, however, for mere an- a 'scene in this prison, has made use of the name Sauvage. The old sign was a bell with a savage by tiquity's sake, to recognize the ship of the Campbells;

of Stephen Forster in different manner; it. Stow derived the name from Isabella Savage, who the crowned heart (a beau:tiful device) of Douglas; and probably his story had a foundation in truth. had given the house to the company of Cutlers; and and even the chequers of the unfortunatę family of According to him, Stephen, who had been a profli- most likely this was the real origin; but as the inn the Stuarts. They tell us vi names and connexions, gate fellow, was relieved by the son of his brother, was formerly one of those in which plays were acted, and call to mind striking events in history. Indeeu

with whom he was at variance. Stephen afterwards and as the players had dealings with romance, and all ancient names naturally become associated with

beco!nes rich in his turn, and seeing his brother be sign painters varied their hieroglyphics according to history and poetry. The most interesting coat in

cond poor air: thrust into the same prison, forbids the whim of the moment, Pennant might have reaScottish heraldry, if we are to believe tradition, is

his nephew Rodeii, wlicm he had adopted on that sonably found one derivation in the Spectator, withthat of Hay, Earl of Errol; whose ancestors, a couple condition, to relieve his father. The nephew dis- out objecting to the other. A sight of the passage to of peasants, with their father, rallied an army of their obeys, and has the misfortune to incur the hatred of which he refers will leave the immediate derivation: countrymen in a narrow pass, and led them back both uncle and parent, for his connexion with either

beyond all doubt. “As for the Bell-Savage,” says victoriously against the Danes. Two peasants are the party, but ultimately finds his virtue acknowledged. Addison (for the paper is his)," which is the sign of supporters of the shield. But unquestionably the

The following scene is one of those in which these a Sayage Man standing by a Bell, I was formerly most interesting sight in the whole circle of heraldry, old writers, in their honest confidence in nature, go

very much puzzled upon the conceit of it, till I acciBritish or foreign, if we consider the rational popu

direct to the heart. The reader will see the style of dently fell into the reading of an old romance translarity of its origin, and the immense advance it records begging in those days. Robert Foster, who has been lated out of the French; which gives an account of in the progress of what is truly noble, is that of the cursed by his father, comes to Ludgate, and stands a very beautiful woman who was in a wilderness, and plain English motto assumed by Lord Erskine, Trial concealed outside the prison, while his father appears is called in the French la belle Sauvage; and is every by Jury. The devices of the Nelsons and Wellingabove at the grate, a box hanging down.”

where translated by our countrymen the Belltons, illustrious as they are, are nothing to this; for

Savage.”+ This was one of the inns at which the

Foster. Bread, bread, one penny to buy a loaf of the woriu might relapse into barbarism, as it has bread, for the tender mercy.

famous Tarlton used to perform. London has a done, notwithstanding the exploits of the greatest

modern look to the inhabitants; but persons who

Rob. O me my shame! I know that voice full warriors; but words like these are trophies of the

come from the country find as odd and remote-lookexperience of ages, and the world could not pass

ing things in it, as the Londoners do in York or I'll help thy wants, although thou curse me still.:** them, and go back again, for very shame. It is the

Chester; (He stands where he is unseen by his father. with corridors running round the yard. They are

and among these are a variety of old inns, fashion now-a-days to have painted windows; and a

Fos. Bread, bread, some Christian man send back very beautiful fashion it is, and extremely worthy of Your charity to a number of poor prisoners.

well worth a glance from anybody who has a respect : encouragement in this climate, where the general

for old times. The play used to be got up in the One penny for the tender mercy

yard, and the richer part of the spectators occupied absence of colours renders it desirable that they

(Robert puts in money. should be collected wherever they can, so as to in. The hand of heaven reward you, gentle sir !

the galleries." I crease a feeling of cheerfulness and warmth. When Neyer may you want, never feel misery;

The wall in which Lud-gate stood was the occasion

of the hill's having two names, which is still the case; the sun strikes through a painted window, it seeins Let blessings in unnumbered measure grow, as if Heaven itself were recommending to us the bril.

the upper part, between the Bell-Savage and St. And fall upon your head, where'er you go.

Paul's Churchyard being called Ludgate Street, and liance with which it has painted its flowers and its

Rob. Oh, happy comfort! curses to the ground

only the rest Ludgate Hill. This latter portion went skies. It is a pity we have no devices invented for

First struck me; now with blessings I am crowned. themselves by the great men of past times, otherwise

anciently by the name of Bowyers' Row, no doubt

Fos. Bread, bread, for the tender mercy, one what an illustrious window would they make ! We

from its being principally inhabited by persons of that penny for a loaf of bread.

trade. On Ludgate Hill lived the cobler whom should like to have presented the reader with such of

Rob. I'll buy more blessings : take thou all my Steele mentions as a curious instance of pride. He the escutcheons above-mentioned as have been created

store ; or modified in some respect by their ennoblers; and

had a wooden figure of a beau, who stood before him I'll keep no coin and see my father poor. to have shewn him how different the old parts now

Fos. Good angels guard you, sir, my prayers shall awl, or a bristle, or whatever else his employer chose

in a bending posture, humbly presenting him with his appear, with which the individuals had nothing to

be,

to put in his hand, after the manner of an obsequious do, coinpared with those of their own achievement, That heaven may bless you for this charity.

servant. Steele seems to have thought the man mad; or adoption, even when nothing better than a motto.

Rob. If he knew me sure he would not say so: otherwise the conceit would have been an agreeable Sir Phillip's motto almost rejects his coat.t If all

Yet I have comfort, if by any means persons, ambitious of good conduct and opinions, I get a blessing from my father's hands.†

one. Ludgate Street, as if to keep up and augment

the didactic reputation of the neighbourhood, is now were to adopt our suggestion, and assume a device of their own, windows of this kind might abound The prison of Ludgate was anciently considered to

the head-quarters of the Society for the Diffusion of be not so much a place of confinement as a place of

Knowledge, at least as far as regards their publicaamong friends; and many of them would become as refuge, into which debtors threw themselves to

tions. And curiously enough, the house is next. interesting to posterity, as such “coats of arms" escape from their creditors—"a keep, not so much

door to old "Newberry's.” would, above all others, deserve to be.

Between Ludgate Hill and the Thames, in the disThe most eminent names in the Herald's College of the wicked as of the wretched," -- (“non scleraare Camden, the great antiquary; Dugdale (whose torum carcer, sed miserorum custodia”), as it is ex

trict more properly retaining the name, was the merits, however, are questionable); King, a writer on

pressed in a Latin speech which was addressed by the monastery of the Black Friars, an order of Dominipolitical arithmetic; and Vanbrugh, the comic writer,

inmates to King Philip of Spain, when he passed who wore a tabard for a short time, as Clarencieux. through the city in 1554, and which the celebrated

* Malcolm, Londinium Redivivum iv. 367. Gibbon had an ancestor, a herald, who took great Roger Ascham was employed to compose. As it does

+ Spectator, vol. i. No. 28. interest in the profession.' He had another

not appear however that the persons who took up # Malone, in his Historical Account of the English Stage,

their abode here were allowed to come out again progenitor, who about the reign of James the First,

has an ingenious parallel between these inn-theatres and the until they had discharged their debts, the distinction

construction of the modern ones. “Many of our ancient dra. changed the scallop shells of the historian's coat, attempted to be drawn seems, to be a somewhat

matick pieces," he observes, “ were performed in the yards of

carriers inns, in which, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's shadowy one. A writer, nevertheless, quoted by reign, the comedians, who then first united themselves in com* Another opinion, however, is that the spear had been given Maitland, who in 1659 published a description of panies, erected an occasional stage. The form of these temto one of his ancestors as having been a magistrate of some the house, in which he had himself been for a long

porary play-houses seems to be preserved in our modern description. This supposition seems to be supported by the

The galleries in both are ranged over each otker on grant of arms to John Shakspeare in 1599, which has been printed time a resident, expresses warm indignation against three sides of the building. The small rooms under the lowest by Mr. Malcolm.

the authorities for having “basely and injuriously of these galleries answer to our present boxes ; and it is ob# Vix ea nostra roco-(as above translated.) The effect is caused to be taken down" the old inscription affixed

Servable, that these, even in theatres which were built in a stronger, if the whole passage is called to mind. It is in Ovid; by Sir Stephen Forster, of Free Water and Lodging,

subsequent period expressly for dramatick exhibitions, still

retained their old name, and were frequently called rooms by Nam genus et pronvos, et quæ non fecimus ipsi,

"and set up another over the outward street door our ancient writers. The yard bears à sufficient resemblance Vix ea nostra voco.-Metamor. lib. 13, v. 140. with only these words engraven; This is the PRISON

to the pit, as at present in use. We may suppose the stage to For birth, and rank, and what our own good powers of LUDGATE."| The prison of Ludgate stood on the

have been raised in this arena, on the fourth side, with its Have earned us not, I scarcely call them ours.

back to the gateway of the inn, at which the money for ad. Life of Gibbon, in the Autobiography, vol. I. p.

mission was taken. Thus, in éne weather, a play-house bot Ovid, himself a man of birth, puts this sentiment in the mouth + Lamb's Specimens of English Dramatic Poets, p. 147.

incommodious, might have been formed.” Reed's Edition of 4 Ulysses, & king. But then he was a king whose talents

Johnson and Steevens's Shakspeare, vol. iii. p. 73. ere above his royalty,

Maitland, 1.28.

Tatler, No. 127.

well ;

theatre.

cans, in which parliaments were sometimes held. well, now well known as a house of industry and cor- reader who is curious upon such matters may consult
The Emperor Charles V. was lodged in it when he rection. In ancient times the king used frequently Stow, or those who have copied him, for an account
visited Henry VIII. in 1522; and in a hall of the to reside here—and when such was the case the of the rights, services, and ceremonial customs apper-
same building seven years after, the cause was tried courts of law sometimes attended him. The building taining to that dignity. The punishment of a person
between Henry and his Queen Catherine. Shaks- having fallen into decay, was restored about the year found guilty of treason within the banneret's jurisdic-
peare has given us the opening scene. In Elizabeth's 1522, by Henry VIII.--and here the attendants of the tion is worth noticing: he was to be tied to a post in
time, the desecrated tenements and neighbourhood of Emperor Charles V. were lodged while he himself the Thames at one of the wharfs, and left there for
Blackfriars became the resort of the world of fashion, occupied the Blackfriars, a communication being two ebbings and two flowings of the tide. After this,
-a court end of the city; and close at hand, most formed between the two palaces by a gallery carried there was certainly little chance of his committing
probably on the spot retaining the name of Play-house over the Fleet ditch, and through the old city wall. any more treason.
Yard, was the famous Theatre in Blackfriars, where Both Henry and Catherine, also, were lodged here It is not known how Baynard's Castle, and the
Shakspeare's, Ben Jonson's, and Beaumont and while the cause between them, was proceeding at privileges belonging to the lordship, got out of the
Fletcher's plays were performed, and where many of Blackfriars. In 1553 Edward VI. granted this palace, hands of this family; but in 1428, in the reign of
them came out. It was what they called at that on the solicitation of Bishop Ridley, for the purposes Henry the Sixth, the building having been burned
time a “private" theatre, the peculiarity of which is to which it has been since applied; an act of bene- down, is stated to have been restored by Humphrey,
not exactly understood. All that is known of it is, volence which was recorded, with more precision Duke of Gloucester. After the duke's death it came
that it was smaller than the public ones; but it was than elegance, in the following lines under a portrait once more into the possession of the crown; and here
open to public admission. Perhaps a private theatre of his majesty that used to hang near the pulpit in it was that the great council assembled in the begin-
meant a theatre more select than the others, and the old chapel :

ning of March, 1461, which proclaimed the Earl of frequented by politer company; for such, at all

March king by the title of Edward IV. It was here

“This Edward of fair memory the sixth, events, the present one appears to have been. It is

also, twenty-two years after, that the solemn farce conjectured also to have been a winter theatre, and

In whom with greatness, goodness was commixt,

was enacted in which Richard III. assumed the royal Gave this Bridewell, a Palace in old times,

The its performances took place by candle-light.

dignity on the invitation of Buckingham and in obegallants and ladies of the courts of Elizabeth and For a chastising house of vagrant crimes.”

dience to the pretended wishes of the citizens. ShakJames took their dinner at noon, and after riding or Bridewell having been burnt down in the great fire

speare has given this scene with an exact conformity, lute-playing till evening, went to their snug little was rebuilt immediately after that calamity-and it

in all the matters of fact, to the narratives of the old theatre in the neighbourhood, to laugh or weep over has since been frequently repaired and partially reno

chroniclers, the crafty Protector, it will be rememthe divine fancies of Shakspeare. Shakspeare him. vated. Henry the Eighth, (“sturdy rogue !")

bered, being made to present himself in the gallery self must often have been on the spot; a certainty, would have been a fit personage to lodge into it above, supported by a bishop on each side, while which an intellectual inhabitant will be glad to possess, still though under somewhat different circumstances.

Buckingham, the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and the The theatre, at one time, was partly his property.

One of the steep and gloomy descents from Thames

Citizens, occupy the court of the castle below. Bay-
A part of the monastery of the Blackfriars was,
Street still preserves the name of Castle Street, and

nard's Castle was once more rebuilt in 1487, by in 1623, the scene of a frightful accident, which

immediately to the west of this stood in ancient times, Henry VII. with a view to its answering better the made a great noise at the time. Mr. Malcolm has on the banks of the river, a large building called Bay

purpose of a royal palace; and the king occasionally enumerated several of the publications recording nard's Castle. Baynard,' by whom it was originally

lodged there. Some time after this we find the it; and from these it appears, that on Sunday, erected in the eleventh century, was one of the Con- place in possession of the Earls of Pembroke, who the 5th of November in that year, a congregation of queror's Norman followers. His descendant, William

made it their common residence; and it was here that about three hundred individuals had assembled in a Baynard, however, soon after the commencement of

the Earl of that name, on the 19th of July, 1553, small gallery over the gateway of the lodgings of the the next century, forfeited his inheritance to the

about a fortnight after the death of Edward VI., French Ambassador in this building, in order to hear crown, by which it was bestowed upon the family of

assembled the council of the nobility and clergy at a sermon from a Jesuit named Father Drury, who Clare. The representative of this family, and the

which the determination was taken, on the motion of enjoyed considerable reputation as a popular preacher. possessor of Baynard's Castle, in the reign of King

Lord Arundel, to abandon the cause of Lady Jane Under the floor of the chamber where they were as

John, was the Baron Robert Fitzwalter, a portion of Grey, and to proclaim Queen Mary, which accordingly sembled was an empty apartment, and under that whose history, as related by some of our old chroni

was instantly done in different parts of the city. another, making together a height of twenty-two clers, gives an interest to the spot. Among the

This is supposed to have been the building which was feet from the ground, and the floor itself, as it after

beauties of the time, one of the fairest was Matilda, destroyed in the great fire of 1666. ' It is represented wards turned out, was mainly supported by a single the daughter of Fitzwalter. The licentious monarch,

in an old print of London as a square pile surroundbeam, which in the centre was not more than three

ing a court, and surmounted with numerous towers. who may probably have seen her at some high festival inches thick. The people had been in their seats held in this very castle, was smitten, after his fashion,

A large gateway in the middle of the south side led for about half-an-hour, when this beam suddenly by her charms; but his suit was rejected with indig

to the river by a bridge of two arches and stairs. This gave way, and the whole of them were instantly nation both by herself and her father. His “love"

ancient fortress was never rebuilt after the fire; and precipitated, mixed with the timber, plaster, and now turned into hatred and thirst of revenge; he soon

its site has been since occupied by wharss, timberrubbish of the floors, into the vacant depth below. after resorted to open force, and having first driven

yards, workshops, and common dwelling-houses. Drury and another priest, named Redgate, were both Fitzwalter to seek refuge in France, easily got the

The ward, however, in which it was situated, and killed, as were also a Lady Webbe, and the daughter unhappy girl into his custody, and, if we are to believe

which embraces also St. Paul's Churchyard, and of a Lady Blackstone, together with, it is supposed, the story, despatched her by poison. He at the same

nearly all the localities we have as yet noticed, still between ninety and a hundred persons. Many more

retains the name of the Ward of Baynard's Castle. time ordered Castle Baynard to be demolished. The were seriously injured. "Several people,” says Mr. next year the armies of the English and French kings

Upon Paul's Wharf Hill, to the north east of Malcolm, “escaped in a very extraordinary manner, lay encamped during a truce on the opposite sides of

Baynard's Castle, were a number of houses within particularly Mrs. Lucy Penruddock, who was prea river in France, when an English knight, impacient,

a great gate, which are said by Maitland to have served by a chair falling hollow over her; and a as it would seem, of the bloodless inactivity that pre

been designated in their leases granted by the Dean young man, who lay on the floor, overwhelmed by vailed, thought fit to challenge any one of the enemy

and Chapter as the Camera Diana', or Diana's Champeople and rubbish, yet untouched by them, through who chose to come forth and break a lance with him.

ber, and to have been so denominated from a spa. the resting of fragments on each other, and thus It was not long before a champion appeared making cious building in the form of a labyrinth conleaving a space round him. In this horrible situation his way across the water, who, unattended as he was,

structed here by Henry II. for the concealment of he had the presence of mind to force his way through had no sooner reached the land than he mounted a

the fair Rosamond Clifford. We need scarcely say

that this tradition has all the air of a fable. The a piece of the ceiling, and he shortly after had the in

horse and rode up to meet his challenger. The duel describable happiness of assisting in the liberation of took place in the sight of King John and his troops,

author we have just named, however, assures us that others." There were many persons, it would apbut it did not last long; for both the English knight

for a long time there remained some evident testifipear, foolish and wickerl enough to represent this and his horse were thrown to the ground by the first

cations of tedious turnings and windings, as also of a calamity as a token of the displeasure of heaven thrust of his antagonist's spear, which was also

passage under ground from his house to Castle Bayagainst the Roman Catholic faith ; and the pamphlets broken to shivers in the shock. “By God's troth,”

nard ; which was no doubt the King's way from noticed by Mr. Malcolm, are some of those that were exclaimed John, as he beheld this heroic exploit, "he

thence to the Camera Diana, or* the chamber of his published by the parties in a violent controversy were a king indeed who had 'such a knight.", The

' brightest Diana." What the “

testifications" in which raged for some time on the subject. The day words were caught by some of the byestanders, who question may really have amounted to we cannot on which this accident happened was long popularly had observed more narrowly than the monarch the pretend to say; but Diana, not being a family name, remembered under the name of the Fatal Vespers, figure of the unknown victor, and who suspected him

as in the case of another royal favourite, Diana and the circumstance that it was also the anniversary to be no other than their old acquaintance the Baron

of Poitiers, seems a strange one to have been given of the Gunpowder Plot, was not forgotten by the Fitzwalter. It was in fact no other. The next day,

to the lady already christened by so poetical an apjudgment-mongers. Most of the bodies of those

the praise which the king had bestowed upon his pellation as Rosamond, and so different in her rewho were killed on this occasion, were buried with.

prowess being reported to him, he returned to the putation from the chaste goddess. We should, for out either the ceremony of a funeral service, or the

English camp, and throwing himself at the feet of his our parts, rather suppose that the Dean and Chapter decency of a coffin or a winding-sheet, in two large sovereign, was re-admitted to favour and restored to

had been moved to call the place Diana's Chamber pits or trenches, dug, the one in the court before, all his former possessions and honours. We may by some tradition, or a conceit of their own, conand the other in the garden behind the house in observe, however, that this narrative is scarcely de- necting it with the temple of that goddess, said which the accident had taken place. tailed with sufficient precision to entitle it to be re

to have formerly stood on the site of the neighPrinting-house Square, close to Playhouse-yard, ceived as a piece of authentic history, and that bouring cathedral; or, if the name was really a marks out the site of the ancient King's Printing- especially it does not seem to be very easy to recon

very ancient one, and in popular use, it may perHouse, whence bibles, prayer-books, and proclama

cile some parts of it as commonly given with the haps be taken as lending some slight confirmation tions were issued. It was rebuilt in the middle of ascertained dates and course of the events of King

to the notion of the actual existence of that heathen the last century, and became, according to Maitland, John's reign. This Robert Fitzwalter is placed by edifice, and may “help," as lago phrases it, “to “the completest printing-house in the world.” The Matthew Paris at the head of his list of the Barons,

thicken other proofs, that also demonstrate thinly." king's printer now lives elsewhere; but in the same who, in 1215, came armed in a body to the King at

Inigo Jones, by the bye, is said by Lord Orford, to be spot is a house, which may be called the world's the Temple, and made those demands which led to

buried in the church of St. Bennet, Paul's Wharf, printing-house

, seeing the enormous multitude of the concession of the Great Charter at Runnymede. which stands immediately to the south of the spot newspapers which the mighty giant of steam daily Indeed in the short military contest which preceded

where we now are, at the corner formed by the throws forth out of his iron lap, full of interest to all the King's submission, Fitzwalter was appointed by

meeting of Thames Street and St. Bennet's Hill. quarters of the globe. We allude to the Times newshis brother barons the commander-in-chief of their

Another building which formerly existed in this paper. There is no knowing, in this and other in

forces, and dignified in that capacity with the title of neighbourhood, was the Royal Wardrobe. It occu. stances, what bounds to put to human expectation, Marshal of the Army of God and of Holy Church.

pied the site of the present Wardrobe Court, immedi. when mechanical and intellectual force are thus On his return to England he is said to have rebuilt or ately to the north of the church of St. Andrews joined in a common object.

repaired his castle in London which the King had and gave to the parish the name of St. Andrew's On the other side of the way in Bridge Street, thrown down, and the edifice continued for a long Wardrobe, by which it is still known. This building stood and stands now, though hidden by the new time to be the principal fortress within the city. The

was erected about the middle of the 14th century, houses, and much altered, the former palace of Bride- family of Fitzwalter in consequence of their possession by Sir John Beauchamp, Knight of the Garter, a son

of Baynard Castle held the office of Chastilians and * Londinium Redivivum, ii. 375.

Bannerets, or Banner-bearers, of London,--and the • History of London, 11. 880.

of Guido Earl of Warwick, by whose heirs it was those who chose to pay them for it.”* The neigh- out the greater. Roger North has left us a lively sold to Edward III. Mr. Malcolm has printed some bourhood at length complained; and the abuse was account of one of these processions, in his Examen. extracts from the Manuscript Account Book, since put an end to by the marriage act, to which it gave It took place towards the close of the reign of preserved in the Harleian collection, of a keeper of rise.

Charles the Second, when just fears were enter. this Wardrobe, from the middle of April to Michael. Ludgate and Fleet ditch are among the scenes of tained of his successor's design to bring in Popery. mas, 1481, (towards the close of the reign of Edward the Dunciad. it is near Bridewell, on the site of the The day of the ceremony was the birth-day of Queen IV.) which are interesting and valuable as memo- modern Bridge Street, that the venal and scurrilous Elizabeth, the 17th March, rials, both of the prices and of the fashions of that heroes of that poem emulate one another, at the call

“When we had posted ourselves,” says North, time. During the period, of less than six months, over of Dullness, in seeing who can plunge deepest into “at windows, expecting the play to begin" (he had wbich the accounts extend, the sum of £1174.5s. 2d. the mud and dirt.

taken his stand in the Green Dragon Tavern), “it appears to have been received by the keeper, for the

was very dark; but we could perceive the street to use of his office. Of this the most considerable por"This labour past, hy Bridewell all descend,

fill, and the hum of the crowd grew louder and tion seems to have been expended in the purchase of (As morning prayer and flagellation end*)

louder; and at length, with help of some lights velvets and silks from Montpellier. The velvets cost

To where Fleet ditch, with disemboguing streams, below, we could discern, not only upwards towards from 8s, to 163. per yard; black cloths of gold 40s. ;

Rolls the large tribute of dead dogs to Thames ; the bar, where the squib-war was maintained, but what is called velvet upon velvet, the same; damask

The king of dykes! than whom no sluice of mud downwards towards Fleet Bridge, the whole street 8s.; satins 6s., 103., and 12s.; camlets 30s. a piece ;

With deeper sable blots the silver flood.

was crowded with people, which made that which and sarcenets from 43. to 4s. 2d. Feather beds, with Here strip, my children! here at once leap in; followed seem very strange; for, about eight at bolsters, “for our sovereign lord the king,” are

Here prove who best can dash through thick and night, we heard a din from below, which came up the charged 16s. 8d. each. A pair of shoes of Spanish

thin;

street, continually increasing, till we could perceive leather, double soled, and not lined, cost sixteen

And who the most in love of dirt excel,

a motion; and that was a row of stout fellows, that pence; a pair of black leather boots 6s. 8d.; hats, a And dark dexterity of groping well.”+

came, shouldered together, cross the street, from wall shilling a piece ; and ostrich feathers, each 10s.

to wall, on each side. How the people melted away, This part of the games being over, The keeper's salary appears to have been £100. per

I cannot tell; but it was plain those fellows made annum--that of his clerk, a shilling a day; and the 'Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known clear board, as if they had swept the street for what wages of the tailors sixpence a day each. The king

Fleet,

was to come after. They went along like a wave; sometimes lodged at the wardrobe; on one of which Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street ; and it was wonderful to see how the crowd made occasions the washing of the sheets which had been

Till showers of sermons, characters, essays,

way: I suppose the good people were willing to give used, is charged at the rate of three-pence a pair.

In circling fences whiten all the ways:

obedience to lawful authority. Behind this wave Candles cost a penny a pound. All the money dis- So clouds replenished from some bog below,

(which, as all the rest, had many lights attending), bursed by the keeper of the wardrobe, however, was

Mount in dark volumes, and descend in snow." there was a vacancy, but it filled a-pace, till another not expended in decorating the persons of his majesty The "well-known Fleet” is the prison just mentioned,

like wave came up; and so four or five of these waves and the royal household. Among other items we

the side of which appears to have been visible at that passed, one after another; and then we discerned find 20s. paid to Piers Bauduyn (or, Peter Baldwin, time in Ludgate-hill, and where it was a joke (too

more numerous lights, and throats were opened as we should now call him), stationer, " for binding,

with hoarse and tremendous noise; and with that often founded in truth) to suppose authors ingilding, and dressing, of a book called Titus Livius;"

advanced a pageant, borne along above the heads of carcerated. for performing the same offices to a Bible, a Froisard,

the crowd, and upon it sat an huge Pope, in pontia Holy Trinity, and the Government of Kings and ' Few sons of Phæbus in the courts we meet ; ficalibus, in his chair, with a seasonable attendance Princes, 16s. each; for three small French books, But fifty sons of Phæbus in the Fleet,"

for state ; but his premier minister, that shared most 6s. 8d.; for the Fortress of Faith, and Josephus, says a prologue of Sheridan's.

of his ear, was Il Signior Diavolo, a nimble little

The Fleet having 3s. 4d.; and for what is designated “the Bible Hisrules," like the King's Bench, authors were found fellow, in a proper dress

, that had a strange dexterity torical,” 20s. So that in those days, we see, the in the neighbourhood also. Arthur Murphy, pro

in climbing and winding about the chair, from one of binding a book was conceived to be a putting of it voked by the attacks of Churchill and Lloyd, describes

the Pope's ears to the other. into breeches, and the artist employed for that purthem as among the poor hacks,

" The next pageant was a parcel of Jesuits; and pose looked upon as a sort of literary tailor.

after that (for there was always a decent space How impossible it would now be, in a neighbour- “On Ludgate hill who bloody murders write, between them) came another, with some ordinary hood like this, for such nuisances to exist, as a fetid Or pass in Fleet Street supperless the night.” persons with halters, as I took it, about their public ditch, and the scouts of degraded clergymen

necks; and one, with a stenterophonic tube, sounded, Booksellers' shops were then common as now in Fleet asking people to “walk in and be married !" Yet

· Abhorrers ! Abhorrers ! most infernally; and, lastly, such was the case a century ago.

At the bottom of Paul's Churchyard.
Street and the Strand, in Paternoster Row and Saint
This is pleasant to think of; for

came one, with a single person upon it, which, some Ludgate Hill the little river Fleet formerly ran, and

change is not desirable without improvement. One said, was the pamphleteer, Sir Roger L'Estrange, was rendered navigable. In Fleet market is Sea-coal

some the King of France, some the Duke of York; feels gratified, where difference is not demanded of Lane, so called from the barges that landed coal

us, in being able to have the same association of ideas but, certainly, it was a very complaisant, civil gen. there; and Turn-again Lane, at the bottom of which with such men as Pope and Dryden, even if it be upon body pleased to have him; and taking all in good

tleman, like the former, that was doing what every the unadvised passenger found himself compelled by

no higher ground than the quantity of books in the water to retrace his steps. The water gradually Paternoster Row, or that Ludgate Hill still leads into part, went on his way to the fire.”—The description got clogged and foul; and the channel was built over,

concludes with a brief mention of burning the effiFleet Street. and made a street, as we have noticed in our intro.

gies, which, on these occasions, appear to have been duction. But even in the time we speak of, this had

of pasteboard. * not been entirely done. The ditch was open from

One of the great figuiers in this ceremony was Fleet Market to the river, occupying the site of the

the doleful image of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a

CHAPTER III. modern Bridge Street ; and in the market, before the

magistrate supposed to have been killed by the door of the Fleet prison, men plied in behalf of a

papists during the question of the Plot. Dryden clergyman, literally inviting people to walk in and be

has a fine contemptuous couplet upon it, in one of married. They performed the ceremony inside the

CONTENTS:

his prologues :prison, to sailors and others, for what they could

Burning of the Pope.-St. Bride's sleeple.--Milton.

“Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise, get. It was the most squalid of Gretnas, bearding --Iluminated clock.—Melancholy end of Lovelace, the

Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes." the decency and common sense of a whole metropo.

cavalier. --Chatterton.-Generosity of Hardham, of lis. The parties retired to a gin-shop to treat the snuf celebrity.— Theatre in Dorset Garden.—Richard.

We will begin with the left side, as we are there clergyman, and there, and in similar houses, the re. son, his habits and character.-White-friars, or Alsatia.

already; and first let us express our thanks for the gister was kept of the marriages. Not far from the --Admirable living description of its old state from Sir

neat opening by which St. Bride's church has been Fleet is Newgate; so that the victims had their suc.

Walter Scott.--The Temple.-Its monuments, garden, rendered an ornament to this populous thoroughfare. cession of nooses prepared, in case, as no doubt it

&c.-Eminent names connected with it.-Goldsmith The steeple is one of the most beautiful of Wren's often happened, one tie should be followed by the dies there.—Boswell's first visit there to Johnson.

productions, though diminished in consequence of others. Pennant speaks of this nuisance from perJohnson and Madame de Boufflers.--Bernard Lintot.

its having been found to be too severely tried by the sonal knowledge. In walking along the streets in Ben Jonson's Devil Tavern.-Other Coffee-houses and

wind. But a beam now comes out of this opening my youth,” he tells us, “ on the side next this prison; shops. — Goldsmith and Temple-bar. - Shire Lane,

as we pass the street, better even than that of the I have often been tempted by the question, Sir, will

Bickerstaff, and the deputation from the country.—The illuminated clock at night time; for there, in a lodgyou be pleased to walk in and be married ? Along this Kit Kat Club.-Mrs. Salmon.— Israc Walton.- Couley.

ing in the churchyard, lived Milton, at the time that most lawless space was frequently hung up the sign -Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford and Ben Jonson.

he undertook the education of his sister's children. of a male and female hand conjoined, with Marriages Serjeant's Inn.-Clifford's Inn.- The Rolls.—Sir Joseph performed within, written beneath. A dirty fellow Jekyll.—Church of St. Dunstan in the IVest.—Dryden's have rendered his young scholars in the course of a

He was then young and unmarried. He is said to invited you in. The parson was seen walking before

house in Fetter Lane.-Johnson, the Genius Loci of year, able to read Latin at sight, though they were his shop'; a squalid, profligate figure, clad in a Fleet Street.-His way of life.-His residence in Gough

but nine and ten years of age. As to the clock, which tattered plaid night-gown, with a fiery face, and Square, Johnson's Court, and Bolt Court.–Various

serves to remind the jovial that they ought to be ready to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of to.

anecdotes of him connected with Fleet Street, and with bacco. Our great chancellor, Lord Hardwick, put his favourite tavern, the Mitre.

at home, we are loth to object to any thing useful;

and in fact we admit its pretensions; and yet, as these demons to flight, and saved thousands from the misery and disgrace which would be entailed by these We are now in Fleet Street, and pleasant memories there is a time for all things, there would seem to be

thicken upon us.
To the left is the renowned realm

a time for time itself; and we doubt whether those extemporary thoughtless unions." * This extraordinary disgrace to the city, which of Alsatia, the Temple, the Mitre, and the abode of who do not care to ascertain the hour beforehand,

will derive much benefit from this glaring piece of arose most likely from the permission to marry pri. Richardson : to the right, divers abodes of Johnson ;

advice. soners, and one great secret of which was the advan- Chancery Lane, with Cowley's birth-place at the tage taken of it by wretched women to get rid of corner; Fetter Lane, where Dryden once lived ; and “At the west end of St. Bride's church,” accordtheir debts, was maintained hy a collusion between Shire or Sheer Lane, immortal for the Tatler.

ing to Wood, was buried Richard Lovelace, Esq., the warden of the Fleet and the disreputable clergy- Fleet Street was, for a good period, perhaps for a

one of the most elegant of the cavaliers of Charles men he became acquainted with. “To such an ex- longer one than can now be ascertained, the great

the First, and author of the exquisite ballad begin

ning, tent,” says Malcolm, were the proceedings carried, place for shows and spectacles. Wild beasts, monthat twenty and thirty couple were joined in one day, sters, and other marvels, used to be exhibited there,

When Love with unconfined wings, at from ten to twenty shillings each;" and "between as the wax-work is now; and here took place the

Hovers within my gates, the 19th Oct. 1704, and the 12th Feb. 1705, 2,954 famous ceremony of burning the Pope, with its long

And my divine Althea brings marriages were celebrated (by evidence), besides procession, and bigoted anti-bigotries. However, the

To whisper at my grates ; others known to have been omitted. To these lesser bigotry was useful, at that time, in keeping neither license nor certificate of banns were required, and they concealed by private marks the names of • The whipping of the criminals in Bridewell took place

See Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. X. p. 872. after the church service.

“ Abhorrers," were addressers on the side of the court, who

had avowed'"abhorrence of the proceedings of the Whigs. • Page 233. † Dunciad, book il. v. 269.

The word was a capital one to sound through a trumpet.

FLEET

STREET.

66

When I lie tangled in her hair,

delicate manner. On account of his known integrity how he could come no better taught from a school, And fettered in her eye,

(for he once failed in business, more creditably than which had sent forth so many good scholars; but in The birds that wanton in the air,

he could have made a fortune by it), he was often his time, and indeed till very lately, that foundation Know no such liberty.

entrusted with the care of paying little annual sti. was divided into several schools, none of which par

pends to unfortunate women, and others who were took of the lessons of the others; and Richardson, Stone walls do not a prison make,

in equal want of relief; and he has been known, with agreeably to his father's intention of bringing him up Nor iron bars a cage,

a generosity almost unexampled, to continue these to trade, was most probably confined to the writingMinds innocent and quiet take

annuities, long after the sources of them had been school, where all that was taught was writing and That for an hermitage.

stopped by the deaths or caprices of the persons who arithmetic. It was most likely here that he intimated

at first supplied them. At the same time he per- his future career, first by writing a letter, at eleven This accomplished man, who is said by Wood to

suaded the receivers that their money was remitted years of age, to a censorious woman of fifty, who have been in his youth "the most amiable and beau

to then as usual, through its former channel. Indeed pretended a zeal for religion; and afterwards, at thirtiful person that eye ever beheid,” and who was

his purse was never shut even to those who were teen, by composing love-letters to their sweethearts lamented by Charles Cotton as an epitome of manly

casually recommended by his common acquaintance." for three young women in the neighbourhood, who virtue, died at a poor lodging in Gunpowder Alley,

Mr. Hardham died inl 772; and by his will be- made him their confidant. To these and others he
near Shoe Lane, an object of charity.* He had been
imprisoned by the Parliament and lived during his. queathed the interest of £20,000 to a female acquaint- also used to read books, their mothers being of the

ance, and at her decease the principal, &c., to the
imprisonment beyond his income. Wood thinks that
poor of his native city, Chichester.

party; and they encouraged him to make remarks ; he did so in order to support the royal cause, and

Returning over the way we come to Dorset Street, which is exactly the sort of life he led with Mrs. out of generosity to deserving men, and to his bro

and Salisbury Court, names originating in a palace of Chapone, Miss Fielding, and others, when in the thers. He then went into the service of the French

the Bishop of Salisbury, which he parted with to the height of his celebrity. king, returned to England, after being wounded, and Sackvilles: Clarendon lived in it a short time after

“One of the young women,” was again committed to prison, where he remained the Restoration. At the bottom of Salisbury Court,

he informs us, "highly gratified with her lover's fertill the king's death, when he was set at liberty facing the river, was the celebrated play-house, one vour, and vows of everlasting love, has said, when I “ Having then,” says his biographer, "consumed all

of the earliest in which theatrical entertainments have asked her direction, 'I cannot tell you what to his estate, he grew very melancholy, (which brought

were resumed at that period. The first mention we him at length into a consumption), became very poor

write, but (her heart on her lips) you cannot write find of it is in the following curious memorandum in body and purse, and was the object of charity. in the manuscript book of Sir Henry Herbert, master

too kindly;' all her fear was only that she should went in ragged clothes, (whereas, when he was in of the revels to King Charles the First. “I com- incur a slight for her kindness."

This passage, his glory, he wore cloth of gold and silver,) and

mitted Cromes, a broker in Longe Lane, the 16th of with its pretty breathless parenthesis, is in the style mostly lodged in obscure and dirty places, more be

Febru. 1634, to the Marsalsey, for lending a church fitting the worst of beggars than poorest of servants,

of his books. If the writers among his female coterie robe with the name of Jesus upon it to the players &c."'fi “Geo. Petty, haberdasher in Fleet street," in Salisbury Court, to present a Flamen, a priest of

in after-life owed their inspiration to him, he only says Aubrey, “ carried 20 shillings to him every

the heathens. Upon his petition of submission, and returned to them what they had done for himself. Monday Morning from Sir .

Many, and
acknowledgement of his fault, I released him, the 17

Women seem to have been always about him, both
Charles Cotton, Esq., for

months : but
Febru. 1634.” 7

in town and country; which made Mrs. Barbauld say, was never repaid.” As if it was their intention he

It is not certain, however, whether the old theatre
should be ! Poor Cotton, in the excess of his relish
in Salisbury Court, and that in Dorset Garden, were

very agreeably, that he “lived in a kind of flowerof life, lived himself to be in want; perhaps wanted

one and the same; though they are conjectured to garden of ladies.” This has been grudged him, and the ten shillings that he sent. The mistress of

have been so. The names of both places seem to thought effeminate; but we must make allowance Lovelace is reported to have married another man,

have been indiscriminately applied. However this supposing him to have died of his wounds in France.

for early circumstances, and recollect what the gar. may be, the house became famous under the DavePerhaps this helped to make him careless of his for. nants for the introduction of operas, and of a more

den produced for us. Richardson did not pretend to tune: but it is probable that his habits were nasplendid exhibition of scenery; but in consequence

be able to do without female society. Perhaps, howturally shewy and expensive. Aubrey says he was

of the growth of theatres in the more western parts ever, they did not quiet his sensibility so much as proud. He was accounted a sort of minor Sir Philip of the town, it was occasionally quitted by the pro- they charmed it. We think, in his Correspondence, Sydney. We speak the more of him, not only on

prietors, and about the beginning of the last century account of his poetry, (which, for the most part, finally abandoned. This theatre was the last to which

a tendency is observable to indulge in fancies, not displays much fancy, injured by want of selectness,) people went in boats.

always so paternal as they agree to call them ; but because his connexion with the neighbourhood

In a house, “in the centre of Salisbury Square or though doubtless all was said in honour, and the ladies probably suggested to Richardson the name of his

Salisbury Court, as it was then called,” Richardson hero in Clarissa. Grandison is another cavalier name

never found reason to diminish their reverence. A spent the greater part of his town life, and wrote his in the history of those times. It was the title of earliest work, Pamela. Probably a good part of all

great deal has been said of his vanity and the weakness the Duchess of Cleveland's father. Richardson him

his works were composed there, as well as at Ful- of it. Vain he undoubtedly was, and vanity is no self was buried in St. Bride's. He was laid, accord

ham, for the pen was never out of his hand. He strength ; but it is worth while bearing in mind, that ing to his wish, with his first wife, in the middle

removed from this house in 1755, after he had aisle, near the pulpit. Where he lived, we shall see

a man is often saved from vanity, not because he is written all his works; and taking eight old tenepresently. ments in the same quarter, pulled them down, and

stronger than another, but because he is less amiable, Not far from Gunpowder Alley, in the burying built a large and commodious range of warehouses and did not begin, as Richardson did, with being a ground of the workhouse in Shoe Lane, lies a greater

and printing offices. “ The dwelling house," says favourite so early. Few men are surrounded, as he and more unfortunate name than Lovelace,-Chat

Mrs. Barbauld, was neither so large nor so airy as terton. But we shall say more of him when we

Wüs, from his very childhood, with females, and few the one he quitted, and therefore the reader will not come to Brook Street, Holborn. We have been per

be so ready, probably, as Mr. Richardson seems to people think so well of their species or with so much plexed to decide, whether to say all we have got to

have been, in accusing his wife of perverseness in reason. In all probability, too, he was handsome say upon anybody, when we come to the first place not liking the new habitation as well as the old."'I

when young, which is another excuse for him. His with which he is connected, or divide our memorials

This was the second Mrs. Richardson. He calls of him according to the several places. Circum

her in other places his "worthy-hearted wife;" but vanity is more easily excused, than his genius acstances will guide us; but upon the whole it seems

complains that she used to get her way by seem- counted for, considering the way in which he lived. best to let the places themselves decide.

If the

ing to submit, and then returning to the point, The tone of Lovelace's manners and language, which spot is rendered particularly interesting by the divi.

when his heat of objection was over.

She was a

has created so much surprise in an author who was sion, we may act accordingly, as in the present in

formal woman. His own manners were strict and
stance. If not, all the anecdotes may be given at
formal with regard to his family, probably because

e city printer, and passed his life among a few friends once.

he had formed his notions of life from old books, between Fleet Street and a suburb, was caught, proOn the same side of the way as Shoe Lane, but

and also because he did not well know how to begin bably, not merely from Cibber, but from the famous nearer Fleet Market, was Hardham's, a celebrated

to do otherwise (for he was naturally bashful), and snuff shop, the founder of which deserves mention

so the habit continued through life. His daughters profligate Duke of Wharton, with whom he became for a very delicate generosity. He was numberer at

addressed him in their letters by the title of “Ho acquainted in the course of his business. But the Drury Lane Theatre, that is to say, the person who

noured Sir,” and are always designating themselves unwearied vivacity with which he has supported it, is counted the number of people in the house, from a

as “ever dutiful.” Sedentary living, eternal writingstill wonderful. His pathos is more easily accounted hole over the top of the stage ; a practice now dis

and perhaps that indulgence in the table, which,
continued. Whether this employment led him to
however moderate, affects a sedentary man twenty

for by his nerves, which for many years were in a
number snuffs, as well as men, we cannot say, but
times as much as an active one, conspired to hurt

constant state of excitement, particularly towards the he was the first who gave them their distinctions that

his temper, (for we may see by his picture that he close of his life; which terminated in 1761, at the way. Lovers of grew fat, and his philosophy was in no respect as

age of seventy-two, with the death most common to The pungent grains of titillating dust profound as he thought it); but he was a most

kind-hearted generous man; kept his pocket full of sedentary men of letters, a stroke of apoplexy.* He are indebted to him for the famous compound en

plums for children, like another Mr. Burchell; gave was latterly unable to lift a glass of wine to his mouth titled " 37.” Being passionately fond of theatrical

a great deal of money away in charity, very hand. without assistance.
entertainments, he was seldom," says his biographer, somely too ; and was so fond of inviting friends to
** without embryo Richards and Hotspurs strutting stay with him, that when they were ill, he and his

At Fulham and Parson's Green (at which latter and bellowing in his dining-room, or in the parlour family must needs have them to be nursed; and place lie lived for the last five or six years), Richardson behind his shop. The latter of these apartments

several actually died at his house at Fulham, as at used to sit with his guests about him, in a parlour or was adorned with heads of most of the persons cele.

a hospital for sick friends. brated for dramatic excellence; and to these he fre

summer-house, reading, or communicating his manu

It is a fact not generally known (none of his bioquently referred, in the course of his instructions.

The ladies made their re“ There is one circumstance, however, in his pri

graphers seem to have known it) that Richardson, scripts as he wrote them.

who was the son of a joiner, received what education
vate character," continues our authority,

" which
deserves a more honourable rescue from oblivion. English), at Christ-Hospital § It may be wondered
he had (which was very little, and did not go beyond

Apoplexy crammed intemperance knocks

Down to the ground at once, as butcher felleth ox; His charity was extensive in an uncommon degree,

says Thomson in his Castle of Indolence. It was the death the and was conveyed to many of its objects in the most * Baker's Biographia Dramatica. Resd's edition, 1782, good.natured, indolent poet probably expected for himself, and vol. 1. p. 207.

would have had, if a cold and fever had not interfered. For † Malone in the Prolegomena to Shakspeare, as above,

there is an apoplexy of the head alone, as well as of the whole * Aubrey says that his death took place in a cellar in Long vol. iji. p. 287.

body; and men of letters, who either exercise little, or work Acre; and adds, “Mr. Edm. Wylde, &c., had made a collec.

overmuch, seein almost sure to die of it, or of palsy; which is tion for him, and given him morey." But Aubr·y's authority • Correspondence of Samuel Richardson, $c., by Anna a discase analogous. It is the last stroke, given in the kind is not valid against Wood's. He is to be read like a proper

Letitia Barbauld, vol. i. 97. gossip, whose accounts we may pretty safely reje:t or believe,

resentment of nature, to the brains, which should have known

Our authority (one of the highest in this way) is Mr. better than bring themselves to such a pass. In the biography as it suits other testimony.

Nichols, in his Literary Anecdotes of the Eighteenth Century, of Italian literati, "Vori d'apoplessia'-(he died of apoplexy) + Wood's Athena Oxonie nses, 'ol, vol, il. p. I to. vol. iv. p. 579.