The Town Part 10

"Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis."

(Perhaps, some day, our names may mix with theirs.)

"When we got to Temple Bar," says Johnson, "Goldsmith stopped me, pointed to the heads upon it, and slily whispered to me ('in allusion,' says Boswell, 'to Dr. Johnson's supposed political opinions, and perhaps to his own,')

"'Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur _istis_.'"

(Perhaps, some day, our names may mix with _theirs_.)

These heads belonged to the rebels who were executed for rising in favour of the Pretender. The brutality of such spectacles, which outrage the last feelings of mortality, and as often punish honest mistakes as anything else, is not likely to be repeated. Yet such an effect has habit in reconciling men's minds to the most revolting, and sometimes the most dangerous customs, that here were two Jacobites, one of whom made a jest of what we should now regard with horror.

However, Johnson must often have felt bitterly as he pa.s.sed there; and the jesting of such men is frequently nothing but salve for a wound.

Shire Lane still keeps its name, and we hope, however altered and improved, it will never have any other; for here, the upper end, is described as residing, old Isaac Bickerstaff, the Tatler, the more venerable but not the more delightful double of Richard Steele, the founder of English periodical literature. The public-house called the Trumpet, now known as the Duke of York, at which the Tatler met his club, is still remaining. At his house in the lane he dates a great number of his papers, and receives many interesting visitors; and here it was that he led down into Fleet Street that immortal deputation of "twaddlers" from the country, who, as a celebrated writer has observed, hardly seem to have settled their question of precedence to this hour.[102]

In Shire Lane is said to have originated the famous Kit-Kat Club, which consisted of "thirty-nine distinguished n.o.blemen and gentlemen, zealously attached to the Protestant succession of the house of Hanover." "The club," continues a note in Spence by the editor, "is supposed to have derived its name from Christopher Katt, a pastry-cook, who kept the house where they dined, and excelled in making mutton-pies, which always formed a part of their bill of fare; these pies, on account of their excellence, were called Kit-Kats. The summer meetings were sometimes held at the Upper Flask on Hampstead Heath."[103]

"You have heard of the Kit-Kat Club," says Pope to Spence. "The master of the house where the club met was Christopher Katt; Tonson was secretary. The day Lord Mohun and the Earl of Berwick were entered of it, Jacob said he saw they were just going to be ruined. When Lord Mohun broke down the gilded emblem on the top of his chair, Jacob complained to his friends, and said a man who would do that, would cut a man's throat. So that he had the good and the forms of the society much at heart. The paper was all in Lord Halifax's handwriting of a subscription of four hundred guineas for the encouragement of good comedies, and was dated 1709, soon after they broke up.

Steele, Addison, Congreve, Garth, Vanbrugh, Manwaring, Stepney, Walpole, and Pulteney, were of it; so was Lord Dorset and the present Duke. Manwaring, whom we hear nothing of now, was the ruling man in all conversations; indeed, what he wrote had very little merit in it. Lord Stanhope and the Earl of Ess.e.x were also members. Jacob has his own, and all their pictures, by Sir G.o.dfrey Kneller. Each member gave his, and he is going to build a room for them at Barn Elms."[104]

It is from the size at which these portraits were taken (a three-quarter length), that the word Kit-Kat came to be applied to pictures. The society afterwards met in higher places; but humbleness of locality is nothing in these matters. The refinement consists in the company, and in whatever they choose to throw a grace over, whether venison or beef. The great thing is, not the bill of fare, but, as Swift called it, the "bill of company."

We cross to the south side of the street again, and come to Mrs.

Salmon's. It is a curious evidence of the fluctuation of the great tide in commercial and growing cities, that, a century ago, this immortal old gentlewoman, renowned for her wax-work, gives as a reason for removing from St. Martin's-le-Grand to Fleet Street, that it was "a more convenient place for the coaches of the quality to stand unmolested."[105] Some of the houses in this quarter are of the Elizabethan age, with floors projecting over the others, and looking pressed together like burrows. The inmates of these humble tenements (unlike those of great halls and mansions) seem as if they must have had their heights taken, and the ceiling made to fit. Yet the builders were liberal of their materials. Over the way, near the west corner of Chancery Lane, stood an interesting specimen of this style of building, in the house of the famous old angler, Isaac Walton.

Walton's was the second house from the lane, the corner house being an inn, long distinguished by the sign of the Harrow. He appears to have long lived here, carrying on the business of a linen-draper about the year 1624. Another person, John Mason, a hosier, occupied one-half of the tenement. Walton afterwards removed to another house in Chancery Lane, a few doors up from Fleet Street, on the west side, where he kept a sempster's, or milliner's shop.

A great deal has been said lately of the merits and demerits of angling, and Isaac has suffered in the discussion, beyond what is agreeable to the lovers of that gentle pleasure. Unfortunately the brothers of the angle do not argue ingenuously. They always omit the tortures suffered by the princ.i.p.al party, and affect to think you affected if you urge them; whereas their only reason for avoiding the point is, that it is not to be defended. If it is, we may defend, by an equal abuse of reason, any amus.e.m.e.nt which is to be obtained at another being's expense; and an evil genius might angle for ourselves, and twitch us up, bleeding and roaring, into an atmosphere that would stifle us. But fishes do not roar; they cannot express any sound of suffering; and therefore the angler chooses to think they do not suffer, more than it is convenient to him to fancy. Now it is a poor sport that depends for its existence on the want of a voice in the sufferer, and of imagination in the sportsman. Angling, in short, is not to be defended on any ground of reflection; and this is the worst thing to say of Isaac; for he was not unaware of the objections to his amus.e.m.e.nt, and he piqued himself upon being contemplative.

Anglers have been defended upon the ground of their having had among them so many pious men; but unfortunately men may be selfishly as well as n.o.bly pious; and even charity itself may be practised, as well as cruelty deprecated, upon principles which have a much greater regard to a man's own safety and future comfort, than anything which concerns real Christian beneficence. Doubtless there have been many good and humane men anglers, as well as many pleasant men. There have also been some very unpleasant ones--Sir John Hawkins among them. They make a well-founded pretension to a love of nature and her scenery; but it is a pity they cannot relish it without this pepper to the poor fish.

Walton's book contains many pa.s.sages in praise of rural enjoyment, which affect us almost like the fields and fresh air themselves, though his brethren have exalted it beyond its value; and his lives of his angling friends, the Divines, have been preposterously over-rated.

If angling is to be defended upon good and manly grounds, let it; it is no longer to be defended on any other. The best thing to be said for it (and the instance is worthy of reflection) is, that anglers have been brought up in the belief of its innocence, and that an inhuman custom is too powerful for the most humane. The inconsistency is to be accounted for on no other grounds; nor is it necessary or desirable that it should be. It is a remarkable ill.u.s.tration of what Plato said, when something was defended on the ground of its being a trifle, because it was a custom. "But custom," said he, "is no trifle." Here, among persons of a more equivocal description, are some of the humanest men in the world, who will commit what other humane men reckon among the most inhuman actions, and make an absolute pastime of it. Let one of their grandchildren be brought up in the reverse opinion, and see what he will think of it. This, to be sure, might be said to be only another instance of the effect of education; but n.o.body, the most unprejudiced, thinks it a bigotry in Shakspeare and Steele to have brought us to feel for the brute creation in general; and whatever we may incline to think for the accommodation of our propensities, there will still remain the unanswered and always avoided argument, of the dumb and torn fish themselves, who die agonised, in the midst of our tranquil looking on, and for no necessity.

John Whitney, author of the _Genteel Recreation, or the Pleasures of Angling_, a poem printed in the year 1700, recommends the lovers of the art to bait with the eyes of fish, in order to decoy others of the same species. A writer in the _Censura Literaria_ exclaims, "What a Nero of Anglers doth this proclaim John Whitney to have been! and how unworthy to be ranked as a lover of the same pastime, which had been so interestingly recommended by Isaac Walton, in his _Contemplative Man's Recreation_."[106]

But Isaac's contemplative man can content himself with impaling live worms, and jesting about the tenderness with which he treats them--using the worm, quoth Isaac, "as if you loved him." Doubtless John thought himself as good a man as Isaac. He poetizes, and is innocent with the best of them, and probably would not have hurt a dog. However, it must be allowed that he had less imagination than Walton, and was more cruel, inasmuch as he could commit a cruelty that was not the custom. Observe, nevertheless, that it was the customary cruelty which led to the new one. Why must these contemplative men commit any cruelty at all? The writer of the article in the _Censura_ was, if we mistake not, one of the kindest of human beings, and yet he could see nothing erroneous in torturing a worm. "A good man," says the Scripture, "is merciful to his beast." Therefore "holy Mr.

Herbert" very properly helps a horse out of a ditch, and is the better for it all the rest of the day. Are we not to be merciful to fish as well as beasts, merely because the Scripture does not expressly state it? Such are the inconsistencies of mankind, during their very acquirement of beneficence.

On the other side of the corner of Chancery Lane was born a man of genius and benevolence, who would not have hurt a fly--Abraham Cowley.

His father was a grocer; himself, one of the kindest, wisest, and truest gentlemen that ever graced humanity. He has been p.r.o.nounced by one, competent to judge, to have been "if not a great poet, a great man." But his poetry is what every other man's poetry is, the flower of what was in him; and it is at least so far good poetry, as it is the quintessence of amiable and deep reflection, not without a more festive strain, the result of his sociality. Pope says of him--

"Forgot his epic, nay pindaric art; Yet still we love the language of his heart."[107]

His prose is admirable, and his character of Cromwell a masterpiece of honest enmity, more creditable to both parties than the zealous royalist was aware. Cowley, notwithstanding the active part he took in politics, never ceased to be a child at heart. His mind lived in books and bowers--in the sequestered "places of thought;" and he wondered and lamented to the last, that he had not realised the people he found there. His consolation should have been, that what he found in himself was an evidence that the people exist.

Chancery Lane, "the most ancient of any to the west," having been built in the time of Henry the Third, when it was called New Lane, which was afterwards altered to Chancellor's Lane, is the greatest legal thoroughfare in England. It leads from the Temple, pa.s.ses by Sergeants' Inn, Clifford's Inn, Lincoln's Inn, and the Rolls, and conducts to Gray's Inn. Of the world of vice and virtue, of pain and triumph, of learning and ignorance, truth and chicanery, of impudence, violence, and tranquil wisdom, that must have pa.s.sed through this spot, the reader may judge accordingly. There all the great and eloquent lawyers of the metropolis must have been, at some time or other, from Fortescue and Littleton, to c.o.ke, Ellesmere, and Erskine.

Sir Thomas More must have been seen going down with his weighty aspect; Bacon with his eye of intuition; the coa.r.s.e Thurlow; and the reverend elegance of Mansfield. In Chancery Lane was born the celebrated Lord Strafford, who was sent to the block by the party he had deserted, the victim of his own false strength and his master's weakness. It is a curious evidence of the secret manners of those times, which are so often contrasted with the licence of the next reign, that Clarendon, in speaking of some love-letters of this lord, a married man, which transpired during his trial, calls them "things of levity." What would he have said had he found any love letters between Lady Carlisle and Pym? Of Southampton Buildings, on the site of which lived Shakspeare's friend, Lord Southampton, we shall speak immediately; and we shall notice Lincoln's Inn when we come to the Western portion of Holborn. But we may here observe, that on the wall of the Inn, which is in Chancery Lane, Ben Jonson is said to have worked, at the time he was compelled to a.s.sist his father-in-law at his trade of bricklaying. In the intervals of his trowel, he is said to have handled his Horace and Virgil. It is only a tradition, which Fuller has handed down to us in his _Worthies_; but tradition is valuable when it helps to make such a flower grow upon an old wall.

Sergeants' Inn, the first leading out of Chancery Lane, near Fleet Street, has been what its name implies for many generations. It was occasionally occupied by the Sergeants as early as the time of Henry the Fourth, when it was called Farringdon's Inn, though they have never, we believe, held possession of the place but under tenure to the bishops of Ely, or their lessees. Pennant confounds this inn with another of the same name, now no longer devoted to the same purpose, in Fleet Street.[108] Sergeants' Inn in Fleet Street was reduced to ruins in the great fire, but was soon after rebuilt in a much more uniform style than before. It continued after this to be occupied by the lawyers in 1730, when the whole was taken down, and the present court erected. The office of the Amicable Annuitant Society, on the east side of the court, occupies the site of the ancient hall and chapel. All the judges, as having been Sergeants-at-law before their elevation to the bench, have still chambers in the inn in Chancery Lane. The windows of this house are filled with the armorial bearings of the members, who, when they are knighted, are emphatically _equites aurati_ (knights made golden), at least as far as rings are concerned, for they give rings on the occasion, with mottoes expressive of their sentiments upon law and justice. As to the _equites_, learned "knights" or hors.e.m.e.n (till "knight" be restored to its original meaning--servant) will never be anything but an anomaly, especially since the brethren no longer even ride to the Hall as they used. The arms of the body of Sergeants are a golden shield with an ibis upon it; or, to speak scientifically, "Or, an Ibis proper;" to which Mr.

Jekyll might have added, for motto, "_In medio tutissimus_." The same learned punster made an epigram upon the oratory and scarlet robes of his brethren, which may be here repeated without offence, as the Sergeants have had among them some of the best as well as most tiresome of speakers:

"The Sergeants are a grateful race; Their dress and language show it; Their purple robes from Tyre we trace, Their arguments go to it."

One of the customs which used to be observed so late as the reign of Charles I. in the creation of sergeants, was for the new dignitary to go in procession to St. Paul's, and there to choose his pillar, as it was expressed. This ceremony is supposed to have originated in the ancient practice of the lawyers taking each his station at one of the pillars in the cathedral, and there waiting for clients. The legal sage stood, it is said, with pen in hand, and dexterously noted down the particulars of every man's case on his knee.

Clifford's Inn, leading out of Sergeants' Inn into Fleet Street and Fetter Lane, is so called from the n.o.ble family of De Clifford, who granted it to the students-at-law in the reign of Edward III. The word inn (Saxon, chamber), though now applied only to law places, and the better sort of public-houses in which travellers are entertained, formerly signified a great house, mansion, or family palace. So Lincoln's Inn, the mansion of the Earls of Lincoln; Gray's Inn, of the Lords Gray, &c. The French still use the word _hotel_ in the same sense. Inn once made as splendid a figure in our poetry, as the palaces of Milton:

"Now whenas Phoebus, with his fiery waine, Unto his inne began to draw apace;"[109]

says Spenser; and his disciple Browne after him:

"Now had the glorious sun tane up his inne."[110]

There are three things to notice in Clifford's Inn: its little bit of turf and trees; its quiet; and its having been the residence of Robert Pultock, author of the curious narrative _Peter Wilkins_, with its Flying Women. Who he was, is not known; probably a barrister without practice; but he wrote an amiable and interesting book. As to the sudden and pleasant quiet in this little inn, it is curious to consider what a small remove from the street produces it. But even in the back room of a shop in the main street, the sound of the carts and carriages becomes wonderfully deadened to the ear; and a remove, like Clifford's Inn, makes it remote or nothing.

The garden of Clifford's Inn forms part of the area of the ROLLS, so called from the records kept there, in rolls of parchment. It is said to have been the house of an eminent Jew, forfeited to the crown; that is to say, it was most probably taken from him, with all that it contained, by Henry III., who made it a house for converts from the owner's religion. These converted Jews, most likely none of the best of their race (for board and lodging are not arguments to the scrupulous), appear to have been so neglected, that the number of them soon came to nothing, and Edward III. gave the place to the Court of Chancery to keep its records in. There is a fine monument in the chapel to a Dr. Young, one of the Masters, which, according to Vertue, was executed by Torregiano, who built the splendid tomb in Henry VII.'s Chapel. Sir John Trevor, infamous for bribery and corruption, also lies here. "Wisely," says Pennant, "his epitaph is thus confined: 'Sir J. T. M.R. 1717.' "Some other Masters," he adds, "rest within the walls; among them Sir John Strange, but without the quibbling line,

'Here lies an honest lawyer, that is Strange.'"

Another Master of the Rolls, who did honour to the profession, was Sir Joseph Jekyll, recorded by Pope as an

... "odd old Whig, Who never changed his principles or wig."

When Jekyll came into the office, many of the houses were rebuilt, and to the expense of ten of them he added, out of his own purse, as much as 350_l._ each house; observing, that "he would have them built as strong and as well as if they were his own inheritance."[111] The Master of the Rolls is a great law dignitary, a sort of under-judge in Chancery, presiding in a court by himself, though his most ostensible office is to take care of the records in question. He has a house and garden on the spot, the latter secluded from public view. The house, however, has not been used as a residence by the present holder of the office or his predecessor.

Between Chancery and Fetter Lane is the new church of St. Dunstan's in the West--a great improvement upon the old one, though a little too plain below for the handsome fretwork of its steeple. The old building was eminent for the two wooden figures of wild men, who, with a gentleness not to be expected of them, struck the hour with a little tap of their clubs. At the same time they moved their arms and heads, with a like avoidance of superfluous action. These figures were put up in the time of Charles II., and were thought not to confer much honour on the pa.s.sengers who stood "gaping" to see them strike. But the pa.s.sengers might surely be as alive to the puerility as any one else.

An absurdity is not the least attractive thing in this world. They who objected to the gapers, probably admired more things than they laughed at. It must be remembered also, that when the images were set up, mechanical contrivances were much rarer than they are now. Two centuries ago, St. Dunstan's Churchyard, as it was called, being the portion of Fleet Street in front of the church, was famous for its booksellers' shops. The church escaped the great fire, which stopped within three houses of it, and consequently was one of the most ancient sacred edifices in London. It was supposed to have been built about the end of the fourteenth century, but had undergone extensive repairs. Besides the clock with the figures, it was adorned by a statue of Queen Elizabeth, which stood in a niche over the east end, and had been transferred thither about the middle of last century from the west side of old Ludgate, which was then removed.

The only repute of Fetter Lane in the present days is, or was, for sausages. But at one time it is said to have had the honour of Dryden's presence. The famous Praise G.o.d Barebones also, it seems, lived here, in a house for which he paid forty pounds a year, as he stated in his examination on a trial in the reign of Charles II.[112]

He paid the above rent, he says "except during the war:" that is, we suppose, during the confusion of the contest between the King and the Parliament, when probably this worthy contrived to live rent free. In this neighbourhood also dwelt the infamous Elizabeth Brownrigg, who was executed in 1767 for the murder of one of her apprentices. Her house, with the cellar in which she used to confine her starved and tortured victims, and from the grating of which their cries of distress were heard, was one of those on the east side of the lane, looking into the long and narrow alley behind, called Flower-de-Luce Court. It was some years ago in the occupation of a fishing-tackle maker.

Johnson once lived in Fetter Lane, but the circ.u.mstances of his abode there have not transpired. We now, however, come to a cl.u.s.ter of his residences in Fleet Street, of which place he is certainly the great presiding spirit, the _Genius loci_. He was conversant for the greater part of his life with this street, was fond of it, frequented its Mitre Tavern above any other in London, and has identified its name and places with the best things he ever said and did. It was in Fleet Street, we believe, that he took the poor girl up in his arms, put her to bed in his own house, and restored her to health and her friends; an action sufficient to redeem a million of the asperities of temper occasioned by disease, and to stamp him, in spite of his bigotry, a good Christian. Here, at all events, he walked and talked, and shouldered wondering porters out of the way, and mourned, and philosophised, and was "a good-natured fellow" (as he called himself), and roared with peals of laughter till midnight echoed to his roar.

"We walked in the evening," says Boswell, "in Greenwich Park.

He asked me, I suppose by way of trying my disposition, 'Is not this very fine?' Having no exquisite relish of the beauties of nature, and being more delighted with the busy hum of men, I answered, 'Yes, sir; but not equal to Fleet Street.' _Johnson._ 'You are right, sir.'"[113]

Boswell vindicates the tastes here expressed by the example of a "very fashionable baronet," who, on his attention being called to the fragrance of a May evening in the country, observed, "This may be very well, but I prefer the smell of a flambeau at the playhouse." The baronet here alluded to was Sir Michael le Fleming, who, by way of comment on his indifference to fresh air, died of an apoplectic fit while conversing with Lord Howick (the late Earl Grey), at the Admiralty.[114] However, Johnson's _ipse dixit_ was enough. He wanted neither Boswell's vindication, nor any other. He was melancholy, and glad to be taken from his thoughts; and London furnished him with an endless flow of society.

Johnson's abodes in Fleet Street were in the following order:--First, in Fetter Lane, then in Boswell Court, then in Gough Square, in the Inner Temple Lane, in Johnson's Court, and finally, and for the longest period, in Bolt Court, where he died. His mode of life, during a considerable portion of his residence in these places, is described in a communication to Boswell by the Rev. Dr. Maxwell, a.s.sistant preacher at the Temple, who was intimate with Johnson for many years, and who spoke of his memory with affection.

"About twelve o'clock," says the doctor, "I commonly visited him, and found him in bed, or declaiming over his tea, which he drank very plentifully. He generally had a levee of morning visitors, chiefly men of letters; Hawkesworth, Goldsmith, Murphy, Langton, Steevens, Beauclerk, &c., &c., and sometimes learned ladies; particularly, I remember, a French lady of wit and fashion doing him the honour of a visit. He seemed to me to be considered as a kind of public oracle, whom everybody thought they had a right to visit and consult; and, doubtless, they were well rewarded. I never could discover how he found time for his compositions. He declaimed all the morning, then went to dinner at a tavern, where he commonly staid late, and then drank his tea at some friend's house, over which he loitered a great while, but seldom took supper. I fancy he must have read and wrote chiefly in the night; for I can scarcely recollect that he ever refused going with me to a tavern, and he often went to Ranelagh, which he deemed a place of innocent recreation.

"He frequently gave all the silver in his pocket to the poor, who watched him between his house and the tavern where he dined. He walked the streets at all hours, and said he was never robbed, for the rogues knew he had little money, nor had the appearance of having much.

"Though the most accessible and communicative man alive, yet when he suspected that he was invited to be exhibited, he constantly spurned the invitation.

"Two young women from Staffordshire visited him when I was present, to consult him on the subject of Methodism, to which they were inclined. 'Come (said he), you pretty fools, dine with Maxwell and me at the Mitre, and we will talk over that subject'; which they did, and after dinner he took one of them on his knees, and fondled them for half an hour together."[115]

This anecdote is exquisite. It shows, that however impatient he was of having his own superst.i.tions canva.s.sed, he was loth to see them inflicted on others. He is here a harmless Falstaff, with two innocent damsels on his knees, in lieu of Mesdames Ford and Page.

In Gough Square, Johnson wrote part of his Dictionary. He had written the Rambler and taken his high stand with the public before. "At this time," says Barber, his servant, "he had little for himself, but frequently sent money to Mr. Shiels when in distress." (Shiels was one of his amanuenses in the dictionary.) His friends and visitors in Gough Square are a good specimen of what they always were--a miscellany creditable to the largeness of his humanity. There was Cave, Dr. Hawkesworth, Miss Carter, Mrs. Macauley (two ladies who must have looked strangely at one another), Mr. (afterwards Sir Joshua) Reynolds, Langton, Mrs. Williams (a poor poetess whom he maintained in his house), Mr. Levett (an apothecary on the same footing), Garrick, Lord Orrery, Lord Southwell, and Mrs. Gardiner, wife of a tallow chandler on Snow-hill--"not in the learned way," said Mr. Barber, "but a worthy good woman." With all his respect for rank, which doubtless he regarded as a special dispensation of Providence, his friend Beauclerk's notwithstanding,[116] Johnson never lost sight of the dignity of goodness. He did not, however, confine his attentions to those who were n.o.ble or amiable; though we are to suppose, that everybody with whom he chose to be conversant had some good quality or other; unless, indeed, he patronised them as the Duke of Montague did his ugly dogs, because n.o.body would if he did not. The great secret, no doubt, was, that he was glad of the company of any of his fellow-creatures who would bear and forbear with him, and for whose tempers he did not care as much as he did for their welfare. And he was giving alms; which was a catholic part of religion, in the proper sense of the word.