Highways and Byways in London Part 7

You leave the Minories without regret, and turn your face again Citywards. The church of All Hallows, Barking (so called from the nuns of old Barking Abbey), is further west, in Great Tower Street, close to the Tower precincts. It is another church that escaped the Great Fire, and it contains the graves of some of the Tower victims. It has also some good monumental bra.s.ses, one especially, of fine Flemish workmanship, in the pavement in the centre of the nave. These old City churches are now most of them well served and tended, the Sunday services in some of them being much sought after. They are also probably kept in better repair than in d.i.c.kens's time, when, overgrown, dirty, and isolated in the midst of traffic and bustle, they struck the novelist only with their weird desolation,--a desolation as of some sentient and human thing. Thus vividly he described his feelings while attending service in one of them:

"There is a pale heap of books in the corner of my pew, and while the organ, which is hoa.r.s.e and sleepy, plays in such fashion that I can hear more of the rusty working of the stops than of any music, I look at the books, which are mostly bound in faded baize and stuff. They belonged, in 1754, to the Dowgate family; and who were they? Jane Comport must have married Young Dowgate, and come into the family that way; Young Dowgate was courting Jane Comport when he gave her her prayer-book, and recorded the presentation on the fly-leaf. If Jane were fond of Young Dowgate, why did she die and leave the book here? Perhaps at the rickety altar, and before the damp commandments, she, Comport, had taken him, Dowgate, in a flush of youthful hope and joy, and perhaps it had not turned out in the long run as great a success as was expected.

"The opening of the service recalls my wandering thoughts.... I find that I have been taking a kind of invisible snuff ... I wink, sneeze and cough ... snuff made of the decay of matting, wood, cloth, stone, iron, earth and something else ... the decay of dead citizens.... Dead citizens stick on the walls and lie pulverised on the sounding-board over the clergyman's head, and, when a gust of air comes, tumble down upon him."

And, further, with regard to the surrounding bustle and merchandise in the busy streets:

"In the churches about Mark Lane there was a dry whiff of wheat; and I accidentally struck an airy sample of barley out of an aged ha.s.sock in one of them. From Rood Lane to Tower Street, and thereabouts, there was often a subtle flavour of wine,--sometimes of tea. One church, near Mincing Lane, smelt like a druggist's drawer. Behind the Monument, the service had a flavour of damaged oranges, which, a little farther down towards the river, tempered into herrings, and gradually toned into a cosmopolitan blast of fish. In one church, the exact counterpart of the church in the _Rake's Progress_, where the hero is being married to the horrible old lady, there was no specialty of atmosphere, until the organ shook a perfume of hides all over us from some adjacent warehouse."

(The church depicted in Hogarth's _Rake's Progress_ was, however, the older church of St. Marylebone, now rebuilt.)

The next turning on the right from Great Tower Street is Seething Lane, leading to Hart Street, noted princ.i.p.ally for that ancient church of St. Olave that was one of the Great Fire's few survivals.

Its little churchyard opens on to the muddy, narrow alley called Seething Lane, by a picturesque gateway, grimly decorated with carven skulls; tradition says in the memory of the many plague victims buried here. Indeed it is a grisly monument of the time when the plague-cart rumbled in the streets, when a red cross marked the infected houses, and when the stones echoed to the hoa.r.s.e and terrible cry, "Bring out your dead!" Perhaps Seething Lane was less muddy and slummy in Samuel Pepys's time; for that authority lived here, in a house "adjoining the Navy Office," where he held the position of "Clerk of the Acts,"--and surely he was nothing if not fussy. The locality, owing to the successive distractions of Plague and Fire, cannot have been exactly peaceful. In his "Diary" entry for January 30th, 1665-6, Pepys says:

"It frighted me indeed to go through the church, more than I thought it could have done, to see so many graves lie so high upon the churchyard where people have been buried of the Plague. I was much troubled at it, and do not think to go through it again a good while."

The quaint names of old London churches are very attractive. This St.

Olave, or Olaf, was a favourite saint of ancient London; he was an eleventh-century Scandinavian king, canonised because of his zealous propagation of Christianity among his people. Three other London churches, in Southwark, Jewry, and Silver Street (the last two no longer existing), were called after him. The immediate purlieus of St.

Olave's, Hart Street, are not exactly savoury, its proximity to the river traffic and warehouses making it occasionally somewhat odoriferous as well as muddy; it were better, therefore, to choose a fine, dry day for this excursion. It is not always easy to get inside the church; on week-days, the street seems to be more or less of a stagnant back-water; and should your fate compel you to find St.

Olave's locked, you may stand and knock all day, but n.o.body will heed you; or, if they do heed, will probably put you down as a wandering lunatic. Nevertheless, St. Olave's should be visited; for its monuments are many and interesting. Samuel Pepys, as parishioner and near neighbour, used to attend service here, with his pretty wife; and Mrs. Pepys's bust, in white marble, erected by her husband, stands on the north side of the chancel, above her tablet and long epitaph. Poor Elizabeth Pepys! She was only twenty-nine when she died, and that long, artificial Latin screed seems all too long and laboured for her lovely and poetic youth. Perhaps her husband, whose pew faces the monument, liked during his long widowhood to gaze at that charming memorial, and--who knows?--to enjoy his fine Latin composition. Pepys himself was buried here later; his own monument, however, only dates from 1883, when it was raised by public subscription.

In St. Olave's church occurs that curious and often-quoted epitaph of 1584, inscribed to "John Orgene and Ellyne, his wife":

"As I was, so be ye; As I am, you shall be; That I gave, that I have; That I spent, that I had; Thus I ende all my coste, That I lefte, that I loste."

Wandering along Great Tower Street,--and Eastcheap, reminiscent of Falstaff and Dame Quickly,--we reach the ever-fishy region of the Monument. The Monument is so tall that it is difficult to see it; indeed, I cannot tell exactly why the Monument seems always as difficult of discovery as the middle of a maze; you seem continually close upon it, and yet you hardly ever reach it. No one can ever direct the pedestrian to it; though this, indeed, may not be the fault of the Monument, but simply because the average Londoner never does know anything about the immediate neighbourhood he inhabits. He has even been known to live in the next street to the British Museum for years, and then be ignorant that such an inst.i.tution exists. Such superiority to external facts is, no doubt, n.o.ble; but it has its drawbacks. And sometimes the individuals questioned take refuge in a crushing silence. The last time, indeed, that I myself visited the Monument, I inquired politely of two fishy youths in turn of its whereabouts, and received no answer. Possibly this was merely their courteous way of informing me that they were really too busy to attend to such trivialities. To return, however, to the deluding Monument: d.i.c.kens, it is true, in _Martin Chuzzlewit_ makes Mr. Tom Pinch and Miss Pecksniff find their way thither (Tom, having lost his way, very naturally finds himself at the Monument):

"The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom as the Man in the Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the lonely creature who held himself aloof from all mankind in that pillar, like some old hermit, was the very man of whom to ask his way.... If Truth didn't live in the base of the Monument, notwithstanding Pope's couplet about the outside of it, where in London was she likely to be found?

"Coming close below the pillar, it was a great encouragement to Tom to find that the Man in the Monument had simple tastes; that stony and artificial as his residence was, he still preserved some rustic recollections; that he liked plants, hung up bird-cages, was not wholly cut off from fresh groundsel, and kept young trees in tubs. The Man in the Monument was sitting outside his own door, the Monument door; and was actually yawning, as if there were no Monument to stop his mouth, and give him a perpetual interest in his own existence.... Two people came to see the Monument, a gentleman and lady; and the gentleman said, 'How much a-piece?'

"The Man in the Monument replied, 'A Tanner.'

"It seemed a low expression, compared with the Monument.

"The gentleman put a shilling into his hand, and the Man in the Monument opened a dark little door. When the gentleman and lady had pa.s.sed out of view, he shut it again, and came slowly back to his chair.

"He sat down and laughed.

"'They don't know what a many steps there is!' he said.

'It's worth twice the money to stop here. Oh, my eye!'

"The Man in the Monument was a Cynic...."

The charge for the Monument is (I may remark _en pa.s.sant_), now changed from a "tanner" to the humble threepence. (Its summit gallery is now closed in, because of the disagreeable mania for committing suicide from it.) The original inscription on its pedestal, now effaced, was a curious relic of religious intolerance; showing, by its absurd reference to the "horrid plott" of "the Popish factio," the barbarous and primitive state of popular feeling as late as 1681.

Wherefore it was that, as Pope said:

"... London's Column, pointing to the skies, Like a tall bully, lifts its head and lies."

One must not, however, forget that this attempt to attribute the dire calamity to private malice must have been infinitely comforting to the public mind, that ever, even in our own enlightened day, needs a scapegoat. In still older days, the scapegoats took a more conveniently personal form, and were usually, as we have seen, brought to the block on Great Tower Hill: which was, of course, a much simpler mode of dealing with them.

CHAPTER VI

SOUTHWARK, OLD AND NEW

"The Thames marks the sharp division between what Lord Beaconsfield called 'the two nations.' On one side we have our nearest English approach to architectural magnificence; on the other there is a long perspective of squalid buildings--smoke-begrimed, half-ruinous, and yet not altogether unlovely."--_Magazine of Art_, January, 1884.

"Befel, that in that season, on a day In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay, Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage To Canterbury with ful devout courage, At night was come into that hostelry Well nine-and-twenty in a company Of sundry folk, by adventure y-fall In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all, That toward Canterbury woulden ride."

--_Chaucer: Canterbury Tales._

Near to the fishy and noisy purlieus of the "Monument," London Bridge crosses the river into Southwark.

London Bridge is the terminus for big ships; from its parapet is seen, as far as the misty Tower Bridge, a vast city of masts, sails, and wharves. Big steamers often make this their starting-point for excursions, and sails of Venetian colour charm the eye. In cold winters the sea-gulls, flying hither in myriads from the icy North Seas, come to the Londoner's call, sure of food and welcome, filling grey sky and silvery river with an ever-changing constellation of white wings; "a blaze of comet splendour." Wild birds, like children, know their friends. The sea-gull's wide, downward swoop, so powerful and so graceful, may be watched here in January from early morn to dusk; the creatures, poised in serried ranks on the barges and stone piers, are just as much at home here as on their own northern pinnacles, and after long sojourn, they become so tame that they will almost feed from the stranger's hand. It is only, however, during the severe weather that the sea-gulls' visit lasts; with the first warm February days they are off again, speeding down the river to their native haunts.

Close to the foot of London Bridge, on the Southwark side, is the fine cruciform church of St. Saviour's, lately restored on the lines of the ancient edifice. This church, which had formerly been much mutilated by careless and tasteless "restorers," was in long past times the Norman Priory of St. Mary Overy, and its old nave, of which the fragments may yet be seen, was built in 1106 by Gifford, Bishop of Winchester. A century later, another Bishop built the choir and Lady Chapel, and altered the character of the nave from Norman to Early English. Then, at the Dissolution, St. Mary Overy was made into a parish church by Henry VIII., and since 1540, it has been known as "St. Saviour's." The early Saxon dedication to "St. Mary Overy"

commemorates the romantic story of the rich old ferryman's lovely daughter, of pre-Conquest times, who, losing her lover by a fall from his horse, retired into a cloister for life, devoting her paternal wealth to the founding of a priory. The story is charming, but somewhat misty; it suggests, however, the advantages accruing to ferrymen when there were no bridges on the Thames! An ancient, nameless, ghoul-like figure, in St. Saviour's Church, is still pointed out as the old ferryman, father of the foundress; but this is probably traditional. Skeleton-like figures, not representing any one in particular, were not infrequently placed about in mediaeval churches; in order, perhaps, to bring the congregation to a sufficiently sober frame of mind, as well as to recall to them their latter end.

St. Saviour's, as it is now, is one of the most striking churches in London; its interior appeals at once to the eye and to the imagination. The long aisles are restful and harmonious; the Early-English architecture is severely pure; the fine effect of the beautifully-restored nave and transepts is not, as too often in Westminster Abbey, spoiled by the introduction of ornate tombs and sprawling angels. The church, restored by Blomfield in 1890-96, is already a collegiate church, and is worthy to become, as it probably will, the cathedral for South London. Its level, as is the case with many ancient buildings, is now considerably lower than the surrounding ground; a fact testified by the steps necessary to descend into its precincts from the street, and by the very unpoetic railway, carried well above it and its adjoining vegetable market (the Borough Market).

For this is a strangely busy and noisy spot to have sheltered for so long this relic of the Middle Age.

The tombs in the church are mainly in the transepts, and are nearly all of them interesting. The finely-restored "Lady Chapel," behind the altar, contains the tomb of Lancelot Andrewes, Bishop of Winchester, with a long Latin inscription of 1626; a rec.u.mbent painted effigy, on a black-and-white marble tomb. This Lady Chapel has tragic a.s.sociations; it was used in the time of "b.l.o.o.d.y Mary" as the Consistorial Court of Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester; and here those st.u.r.dy martyrs, Bishop Hooper and John Rogers, Vicar of St.

Sepulchre's, were condemned to be burnt (the popular feeling for Rogers being such as necessitated his removal by night secretly to Newgate).

The most famous grave in St. Saviour's is that of John Gower, the fourteenth-century poet, and friend of Chaucer. Here, near the east end of the north wall of the nave, the effigy of the poet, painted, like that of Lancelot Andrewes, a figure of striking beauty, lies on a sarcophagus under a rich gabled canopy. Stow thus describes the monument:

"He lieth under a tomb of stone, with his image, also of stone, over him; the hair of his head, auburn, long to his shoulders but curling up, and a small forked beard; on his head a chaplet like a coronet of four roses; a habit of purple, damasked down to his feet; a collar of esses gold about his neck; under his head the likeness of three books which he compiled."

Gower was a rich man for a poet, and gave large sums in his time for the rebuilding of the church; hence was written the following epigram:

"This church was rebuilt by John Gower, the rhymer, Who in Richard's gay court was a fortunate climber; Should any one start, 'tis but right he should know it, Our wight was a lawyer as well as a poet."

Gower's three chief works, on which his head rests, are his _Vox Clamantis_, _Speculum Meditantis_, and _Confessio Amantis_.

Many other curious tombs and epitaphs are in this church. One, especially, of the latter, a tablet to a little girl of ten, Susanna Barford,--a child the "Non such of the world for piety and vertue in soe tender yeares,"--tells how:

"Such grace the King of Kings bestow'd upon her That now shee lives with him a maid of honour."

And in the north transept, there is a curious monument to Dr. Lionel Lockyer, the pill inventor--a large bewigged, reclining figure of Charles II.'s time--suffering, apparently, despite his infallible nostrums, from terrible internal spasms. Perhaps, however, these may bear some mystic reference to the long accompanying epitaph about "undying Pills," showing that already in the seventeenth century advertis.e.m.e.nt could be strong even in death! Close to Lockyer's tomb are heaped up a number of strange wooden painted gargoyles or "bosses," preserved and brought here from the fallen-in fifteenth-century roof of the nave, some of them bearing most weird devices. One, conceived apparently in the Dantesque spirit, represents a giant, or devil, "champing" a half-eaten sinner,--the lower half of whom, dressed in gaudy colours, projects from the large vermilion mouth,--in great enjoyment. Other "bosses" show the curious painted "rebuses" of the period, commemorating a prior's name. The seventeenth-century monument to the Austin family, also in this transept, is full of quaint imagery and symbolism. The figures of its sleeping angels with winnowing-forks, waiting on each side for the great final harvest, are full of beauty.

"Edmund Shakespear, player," and brother of the poet,--Fletcher,--and Ma.s.singer,--are buried here; three stones in the choir bear their names; the exact place of their graves is not known.

The church is now well-kept and carefully tended; it is open daily to the visitor, who may walk about it without let or hindrance. Like so many other London churches, it has in its time suffered less from the depredations of the plunderer than from those of the more dangerous "restorer." As usual, a long period of neglect and decay was followed by iconoclastic cleaning and setting in order. Generally, for a considerable time after the Dissolution, the convent churches and others were left to the tender mercies of the parishioners, who, naturally, could not always afford to keep them in proper condition; then abuses crept in, thefts took place; and the disused churches, as St. Paul's itself, were often degraded to stables, or used as storage for litter. Then, after long years, the authorities, perhaps, came to the rescue, and, turning out the encroaching and invading devils, let in other devils far more wicked, in the shape of so-called "restorers." Wonder, indeed, is it that so much is left to us! The "restorers" usually began by whitewashing all the columns of dark Purbeck marble, blackening the effigies into one uniform tint, and covering the discoloured carvings of the walls with stucco, for the better reception of which they even (as may be seen at St. Saviour's) whittled away bits of fine stone sculpture.

To wander down the "Borough" High Street--that noisy and essentially modern district,--in search of Chaucer's famous inns, is, alas! more dispiriting than looking for traces of Dido among the ruins of Carthage. Here, one can neither look for ghosts, nor feelings of the past; all is hopelessly covered up and hidden by ugly modern inns, more ugly modern shops, palaces of modern plate-gla.s.s public-houses, triumphs of early nineteenth-century ugliness in architecture. What chance, among such, have the poor wandering ghosts of a famous past?