Chapter VII: Part 7

In this summary account of the principal Learned Societies of London it has not been possible to include many societies of great importance, such as the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons, the numerous societies connected with other professional pursuits, the Linnæan, Zoological, Botanical, and other societies devoted to natural history; the Royal Astronomical Society, which has important public functions; the Royal Academy, and other institutions devoted to art. The roll of Learned Societies is being constantly increased. Among recent additions may be mentioned the British Academy for Historical Studies, and the Sociological Society.

LITERARY SHRINES OF OLD LONDON

BY ELSIE M. LANG

From the Borough to St. James's

Leigh Hunt was of opinion that "one of the best secrets of enjoyment is the art of cultivating pleasant associations," and, with his example before us, we will endeavour to recall some of those that are to be met with on a walk from the Borough to St. James's, from one of the poorest parts of our city to one of the richest. The Borough, dusty, noisy, toil-worn as it is, is yet, he tells us, "the most classical ground in the metropolis." From the "Tabard" inn--now only a memory, though its contemporary, the "George," hard by, gives us some idea of its look in mediæval times--there rode forth, one bright spring morning, "Sir Jeffrey Chaucer" and "nyne and twenty" pilgrims "in a companye ... to wenden on (a) pilgrimage to Caunterbury with ful devout courage." A fellow-poet of Chaucer's, John Gower, lies buried close at hand in Southwark Cathedral, "under a tomb of stone, with his image of stone also over him." He was one of the earliest benefactors of this church, then known as St. Mary Overy, and founded therein a chantry, where masses should be said for the benefit of his soul. Stones in the pavement of the choir likewise commemorate John Fletcher, Philip Massinger, and Edmund Shakespeare, who lie in unmarked graves somewhere within the precincts of the cathedral.

Not a stone's throw from the Borough is the Bankside, extending from Blackfriars Bridge out beyond Southwark, a mean and dirty thoroughfare, with the grey Thames on one side, and on the other dull houses, grimy warehouses, and gloomy offices. How changed from the semi-rural resort of Elizabethan days, when swans floated on the river, and magnificent barges, laden with gaily dressed nobles and their attendants, were continually passing by! Great must have been the pleasure traffic then, for according to Taylor, "the Water Poet," who plied his trade as waterman and wrote his verses on the Bankside in the early days of Elizabeth's successor, "the number of watermen and those that live and are maintained by them, and by the labour of the oar and scull, between the bridge of Windsor and Gravesend, cannot be fewer than forty thousand; the cause of the greater half of which multitude hath been the players playing on the Bankside." Besides the players, the brilliant band of dramatists who shed lustre on the reign of the maiden Queen frequented it, not only on account of the pleasantness of its situation, but because of the near proximity of the theatres, for the Globe, the Rose, and the Hope all stood on the site now occupied by the brewery of Messrs. Barclay and Perkins, while the Swan was not far off. It is a well-authenticated fact that both Shakespeare and Ben Jonson played at the Globe, and patronised the "Falcon" tavern, the name of which still lingers in Falcon Dock and Falcon Wharf, Nos. 79 and 80, Bankside; and while in the meantime they were producing their masterpieces, Chapman, Dekker, and Middleton were at the height of their fame, Beaumont and Fletcher about to begin their career, and Philip Massinger was newly arrived in town. Some of these Bankside dramatists were well born and rich--such as Francis Beaumont, whose father was a Knight and a Justice of the Common Pleas; and John Fletcher, who was a son of the Bishop of London. Others were of obscure birth and penniless--like Ben Jonson, who had been forced to follow the trade of a bricklayer, and Dekker and Marston, whom he twitted "with their defective doublet and ravelled satin sleeves," and Philip Massinger, who in early days went about begging urgently for the loan of £5. But whatever they had or lacked, certain it is that their common art levelled all barriers between them, for though the chief of all the friendships on the Bankside was that of Beaumont and Fletcher--between whom was "a wonderful consimilarity of fancy ... which caused the dearnesse of friendship between them so that they lived together on the Bankside ... (and had) the same cloaths and cloaks between them"--yet Massinger collaborated with Fletcher in at least thirteen plays, with Dekker in one, and with Ford in two, while Dekker was occasionally associated with Middleton, and Middleton with Webster and Drayton. But the Elizabethan dramatists did not confine themselves to the Bankside; on certain nights they repaired to the "Mermaid" tavern, which used to stand on the south side of Cheapside, between Bread and Friday Streets, to attend the meetings of the famous Mermaid Club, said to have been founded by Sir Walter Raleigh. Here were to be found Shakespeare, Spenser, Beaumont, Fletcher, Ben Jonson, Carew, Donne, and many others, in eager witty converse. Beaumont well described the brilliancy of these gatherings in his poem to Ben Jonson:--

"What things have we seen
Done at the Mermaid! Heard words that have been
So nimble, and so full of subtle flame,
As if that everyone from whence they came
Had meant to put his whole wit in a jest
And had resolved to live a fool the rest
Of his dull life."

Another favourite haunt of theirs was the "Boar's Head," which stood on the spot now marked by the statue of William IV., at the junction of Eastcheap and Gracechurch Street. At this tavern Falstaff and Prince Hal concocted many of their wildest pranks. In later days the Elizabethan poets and dramatists, led by Ben Jonson, went even further afield--to the "Devil" tavern, which stood at No. 1, Fleet Street, where they held their meetings in a room called the "Apollo," the chief adornments of which, a bust of Apollo and a board with an inscription, "Welcome to the oracle of Apollo," are still to be seen in an upper room of Messrs. Child's Bank, which now occupies the site. Ben Jonson tells us that "the first speech in my 'Catiline,' spoken to _Scylla's Ghost_, was writ after I had parted with my friends at the 'Devil' tavern; I had drank well that night, and had brave notions."

We have records of the deaths of two at least of these dramatists on the Bankside--viz., that of Philip Massinger, who died "in his own house, near the play-house on the Bankside," in 1639; and Fletcher, "who dyed of the plague on the 19th of August, 1625." "The parish clerk," says Aubrey, "told me that he was his (Fletcher's) Taylor, and that Mr. Fletcher staying for a suit of cloathes before he retired into the country, Death stopped his journey and laid him low there."

Cheapside, so named from the Chepe, or old London market, along the south side of the site of which it runs, has been a place of barter ever since the reign of Henry VI., when a market was held there daily for the sale of every known commodity. It is easy to see where the vendors of some of the articles had their stands by the names of the surrounding streets--Bread Street, Fish Street, Milk Street, etc. Later on the stalls were transformed into permanent shops, with a dwelling-place for their owners above, and a fair-sized garden at the back. Despite the commercial spirit that has always pervaded this region, it has given birth to two famous poets--the sweet songster Herrick, who sings in one of his poems of

"The golden Cheapside where the earth
Of Julia Herrick gave to me my birth,"

golden, perhaps, having reference to his father, who was a goldsmith; and greater still, John Milton, who first saw the light in Bread Street, at the sign of the "Spread Eagle," in a house which was afterwards destroyed in the Great Fire. It must have been a house of comfortable dimensions, for it covered the site now occupied by Nos. 58 to 63, the business premises of a firm who exhibit a bust of Milton, with an inscription, in a room on their top floor. Milton's father, moreover, had grown rich in his profession, which was that of a scrivener, had been made a Judge, and knighted five years before the birth of his son, so it is evident the poet began life in easy circumstances. He was baptised in All Hallows, a church in Bread Street destroyed in 1897. In Bow Church there is a tablet in memory of Milton, which was taken from All Hallows. When he was ten years of age he began to go to Paul's School, which stood in those days on the east side of St. Paul's Churchyard, between Watling Street and Cheapside. Aubrey records that "when he went to schoole, when he was very young, he studied very hard, and sat up very late, commonly till twelve or one o'clock at night, and his father ordered the mayde to sitt up for him, and at these years (ten) he composed many copies of verses which might well have become a riper age." He continued at this school, the old site of which is marked by a tablet on a warehouse, until he was sixteen. Some twenty years later Samuel Pepys was a pupil at Paul's School, and later on in life witnessed its destruction in the Great Fire. Milton would seem to have always cherished a great affection for the city, for after his return from his travels he seldom lived beyond the sound of Bow Bells, once only venturing as far as Westminster; and when he died he was buried in St. Giles's, Cripplegate, in the same grave as his father. Indeed, the city proper was the birthplace of several poets, for was not Pope born in Lombard Street, Gray in Cornhill, and Edmund Spenser in East Smithfield, while Lord Macaulay spent his earlier years in Birchin Lane?

In the narrow confines of Paternoster Row, where the tall fronts of the houses are so close together that only a thin strip of sky is visible between them, Charlotte Brontë and her sister Anne, fresh from the rugged solitudes of their bleak Yorkshire moors, awoke on the morning of their first visit to the great capital of which they had so often dreamed, and, looking out of the dim windows of the Chapter Coffee-house, saw "the risen sun struggling through the fog, and overhead above the house-tops, co-elevate almost with the clouds ... a solemn orbed mass dark blue and dim the dome" (of St. Paul's).

Fleet Street has always been the haunt of the "knights of the pen," and even in these modern days the names of newspapers stare at the passer-by on every side, while at every step he jostles an ink-stained satellite of some great journal. But although these ink-stained ones are to be met with in Fleet Street at every hour of the day and night, they do not live there like the writers of old time--Michael Drayton, for instance, who "lived at ye baye-windowe house next the east end of St. Dunstan's Church"; and Izaak Walton, who kept a linen-draper's shop "in a house two doors west of the end of Chancery Lane," and on his infrequent holidays went a-fishing in the River Lea at Tottenham High Cross. Abraham Cowley, again, was born over his father's grocer's shop, which "abutted on Sargeants' Inn," and here, as a little child, he devoured the _Faerie Queen_, and was made "irrecoverably a poet." James Shirley lived near the Inner Temple Lane; John Locke in Dorset Court. In Salisbury Square, formerly Salisbury Court, Thomas Sackville, first Earl of Dorset, the precursor of Spenser, John Dryden, and Samuel Richardson, all had a residence at one time or another. Richardson built a large printing establishment on the site now occupied by Lloyd's newspaper offices, where he continued to carry on business many years after he had removed his private residence to the West End. He was buried, moreover, in St. Bride's Church in 1761, a large stone in the nave between pews 12 and 13 recording the fact. But greatest and most constant of Fleet Street habitués was Dr. Johnson. For ten years he lived at 17, Gough Square, busy in an upper room upon his great Dictionary. Here he lost his "beloved Tetty," to whose memory he ever remained faithful. "All his affection had been concentrated on her. He had neither brother nor sister, neither son nor daughter." Although twenty years his senior, with a complexion reddened and coarsened by the too liberal use of both paint and strong cordials, yet "to him she was beautiful as the Gunnings, and witty as Lady Mary." On leaving Gough Square he lived for a few years in the Temple, where he received his first visit from Boswell, and made the acquaintance of Oliver Goldsmith. The latter was then living at 6, Wine Office Court, Fleet Street, where Johnson, visiting him one morning in response to an urgent message, found that "his landlady had arrested him for his rent." He showed Johnson his MS. of the just-completed _Vicar of Wakefield_, which he looked into, and instantly comprehending its merit, went out and sold it to a bookseller for sixty pounds. In 1765 Johnson returned to Fleet Street, and lived for eleven years at 7, Johnson's Court. Here Boswell dined with him for the first time on Easter Day, 1773, and found to his surprise "everything in very good order." Walking up the Court one day in company with Topham Beauclerk, Boswell confessed to him that he "had a veneration" for it, because the great doctor lived there, and was much gratified to learn that Beauclerk felt the same "reverential enthusiasm." In later years Dickens stole up this Court one dark December evening, and, with beating heart, dropped his first original MS. into the letter-box of _The Monthly Magazine_, the office of which stood on the site now occupied by Mr. Henry Sell's premises. No. 8, Bolt Court, was the next and last residence of Dr. Johnson; here, on December 13th, 1784, he met the inevitable crisis, for which he had always felt an indescribable terror and loathing, and passed peacefully and happily away. Johnson had always had a great predilection for club or tavern life, partly because it enabled him to escape for a while from the hypochondria which always dogged his footsteps. He loved nothing so much as to gather kindred spirits around him and spend long evenings in congenial conversation. He would sit, "the Jupiter of a little circle, sometimes indeed nodding approbation, but always prompt on the slightest contradiction to launch the thunders of rebuke and sarcasm." There was not much expense attached to these gatherings, for it is recorded of one of the clubs he founded that the outlay was not to exceed sixpence per person an evening, with a fine of twopence for those who did not attend. Among the Fleet Street haunts thus frequently resorted to by Dr. Johnson and his friends were the "Cocke," patronised in former years by Pepys, and in later years by Thackeray, Dickens, and Tennyson; the "Cheshire Cheese," the only house of the kind which remains as it was in Dr. Johnson's day; the "Mitre," also formerly patronised by Pepys; and the "Devil," where the poets laureate had been wont to repair and read their birthday odes. St. Clement Danes, too, is connected with Johnson, for, in spite of his love of festivity, he was devout, and regularly attended this church, occupying pew No. 18 in the north gallery, now marked by a brass plate. Boswell records that "he carried me with him to the church of St. Clement Danes, where he had his seat, and his behaviour was, as I had imagined to myself, solemnly devout."

One more memory of Fleet Street before we leave it, in connection with Dick's Coffee-house, which used to stand at Nos. 7 and 8. In December, 1763, the poet Cowper, then a student in the Inner Temple, was appointed Clerk of the Journals of the House of Lords. Delicate, shy, intensely sensitive, and with a strong predisposition to insanity, the dread of these onerous public duties disturbed the balance of his morbid brain. His madness broke out one morning at Dick's, as he himself afterwards narrated. He said:

"At breakfast I read the newspaper, and in it a letter,
which the further I perused it the more closely engaged my
attention. I cannot now recollect the purport of it; but
before I had finished it, it appeared demonstratively true to
me that it was a libel or satire upon me. The author appeared
to be acquainted with my purpose of self-destruction, and
to have written that letter on purpose to secure and hasten
the execution of it. My mind probably at this time began to
be disordered; however it was, I was certainly given to a
strong delusion. I said within myself, 'Your cruelty shall be
gratified, you shall have your revenge,' and flinging down the
paper in a fit of strong passion, I rushed hastily out of the
room, directing my way towards the fields, where I intended
to find some lane to die in, or if not, determined to poison
myself in a ditch, when I could meet with one sufficiently
retired."

This paroxysm ended in Cowper trying to hang himself, but, the rope breaking, he went down to the Thames to the Custom House Quay and threatened to drown himself. This attempt, however, also failed, and friends interfering, he was removed to an asylum, where he remained eighteen months.

From Fleet Street it is but a step to the Temple, with its grey quiet corners full of echoing memories, stretching back even to the days of Shakespeare, whose _Twelfth Night_ was performed before an audience of his contemporaries in the self-same Middle Temple Hall that still confronts us. The names of Henry Fielding, Edmund Burke, John Gower, Thomas Shadwell, William Wycherley, Nicholas Rowe, Francis Beaumont, William Congreve, John Horne Tooke, Thomas Day, Tom Moore, Sheridan, George Colman, jun., Marston, and Ford, are all upon the Temple rolls and each must in his day have been a familiar figure among the ancient buildings. But Charles Lamb is the presiding genius of the place.

"I was born and passed the first seven years of my life in the
Temple," he tells us. "Its church, its halls, its garden, its
fountains, its river ... these are my oldest recollections.
Indeed it is the most elegant spot in the metropolis. What
a transition for a countryman visiting London for the first
time, the passing from the crowded Strand or Fleet Street, by
unexpected avenues into its magnificent ample squares, its
classic green recesses. What a cheerful liberal look hath that
portion of it, which from three sides, overlooks the greater
gardens, that goodly pile ... confronting with massy contrast,
the lighter, older, more fantastically shrouded one, named
of Harcourt, with the cheerful Crown Office Row (place of my
kindly engendure) right opposite the stately stream, which
washes the garden foot.... A man would give something to have
been born in such a place."

When Lamb was twenty-five years of age he went back to live in the Temple, at 16, Mitre Court Buildings, in an "attic storey for the air." His bed faced the river, and by "perking on my haunches and supporting my carcase with my elbows, without much wrying my neck I can see," he wrote to a friend, "the white sails glide by the bottom of King's Bench Walk as I lie in my bed." Here he passed nine happy years, and then, after a short stay in Southampton Buildings, he returned to the Temple for the second time, to 4, Inner Temple Lane, fully intending to pass the remainder of his life within its precincts. His new set of chambers "looked out upon a gloomy churchyard-like court, called Hare Court, with three trees and a pump in it." But fate intervened, and he and his sister soon after left the Temple, never to return. It was no easy parting, however, for he wrote in after years, "I thought we never could have been torn up from the Temple. Indeed it was an ugly wrench.... We never can strike root so deep in any other ground."

It was when Dr. Johnson had a set of chambers on the first floor of No. 1, Inner Temple Lane, that Boswell first went to see him. Boswell wrote:

"He received me very courteously, but it must be confessed
that his apartment, furniture, and morning dress were
sufficiently uncouth. His brown suit of clothes looked very
rusty, he had on a little old shrivelled unpowdered wig which
was too small for his head, his shirt-neck and knees of his
breeches were loose, his black worsted stockings ill drawn up,
and he had a pair of unbuckled shoes by way of slippers. But
all these slovenly peculiarities were forgotten the moment
that he began to talk."

Boswell, indeed, conceived so violent an admiration for him that he took rooms in Farrar's Buildings in order to be near him. Oliver Goldsmith seems to have followed his example, for he went to lodge first in 2, Garden Court, and afterwards in 2, Brick Court, on the right-hand side, looking out over the Temple Garden. Thackeray, who, years afterwards, lodged in the same set of rooms, wrote:

"I have been many a time in the Chambers in the Temple which
were his, and passed up the staircase, which Johnson and Burke
and Reynolds trod to see their friend, their poet, their kind
Goldsmith--the stair on which the poor women sat weeping
bitterly when they heard that the greatest and most generous
of men was dead within the black oak door."

A stone slab with the inscription, "Here lies Oliver Goldsmith," was placed on the north side of Temple Church, as near as possible to the spot where he is supposed to have been buried.

No. 2, Fountain Court, was the last house of William Blake, the poet-painter, the seer of visions, who had a set of rooms on the first floor, from whence a glimpse of the river was to be obtained. It was very poorly furnished, though always clean and orderly, and decorated only with his own pictures, but to the eager young disciples who flocked around him it was "the house of the Interpreter." When he lay there upon his death-bed, at the close of a blazing August day in 1827, beautiful songs in praise of his Creator fell from his lips, and as his wife, his faithful companion of forty-five years of struggle and stress, drew near to catch them more distinctly, he told her with a smile, "My beloved! they are not mine! no, they are not mine!"

Passing out into the Strand, we are confronted by the Law Courts. In former days this site was occupied by a network of streets, one of which was Shire Lane, where the members of the Kit Cat Club first held their gatherings, and toasted Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, when, as a child of seven, enthroned on her proud father's knee, she spent "the happiest hour of her life," overwhelmed with caresses, compliments, and sweetmeats. The famous "Grecian" stood in Devereux Court, and the "Fountain" where Johnson, on his first arrival in London, read his tragedy _Irene_ to his fellow-traveller Garrick, on the site since occupied by Simpson's for several generations. The Strand "Turk's Head" was at No. 142, and patronised by Johnson, because "the mistress of it is a good civil woman and has not much business"; and the "Coal Hole," immortalised by Thackeray as the "Cave of Harmony" in _The Newcomes_, where Terry's Theatre now uprears its front. But the chief literary association of the Strand is that of Congreve, who spent his last years in Surrey Street, "almost blind with cataracts," and "never rid of the gout," but looking, as Swift wrote to Stella, "young and fresh and cheerful as ever." He had always been a favourite with society, and Surrey Street was thronged by his visitors, among whom were four of the most beautiful women of the day--Mrs. Bracegirdle, Mrs. Oldfield, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Henrietta Duchess of Marlborough. Voltaire, too, who greatly admired his work, sought him out when staying at the "White Peruke," Covent Garden, and was much disgusted by the affectation with which Congreve begged to be regarded as a man of fashion, who produced airy trifles for the amusement of his idle hours. "If you had been so unfortunate as to have been a _mere_ gentleman," said Voltaire, "I should never have taken the trouble of coming to see you." In spite of the looseness of his life, Congreve had early acquired habits of frugality, and continuing to practise them when the need for economy had disappeared, he contrived to amass a fortune of £10,000, which, on his death in 1789, he bequeathed to the Duchess of Marlborough, his latest infatuation. This sum, which would have restored the fallen fortunes of his nearest relatives, was a mere nothing to the wealthy beauty, who expended it in the purchase of a magnificent diamond necklace, which she continually wore in memory of the dead dramatist.

The whole of Covent Garden is classic ground, from its association with the wits of Dryden's time, when Bow Street and Tavistock Street were in turn regarded as the Bond Street of the fashionable world. Edmund Waller, William Wycherley, and Henry Fielding, each lived in Bow Street. In Russell Street stood the three great coffee-houses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries--Wills', Button's, and Tom's. Wills' stood at No. 21, at the corner of Russell Street and Bow Street; here Pepys stopped one February evening on his way to fetch his wife, and heard much "witty and pleasant discourse"; here Dryden had his special arm-chair, in winter by the fire, and in summer on the balcony, and was always ready to arbitrate in any literary dispute. It is said that Pope, before he was twelve years old, persuaded his friends to bring him here, so that he might gaze upon the aged Dryden, the hero of his childish imagination. Dr. Johnson, Addison, Steele, and Smollett were all regular visitors. Button's, which stood on the south side of Russell Street, and Tom's at No. 17, were equally popular, and the Bedford Coffee-house "under the piazza in Covent Garden" was another favourite resort.

It was in Russell Street, in the bookshop of Thomas Davies, the actor, that Boswell had his eagerly desired first meeting with Dr. Johnson, which he describes as follows:--

"At last, on Monday, the 16th of May, when I was sitting in
Mr. Davies' back parlour, after having drunk tea with him and
Mrs. Davies, Johnson came unexpectedly into the shop, and Mr.
Davies having perceived him through the glass door in the room
in which we were sitting advancing towards us, he announced
his awful approach to me somewhat in the manner of an actor
in the part of Horatio, when he addresses Hamlet on the
appearance of his father's ghost: 'Look, my lord, he comes.'"

In St. Paul's, Covent Garden, were buried Samuel Butler, author of _Hudibras_, Mrs. Centlivre, Thomas Southerne, John Wolcot, and Wycherley, but when the church was burned down in 1786 all trace of their graves disappeared.

One other literary memory before we leave the Strand; it is connected with what was once No. 30, Hungerford Stairs (now part of Villiers Street), where stood Warren's blacking factory, in which the child Dickens passed days of miserable drudgery, labelling pots of blacking for a few shillings a week. He describes it in _David Copperfield_, under the name of "Murdstone and Grimsby's warehouse, down in Blackfriars." It was "a crazy old house, with a wharf of its own, abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when the tide was out, and literally overrun with rats."

Pall Mall, the centre of club-land, in the eighteenth century was the "ordinary residence of all strangers," probably on account of its proximity to the fashionable chocolate and coffee-houses (the forerunners of the clubs), which, as Defoe wrote, "were all so close together that in an hour you could see the company at them all." In Pall Mall itself were the "Smyrna," the "King's Arms," and the "Star and Garter." At the "King's Arms" the Kit Cat Club met when it had quitted its quarters in Shire Lane, and at the "Star and Garter" the "Brothers" were presided over by Swift. The "Tully's Head," a bookshop kept by the wonderful Robert Dodsley, footman, poet, dramatist, and publisher, was another favourite lounging place of the times.

In Charing Cross were the "Rummer," at No. 45, kept by the uncle of Matthew Prior; Lockett's, two doors off; the "Turk's Head," next door to No. 17; and the British Coffee-house, which stood on the site now occupied by the offices of the London County Council.

In St. James's Street the great coffee and chocolate-houses positively elbowed each other up and down, just as the clubs which succeeded them do in the present day. The "Thatched House," where the Literary Club, founded by Dr. Johnson, held its meetings under the presidency of Swift and his contemporaries; the "St. James's," where Addison "appeared on Sunday nights," and "Swift was a notable figure," for "those who frequented the place had been astonished day after day, by the entry of a clergyman, unknown to any there, who laid his hat on the table, and strode up and down the room with rapid steps, heeding no one, and absorbed in his own thoughts. His strange manner earned him, unknown as he was to all, the name of the "mad parson""; White's, to which Colley Cibber was the only English actor ever admitted; and the "Cocoa Tree," nicknamed the "Wits' Coffee-house," which, in Gibbon's time, afforded "every evening a sight truly English. Twenty or thirty, perhaps, of the finest men in the kingdom, in point of fashion and fortune, supping at little tables covered with a napkin, in the middle of a coffee-room, upon a bit of cold meat or a sandwich and drinking a glass of punch."

Lord Byron was the most romantic literary figure connected with St. James's Street. His first home in London, after his youthful days, was at No. 8, where he went to live after the publication of his _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers_. From this house the proud and gloomy young man set forth to take his seat in the House of Lords as a peer of the realm. Moore wrote:

"In a state more alone and unfriended, perhaps, than any youth
of his high station had ever before been reduced to on such
an occasion--not having a single individual of his own class,
either to take him by the hand as friend, or acknowledge him
as an acquaintance."

But this state of affairs was not to endure. On February 29th, 1812, _Childe Harold_ appeared.

"The effect was electric; his fame had not to wait for any
of the ordinary gradations, but seemed to spring up like the
palace of a fairy tale--in a night.... From morning till
night flattering testimonies of his success reached him; the
highest in the land besieged his door, and he who had been so
friendless found himself the idol of London society."

Perhaps we cannot do better than end these literary associations of club-land with a few words about a man who in his time was one of its most brilliant figures--Theodore Hook. When he was released from the King's Bench prison, with his debt to the Crown still hanging over him,

"he took a large and handsome house in Cleveland Row. Here he
gave dinners on an extensive scale, and became a member of all
the best clubs, particularly frequenting those where high play
was the rule. His visiting book included all that was loftiest
and gayest and in every sense most distinguished in London
society. The editor of _John Bull_, the fashionable novelist,
the wittiest and most vivid talker of the time, his presence
was not only everywhere welcome but everywhere coveted and
clamoured for. But the whirl of extravagant dissipation
emptied his pocket, fevered his brain, and shortened the
precious hours in which alone his subsistence could be gained."

In the height of his social triumphs there always hung inexorably over him the Damocles sword of debt. When at last he gave way under the strain, and went into comparative retirement at Fulham, the number of dinners at the Athenæum Club, where he had always had a particular table kept for him near the door (nicknamed Temperance Corner), fell off by upwards of three hundred per annum.

* * * * *

These are a few out of the many literary memories that we may encounter in an afternoon's stroll from the Borough to St. James's, along one of the great city's busiest highways; others, indeed, there are, meeting us at every corner, but space forbids our dwelling upon them, and regretfully we must pass them by.

CROSBY HALL

BY THE EDITOR

Few old mansions in the city of London could rival the ancient dwelling-place of the brave old knight, Sir John Crosby. Its architectural beauties and historical associations endeared it to all lovers of old London, and many a groan was heard when its fate was doomed, and the decree went forth that it was to be numbered among the departed glories of the city. Unhappily, the hand of the destroyer could not be stayed, and the earnest hope had to be abandoned that many a generation of Londoners might be permitted to see this relic of ancient civic life, and to realise from this example the kind of dwelling-place wherein the city merchants of olden days made their homes, and the salient features of mediæval domestic architecture. Shorn of its former magnificence, reduced to a fraction of its original size, it retained evidences of its ancient state and grandeur, and every stone and timber told of its departed glories, and of the great events of which Crosby Hall had been the scene. It has been associated with many a name that shines forth in the annals of English history, and imagination could again people the desolate hall with a gay company of courtiers and conspirators, of knights and dames, of city merchants gorgeous in their liveries of "scarlet and green," or "murrey and plunket," when pomp and pageantry, tragedy and death, dark councils and mirth, and gaiety and revellings followed each other through the portals of the mansion in one long and varied procession. It will be our pleasure to recall some of these scenes which were enacted long ago, and to tell of the royal, noble, and important personages who made this house their home.

Many people who live in our great overgrown modern London--who dwell in the West End, and never wander further east than Drury Lane Theatre or St. Pancras Station--have never seen Crosby Hall, and know not where it stood. If you go along Cheapside and to the end of Cornhill, and then turn to the left, up Bishopsgate, the old house stood on the right hand side; or you may approach along Holborn and London Wall. Alas! the pilgrimage is no longer possible. Bishopsgate is historic ground. The name is derived from the ancient gate of the city that was built, according to Stow, by some Bishop of London, "though now unknown when or by whom, for ease of passengers toward the east, and by north, as into Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire, &c." Some authorities name Bishop Erkenwald, son of King Offa, as the first builder of Bishopsgate, and state that Bishop William, the Norman, repaired the gate in the time of his namesake, the Conqueror. Henry III. confirmed to the German merchants of the Hanse certain liberties and privileges, which were also confirmed by Edward I. in the tenth year of his reign, when it was discovered that the merchants were bound to repair the gate. Thereupon Gerald Marbod, alderman of the Hanse, and other Hanse merchants, granted 210 marks sterling to the Mayor and citizens, and covenanted that they and their successors should from time to time repair the gate. In 1479, in the reign of Edward IV., it was entirely rebuilt by these merchants, and was a fine structure adorned with the effigies of two bishops, probably those named above, and with two other figures supposed to represent King Alfred and Alred, Earl of Mercia, to whom Alfred entrusted the care of the gate. This repair was probably necessary on account of the assault of the bastard Falconbridge on this and other gates of the city, who shot arrows and guns into London, fired the suburbs, and burnt more than three-score houses. The gate has been frequently repaired and rebuilt, its last appearance being very modern, with a bishop's mitre on the key-stone of the arch, and surmounted by the city arms with guarding griffins. London "improvements" have banished the gate, as they have so many other interesting features of the city.

The neighbourhood is interesting. Foremost among the attractions of Bishopsgate Street is the beautiful church of St. Helen, formerly the church of the Nunnery of St. Helen, the Westminster of the city, where lie so many illustrious merchants and knights and dames, and amongst them the founder of Crosby Hall and other owners of the mansion. The church is closely associated with the hall. There in that fine house they lived. There in the church hard by their bodies sleep, and their gorgeous tombs and inscriptions tell the story of their deeds. St. Helen's Church was one of the few which escaped destruction at the Great Fire of London. There was an early Saxon church here, but the earliest parts of the existing building date back to the thirteenth century. There are some blocked-up lancet windows of the transept, a staircase doorway in the south-east corner, another doorway which led from the nun's choir into the convent, and a lancet window. There is a Renaissance porch, the work of Inigo Jones, erected in 1663. The main part of the structure is Decorated and Perpendicular, the fifteenth century work being due to the builder of Crosby Hall, who left 500 marks for its restoration and improvement. The whole church possesses many interesting features, of which want of space prevents a full description.

Sir John Crosby determined to seek a site for his house close to this church and the Nunnery of St. Helen, and in 1466 obtained a lease from Alice Ashford, prioress of the Nunnery, of some lands and tenements for a period of ninety-nine years for the yearly rent of £11 6s. 8d. Doubtless many good citizens of London in the present day would like to make so good a bargain.

Sir John Crosby, whose honoured name is preserved to this day by the noble house which he built, was a worthy and eminent citizen of London--one of the men who laid the foundations of English trade and commercial pre-eminence. He attained to great wealth, and his actions and his bequests prove that he was a very worthy man. Some idle story stated that, like the famous Dick Whittington, he was of humble origin and unknown parentage. Stow says: "I hold it a fable said of him, to be named Crosby, from his being found by a cross." A very pretty conceit! He was discovered, when an infant, or having attained the age of boyhood, sleeping on the steps of the market cross at Cheapside or Charing; and the sympathetic folk who found him there named him Cross-by! Our ancestors, like ourselves, loved a romance, a nice cheerful story of a poor boy attaining to rank and opulence, marrying his master's daughter and doing brave deeds for his King and country. The notable career of Sir Richard Whittington, thrice Lord Mayor of London, was so embellished with romantic incident. He was no poor man's son who begged his way to London, accompanied by his favourite cat. Was he not the youngest son of Sir William Whittington, the owner of Pauntley Manor in Gloucestershire, and of Solers Hope, Hereford? and was not his famous cat the name of his ship which brought him wealth and affluence? Or shall we accept the story of the sale of the cat to the King of Barbary? So the legend of the foundling Crosby is equally a fable, woven by the skilful imaginations of our Elizabethan forefathers. Sir John came of goodly parentage. There was a Johan de Crosbie, King's Clerk in Chancery, in the time of Edward II.; a Sir John Crosbie, Knight, and Alderman of London, in the reign of Edward III.; and a John Crosby, Esquire, and servant of King Henry IV., who gave to him the wardship of Joan, daughter and sole heir of John Jordaine, Fishmonger--_i.e._, a member of the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers of the City of London. This John Crosby was, according to Stow, either the father or grandfather of the builder of Crosby Hall.

The family held the manor and advowson of the church of Hanworth-on-the-Thames, not far from Hampton Court. This manor was owned by the Sir John Crosbie who lived in the time of King Edward III., and after his death it was placed in the hands of a certain Thomas Rigby for safe custody until John Crosbie, the son and heir of the knight, should have grown up to man's estate and attained his majority. This estate seems afterwards to have passed into the hands of King Henry VIII., who, on account of its pleasant situation, delighted in it above any other of his houses.

The father of the founder of the Hall was a friend of Henry Lord Scrope, of Masham, the unfortunate nobleman who was beheaded at Southampton for complicity in a plot against the life of Henry V. He bequeathed to his friend, John Crosbie, "a woollen gown without furs and one hundred shillings."

_Bene natus_, _bene vestitus_, and doubtless _modice doctus_, the qualifications of an All Souls' Fellow, John Crosby began his career, embarking in trade and commerce, and undertaking the duties of a worthy citizen of London. The palmy days of commercial enterprise inaugurated by King Henry VII. had not yet set in. Before his time the trade between England and the Continent was much more in the hands of foreigners than of English merchants. English trading ships going abroad to sell English goods and bring back cargoes of foreign commodities were few in number. The English merchant usually stayed at home, and sold his wares to the strangers who came each year to London and the other trading ports, or bartered them for the produce of other lands, with which their ships were freighted. The German Hanse merchants, the Flemish traders, the Lombards, and many others, enjoyed great privileges in their commerce with England. But, in spite of this, men like Crosby were able to amass wealth and make large profits. Sir John's dealings extended far into other countries, and he had important connections with the Friscobaldi of Florence, who with the Medici were the great bankers and engrossers of the commerce of Europe.

Of the great merchants who laid the foundations of our English commerce we often know little more than their names, the offices they held, with a meagre catalogue of their most philanthropic labours and their wills. It is possible, however, to gather a little more information concerning the owner of Crosby Place. The records at Guildhall tell us that in 1466, the seventh year of Edward IV., John Crosby, Grocer, was elected with three others a Member of Parliament. He was also elected in the same year one of the auditors of the City and Bridge House. In 1468 we find him elected Alderman of Broad Street Ward, and two years later Sheriff of London. He took a prominent part in the old city life of London, and was a prominent member of two of the old City Companies, the Grocers and the Woolmen. Of the former he twice served the office of warden, and preserved a strong affection for his company, bequeathing to it by his will considerable gifts. The honourable and important post of Mayor of the Staple at Calais was also conferred upon him.

He seems to have been a brave and valiant man, as well as a successful trader and good citizen. During his time the safety of the City of London was endangered owing to the attack of Thomas Nevil, the bastard Lord Falconbridge, to which reference has already been made. Stow tells the story graphically. This filibusterer came with his rebel company and a great navy of ships near to the Tower--

"Whereupon the mayor and aldermen fortified all along the
Thames side, from Baynard's Castle to the Tower, with armed
men, guns and other instruments of war, to resist the invasion
of the mariners, whereby the Thames side was safely preserved
and kept by the aldermen and other citizens that assembled
thither in great numbers. Whereupon the rebels, being denied
passage through the city that way, set upon Aeldgate,
Bishopsgate, Criplegate, Aeldersgate, London Bridge, and along
the river of Thames, shooting arrows and guns into the city,
fired the suburbs, and burnt more than three score houses.
And farther, on Sunday, the eleventh of May, five thousand of
them assaulting Aeldgate, won the bulwarks, and entered the
city; but the portclose being let down, such as had entered
were slain, and Robert Basset, portcullis alderman of Aeldgate
ward, with the recorder, commanded in the name of God to
draw up the portclose; which being done, they issued out,
and with sharp shot and fierce fight, put their enemies back
so far as St. Bottolph's Church, by which time Earl Rivers,
and lieutenant of the Tower, was come with a fresh company,
which joining together discomfited the rebels, and put them to
flight, whom the said Rober, Basset with the other citizens
chased to the Mile's End, and from thence, some to Poplar,
some to Stratford, slew many, and took many of them prisoners.
In which space the Bastard, having assayed other places on the
water side, and little prevailed, fled toward his ships."

In this determined defence of the city against a formidable attack, John Crosbie took a leading part, bravely contending against the forces of the foe and fighting fiercely. Twelve aldermen with the recorder were knighted in the field by King Edward IV., and amongst those so honoured were the Lord Mayor of London, William Taylor, and John Crosby. Our hero was no carpet knight, no poor-spirited tradesman and man of peace. Like many other famous citizens of his age, he could don his armour and fight for his King and country, and proved himself a gallant leader of a citizen army, the best sort of army in the world. He was a devoted adherent of the House of York, and a favourite of Edward IV., who sent him on an important embassage to the Duke of Burgundy, who had married Elizabeth of York, the King's sister. The secret object of the mission was an alliance against Francis I. of France. The embassy was also sent to the Duke of Brittany with the same object, and also to secure the persons of the Earls of Richmond and Pembroke, who had taken refuge in France, and there felt themselves secure. The future Richard III. was nearly persuaded to return to England; his foot was almost on the ship's deck, when, fortunately for him, his voyage was prevented. If he had continued his journey he would never have worn a crown, as he would have lacked a head whereon to place it.

Sir John Crosby not long before his death began to build the beautiful house in Bishopsgate "in the place of certain tenements, with their appurtenances let to him by Alice Ashfield, Prioress of St. Helen's.... This house he built of stone and timber, very large and beautiful, and the highest at that time in London," as Stow records. The whole structure was known as Crosby Place, and rivalled the dimensions of a palace. All that remained of this magnificent building was the Hall, together with the Council Room and an ante-room, forming two sides of a quadrangle. It was built of stone, and measured 54 feet by 27 feet, and was 40 feet in height. The Hall was lighted by a series of eight Perpendicular windows on one side and six on the other, and by a beautifully-constructed octagonal bay window. It had a fine roof of exquisite workmanship richly ornamented, and a wide chimney. Much of the original stone pavement had vanished. The Council Chamber was nearly as large as the hall, being only 14 feet less in length.

Crosby Hall has been the scene of many notable historic scenes. In the play of "Edward IV." by Heywood, Sir John Crosby figures as Lord Mayor of London, a position which he never occupied, and the King dines with him and the Alderman after the defeat of the rebel Falconbridge at Crosby Hall. He had just received the honour of knighthood, and thus muses:--

"Ay, marry, Crosby! this befits thee well.
But some will marvel that, with scarlet gown,
I wear a gilded rapier by my side."

It is quite possible that the King thus dined with his favourite, but there is no historical account that confirms the poet's play. The builder did not long enjoy his beautiful house, and died in 1475, leaving a second wife and a daughter by his first wife, whom he seemed to have loved with a more ardent affection than his second spouse. Soon after his death the man whom he tried to trap in France, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, came to reside here, and made it the scene of endless plots and conspiracies against his luckless nephews and his many enemies. Crosby Place is frequently alluded to by Shakespeare in his play, "Richard the Third." Gloucester tells Catesby to report to him at Crosby Place the treacherous murder of the Princes in the Tower, and he bids the Lady Anne to "presently repair to Crosby Place."

_Engraved by Pugh, 1804._]

The house in 1502 passed into the possession of Sir Bartholomew Reed, Lord Mayor, and then to John Best, Alderman, from whom it was purchased by Sir Thomas More, the famous Lord Chancellor. Doubtless it was in the chambers of Crosby Place that he wrote his _Utopia_. He sold the lease to his beloved friend, Antonio Bonvisi, an Italian gentleman, who had long lived in England; and when the Dissolution of Monasteries took place, and the possessions of the Priory of St. Helen's were seized by the Crown, the King allowed the Italian to retain possession of Crosby Place. We need not record all its worthy owners. It was frequently used as a fitting place for the lodging of foreign ambassadors, and here Sir John Spencer, having restored the house, kept his mayoralty in 1594. Enormously wealthy, he lived in great splendour and entertained lavishly. He was a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth. It was not from Crosby Hall, but from his house at Canonbury, that his only daughter effected her escape in a baker's basket in order to wed the handsome Lord Compton. Terrible was the father's wrath, and everyone knows the charming story of the Queen's tactful intervention, how she induced Sir John to stand as sponsor with her for an unknown boy, whom Sir John declared should be the heir of all his wealth, and how this boy was, of course, Lady Compton's child, and how a full reconciliation was effected. It is a very pretty story. It is not so pleasant to read of the disastrous effect of the possession of so much wealth had on the brain of Lord Compton, when he came into possession of his lady's riches. She was a little vixenish, spoilt and exacting, if she really intended seriously the literal meaning of that well-known letter which she wrote setting forth her needs and requirements. It is too long to quote. Lord Compton was created Earl of Northampton, and that precious child of his when he grew to man's estate was killed fighting for the Royalist cause in the Civil War.