Old and New London Part 6

Praed, that delightful poet of society, was of the banker's family, and in him the poetry of refined wealth found a fitting exponent. Fleet Street, indeed, is rich in a.s.sociations connected with bankers and booksellers; for at No. 19 (south side) we come to Messrs. Gosling's.

This bank was founded in 1650 by Henry Pinckney, a goldsmith, at the sign of the "Three Squirrels"--a sign still to be seen in the iron-work over the centre window. The original sign of solid silver, about two feet in height, made to lock and unlock, was discovered in the house in 1858. It had probably been taken down on the general removal of out-door signs and forgotten. In a secret service-money account of the time of Charles II., there is an entry of a sum of 646 8s. 6d. for several parcels of gold and silver lace bought of William Gosling and partners by the fair d.u.c.h.ess of Cleveland, for the wedding clothes of the Lady Suss.e.x and Lichfield.

No. 32 (south side), still a bookseller's, was originally kept for forty years by William Sandby, one of the partners of Snow's bank in the Strand. He sold the business and goodwill in 1762 for 400, to a lieutenant of the Royal Navy, named John M'Murray, who, dropping the Mac, became the well-known Tory publisher. Murray tried in vain to induce Falconer, the author of "The Shipwreck," to join him as a partner. The first Murray died in 1793. In 1812 John Murray, the son of the founder, removed to 50, Albemarle Street. In the _Athenaeum_ of 1843 a writer describes how Byron used to stroll in here fresh from his fencing-lessons at Angelo's or his sparring-bouts with Jackson. He was wont to make cruel lunges with his stick at what he called "the spruce books" on Murray's shelves, generally striking the doomed volume, and by no means improving the bindings. "I was sometimes, as you will guess,"

Murray used to say with a laugh, "glad to get rid of him." Here, in 1807, was published "Mrs. Rundell's Domestic Cookery;" in 1809, the _Quarterly Review_; and, in 1811, Byron's "Childe Harold."

The original Columbarian Society, long since extinct, was born at offices in Fleet Street, near St. Dunstan's. This society was replaced by the Pholoperisteron, dear to all pigeon-fanciers, which held its meetings at "Freemasons' Tavern," and eventually amalgamated with its rival, the National Columbarian, the fruitful union producing the National Peristeronic Society, now a flourishing inst.i.tution, meeting periodically at "Evans's," and holding a great fluttering and most pleasant annual show at the Crystal Palace. It is on these occasions that clouds of carrier-pigeons are let off, to decide the speed with which the swiftest and best-trained bird can reach a certain spot (a flight, of course, previously known to the bird), generally in Belgium.

The first St. Dunstan's Church--"in the West," as it is now called, to distinguish it from one near Tower Street--was built prior to 1237. The present building was erected in 1831. The older church stood thirty feet forward, blocking the carriage-way, and shops with projecting signs were built against the east and west walls. The churchyard was a favourite locality for booksellers. One of the most interesting stories connected with the old building relates to Felton, the fanatical a.s.sa.s.sin of the Duke of Buckingham, the favourite of Charles I. The murderer's mother and sisters lodged at a haberdasher's in Fleet Street, and were attending service in St. Dunstan's Church when the news arrived from Portsmouth; they swooned away when they heard the name of the a.s.sa.s.sin.

Many of the clergy of St. Dunstan's have been eminent men. Tyndale, the translator of the New Testament, did duty here. The poet Donne was another of the St. Dunstan's worthies; and Sherlock and Romaine both lectured at this church. The rectory house, sold in 1693, was No. 183.

The clock of old St. Dunstan's was one of the great London sights in the last century. The giants that struck the hours had been set up in 1671, and were made by Thomas Harrys, of Water Lane, for 35 and the old clock. Lord Hertford purchased them, in 1830, for 210, and set them up at his villa in Regent's Park. When a child he was often taken to see them; and he then used to say that some day he would buy "those giants."

Hatton, writing in 1708, says that these figures were more admired on Sundays by the populace than the most eloquent preacher in the pulpit within; and Cowper, in his "Table Talk," cleverly compares dull poets to the St. Dunstan's giants:--

"When labour and when dulness, club in hand, Like the two figures at St. Dunstan stand, Beating alternately, in measured time, The clock-work tintinnabulum of rhyme."

The most interesting relic of modern St. Dunstan's is that un.o.btrusive figure of Queen Elizabeth at the east end. This figure from the old church came from Ludgate when the City gates were destroyed in 1786. It was bought for 16 10s. when the old church came to the ground, and was re-erected over the vestry entrance. The companion statues of King Lud and his two sons were deposited in the parish bone-house. On one occasion when Baxter was preaching in the old church of St. Dunstan's, there arose a panic among the audience from two alarms of the building falling. Every face turned pale; but the preacher, full of faith, sat calmly down in the pulpit till the panic subsided, then, resuming his sermon, said reprovingly, "We are in the service of G.o.d, to prepare ourselves that we may be fearless at the great noise of the dissolving world when the heavens shall pa.s.s away and the elements melt with fervent heat."

Mr. n.o.ble, in his record of this parish, has remarked on the extraordinary longevity attained by the inc.u.mbents of St. Dunstan's. Dr.

White held the living for forty-nine years; Dr. Grant, for fifty-nine; the Rev. Joseph Williamson (Wilkes's chaplain) for forty-one years; while the Rev. William Romaine continued lecturer for forty-six years.

The solution of the problem probably is that a good and secure income is the best promoter of longevity. Several members of the great banking family of h.o.a.re are buried in St. Dunstan's; but by far the most remarkable monument in the church bears the following inscription:--

"HOBSON JUDKINS, ESQ., late of Clifford's Inn, the Honest Solicitor, who departed this life June 30, 1812. This tablet was erected by his clients, as a token of grat.i.tude and respect for his honest, faithful, and friendly conduct to them throughout life. Go, reader, and imitate Hobson Judkins."

Among the burials at St. Dunstan's noted in the registers, the following are the most remarkable:--1559-60, Doctor Oglethorpe, the Bishop of Carlisle, who crowned Queen Elizabeth; 1664, Dame Bridgett Browne, wife of Sir Richard Browne, major-general of the City forces, who offered 1,000 reward for the capture of Oliver Cromwell; 1732, Christopher Pinchbeck, the inventor of the metal named after him and a maker of musical clocks. The Plague seems to have made great havoc in St.

Dunstan's, for in 1665, out of 856 burials, 568 in only three months are marked "P.," for Plague. The present church, built in 1830-3, was designed by John Shaw, who died on the twelfth day after the completion of the outer sh.e.l.l, leaving his son to finish his work. The church is of a flimsy Gothic, the true revival having hardly then commenced. The eight bells are from the old church. The two heads over the chief entrance are portraits of Tyndale and Dr. Donne; and the painted window is the gift of the h.o.a.re family.

According to Aubrey, Drayton, the great topographical poet, lived at "the bay-window house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church." Now it is a clearly proved fact that the Great Fire stopped just three doors east of St. Dunstan's, as did also, Mr. Timbs says, another remarkable fire in 1730; so it is not impossible that the author of "The Polyolbion," that good epic poem, once lived at the present No. 180, though the next house eastward is certainly older than its neighbour. We have given a drawing of the house.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MRS. SALMON'S WAXWORK, FLEET STREET--"PALACE OF HENRY VIII. AND CARDINAL WOLSEY" (_see page 45_).]

That shameless rogue, Edmund Curll, lived at the "Dial and Bible,"

against St. Dunstan's Church. When this clever rascal was put in the pillory at Charing Cross, he persuaded the mob he was in for a political offence, and so secured the pity of the crowd. The author of "John Buncle" describes Curll as a tall, thin, awkward man, with goggle eyes, splay feet, and knock-knees. His translators lay three in a bed at the "Pewter Platter Inn" at Holborn. He published the most disgraceful books and forged letters. Curll, in his revengeful spite, accused Pope of pouring an emetic into his half-pint of canary when he and Curll and Lintot met by appointment at the "Swan Tavern," Fleet Street. By St.

Dunstan's, at the "Homer's Head," also lived the publisher of the first correct edition of "The Dunciad."

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. DUNSTAN'S CLOCK (_see page 47_).]

Among the booksellers who crowded round old St. Dunstan's were Thomas Marsh, of the "Prince's Arms," who printed Stow's "Chronicles;" and William Griffith, of the "Falcon," in St. Dunstan's Churchyard, who, in the year 1565, issued, without the authors' consent, _Gorboduc_, written by Thomas Norton and Lord Buckhurst, the first real English tragedy and the first play written in English blank verse. John Smethwicke, a still more honoured name, "under the diall" of St. Dunstan's Church, published "Hamlet" and "Romeo and Juliet." Richard Marriot, another St. Dunstan's bookseller, published Quarle's "Emblems," Dr. Donne's "Sermons," that delightful, simple-hearted book, Isaak Walton's "Complete Angler," and Butler's "Hudibras," that wonderful ma.s.s of puns and quibbles, pressed close as potted meat. Matthias Walker, a St. Dunstan's bookseller, was one of the three timid publishers who ventured on a certain poem, called "The Paradise Lost," giving John Milton, the blind poet, the enormous sum of 5 down, 5 on the sale of 1,300 copies of the first, second, and third impressions, in all the munificent recompense of 20; the agreement was given to the British Museum in 1852, by Samuel Rogers, the banker poet.

Nor in this list of Fleet Street printers must we forget to insert Richard Pynson, from Normandy, who had worked at Caxton's press, and was a contemporary of De Worde. According to Mr. n.o.ble (to whose work we are so deeply indebted), Pynson printed in Fleet Street, at his office, the "George" (first in the Strand, and afterwards beside St. Dunstan's Church), no less than 215 works. The first of these, completed in the year 1483, was probably the first book printed in Fleet Street, afterwards a gathering-place for the ink-stained craft. A copy of this book, "Dives and Pauper," was sold a few years since for no less than 49. In 1497 the same busy Frenchman published an edition of "Terence,"

the first Latin cla.s.sic printed in England. In 1508 he became printer to King Henry VII., and after this produced editions of Fabyan's and Froissart's "Chronicles." He seems to have had a bitter feud with a rival printer, named Robert Rudman, who pirated his trade-mark. In one of his books he thus quaintly falls foul of the enemy: "But truly Rudeman, because he is the rudest out of a thousand men.... Truly I wonder now at last that he hath confessed it in his own typography, unless it chanced that even as the devil made a cobbler a mariner, he made him a printer. Formerly this scoundrel did prefer himself a bookseller, as well skilled as if he had started forth from Utopia. He knows well that he is free who pretendeth to books, although it be nothing more."

To this brief chronicle of early Fleet Street printers let us add Richard Bancks, who, in 1600, at his office, "the sign of the White Hart," printed that exquisite fairy poem, Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream." How one envies the "reader" of that office, the compositors--nay, even the sable imp who pulled the proof, and s.n.a.t.c.hed a pa.s.sage or two about Mustard and Pease Blossom in a surrept.i.tious glance! Another great Fleet Street printer was Richard Grafton, the printer, as Mr. n.o.ble says, of the first correct folio English translation of the Bible, by permission of Henry VIII. When in Paris, Grafton had to fly with his books from the Inquisition. After his patron Cromwell's execution, in 1540, Grafton was sent to the Fleet for printing Bibles, but in the happier times of Edward VI. he became king's printer at the Grey Friars (now Christ's Hospital). His former fellow-worker in Paris, Edward Whitchurch, set up his press at De Worde's old house, the "Sun," near the Fleet Street conduit. He published the "Paraphrase of Erasmus," a copy of which, Mr. n.o.ble says, existed, with its desk-chains, in the vestry of St. Benet's, Gracechurch Street. Whitchurch married the widow of Archbishop Cranmer.

The "Hercules Pillars" (now No. 27, Fleet Street, south) was a celebrated tavern as early as the reign of James I., and in the now nameless alley by its side several houses of entertainment nestled themselves. The tavern is interesting to us chiefly because it was a favourite resort of Pepys, who frequently mentions it in his quaint and graphic way.

No. 37 (h.o.a.re's Bank), south, is well known by the golden bottle that still hangs, exciting curiosity, over the fanlight of the entrance.

Popular legend has it that this gilt case contains the original leather bottle carried by the founder when he came up to London, with the usual half-crown in his pocket, to seek his fortune. Sir Richard Colt h.o.a.re, however, in his family history, destroys this romance. The bottle is merely a sign adopted by James h.o.a.re, the founder of the bank, from his father having been a citizen and cooper of the city of London. James h.o.a.re was a goldsmith who kept "running cash" at the "Golden Bottle" in Cheapside in 1677. The bank was removed to Fleet Street between 1687 and 1692. The original bank, described by Mr. Timbs as "a low-browed building with a narrow entrance," was pulled down about forty years since. In the records of the debts of Lord Clarendon is the item, "To Mr. h.o.a.re, for plate, 27 10s. 3d."; and, by the secret service expenses of James II., "Charles Duncombe and James h.o.a.re, Esqrs.," appear to have executed for a time the office of master-workers at the Mint. A Sir Richard h.o.a.re was Lord Mayor in 1713; and another of the same family, sheriff in 1740-41 and Lord Mayor in 1745, distinguished himself by his preparations to defend London against the Pretender. In an autobiographical record still extant of the shrievalty of the first of these gentlemen, the writer says:--"After being regaled with sack and walnuts, I returned to my own house in Fleet Street, in my private capacity, to my great consolation and comfort." This Richard h.o.a.re, with Beau Nash, Lady Hastings, &c., founded, in 1716, the Bath General Hospital, to which charity the firm still continue treasurers; and to this same philanthropic gentleman, Robert Nelson, who wrote the well-known book on "Fasts and Festivals," gave 100 in trust as the first legacy to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Mr. n.o.ble quotes a curious broadside still extant in which the second Sir Richard h.o.a.re, who died in 1754, denies a false and malicious report that he had attempted to cause a run on the Bank of England, and to occasion a disturbance in the City, by sending persons to the Bank with ten notes of 10 each. What a state of commercial wealth, to be shaken by the sudden demand of a mere 100!

Next to h.o.a.re's once stood the "Mitre Tavern," where some of the most interesting of the meetings between Dr. Johnson and Boswell took place.

The old tavern was pulled down, in 1829, by the Messrs. h.o.a.re, to extend their banking-house. The original "Mitre" was of Shakespeare's time. In some MS. poems by Richard Jackson, a contemporary of the great poet, are some verses beginning, "From the rich Lavinian sh.o.r.e," inscribed as "Shakespeare's rime, which he made at ye 'Mitre,' in Fleet Street." The balcony was set on flames during the Great Fire, and had to be pulled down. Here, in June, 1763, Boswell came by solemn appointment to meet Johnson, so long the G.o.d of his idolatry. They had first met at the shop of Davis, the actor and bookseller, and afterwards near an eating-house in Butcher Row. Boswell describes his feelings with delightful sincerity and self-complacency. "We had," he says, "a good supper and port wine, of which Johnson then sometimes drank a bottle. The orthodox High Church sound of the Mitre, the figure and manner of the celebrated Samuel Johnson, the extraordinary power of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever before experienced." That memorable evening Johnson ridiculed Colley Cibber's birthday odes and Paul Whitehead's "grand nonsense," and ran down Gray, who had declined his acquaintance. He talked of other poets, and praised poor Goldsmith as a worthy man and excellent author.

Boswell fairly won the great man by his frank avowals and his adroit flattery. "Give me your hand," at last cried the great man to the small man: "I have taken a liking to you." They then finished a bottle of port each, and parted between one and two in the morning. As they shook hands, on their way to No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, where Johnson then lived, Johnson said, "Sir, I am glad we have met. I hope we shall pa.s.s many evenings, and mornings too, together." A few weeks after the Doctor and his young disciple met again at the "Mitre," and Goldsmith was present. The poet was full of love for Dr. Johnson, and speaking of some scapegrace, said tenderly, "He is now become miserable, and that insures the protection of Johnson." At another "Mitre" meeting, on a Scotch gentleman present praising Scotch scenery, Johnson uttered his bitter gibe, "Sir, let me tell you that the n.o.blest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England." In the same month Johnson and Boswell met again at the "Mitre." The latter confessed his nerves were much shaken by the old port and the late tavern hours; and Johnson laughed at people who had accepted a pension from the house of Hanover abusing him as a Jacobite. It was at the "Mitre" that Johnson urged Boswell to publish his "Travels in Corsica;" and at the "Mitre" he said finely of London, "Sir, the happiness of London is not to be conceived but by those who have been in it. I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circ.u.mference of ten miles from where we sit than in all the rest of the kingdom." It was here the famous "Tour to the Hebrides" was planned and laid out. Another time we find Goldsmith and Boswell going arm-in-arm to Bolt Court, to prevail on Johnson to go and sup at the "Mitre;" but he was indisposed. Goldsmith, since "the big man" could not go, would not venture at the "Mitre" with Boswell alone. At Boswell's last "Mitre" evening with Johnson, May, 1778, Johnson would not leave Mrs. Williams, the blind old lady who lived with him, till he had promised to send her over some little dainty from the tavern. This was very kindly and worthy of the man who had the coat but not the heart of a bear. From 1728 to 1753 the Society of Antiquaries met at the "Mitre," and discussed subjects then wrongly considered frivolous. The Royal Society had also conclaves at the same celebrated tavern; and here, in 1733, Thomas Topham, the strongest man of his day, in the presence of eight persons, rolled up with his iron fingers a large pewter dish. In 1788 the "Mitre" ceased to be a tavern, and became, first Macklin's Poet's Gallery, and then an auction-room.

The present spurious "Mitre Tavern," in Mitre Court, was originally known as "Joe's Coffee-House."

It was at No. 56 (south side) that Lamb's friend, William Hone, the publisher of the delightful "Table Book" and "Every-day Book," commenced business about 1812. In 1815 he was brought before the Wardmote Inquest of St. Dunstan's for placarding his shop on Sundays, and for carrying on a retail trade as bookseller and stationer, not being a freeman. The Government had no doubt suggested the persecution of so troublesome an opponent, whose defence of himself is said to have all but killed Lord Ellenborough, the judge who tried him for publishing blasphemous parodies. In 1815 Hone took great interest in the case of Eliza Fenning, a poor innocent servant girl, who was hung for a supposed attempt to poison her master, a law stationer in Chancery Lane. It was afterwards believed that a nephew of Mr. Turner really put the poison in the dough of some dumplings, in revenge at being kept short of money.

Mr. Cyrus Jay, a shrewd observer, was present at Hone's trial, and has described it with vividness:--

"Hone defended himself firmly and well, but he had no spark of eloquence about him. For years afterwards I was often with him, and he was made a great deal of in society. He became very religious, and died a member of Mr. Clayton's Independent chapel, worshipping at the Weigh House. The last important incident of Lord Ellenborough's political life was the part he took as presiding judge in Hone's trials for the publication of certain blasphemous parodies. At this time he was suffering from the most intense exhaustion, and his const.i.tution was sinking under the fatigues of a long and sedulous discharge of his important duties. This did not deter him from taking his seat upon the bench on this occasion.

When he entered the court, previous to the trial, Hone shouted out, 'I am glad to see you, Lord Ellenborough. I know what you are come here for; I know what you want.' 'I am come to do justice,' replied his lordship. 'My wish is to see justice done.' 'Is it not rather, my lord,'

retorted Hone, 'to send a poor devil of a bookseller to rot in a dungeon?' In the course of the proceedings Lord Ellenborough more than once interfered. Hone, it must be acknowledged, with less vehemence than might have been expected, requested him to forbear. The next time his lordship made an observation, in answer to something the defendant urged in the course of his speech, Hone exclaimed, in a voice of thunder, 'I do not speak to you, my lord; you are not my judge; these,' pointing to the jury, 'these are my judges, and it is to them that I address myself.' Hone avenged himself on what he called the Chief Justice's partiality; he wounded him where he could not defend himself. Arguing that Athanasius was not the author of the creed that bears his name, he cited, by way of authority, pa.s.sages from the writings of Gibbon and Warburton to establish his position. Fixing his eyes on Lord Ellenborough, he then said, 'And, further, your lordship's father, the late worthy Bishop of Carlisle, has taken a similar view of the same creed.' Lord Ellenborough could not endure this allusion to his father's heterodoxy. In a broken voice he exclaimed, 'For the sake of decency, forbear!' The _request_ was immediately complied with. The jury acquitted Hone, a result which is said to have killed the Chief Justice; but this is probably not true. That he suffered in consequence of the trial is certain. After he entered his private room, when the trial was over, his strength had so far deserted him that his son was obliged to put his hat on for him. But he quickly recovered his spirits; and on his way home, in pa.s.sing through Charing Cross, he pulled the check-string, and said, 'It just occurs to me that they sell here the best herrings in London; buy six.' Indeed Dr. Turner, afterwards Bishop of Calcutta, who accompanied him in his carriage, said that so far from his nerves being shaken by the hootings of the mob, Lord Ellenborough only observed that their saliva was worse than their bite....

"When Hone was tried before him for blasphemy, Lord Tenterden treated him with great forbearance; but Hone, not content with the indulgence, took to vilifying the judge. 'Even in a Turkish court I should not have met with the treatment I have experienced here,' he exclaimed.

'Certainly,' replied Lord Tenterden; 'the bowstring would have been round your neck an hour ago.'"

That st.u.r.dy political writer, William Cobbett, lived at No. 183 (north), and there published his _Political Register_. In 1819 he wrote from America, declaring that if Sir Robert Peel's Bank Bill pa.s.sed, he would give Castlereagh leave to lay him on a gridiron and broil him alive, while Sidmouth stirred the coals, and Canning stood by and laughed at his groans. In 1827 he announced in his _Register_ that he would place a gridiron on the front of his shop whenever Peel's Bill was repealed. The "Small Note Bill" was repealed, when there was a reduction of the interest of the National Debt. The gridiron so often threatened never actually went up, but it was to be seen a few years ago nailed on the gable end of a candle manufacturer's at Kensington. The two houses next to Cobbett's (184 and 185) are the oldest houses standing in Fleet Street.

"Peele's Coffee-House" (Nos. 177 and 178, north side) once boasted a portrait of Dr. Johnson, said to be by Sir Joshua Reynolds, on the keystone of the mantelpiece. This coffee-house is of antiquity, but is chiefly memorable for its useful files of newspapers and for its having been the central committee-room of the Society for Repealing the Paper Duty. The struggle began in 1858, and eventually triumphed, thanks to the president, the Right Hon. Milner Gibson, and the chairman, the late Mr. John Ca.s.sell. The house within the last few years has been entirely rebuilt. In former times "Peele's Coffee-House" was quite a house of call and post-office for money-lenders and bill-discounters; though crowds of barristers and solicitors also frequented it, in order to consult the useful files of London and country newspapers h.o.a.rded there for now more than a century. Mr. Jay has left us an amusing sketch of one of the former frequenters of "Peele's"--the late Sir William Owen Barlow, a bencher of the Middle Temple. This methodical old gentleman had never travelled in a stage-coach or railway-carriage in his life, and had not for years read a book. He came in for dinner at the same hour every day, except in Term-time, and was very angry if any loud talkers disturbed him at his evening paper. He once requested the instant discharge of a waiter at "Peele's," because the civil but ungrammatical man had said, "There are a leg of mutton, and there is chops."

CHAPTER V.

FLEET STREET (_continued_).

The "Green Dragon"--Tompion and Pinchbeck--The _Record_--St. Bride's and its Memories--_Punch_ and his Contributors--The _Dispatch_--The _Daily Telegraph_--The "Globe Tavern" and Goldsmith--The _Morning Advertiser_--The _Standard_--The _London Magazine_--A Strange Story--Alderman Waithman--Brutus Billy--Hardham and his "37."

The original "Green Dragon" (No. 56, south) was destroyed by the Great Fire, and the new building set six feet backward. During the Popish Plot several anti-papal clubs met here; and from the windows Roger North stood to see the shouting, torch-waving procession pa.s.s along, to burn the Pope's effigy at Temple Bar. In the "Discussion Forum" many Lord Chancellors of the future have tried their eloquence. It was celebrated some years ago from an allusion to it made by Napoleon III.

At No. 67 (corner of Whitefriars Street) once lived that famous watchmaker of Queen Anne's reign, Thomas Tompion, who is said, in 1700, to have begun a clock for St. Paul's Cathedral which was to go one hundred years without winding up. He died in 1713. His apprentice, George Graham, invented, as Mr. n.o.ble tells us, the horizontal escapement, in 1724. He was succeeded by Mudge and Dutton, who, in 1768, made Dr. Johnson his first watch. The old shop was (1850) one of the last in Fleet Street to be modernised.

Between Bolt and Johnson's courts (152-166, north)--say near "Anderton's Hotel"--there lived, in the reign of George II., at the sign of the "Astronomer's Musical Clock," Christopher Pinchbeck, an ingenious musical-clockmaker, who invented the "cheap and useful imitation of gold," which still bears his name. (Watt's, in his "Dictionary of Chemistry," says "pinchbeck" is an alloy of copper and zinc, usually containing about nine parts copper to one part zinc. Brandt says it is an alloy containing more copper than exists in bra.s.s, and consequently made by fusing various proportions of copper with bra.s.s.) Pinchbeck often exhibited his musical automata in a booth at Bartholomew Fair, and, in conjunction with Fawkes the Conjuror, at Southwark Fair. He made, according to Mr. Wood, an exquisite musical clock, worth about 500, for Louis XIV., and a fine organ for the Great Mogul, valued at 300. He died in 1732. He removed to Fleet Street (between Bolt and Johnson's courts, north side) from Clerkenwell in 1721. His clocks played tunes and imitated the notes of birds. In 1765 he set up, at the Queen's House, a clock with four faces, showing the age of the moon, the day of the week and month, the time of sun rising, &c.

No. 161 (north) was the shop of Thomas Hardy, that agitating bootmaker, secretary to the London Corresponding Society, who was implicated in the John Horne Tooke trials of 1794; and next door, years after (No. 162), Richard Carlisle, a "freethinker," opened a lecturing, conversation, and discussion establishment, preached the "only true gospel," hung effigies of bishops outside his shop, and was eventually quieted by nine years'

imprisonment, a punishment by no means undeserved. No. 76 (south) was once the entrance to the printing-office of Samuel Richardson, the author of "Clarissa," who afterwards lived in Salisbury Square, and there held levees of his admirers, to whom he read his works with an innocent vanity which occasionally met with disagreeable rebuffs.

"Anderton's Hotel" (No. 164, north side) occupies the site of a house given, as Mr. n.o.ble says, in 1405, to the Goldsmiths' Company, under the singular t.i.tle of "The Horn in the Hoop," probably at that time a tavern. In the register of St. Dunstan's is an entry (1597), "Ralph slaine at the Horne, buryed," but no further record exists of this hot-headed roysterer. In the reign of King James I. the "Horn" is described as "between the 'Red Lion,' over against Serjeants' Inn, and Three-legged Alley."

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN EVENING WITH DR. JOHNSON AT THE "MITRE" (_see page 51_).]

[Ill.u.s.tration: OLD HOUSES (STILL STANDING) IN FLEET STREET, NEAR ST.

DUNSTAN'S CHURCH (_see page 52_).]

The _Record_ (No. 169, north side) started in 1828 as an organ of the extreme Evangelical party. The first promoters were the late Mr. James Evans, a brother of Sir Andrew Agnew, and Mr. Andrew Hamilton, of West Ham Common (the first secretary of the Alliance Insurance Company).

Among their supporters were Henry Law, Dean of Gloucester, and Francis Close, afterwards Dean of Carlisle. Amongst its earliest writers was the celebrated Dr. John Henry Newman, of Oxford. The paper was all but dying when a new "whip" was made for money, and the Rev. Henry Blunt, of Chelsea, became for a short time its editor. The _Record_ at last began to flourish and to a.s.sume a bolder and a more independent tone. Dean Milman's neology, the peculiarities of the Irvingites, and the dangerous Oxford tracts, were alternately denounced. In due course the _Record_ began to appear three times a week, and became celebrated for its uncompromising religious tone and, as Mr. James Grant truly says, for the earliness and accuracy of its politico-ecclesiastical information.

The old church of St. Bride (Bridget) was of great antiquity. As early as 1235 we find a turbulent foreigner, named Henry de Battle, after slaying one Thomas de Hall on the king's highway, flying for sanctuary to St. Bride's, where he was guarded by the aldermen and sheriffs, and examined in the church by the Constable of the Tower. The murderer, after confessing his crime, abjured the realm. In 1413 a priest of St.

Bride's was hung for an intrigue in which he had been detected. William Venor, a warden of the Fleet Prison, added a body and side-aisles in 1480 (Edward IV.) At the Reformation there were orchards between the parsonage gardens and the Thames. In 1637, a doc.u.ment in the Record Office, quoted by Mr. n.o.ble, mentions that Mr. Palmer, vicar of St.

Bride's, at the service at seven a.m., sometimes omitted the prayer for the bishop, and, being generally lax as to forms, often read service without surplice, gown, or even his cloak. This worthy man, whose living was sequestered in 1642, is recorded, in order to save money for the poor, to have lived in a bed-chamber in St. Bride's steeple. He founded an almshouse in Westminster, upon which Fuller remarks, in his quaint way, "It giveth the best light when one carrieth his lantern before him." The brother of Pepys was buried here in 1664 under his mother's pew. The old church was swallowed up by the Great Fire, and the present building erected in 1680, at a cost of 11,430 5s. 11d. The tower and spire were considered masterpieces of Wren. The spire, originally 234 feet high, was struck by lightning in 1754, and it is now only 226 feet high. It was again struck in 1803. The illuminated dial (the second erected in London) was set up permanently in 1827. The Spital sermons, now preached in Christ Church, Newgate Street, were preached in St.