Nooks and Corners of Old London Part 5

To the north of the Temple Church is a plain slab recording that Oliver Goldsmith author of the "Vicar of Wakefield," lies buried here.

William Cowper the poet lived for years in the Inner Temple, where he several times tried to commit suicide but failed in each attempt.

Charles Lamb was born in 1775 at No. 2 Crown Office Row in rooms overlooking the Temple Garden.

In Temple Garden, best seen from Crown Office Row, you look upon the spot where Shakespeare had the partisans first choose the red rose or the white as the badge of the houses of York or Lancaster. In "King Henry VI.," this picking is stirringly told of and the Earl of Warwick exclaims:

And here I prophesy, the brawl to-day Grown to this faction, in the Temple Gardens, Shall send, between the red rose and the white, A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

Middle Temple is entered from Fleet Street close by Temple Bar Memorial, by way of Middle Temple Lane, through a brick gateway designed by Wren and built in 1684. Middle Temple Lane divides Middle from Inner Temple.

It is narrow, crooked and dark, a survival of the long past. Here are houses with overhanging upper floors, and law stationers' shops on the lane level or below it. Off from the thoroughfare are dingy nooks and odd courts. In one such, Brick Court, at No. 2, were Oliver Goldsmith's last lodgings and here he died in 1774. The learned Blackstone lived in the same building on the floor below Goldsmith and complained that he was much disturbed on occasions when the author of the "Vicar of Wakefield" and the "Deserted Village" gave supper parties that were "filled with roaring comic songs."

The turning beyond Brick Court opens on the Hall of the Middle Temple, a perfect example of Elizabethan architecture, and where Shakespeare's charming comedy of "Twelfth Night" was first performed. In the Hall is preserved a table made of wood from one of the ships of the Great Armada on which the death warrant of Mary Queen of Scots was signed by Elizabeth.

Before the Hall of Middle Temple is Fountain Court, a spot seeming far away from London. In it is the Temple Fountain. The doves that drink of the water here are as tame and as faded as the dusty foliage and the skeletons of trees hereabouts. Here Ruth Pinch the sweet girl of d.i.c.kens' "Martin Chuzzlewit" came often to meet her brother Tom and afterwards her lover John Westlock.

From Fountain Court at the north is New Court and then on a few steps further is Devereux Court where may be seen a bust of Lord Ess.e.x by Colley Cibber, put here to mark the site of the Grecian Coffee House, sacred to the legal profession.

The house in Fleet Street forming the east corner of the entrance to Inner Temple Lane was the famous coffee-house called Nando's, in the 18th century. This house was built for the convenience of Henry, Prince of Wales, in the reign of James I.

Obscured in dust and gloom the Sergeants' Inn, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery, still stands in Fleet Street at Chancery Lane.

A grimy and narrow pa.s.sage in Fleet Street, a few steps east of St.

Dunstan's-in-the-West, so insignificant that it would easily pa.s.s unnoticed, is really an entrance to Clifford's Inn, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery. Clifford's is now completely hidden by the church and other buildings but reveals a mine of quaint corners and romantic a.s.sociations to one fortunate enough to stumble upon it in a day's ramble.

It was in winding Chancery Lane that the dean of anglers Izaak Walton kept a linen draper shop in the years from 1627 to 1647.

In Bishop's Court off Chancery Lane d.i.c.kens, in "Bleak House," saw fit to place the rag and bottle shop of Crook, where that strange old man died a death due to spontaneous combustion. Mr. Vholes the lawyer of the Chancery Court also in "Bleak House," had his offices in Symond's Inn on the other side of Chancery Lane where Chichester Rents is now.

Lincoln's Inn, one of the Inns of Court, was built in 1310 and there remains no trace of the original. The front on Chancery Lane and the gatehouse there were designed in 1518. Through an odd little pathway from Chancery Lane the Stone Buildings are easily reached. These were set up in the hope of rebuilding the entire Inn but this was not done.

Henry de Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, here maintained a town house in the 13th century and the grounds extended all about the present site and have taken his name as their own.

The gardens of Lincoln's Inn Fields were laid out by the great architect Inigo Jones. Up to the first quarter of the 18th century Lincoln's Inn Fields was a favorite duelling ground. Here also Babington and others who conspired for the freedom of Mary Queen of Scots were executed in 1586. Lord William Russell was also executed here in 1683 because he was supposed to have been concerned in the Rye House Plot. Altogether the gardens may be said to have many gory a.s.sociations of which their present appearance gives no hint.

Inigo Jones the celebrated English architect has left the mark of his genius on many London structures. He was born in London in 1576 and during the reign of James I., when the main amus.e.m.e.nt of the Court was the putting on of the masques of Ben Jonson he designed the scenery for them. During this reign, too, he held the post of surveyor-general of royal buildings. Long before his death in 1653 he was known to be the first architect of England.

Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre stood where is now the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons on the south side of the gardens. In this playhouse Congreve's "Love for Love," with Mrs. Bracegirdle as _Angelica_, was first produced in 1695. "The Beggar's Opera" was also first seen here, when Lavinia Fenton afterwards d.u.c.h.ess of Bolton was the _Polly Peacham_. This is the theatre which Pepys visited so often that, as he himself said, he made his wife "as mad as the devil."

Facing Lincoln's Inn Fields on the west side is still to be seen a stone built house numbered 58, with Doric columns, quite grimy in appearance, where once lived John Forster the biographer of d.i.c.kens. In this house, Forster began the library which had grown to 18,000 volumes when he bequeathed it to the nation. Here, too, he often entertained d.i.c.kens and here heard him read in ma.n.u.script "The Chimes." d.i.c.kens made this the home of Tulkinghorn the lawyer of "Bleak House," and killed him here.

There is no sign of the fore-shortened allegory on the first floor ceiling now though from appearance it might well have been there once.

"Boz," writing of this first floor room declared that you might once have heard "a sound at night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks and winegla.s.ses." The house was built by Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsey, a general of King Charles I.

In Great Queen Street at No. 56 not far from Lincoln's Inn Fields, Boswell lived and wrote the greater part of the "Life of Johnson."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Staple Inn, looking toward Holborn Gateway]

Where Gray's Inn Road touches Holborn is the old quaint gabled Staple Inn, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery harking back to the days of James I. An arched gateway gives entrance to the interior court where flourish plane trees that look to be as old as the inn itself. It was here that Mr. Grewgious of d.i.c.kens' "Bleak House," had his chambers, and over a doorway of the court is a stone with the lettering:

P J T 1747

This seemingly cabalistic reference stands for Princ.i.p.al John Thompson who presided over the inn for two terms in 1747. d.i.c.kens made fun of it in "Bleak House." Dr. Samuel Johnson moved into Staple Inn March 22, 1757, from Gough Square, Fleet Street, and during his residence here the great lexicographer wrote "Ra.s.selas" in the evenings of a week, to pay the funeral expenses of his mother!

The large red brick insurance building opposite Staple Inn on the north side of Holborn is on the site of Furnival's, one of the original ten Inns of Chancery, where d.i.c.kens lived when he was first married and where he began the writing of "Pickwick Papers."

A narrow alley between the Holborn houses east of Fetter Lane and having over its entrance a jarring gilt sign leads to the smallest of the ten original Inns of Chancery--Barnard's Inn. Its ancientness is evidenced by its dwarfed courts and tiny Hall. Since 1874 it has been used by the Mercers' Company for their schools. Herbert Pocket in d.i.c.kens' "Great Expectations" had rooms here in which Pip slept on his arrival in London.

Gray's Inn one of the four Inns of Court with its s.p.a.cious gardens and its sober courts is a reminder of the reign of King Edward III. The Hall was built in 1560 and the gardens were laid out three centuries ago, the walks being planned by Francis Bacon.

In Fox Court, which is off Gray's Inn Road close by Holborn, the Countess of Macclesfield lived, and here, on the south side, her famous son Richard Savage the poet was born in 1697. His father was Lord Rivers, but Savage was never cared for by him and was treated with gross neglect by his mother. His life was a dissipated one and he once killed a man in a drunken brawl for which he was sentenced to death but afterwards pardoned. His best poem is "The b.a.s.t.a.r.d," in which he execrated his own mother the Countess for the illegitimacy of his birth.

He died in 1743 in a Bristol jail to which he had been sent for debt.

Close by, at the Gray's Inn Road corner of Holborn, is the crossing that was swept by the poor Jo of d.i.c.kens' "Bleak House."

In Brooke Street, near at hand, the house No. 39, is famous as standing on the site of the lodging house where Thomas Chatterton ended his brief and remarkable career. Chatterton was born in Bristol, the son of a poor widow. He received some education at a charity school but otherwise was self-taught. In the few years of his life he developed a poetic quality wonderful even in an age noted for literary excellence. He was seventeen years old when in 1769 he came to London where he met great discouragement. He lived in the garret of the obscure Brooke Street lodging and here on August 24th, 1770, in dire want, among strangers, literally starving, he died of poison self-administered. He was buried in the pauper burial ground adjoining a workhouse in Shoe Lane.

Since 1688 the present church of St. Andrew's has stood at the western end of Holborn Viaduct. It is a Wren building set up where an older church was once. The poet Richard Savage was baptised here, and Hazlitt the essayist was here married having for best man Charles Lamb.

Quaint and quiet and fascinating in its strong old age the cloister of St. Etheldreda's just beyond the busy roar of Holborn Circus is a survival of the famous palace of the bishops of Ely. This cloister is in part the same as that in which Henry VIII. first met Cranmer, and here John of Gaunt father of Henry IV. died in 1399. Ely Place of to-day is named for the old palace.

In narrow Mitre Court, connecting Ely Place with Hatton Gardens, set in the wall of a public house is the "Sign of the Mitre," bearing date of 1546. The present house stands on the site of the main entrance to the palace.

Bleeding Heart Yard of picturesque name and fame, at the head of Ely Place, is written of by d.i.c.kens in "Little Dorrit", as the home of Plornish the plasterer, and it was here that the honest Daniel Doyce had his factory.

SIX

ALONG THE STRAND: AND A PEEP AT COVENT GARDEN AND THE COFFEE HOUSES

Where Temple Bar Memorial, surmounted by a Griffin, is now in the Strand Temple Bar itself stood until 1878. In one form or another, at times merely a wooden structure, Temple Bar defined the limits of the City from the 14th century. To the very last of its days was preserved an ancient custom of closing the gate when a sovereign approached the City on any public occasion, and opening it with much ceremony to give entrance way. The last Temple Bar was built in 1670, but was demolished to facilitate traffic. On the top of the old gateway the heads of criminals who had been executed were exposed.

The Strand probably the best known street in the world to-day was once a royal road outlining the waterside. On one side were the castles of n.o.blemen fronting on the river, with gardens between, and state barges carried the courtiers to the Tower, to Richmond or to Westminster wherever the king was to be found. The chief castle belonged to Peter of Savoy uncle of Henry III., and was set in the midst of an estate granted by the king in 1245. In those days the bishops were the princ.i.p.al owners of palaces on the Strand--the courtiers preferring the City as being safer from the attacks of their enemies. But the bishops were regarded as sacred and could live anywhere they pleased unmolested. The Strand became a regular thoroughfare about 1560.

At the time of the Reformation the palace of Walter Stapleton Bishop of Exeter was on the south, or river, side of the Strand and was called Exeter House. Afterward when the Earl of Ess.e.x, Elizabeth's favourite lived there it was called Ess.e.x House for him and the present Ess.e.x Street so gets its name. The only tangible survival of Ess.e.x House is at the end of the street--the aged and picturesque Water Gate, with the worn stone stairs that once led directly to the water where the barges received visitors from the palace. It was down these stairs that the Earl of Ess.e.x was taken on his way to the Tower to be beheaded at the command of the fickle queen.

In Ess.e.x Street just where is now an entrance into New Court stood the tavern of the Ess.e.x Head. Here, in 1783, Samuel Johnson then suffering from the diseases which caused his death in the next year established a conversation club that was to meet three times a week. Johnson attended regularly as long as he was able to walk from his home not far away in Bolt Court.

Opposite Ess.e.x Street in the middle of the Strand is the church of St.

Clement Danes, designed by Sir Christopher Wren in 1681. At this church Dr. Johnson was a regular attendant for years and the pew he sat in, No.

18 in the north gallery, is marked with a tablet telling of "the philosopher, the poet, the great lexicographer, the profound moralist and chief writer of his times." Joe Miller, the man of jokes, was buried here, and his epitaph records among other things that he was a facetious companion, a sincere friend and a tender husband, which is about all a man need be.

In the 16th century the Bishop of Bath's palace was on the river side of the Strand. It was called Arundel House and gave its name to Arundel Street.

Norfolk Street, now a quiet thoroughfare of private hotels, is where at No. 21 d.i.c.kens located "Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings." In the first house from the river on the west side Peter the Great of Russia lived when he came to London in 1698 on the invitation of William III., to make a personal study of British industrial pursuits, military art, science and trade, a study which he did make, carrying back to Russia with him more than five hundred artisans, surgeons, artificers and engineers.

In Surrey Street the dramatist William Congreve who has been called the greatest English master of pure comedy lived at the height of his success, long after "The Old Bachelor," "Love for Love" and "The Mourning Bride" had made him famous, and here he died.