Chapter VIII

The celebrated Quack, Dr Graham--His Temple of Health in the Adelphi--Satirised by Colman and Bannister--"Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health"--Emma Lyon, Lady Hamilton--Osborn's Hotel--The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands--Their Death in the Adelphi--Isaac D'Israeli--The Earl of Beaconsfield--Thomas Hill, the Original of Paul Pry--Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens--_David Copperfield_ and _Pickwick_--Ivy Lane--The Fox-under-the-Hill--The Adelphi "Dark Arches."

THE Adelphi has had its share of quacks, the most impudent of them all being Dr Graham, a Scotchman, who flourished here from the summer of 1780 until the May following, when he migrated to Pall Mall. He occupied the middle house in Adelphi Terrace, and in this place Emma Lyon--afterwards Lady Hamilton--posed as the Goddess of Health. James Graham was then approaching the end of his extraordinary career, for, born in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1745, he died in 1794. Although he studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh, it is not certain that he took his degree, for, so late as 1783, he is described as "the person calling himself Dr Graham." He passed his earlier life in Pontrefact, being married there in 1770. Subsequently, he travelled in America, as an oculist and aurist. Returning to England in 1774, he practised at Bristol and Bath, and, a year later, established himself in Pall Mall, nearly opposite St James's Palace. At Bath, in 1777, he met Catherine Macaulay, who, a few months later, married his younger brother, William. Through his treatment of her, he declared, he made his first real start in life. Be this as it may, he gained the ear of the public about this time, although he was denounced as a quack by the medical profession. After a visit to the continent, during which he received many testimonials from people in the first rank of society, he came to the Adelphi in 1779. His house and apparatus, it was stated, cost him £10,000. The entrance hall was adorned with crutches which had been discarded by his "patients," and, in the rooms above, were large, gaudily-decorated electrical machines, glass globes, marble statues, and figures of dragons; the windows were of stained glass, and the air was laden with the perfume of incense. The door was guarded by huge footmen. One apartment was devoted to Apollo, and contained "a magnificent temple, sacred to health." He lectured at enormous prices and obtained fabulous sums for his quack remedies. For a night in the "celestial bed," which ensured a beautiful progeny, his fee was £100; his "elixir of life" brought him a fee of one thousand pounds, but his "earth-bath" was only a modest guinea, while a magneto-electric bed could be slept in for £50 a night.

In August, 1780, Horace Walpole visited "The Temple of Health" in the Adelphi, and pronounced it "the most impudent puppet-show of imposition I ever saw, and the mountebank himself the dullest of his profession, except that he makes spectators pay a crown apiece for admission only." The place acquired notoriety so rapidly that, on September 2, George Colman, the elder, produced at the Haymarket Theatre a skit entitled _The Genius of Nonsense_, in which John Bannister, in the character of the Emperor of Quacks, mimicked Graham. "His satin sofas on glass legs, his celestial bed, his two porters in long, tawdry greatcoats and immense gold-laced cocked hats, distributing handbills at the door, while his goddess of health was dying of a sore throat from squalling songs at the top of the staircase, were all hit off by a speaking harlequin, who also caricatured the doctor's sliding walk and bobbing bows."[41] The impostor was prevented from buying the "bill of the play," a burlesque on his own handbill, so that he could not bring an action for libel.

The following is an exact copy of one of Graham's advertisements:--

TEMPLE OF HEALTH, Adelphi.

To their Excellencies the Foreign Ambassadors, To the Nobility, Gentry and to Persons of Learning and Taste,

This Evening exactly at Eight o'Clock, The Celestial Brilliancy of the Medico-electrical Apparatus, in all the Apartments of the

TEMPLE,

Will be exhibited by Dr Graham himself,

Who will have the honour of explaining the true Nature and effects of Electricity, Air, Music, and Magnetism, when applied to the human body.

In the introductory Oration, the whole art of enjoying health and vigour, of body and of mind, and of preserving and exalting personal Beauty and Loveliness; or, in other words, of living with health, honour, and happiness in this world, for at least a hundred years, is pointed out and warmly inculcated.

Previous to the display of the electrical Fire, the Doctor will delicately touch upon the Celestial Beds, which are soon to be opened in the Temple of Hymen, in Pall-mall, for the propagation of Beings rational, and far stronger and more beautiful in mental as well as in bodily endowments--than the present puny, feeble, and nonsensical race of probationary immortals, which crawl and fret, and politely play at cutting one another's throats for nothing at all, on most parts of this terraqueous globe.

This apparatus, which visibly displays, as it were, the various faculties of the material soul of universal and eternal Nature, is acknowledged by all who have seen it, to be by far the largest, most useful, and most magnificent that now is, or that ever was, in the world; and it may be inspected every day, from Ten o'clock in the Morning till four in the Afternoon. Admittance at night, 5s.; in the day, 2s. 6d.

In another announcement he stated that "Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health, presides at the _evening lectures_ at the Temple of Health, Adelphi, assisting at the display of the Celestial Meteors, and of that sacred Vital _Fire_ over which she watches, and whose application in the _Cure of Diseases_ she daily has the honour of directing." Graham's "Rosy Goddess of Health" was Emma Lyon, who, in the winter of 1780, when she posed in the Adelphi, was barely twenty years of age. Young as she was, she had lived a strange life, even then. The daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith, she was quite a child when, in the capacity of nurse-maid, she entered the service of Mrs Thomas, wife of a surgeon practising at Hawarden; and she can hardly have been more than fifteen or sixteen years of age when she first came to London. "Here, for a short time, she is said to have been in service: first, with Mrs Linley, of Drury Lane Theatre; secondly, with Dr Budd, one of the physicians of St Bartholomew's Hospital; and finally at a fruiterer's in St James's Market. One of the customers at this shop, 'a lady of fashion,' attracted by the girl's manner, her beautiful face, and her wonderful auburn hair, engaged her in the capacity of companion. But, fortunate as the change at this time may have appeared to her, it speedily put an end to her opportunities of earning an honest living. No long time after, we hear of her as living for a time with Captain (afterwards Admiral) John Willett Payne, who is by some surmised to be the father of a girl to whom she gave birth about the end of 1779 or the beginning of 1780. However this may be, it is certain that, before she had completed her seventeenth year, she did give birth to a child, and that, as soon as possible, it was transferred to the care of her old grandmother at Hawarden."[42] Her poverty drove her to the quack doctor of the Adelphi. Soon after her appearance here, she "kept house," in extravagant fashion, for Sir Harry Fetherstonshaugh, "a dissolute baronet," at Up Park, Sussex, and became "a daring and accomplished horse-woman." At this time she called herself Emma Hart, but on her marriage, in 1791, to Sir William Hamilton, she signed the register as Amy Lyon. The subsequent career of Nelson's Lady Hamilton is too well known for repetition.

_Hollar._ 1630.

SUFFOLK (SUBSEQUENTLY NORTHUMBERLAND) HOUSE.]

In the spring of 1781, Graham removed from the comparative quiet of the Adelphi to more aristocratic quarters in Schomberg House--part of the existing War Office--in Pall Mall. His charges were slightly lower than in the Adelphi, the use of his "celestial bed" costing but fifty pounds. In November, 1782, his property was seized for debt, and was advertised for sale on December 20, and the following days. He made his misfortunes an opportunity for advertisement, bought in most of his goods, and threatened one publication with an action for libel for having published "an incorrect, mutilated, and nonsensical farrago, which they impudently and falsely call Dr Graham's celebrated lecture on generation." In March, 1783, he announced that the "High Priestess of his Temple delivered lectures to ladies, and that the rosy, athletic, and truly Gigantic Goddess of Health and of Hymen, on the Celestial Throne," took part in the lectures. Graham's London career practically ceased in 1783. Ten years later he described himself, in a book on earth-bathing, as "formerly sole institutor, proprietor, and director of the Temple of Health in the Adelphi and in Pall Mall." His earth-bathing consisted of remaining without clothing in the earth six hours at a time, for eight days in succession, and for twelve hours on the ninth day. In 1791, Graham and a young woman, at Newcastle, "stripped into their first suits," and "were each interred up to the chin, their heads beautifully dressed and powdered, appearing not unlike two fine full-grown cauliflowers."

Graham subsequently became a religious enthusiast, took to opium, and was confined in his own house in Edinburgh as a lunatic. A few months before his death, he made an affidavit, in which he stated that from the last day of December 1792, to January 15, 1793, he neither ate, drank, nor took anything but cold water, sustaining life by wearing cut-up turfs against his naked body, and by rubbing his limbs with his own nervous æthereal balsam. He died suddenly at his house, opposite the Archers' Hall, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1794. Graham, though a quack, and possibly a madman, was not without some knowledge. He was against flesh-eating and excess in alcohol, and believed in cold bathing, open windows, sleeping on mattresses, and other points of severe hygiene; at one time, he stated, he never ate more than the worth of four or six pence a day. He asserted that all diseases were caused by wearing too much clothing, and he wore no woollen clothes. Southey saw this "half knave, half enthusiast" thrice, once in his mud-bath. He says that latterly Graham "would madden himself with opium, rush into the streets, and strip himself to clothe the first beggar he met."[43]

At Osborn's Hotel, which still exists, under the name of the Adelphi Hotel, at the corner of John and Adam Streets, the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands died, from small-pox, in 1824. Rhio-Rhio was the son and successor of the first king, Tamehameha, who placed the Islands under British protection. The Queen died on July 8. "The King," said a contemporary print, "in the midst of this deep sorrow manifests a firmness of mind which has penetrated everybody about him with a feeling of respect. Though very anxious to express his grief in the manner of his country, and to show the marks of deference which are usually paid to the dead there, he submits, with good sense and patience, to every suggestion which our habits dictate." The King died, at the same place, on September 14. The visit of King Tamehameha and his consort to England gave rise to the popular song, "The King of the Cannibal Islands." This hotel was originally called "The Adelphi New Tavern and Coffee-House," and was opened in October, 1777, "being completely fitted up in the most elegant and convenient manner for the entertainment of noblemen and gentlemen." Gibbon, writing to Lord Sheffield on August 8, 1787, from the Adelphi Hotel, imparts a piece of "Intelligence extraordinary. This day (August the seventh) the celebrated E.G. arrived with a numerous retinue (one servant). We hear that he has brought over from Lausanne the remainder of his _History_ for immediate publication." In 1813, George Crabbe, the poet, and his wife stayed in the Adelphi during a visit to London. Dr Thomas Munro, Turner's patron, resided here, and on April 22, 1827, Thomas Rowlandson, the famous caricaturist, died here. Isaac D'Israeli, the author of _Curiosities of Literature_, and father of the Earl of Beaconsfield, stayed at Osborn's Hotel after his wedding tour, in 1802.

It is generally supposed that Benjamin Disraeli was born in the Adelphi. The authority for this statement is Lord Barrington, who, during the Earl of Beaconsfield's last illness, questioned him on the point. "I was born in the Adelphi," was the reply, "and I may say in a library. My father was not rich when he married. He took a suite of apartments in the Adelphi, and he possessed a large collection of books; all the rooms were covered with them, including that in which I was born." Mr Wheatley, however, says that "careful investigation has left little doubt that this was not the case, as Isaac D'Israeli had left the Adelphi"--where he had a lease of the first floor of No. 2 James Street--"for King's Road (now Theobald's Road) before the birth of Benjamin."

In James Street, on the second floor of No. 1, there lived and died a celebrated character, Thomas Hill (1760-1840), the book-collector and patron of Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the fussy, good-natured Hull of Theodore Hook's novel, _Gilbert Gurney_ (1836). More notable still, he was the original of Paul Pry, in Poole's comedy (1825). Paul Pry is an idle, inquisitive, meddle-some fellow who, without any occupation of his own, is for ever thrusting himself upon other people with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude." John Liston (1776-1846) was the first stage representative of the character, and the part was frequently acted by the late John Lawrence Toole. "Tommy" Hill, as he was familiarly called, always boasted that he had whatever was wanted: "Cards, sir? Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! thousands of packs in the house." Planché says of him: "His _spécialité_ was the accurate information he could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number of pots of preserve in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages, the amounts of their tradesmen's bills, and whether paid weekly or quarterly. He had been on the press, and was connected with the _Morning Chronicle_. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information in some paper."

1752.

THE STRAND FRONT OF NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.]

Two of the most celebrated literary names connected with the Adelphi are Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens. Hood, soon after his marriage in 1824, lived in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, his acquaintanceship at that time including Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey. His association with the Adelphi continued until the end of his career, for his _Magazine_, established in 1844--the year before his death--was published from No. 1 Adam Street. Dickens knew the Adelphi well. As a boy he frequented its underground passages, and, later on, he used Osborn's Hotel (the Adelphi Hotel) for a scene in _Pickwick_.[44] He is recording his own experiences when, in _David Copperfield_, he says: "I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom, I sat down upon a bench. I wonder what they thought of me!" This was also the scene of the meeting of the Micawbers and Copperfield prior to the departure of the impecunious Wilkins for Australia: "The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and where protruding wooden rooms over-hung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in and about Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.... I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone."[45]

This "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" of Dickens was the "Fox-under-the-Hill." It stood at the bottom of Ivy Lane. The ram-shackle building disappeared with the formation of the Victoria Embankment and Gardens, but the passage in question still remains, and, although it is not noticed by the thousands of people who walk by it daily, Ivy Lane is one of the most interesting bits of old London. Stow, in his _Survey_, alludes to it thus: "Ivy Bridge, in the High Street, which had a way under it leading to the Thames, the like as sometime had the Strand Bridge, is now taken down, but the lane remaineth as afore; or better, and parteth the liberty of the Duchy (of Lancaster) and the city of Westminster on that south-side." Strype adds that the lane was "very bad and almost impassable." As it was very narrow, and the descent was steep, its inconvenience is easily understood. The passage is still here, but, at the river end, it is enclosed by gates. Ivy Bridge, or Pier, was the landing-place for the halfpenny steamboats which plied between the Strand and London Bridge. Here a lamentable explosion, by which many people were killed, occurred in August, 1847, on the _Cricket_, and, soon afterwards, the "Fox" landing-stage was disused.

From the "Fox-under-the-Hill" it is an easy transition to the "dark arches" which made such an impression on the mind of Charles Dickens. They form a small town in themselves, and although tenanted by wine-merchants, and other law-abiding people, they are still "mysterious" enough to strike one with wonderment that such a dreary spot can exist within hail of the busy Strand. "The Adelphi arches, many of which are used for cellars and coal-wharves," wrote John Timbs, half a century ago, "remind us, in their grim vastness, of the Etruscan cloaca of ancient Rome. Beneath the 'dark arches,' as they were (and are) called, the most abandoned characters used to lurk; outcasts and vagrants came there to sleep; and many a street-thief escaped from his pursuers, before the introduction of gas-lights and a vigilant police. Even now tramps prowl in a ghastly manner down the dim-lit passages." The condition of things has not changed much during these fifty years, and a stranger would be well-advised in not venturing on a voyage of discovery through this strange region, alone. Augustus Egg placed the scene of one of his most tragic pictures on the banks of the river by the Adelphi arches. In these caverns a battery of guns was held in readiness in connection with the great Chartist meeting, on Kennington Common, on April 10, 1848. The piers on which the arches rest having shown signs of insecurity, the entire structure was underpinned, and strengthened in other ways, in the years 1872-4.

The Adelphi arches were a source of wonderment to Londoners in the middle of the last century. Thomas Miller, the poet and novelist, writing in 1850, gives a vivid description of them: "Thousands who pass along the Strand never dream of the shadowy region which lies between them and the river--the black-browed arches that span right and left, before and behind, covering many a rood of ground on which the rain never beats, nor the sunbeam sleeps, and at the entrance of which the wind only seems to howl and whine, as if afraid of venturing further into the darkness. Many of our readers will, no doubt, conclude that such a dreary place as this must be deserted and tenantless: such is not the case. Here many of those strong horses, which the countryman who visits London looks upon with wonder and envy, are stabled--strong, broad-chested steeds, such as may be seen dragging the heavily-laden coal-waggons up those steep passages which lead into the Strand, and which seem 'to the manner born.'

"Cows are also kept here, which, rumour says, never saw any other light beyond that of the gas which gleams through their prison-bars, or, by way of change, the cheering rays from a lantern, when they are milked or fed; that here many of them were calved, and have lived on, giving milk to a good old age--buried like the main-pipe that supplies us with water and finds its way into our houses without our once enquiring how. We have often pitied the London cows, which we have seen driven up one street and down another, and have fancied that what little milk they had must have been churned into indifferent butter, as they ran on, to escape the stones thrown after them by boys, while mongrels were ever sallying out, and either biting or barking at their heels; but we had not seen those which are doomed to dwell in the unbroken darkness of the Adelphi arches, without ever breathing any other than the sepulchral air which stagnates this murky purgatory. Assuredly they ought to be taken out for a little fresh air now and then, and be led by the horns to

'Fresh fields and pastures new';

for we can readily conceive how pleased and patiently they would go 'blinking' along, compared to those horned blackguards who come with a butt and a 'boo' at us as they return from Smithfield, and, before we have time to say 'Now, stupid!' pitch us over the battlements of one of the bridges, and leave us to sink or swim.

"The Adelphi arches form a little subterranean city; there is nothing like it in England: in some places you catch a glimpse of the river, a small loop-hole that lets in the light like the end of a railway tunnel, yet seeming to diminish more than these tunnels, on account of the steep descent, until one of the steamers, in passing, appears to fill up the opening like a half-closed door. Beside these arches there are narrow passages which go dipping down to the water-side, where on either hand houses stand looking at one another in the openings between the darkness. There is a dismal and solitary look about these tall imprisoned houses; you cannot conceive how they are entered, for there appears to be no way to them, and you conclude that they are empty. Or, if they are inhabited, you wonder if the people ever look out of those dim, dirt-ditched windows at the dead-looking walls opposite. We have turned back, and hunted up and down looking from below, but nowhere could we obtain a view of the entrance to those murderous-looking houses. We once saw a butterfly which had lost its way, and got into the little light which had stolen out to look at the entrance of these arches: it went up and down, and hither and thither, seeming to become feebler every moment, as if it had given up all hope of ever swinging with folded wings, like a pea-bloom, on the flowers again, and we doubted not but that it found a grave amid the green decay of some rotten water-butt." The cows have disappeared, and the muddy wharves have been replaced by pleasant gardens and the busy hum of workshops, but the "subterranean city" is likely to exist in its present form for many years to come. The embankment, the construction of which involved the abolition of the Adelphi wharves, was opened in 1870 by the Prince of Wales (Edward VII.), as the representative of Queen Victoria. This magnificent example of engineering was begun in 1862, and the cost was about £2,000,000.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 41: _Haunted London_, p. 103.]

[Footnote 42: _Some Famous Women of Wit and Beauty_, John Fyvie, p. 40.]

[Footnote 43: _Dictionary of National Biography_, vol. xxii., p. 323.]

[Footnote 44: After the release of Mr Pickwick, Mr Wardle and his family had apartments in the Adelphi Hotel. There Dickens laid the scene of one of his best chapters: "Driving to the George and Vulture, they found that Arabella and her maid had sent for a hackney-coach immediately on the receipt of a short note from Emily announcing her arrival in town, and had proceeded straight to the Adelphi. As Wardle had business to transact in the city, they sent the carriage and the fat boy to his hotel, with the information that he and Mr Pickwick would return together to dinner at five o'clock.

* * * * *

"Now, whether the shake had jumbled the fat boy's faculties together, instead of arranging them in proper order, or had roused such a quantity of new ideas within him as to render him oblivious of ordinary forms and ceremonies, or (which is also possible) had proved unsuccessful in preventing his falling asleep as he ascended the stairs, it is an undoubted fact that he walked into the sitting-room without previously knocking at the door, and so beheld a gentleman with his arm clasping his young mistress's waist, sitting very lovingly by her side on a sofa, while Arabella and her pretty handmaid feigned to be absorbed in looking out of a window at the other end of the room. At sight of which phenomenon the fat boy uttered an interjection, the ladies a scream, and the gentleman an oath, almost simultaneously.

"'Wretched creature! what do you want here?' said the gentleman, who, it is needless to say, was Mr Snodgrass.

"To this the fat boy, considerably terrified, briefly responded, 'Missis.'

"'What do you want me for?' inquired Emily, turning her head aside; 'you stupid creature.'

"'Master and Mr Pickwick is going to dine here at five,' replied the fat boy.

"'Leave the room!' said Mr Snodgrass, glaring upon the bewildered youth.

"'No, no, no!' added Emily, hastily. 'Bella, dear, advise me.'

"Upon this, Emily and Mr Snodgrass, and Arabella and Mary, crowded into a corner and conversed earnestly in whispers for some minutes, during which the fat boy dozed.

* * * * *

"There was so much to say upstairs, and there were so many plans to concert for elopement and matrimony in the event of old Wardle continuing to be cruel, that it wanted only half an hour to dinner when Mr Snodgrass took his final adieu. The ladies ran to Emily's bedroom to dress, and the lover, taking up his hat, walked out of the room. He had scarcely got outside the door when he heard Wardle's voice talking loudly; and looking over the banisters, beheld him, followed by some other gentlemen, coming straight upstairs. Knowing nothing of the house, Mr Snodgrass in his confusion stepped hastily back into the room he had just quitted, and passing from thence into an inner apartment (Mr Wardle's bed-chamber), closed the door softly, just as the persons he had caught a glimpse of entered the sitting-room. These were Mr Wardle and Mr Pickwick, Mr Nathaniel Winkle, and Mr Benjamin Allen, whom he had no difficulty in recognising by their voices.

* * * * *

"The wine came, and Perker came upstairs at the same moment. Mr Snodgrass had dinner at a side-table, and, when he had dispatched it, drew his chair next Emily, without the smallest opposition on the old gentleman's part.

"The evening was excellent. Little Mr Perker came out wonderfully, told various comic stories, and sang a serious song, which was almost as funny as the anecdotes. Arabella was very charming, Mr Wardle very jovial, Mr Pickwick very harmonious, Mr Ben Allen very uproarious, the lovers very silent, Mr Winkle very talkative, and all of them very happy."--_The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club_, chap. liv.]

[Footnote 45: _David Copperfield_, chap. lvii.]