Chapter IV: The Strand (1)

Ancient State of the Strand -- Butcher Row -- Death of Lee, the
dramatic Poet -- Johnson at an Eating-House -- Essex Street --
House and History of the favourite Earl of Essex -- Spenser's
Visit there -- Essex, General of the Parliament -- Essex Head
Club -- Devereux Court -- Grecian Coffee-House -- Twining, the
accomplished Scholar -- St. Clement Danes -- Clement's Inn --
Falstaff and Shallow -- Norfolk, Arundel, Surrey, and Howard
Streets -- Norfolk House -- Essex's Ring and the Countess of
Nottingham -- William Penn -- Birch -- Dr. Brocklesby --
Congreve, and his Will -- Voltaire's Visit to him -- Mrs.
Bracegirdle -- Tragical End of Mountford the Player -- Ancient
Cross -- Maypole -- New Church of St. Mary-le-Strand -- Old
Somerset House -- Henrietta Maria and her French Household --
Waller's Mishap at Somerset Stairs -- New Somerset House --
Royal Society, Antiquarian Society, and Royal Academy -- Death
of Dr. King -- Exeter Street -- Johnson's first Lodging in
London -- Art of living in London -- Catherine Street --
Unfortunate Women -- Wimbledon House -- Lyceum and Beef-steak
Club -- Exeter Change -- Bed and Baltimore -- The Savoy --
Anecdotes of the Duchess of Albemarle -- Beaufort Buildings --
Lillie, the Perfumer -- Aaron Hill -- Fielding -- Southampton
Street -- Cecil and Salisbury Streets -- Durham House --
Raleigh -- Pennant on the Word Place or Palace -- New Exchange
-- Don Pantaleon Sa -- The White Milliner -- Adelphi -- Garrick
and his Wife -- Beauclerc -- Society of Arts, and Mr. Barry --
Bedford Street -- George, Villiers, and Buckingham Streets --
York House and Buildings -- Squabble between the Spanish and
French Ambassadors -- Hungerford Market -- Craven Street --
Franklin -- Northumberland House -- Duplicity of Henry, Earl of
Northampton -- Violence of Lord Herbert of Cherbury -- Percy,
Bishop of Dromore -- Pleasant mistake of Goldsmith.

In going through Fleet Street and the Strand, we seldom think that the one is named after a rivulet, now running under ground, and the other from its being on the banks of the river Thames. As little do most of us fancy that there was once a line of noblemen's houses on the one side, and that, at the same time, all beyond the other side, to Hampstead or Highgate, was open country, with the little hamlet of St. Giles's in a copse. So late as the reign of Henry VIII. we have a print containing the vill a of Charing. Citizens used to take an evening stroll to the well now in St. Clement's Inn.

In the reign of Edward III. the Strand was an open country road, with a mansion here and there, on the banks of the river Thames, most probably a castle or stronghold. In this state it no doubt remained during the greater part of the York and Lancaster period. From Henry VII.'s time the castles most likely began to be exchanged for mansions of a more peaceful character. These gradually increased; and in the reign of Edward VI. the Strand consisted, on the south side, of a line of mansions with garden walls; and on the north, of a single row of houses, behind which all was field. The reader is to imagine wall all the way from Temple Bar to Whitehall, on his left hand, like that of Kew Palace, or a succession of Burlington Gardens; while the line of humbler habitations stood on the other side, like a row of servants in waiting.

As wealth increased, not only the importance of rank diminished, and the nobles were more content to recollect James's advice of living in the country (where, he said, they looked like ships in a river, instead of ships at sea), but the value of ground about London, especially on the river side, was so much augmented, that the proprietors of these princely mansions were not unwilling to turn the premises into money. The civil wars had given another jar to the stability of their abodes in the metropolis; and in Charles the Second's time the great houses finally gave way, and were exchanged for streets and wharfs. An agreeable poet of the last century lets us know that he used to think of this great change in going up the Strand.

"Come, Fortescue, sincere, experienc'd friend,
Thy briefs, thy deeds, and e'en thy fees suspend;
Come, let us leave the Temple's silent walls;
Me, business to my distant lodging calls;
Through the long Strand together let us stray;
With thee conversing, I forget the way.
Behold that narrow street which steep descends,
Whose building to the slimy shore extends;
Here Arundel's fam'd structure rear'd its fame:
The street alone retains the empty name.
Where Titian's glowing paint the canvass warmed,
And Raphael's fair design with judgment charmed,
Now hangs the bellman's song; and pasted here
The coloured prints of Overton appear.
Where statues breathed, the works of Phidias' hands,
A wooden pump, or lonely watch-house stands.
There Essex's stately pile adorned the shore,
There Cecil's, Bedford's, Villiers',--now no more."[127]

As the aspect in this quarter is so different from what it was, and the quarter is one of the most important in the metropolis, we may add what Pennant has written on the subject:--

"In the year 1353, that fine street the Strand was an open
highway, with here and there a great man's house, with gardens
to the water's side. In that year it was so ruinous, that
Edward III., by an ordinance, directed a tax to be raised upon
wool, leather, wine, and all goods carried to the staple at
Westminster, from Temple Bar to Westminster Abbey, for the
repair of the road; and that all owners of houses adjacent to
the highway should repair as much as lay before their doors.
Mention is also made of a bridge to be erected near the royal
palace at Westminster, for the conveniency of the said staple;
but the last probably meant no more than stairs for the landing
of the goods, which I find sometimes went by the name of a
bridge.

"There was no continued street here till about the year 1533;
before that it entirely cut off Westminster from London, and
nothing intervened except the scattered houses, and a village,
which afterwards gave name to the whole. St. Martin's stood
literally in the fields. But about the year 1560 a street was
formed, loosely built, for all the houses on the south side had
great gardens to the river, were called by their owners' names,
and in after times gave name to the several streets that
succeeded them, pointing down to the Thames; each of them had
stairs for the conveniency of taking boat, of which many to
this day bear the names of the houses. As the court was for
centuries either at the palace at Westminster, or Whitehall, a
boat was the customary conveyance of the great to the presence
of their sovereign. The north side was a mere line of houses
from Charing-cross to Temple Bar; all beyond was country. The
gardens which occupied part of the site of Covent Garden were
bounded by fields, and St. Giles's was a distant country
village. These are circumstances proper to point out, to show
the vast increase of our capital in little more than two
centuries."[128]

The aspect of the Strand, on emerging through Temple Bar, is very different from what it was forty years ago. "A stranger who had visited London in 1790, would on his return in 1804," says Mr. Malcolm, "be astonished to find a spacious area (with the church nearly in the centre) on the site of Butcher Row, and some other passages undeserving of the name of streets, which were composed of those wretched fabrics, overhanging their foundations, the receptacles of dirt in every corner of their projecting stories, the bane of ancient London, where the plague, with all its attendant horrors, frowned destruction on the miserable inhabitants, reserving its forces for the attacks of each returning summer."[129]

The site of Butcher Row, thus advantageously thrown open, is called Pickett Street, after the alderman who projected the improvements. Unfortunately they turned out to be on too large a scale; that is to say, the houses were found to be too large and expensive for the right side of the Strand in this quarter; the tide of traffic between the city and Westminster flowing the other side of the way. The consequence is, that the houses are under-let, and that something of the old squalid look remains in the turning towards Clement's Inn, in spite of the pillared entrance.

Butcher Row, however squalid, contained houses worth eating and drinking in. Johnson frequented an eating-house there; and, according to Oldys, it was "in returning from the Bear and Harrow in Butcher Row, through Clare Market, to his lodgings in Duke Street, that Lee, the dramatic poet, overladen with wine, fell down (on the ground, as some say--according to others, on a bulk), and was killed, or stifled in the snow. He was buried in the parish church of St. Clement Danes, aged about thirty-five years."[130] "He was a very handsome as well as ingenious man," says Oldys, "but given to debauchery, which necessitated a milk diet. When some of his university comrades visited him, he fell to drinking out of all measure, which, flying up into his head, caused his face to break out into those carbuncles which were afterwards observed there; and also touched his brain, occasioning that madness so much lamented in so rare a genius. Tom Brown says, he wrote, while he was in Bedlam, a play of twenty-five acts; and Mr. Bowman tells me that, going once to visit him there, Lee showed him a scene, 'in which,' says he, 'I have done a miracle for you.' 'What's that?' said Bowman. 'I have made you a good priest.'"

Oldys mentions another of his mad sayings, but does not tell us with whom it passed.

"I've seen an unscrewed spider spin a thought,
And walk away upon the wings of angels!"

"What say you to that, doctor?" "Ah, marry, Mr. Lee, that's
superfine indeed. The thought of a winged spider may catch
sublime readers of poetry sooner than his web, but it will need
a commentary in prose to render it intelligible to the
vulgar."[131]

Lee's madness does not appear to have been melancholy, otherwise these anecdotes would not bear repeating. There are various stories of the origin of it; but, most probably, he had an over-sanguine constitution, which he exasperated by intemperance. Though he died so young, the author of _A Satyr on the Poets_ gives us to understand that he was corpulent.

"Pembroke loved tragedy, and did provide
For the butchers' dogs, and for the whole Bank-side:
The bear was fed; but dedicating Lee
Was thought to have a greater paunch than he."[132]

This Pembroke, who loved a bear-garden, was the seventh earl of that title. His daughter married the son of Jefferies. Lee, on a visit to the earl at Wilton, is said to have drunk so hard, that "the butler feared he would empty the cellar." The madness of Lee is almost visible in his swelling and overladen dramas; in which, however, there is a good deal of true poetic fire, and a vein of tenderness that makes us heartily pity the author.

The social Boswell, in speaking of Johnson's eating-house in Butcher Row, does not approve of establishments of that sort. We shall see, by and by, that he was wrong.

"Happening to dine," says he, "at Clifton's eating-house in
Butcher Row, I was surprised to see Johnson come in and take
his seat at another table. The mode of dining, or rather being
fed, at such houses in London, is well known to many to be
peculiarly unsocial, as there is no ordinary or united company,
but each person has his own mess, and is under no obligation to
hold any intercourse with any one. A liberal and full-minded
man, however, who loves to talk, will break through this
churlish and unsocial restraint. Johnson and an Irish gentleman
got into a dispute concerning the cause of some part of mankind
being black. 'Why, sir (said Johnson), it has been accounted
for in three ways: either by supposing that they are the
posterity of Ham, who was cursed; or that God at first created
two kinds of men, one black and another white; or that, by the
heat of the sun, the skin is scorched, and so acquires a sooty
hue. This matter has been much canvassed among naturalists, but
has never been brought to any certain issue.' What the Irishman
said is totally obliterated from my mind; but I remember that
he became very warm and intemperate in his expressions; upon
which Johnson rose, and quietly walked away. When he had
retired, his antagonist took his revenge, as he thought, by
saying, 'He has a most ungainly figure, and an affectation of
pomposity unworthy of a man of genius.'"[133]

The ungainly figure might have been pardoned by the Irishman; who, we suppose, was equally fiery and elegant. As to Johnson's pompous manner, the most excusable part of it originated, doubtless, in his having decided opinions. The rest may have been an instinct of self-defence, arising from the "ungainly figure," not without a sense of the dignity of his calling. He certainly lost nothing by it, upon the whole. At all events, one is willing to think the best of what was accompanied by so much excellence. Affectation it was not; for nobody despised pretension of any kind more than he did. Johnson was a sort of born bishop in his way, with high judgments and cathedral notions lording it in his mind; and _ex cathedrâ_ he accordingly spoke.

In Butcher Row, one day, Johnson met, in advanced life, a fellow-collegian, of the name of Edwards, whom he had not seen since they were at the university. Edwards annoyed him by talking of their age. "Don't let us discourage one another," said Johnson. It was this Edwards, a dull but good man, who made that _naïve_ remark, which was pronounced by Burke and others to be an excellent trait of character:--"You are a philosopher, Dr. Johnson," said he: "I have tried in my time to be a philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfulness was always breaking in."[134]

Before we come to St. Clement's, we arrive, on the left-hand side of the way, at Essex Street; a spot once famous for the residence of the favourite Earl of Essex. We have mentioned an Outer Temple, which originally formed a companion to the Inner and Middle Temples, the whole constituting the tenements of the knights. This Outer Temple stretched beyond Temple Bar into the ground now occupied by Essex Street and Devereux Court; and after being possessed (Dugdale supposes) by the Prior and Canons of the Holy Sepulchre, was transferred by them, in the time of Edward III., to the Bishops of Exeter, who occupied it till the reign of Henry VI., and called it Exeter House. Sir William Paget (afterwards Lord Paget) then had it, and did "re-edify the same," calling it Paget Place. After this it was occupied by the Duke of Norfolk, who was executed for his dealings with Mary, Queen of Scots; then by Dudley, Earl of Leicester, the favourite, who called it Leicester House, and bequeathed it to his "son, Sir Robert;" and then by the other favourite, Leicester's son-in-law, Essex, from whom it retained the name of Essex House. It was occasionally tenanted by men of rank till some time after the Restoration, when it was pulled down, and the site converted into the present street and court. The only remnant of it supposed to exist is the present Unitarian Chapel, which, before it became such, was called Essex House, and latterly contained an auction room.[135]

The repose enjoyed in this precinct since the Restoration has been like silence after a succession of storms, for the house was of a turbulent reputation. The first bishop who had it after the Templars, being a favourite of Edward II., was seized by the mob, hurried to Cheapside, where they beheaded him, and then carried back a corpse, and buried in a heap of sand at his door. Lord Paget got into trouble, together with his friend the Duke of Somerset, who was accused of intending to assassinate Northumberland and others at this house. Norfolk possessed it while he formed his designs on Mary, Queen of Scots, for which he was brought to the scaffold; Leicester was always having some ill design or other--perhaps poisoned a visitor or so occasionally (for he is said to have thought nothing of that gentle expediency); and Essex made the house famous by standing a siege in it against the troops of his mistress. The siege was not long, nor any of his actions in the business very wise, though he was a man of an exalted nature. Essex got into his troubles partly from heat and ambition, partly from the inferior and more cunning nature of some of his rivals at court. There is no doubt that all these causes, together with his confidence in Elizabeth's inability to proceed to extremities, conspired to lead him into rebellion. His first offence that we hear of, next to a general petulance of manner, which the Queen's own mixture of fondness and petulance was calculated enough to provoke, was a quarrel with some young lords for her favour; the second, his joining the expedition to Cadiz without leave; and the third, his marriage with the daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham: for Elizabeth never thought it proper that her favourites should be married to any thing but her "fair idea."

His next dispute with her, which was on the subject of an assistant in the affairs of Ireland, to which he was going as lord deputy, terminated in the singular catastrophe of his receiving from her a box on the ear, with the encouraging addition of bidding him "Go, and be hanged." It is said to have been occasioned by his turning his back upon her. He clapped his hand to his sword, and swore he would not have put up with such an insult from her father. His fall is generally dated from this circumstance, and it is thought he never forgave it. But surely this is not a correct judgment: for the blow which might have been intolerable from the hand of a king, implied, in its very extravagance, something not without flattery and self-abasement from that of a princess. It was as if Elizabeth had put herself into the situation of a termagant wife. The quarrel preceded the violence. Essex went to Ireland against the rebels, but apparently with great unwillingness, calling it, in a letter to the Queen, the "cursedest of all islands," and insinuating that the best thing that could happen both to please her and himself was the loss of his life in battle. The conclusion of this letter is a remarkable instance of the mixture of romance with real life in those days. It is in verse, terminating with the following pastoral sentiment. Essex wishes he could live like a hermit, "in some unhaunted desert most obscure"--

"From all society, from love and hate
Of worldly folk; then should he sleep secure,
Then wake again, and yield God every praise,
Content with hips and hawes, and bramble-berry;
In contemplation parting out his days,
And change of holy thoughts to make him merry.
Who when he dies, his tomb may be a bush,
Where harmless robin dwells with gentle thrush.

Your Majesty's exiled servant,
"ROBERT ESSEX."

Think of this being a letter from a lord lieutenant of Ireland to his sovereign! Warton says, from the evidence of some sonnets preserved in the British Museum, that although Essex was "an ingenious and elegant writer of prose," he was no poet. There is an ungainliness in the lines we have just quoted, and he was probably too much given to action to be a poet; but there is something in him that relished of the truth and directness of poetry, when he had to touch upon any actual emotion. Poetry is nothing but the voluntary power to get at the inner spirit of what is felt, with imagination to embody it. It was supposed that Essex's enemies first got him into the office of lord lieutenant, and then took advantage of his impatience under it to ruin him. He was accused of tampering with the rebels, and meditating his return into England with the troops under his charge; with a view to which object he is said to have described his army as a force with which he "would make the earth to tremble as he went." He came over, with the passion of an injured man, and presented himself before the Queen, who gave him a tolerable reception, but afterwards confined him to the house of the lord keeper. It was then, according to his confession before his death, that he first contemplated violent measures against the throne, though always short of treason. Before his liberation, he was soured by his ineffectual attempts to renew his facility of admission to the presence chamber; and he let fall an expression which his enemies greedily seized at, to wit, that the "Queen grew old and cankered, and that her mind was become as crooked as her carcase." This was exactly in his style, which was off-hand and energetic, with a gusto of truth in it. Meantime he began to have his friends about him more than ever, and to affect a necessity for it; and a summons being sent him to attend the council, he was driven by anger and fear to decline it, and to fortify himself in his house. His chief and most generous companion on this occasion was Henry, Earl of Southampton, the friend of Shakspeare. There was some little resistance; and the Lord Keeper, with the Lord Chief Justice and the Earl of Worcester, coming to summon him to his allegiance, he locked them up in a room, on pretence of taking care of their persons, and then sallied through Fleet Street into the city, where he expected a rising in his favour; for he was the most popular noble, perhaps, that England had ever seen, and the city had been disgusted by repeated levies on its purse, under pretence of invasions from Spain: though, according to Essex, Spain had never been so much in favour. The levies, in truth, were made against himself. He was disappointed: heard himself proclaimed a traitor by sound of trumpet in Gracechurch Street, and after a little more scuffling on the part of his adherents, returned by water from Queenhithe, and surrendered himself; being partly moved, he said, by the "cries of ladies." It is clear that he did not know what to be at. He expected, most likely, every moment, that the Queen's tenderness would interfere, fearful of seeing her once beloved favourite in danger. But the Cecils and others aided her good sense in keeping her quiet. Essex had certainly acted in a way incompatible with the duty of a subject, and such as no sovereign could tolerate. He was tried in Westminster Hall, and convicted of an intention to seize the court and the Tower, to surprise the Queen in her apartments, and then to summon a parliament for a "redress of grievances;" which, he said, should give his enemies "a fair trial." Southampton was acquitted, no doubt from a sense that he intended nothing but a romantic adherence to his friend.

How a man of Essex's understanding could give into these preposterous attempts, it would be difficult to conceive, if every day's experience did not show how powerful a succession of little circumstances is to bring people into situations which themselves might have least looked for. Essex evidently expected pardon to the last. When Lord Grey's name was read over among the peers who were to try him, he smiled and jogged the elbow of Southampton, for offending whom Grey had been punished. He was at his ease throughout the trial. He said to the Attorney-General (Coke), who had told him in the course of his speech that he should be "Robert the Last" of an earldom, instead of "Robert the First" of a kingdom--"Well, Mr. Attorney, I thank God you are not my judge this day, you are so uncharitable."

"_Coke._ Well, my lord, we shall prove you anon, what you are;
which your pride of heart, and aspiring mind, hath brought you
unto.

_Essex._ Ah, Mr. Attorney, lay your hand upon your heart, and
pray to God to forgive us _both_."[136]

And when sentence was passed, though it is not true that he refused to ask for mercy, for he did it after the best fashion of his style, "kneeling (he said) upon the very knees of his heart," yet he seemed to threaten Elizabeth, in a tender way, with his resolution to die. She left him, like a politic sovereign, to his fate; but is thought never to have recovered it, as a friend. The romantic story of her visiting the Countess of Nottingham, who had kept back a ring which Essex sent her after his condemnation, of her shaking her on her deathbed, and crying out that "God might forgive, but she could not," is more and more credited as documents transpire. The ring, it is said, had been given to Essex, with a promise that it should serve him in need under any circumstances, if he did but send it. It is supposed that the non-appearance of it hurt the proud heart of Elizabeth, and finally allowed her to let him die. Yet she was a great sovereign, and might have suffered the law to take its course, with whatever sorrow. She was jealous of her reputation with the old and cool-headed lords about her. When the death, however, had taken place, she might have fancied otherwise. Something preyed strongly on her mind towards her decease, which happened within two years after his execution. She refused to go to bed for ten days and nights before her death, lying upon the carpet with cushions about her, and absorbed in the profoundest melancholy. To be sure, this may have been disease. A princess like Elizabeth, possessed of sovereign power, which had been sharply exercised on some doubtful occasions, might have had misgivings when going to die. Two certain causes of regret she must have had for Essex. She must have been well aware that she had alternately encouraged and irritated him over much; and she must have known that he was a better man than many who assisted in his overthrow, and that if he had been less worthy of regard, he probably would have survived her, as they did.

It may easily be imagined that Essex was a man for whom a strong affection might be entertained. He excited interest by his character, and could maintain it by his language. In everything he did there was a certain excess, but on the liberal side. When a youth, he plunged into the depths of rural pleasures and books; he was lavish of his money and good words for his friends; he said everything that came uppermost, but then it was worth saying, only his enemies were not as well pleased with it as his friends, and they never forgot it: in fine, he was romantic, brave, and impassioned. He is so like a _preux chevalier_, that till we call to mind other gallant knights who have not been handsome, we are somewhat surprised to hear that he was not well made, and that nothing is said of his face but that it looked reserved--a seeming anomaly, which deep thought sometimes produces in the countenances of open-hearted men. These were no hindrances, however, to the admiration entertained of him by the ladies; and he was so popular with authors and with the public, that Warton says he could bring evidence of his scarcely ever quitting England or even the metropolis, on the most frivolous enterprise, without a pastoral or other poetical praise of him, which was sold and sung in the streets. He was the friend of Spenser, most likely of Shakspeare too. being the friend of Southampton. Spenser was well acquainted with Essex House. In his '_Prothalamion_,' published in 1596, he has left interesting evidence of his having visited Leicester there; and he follows up the record with a panegyric on Leicester's successor, which was probably his first hint to Essex that he was still in want of such assistance as he had received from his father-in-law. The two passages taken together render the hint rather broad, and such as would make one a little jealous for the dignity of the great poet, were not the manners of that time different in this respect from what they are now. Speaking of the Temple, in the lines quoted in our last chapter, he goes on to say--

"Next whereunto there stands a stately place,
Where oft I gayned giftes and goodly grace
Of that great lord, which therein wont to dwell.
Whose want too well now feels my friendless case:
But, ah! here fits not well
Olde woes, but ioyes, to tell
Against the bridale daye, which is not long:
Sweet Themmes! runne softly till I end my song.

Yet therein now doth lodge a noble peer,
Great England's glory, and the world's wide wonder,
Whose dreadful name late through all Spaine did thunder,
And Hercules' two pillars standing near
Did make to quake and feare:
Faire branch of honour, flower of chevalrie;
That fillest England with thy triumph's fame,
Joy have thou of thy noble victorie."

Essex no doubt took the poet at his word, both for his panegyric and his hint: for it was he that gave Spenser his funeral in Westminster, and he was not of a spirit to treat a great poet, as poets have sometimes been treated--with neglect in their lifetime, and self-complacent monuments to them after their death.

We shall close this notice (in which we have endeavoured to concentrate all the interest we could) of the once great and applauded Essex, whose memory long retained its popularity, and gave rise to several tragedies, with a letter of his to the Lord Keeper Egerton, in which there is one of his finest sentiments expressed with his most passionate felicity. Egerton's eldest son had accompanied Essex into Ireland, and died there, which is the subject of the letter. As Spenser's death also happened just before the earl set out for that country, at a moment when he might have been of political as well as poetical use to him (for Spenser was a politician, and had been employed in the affairs of Ireland), Mr. Todd thinks, that among the friends alluded to, part of the regret may have been for him:

"Whatt can you receave from a cursed country butt vnfortunate
newes? whatt can be my stile (whom heaven and earth are agreed
to make a martyr) butt a stile of mourning? nott for myself
thatt I smart, _for I wold I had in my hart the sorow of all my
frends_, but I mourn that my destiny is to overlive my deerest
frendes. Of yr losse yt is neither good for me to write nor
you to reade. But I protest I felt myself sensibly dismembered,
when I lost my frend. Shew yr strength in lyfe. Lett me, yf yt
be God's will, shew yt in taking leave of the world, and
hasting after my frends. Butt I will live and dy

"More yr lp's then any
"man's living,
"ESSEX."

"_Arbrachan, this last day of August_" [1599].

"Little,"[137] says Mr. Todd, "did the generous but unfortunate
Essex then imagine, that the learned statesman, to whom this
letter of condolence was addressed, would be directed very soon
afterwards to issue an order for his execution. The original
warrant, to which the name of Elizabeth is prefixed, is now in
the possession of the Marquis of Stafford; and the queen has
written her name, not with the firmness observable in numerous
documents existing in the same and other collections, but with
apparent tremor and hesitation."

In Essex House was born another Robert, Earl of Essex, son of the preceding, well known in history as general of the Parliament. He was a child when his father died; and was in the hands, first, of his grandmother, Lady Walsingham, and, secondly, of Henry Saville (afterwards Sir Henry), under whose severe discipline he was educated at Eton. We mention these circumstances, because they tended to keep him in that Presbyterian interest, which his father patronised out of a love of toleration and popularity. Perhaps, also, they did him no good with his wives; for he married two, and was singularly unfortunate in both. To the first, Lady Frances Howard, he was betrothed when a boy. He travelled, returned, and married her, with little love on his own side, and none on hers. Her connection with Car, Earl of Somerset, and all the infamy, crime, and wretchedness it brought upon her, are well known. Her best excuse, which is the ordinary one in cases of great wickedness (and it is a comfort to human nature that it is so), is, that she was a great fool. Her dislike of her first husband was not, perhaps, the least excusable part of her conduct, first, because she was a child like himself when they were betrothed; and secondly, because his second wife appears to have liked him no better. The latter was divorced also. After this, Essex took to a country retirement, and subsequently to an active part in the Civil Wars, during which his love of justice and affability to his inferiors rendered him extremely popular. He was of equivocal service, however, to the Parliament. He was a better general than politician, not of a commanding genius in any respect, and was suspected, not without reason, of an overweening desire to accommodate matters too much, partly out of ignorance of what the nature of the quarrel demanded, and partly from an affectation of playing the part of an amicable dictator for his own aggrandisement. So the Parliament got rid of him by the famous self-denying ordinance. Clarendon says, that when he resigned his commission, the whole Parliament went the day following to Essex House, to return him thanks for his great services; but a late historian of the commonwealth says, there is no trace of this compliment on the journals.[138] Next year they attended him to his grave. Essex's character was a prose-copy of his father's, with the love and romance left out.

Dr. Johnson, the year before he died, founded in Essex Street one of his minor clubs. The Literary Club did not meet often enough for his want of society, was too distant, and perhaps had now become too much for his conversational ambition. He wanted a mixture of inferior intellects to be at ease with. Accordingly, this club, which was held at the Essex Head, then kept by a servant of Mr. Thrale, was of a more miscellaneous nature than the other, and made no pretension to expense. One cannot help smiling at the modest and pensive tone of the letter which Johnson sent to Sir Joshua, inviting him to join it. "The terms are lax, and the expenses light. We meet thrice a-week; and he who misses, forfeits two-pence."[139] This stretch of philosophy seems to have startled the fashionable painter, who declined to become a member. When we find, however, in the list the names of Brocklesby, Horsley, Daines Barrington, and Windham, Boswell has reason to say that Sir John Hawkins's charge of its being a "low ale-house association" appears to be sufficiently obviated. But the names might have been subscribed out of civility without any further intention. The club, nevertheless, was in existence when Boswell wrote, and went on, he says, happily. Johnson said of him, when he was proposed, "Boswell is a very _clubable_ man."

In Devereux Court, through which there is a passage round into the Temple, is the Grecian Coffee House, supposed to be the oldest in London. We should rather say the revival of the oldest, for the premises were burnt down and rebuilt. The Grecian was the house from which Steele proposed to date his learned articles in the _Tatler_.

In this court are the premises of the eminent tea-dealers, Messrs. Twining, the front of which, surmounted with its stone figures of Chinese, has an elegant appearance in the Strand. We notice the house, not only on this account, but because the family have to boast of a very accomplished scholar, the translator of the _Poetics_ of Aristotle. Mr. Twining was contemporary with Gray and Mason at Cambridge; and besides his acquirements as a linguist (for, in addition to his knowledge of Greek and Latin, he wrote French and Italian with idiomatic accuracy), was a musician so accomplished as to lead the concerts and oratorios that were performed during term-time, when Bate played the organ and harpsichord. He was also a lively companion, full of wit and playfulness, yet so able to content himself with country privacy, and so exemplary a clergyman, that for the last forty years of his life he scarcely allowed himself to be absent from his parishioners more than a fortnight in a year.

The church of St. Clement Danes, which unworthily occupies the open part of the Strand, to the west of Essex Street, was the one most frequented by Dr. Johnson. It is not known why this church was called St. Clement _Danes_. Some think because there was a massacre of the Danes thereabouts; others because Harold Harefoot was buried there; and others, because the Danes had the quarter given them to live in, when Alfred the Great drove them out of London, the monarch at the same time building the church, in order to assist their conversion to Christianity. The name _St. Clement_ has been derived with probability from the patron saint of Pope Clement III., a great friend of the Templars, to whom the church at one time belonged. St. Clement's was rebuilt towards the end of the century before last by Edward Pierce, under the direction of Sir Christopher Wren, but is a very incongruous ungainly edifice. Its best aspect is at night-time in winter, when the deformities of its body are not seen, and the pale steeple rises with a sort of ghastliness of grandeur through the cloudy atmosphere. The chimes may still be heard at midnight, as Falstaff describes having heard them with Justice Shallow. If they did not execute one of Handel's psalm-tunes, we should take them to be the very same he speaks of, and conclude that they had grown hoarse with age and sitting-up; for to our knowledge they have lost some of their notes these twenty years, and the rest are falling away. A steeple should set a better example.

A few years back, when the improvements on the north side, in this quarter, had not been followed by those on the south, Gay's picture of the avenue between the church and the houses was true in all its parts. We remember the "combs dangling in our faces," and almost mourned their loss for the sake of the poet.

"Where the fair columns of St. Clement stand,
Whose straiten'd bounds encroach upon the Strand;
Where the low penthouse bows the walker's head,
And the rough pavement wounds the yielding tread;
Where not a post protects the narrow space,
And, strung in twines, combs dangle in thy face;
Summon at once thy courage, rouse thy care,
Stand firm, look back, be resolute, beware.
Forth issuing from steep lanes, the collier's steeds
Drag the black load; another cart succeeds;
Team follows team, crowds heap'd on crowds appear,
And wait impatient till the road grow clear."

Everybody can testify to the truth of this description. A little patience, however, is well repaid by the sight of the noble creatures dragging up the loads. The horses of the colliers and brewers of London are worth notice at all times for the magnificence of their _build_. Gay proceeds to other particulars, now no longer to be encountered. He cautions you how you lose your sword; and adds a pleasant mode of theft, practised in those times:--

"Nor is the flaxen wig with safety worn:
High on the shoulder, in a basket borne,
Lurks the sly boy, whose hands, to rapine bred,
Plucks off the curling honours of thy head."[140]

Clement's Inn is named from the church. The device over the gate, of an anchor and the letter C, is supposed to allude to the martyrdom of St. Clement, who is said to have been tied to an anchor and thrown into the sea, by order of the Emperor Trajan.

"The hall is situated on the south side of a neat but small
quadrangle. It is a Tuscan diminutive building, with a very
large Corinthian door, and arched windows, erected in 1715.
Another irregular area is surrounded by convenient houses, in
which are the possessor's chambers. Part of this is a pretty
garden, with a kneeling African, of considerable merit,
supporting a dial, on the eastern side."[141]

In Knox's _Elegant Extracts_ are some lines on this negro, which have often been repeated:--

"In vain, poor sable son of woe,
Thou seek'st the tender tear;
For thee in vain with pangs they flow;
For mercy dwells not here.

From cannibals thou fledst in vain;
Lawyers less quarter give;
The first won't eat you till you're slain,
The last will do't alive."

This inn, like all the other inns of court, is of great antiquity. Dugdale states it to have been an inn of Chancery in the reign of Edward II. Some have conjectured, according to Mr. Moser, "that near this spot stood an inn, as far back as the time of King Ethelred, for the reception of penitents who came to St. Clement's Well; that a religious house was in process of time established, and that the church rose in consequence." Be this as it may, the holy brotherhood was probably removed to some other institution; the Holy Lamb, an inn on the west side of the lane, received the guests; and the monastery was converted, or rather perverted, from the purposes of the gospel to those of the law, and was probably, in this profession, considered as a house of considerable antiquity in the days of Shakspeare; for he, who with respect to this kind of chronology may be safely quoted, makes in the second act of Henry IV. one of his justices a member of that society:--

"He must to the Inns of Court. I was of Clement's once myself,
where they talk of Mad Shallow still."

A pump now covers St. Clement's Well. Fitzstephen, in his description of London, in the reign of Henry II., speaks of certain "excellent springs at a small distance" from the city, "whose waters are sweet, salubrious, and clear, and whose runnels murmur o'er the shining stones: among these," he continues, "Holywell, Clerkenwell, and St. Clement's Well may be esteemed the principal, as being much the most frequented, both by the scholars from the school (Westminster) and the youth from the city, when on a summer's evening they are disposed to take an airing."

Six hundred years and upwards have elapsed since Fitzstephen wrote. It is pleasant to think that the well has lasted so long, and that the place is still quiet.

The Clare family, who have left their name to Clare Market, appear to have occupied Clement's Inn during part of the reign of the Tudors. From their hands it reverted to those of the law. It is an appendage to the Inner Temple. We are not aware of any greater legal personage having been bred there, than the one just mentioned. Shallow takes delight in his local recollections, particularly of this inn. In one of the masterly scenes of this kind, Falstaff's corroboration of a less pleasant recollection, and Shallow's anger against the cause of it, after such a lapse of time, are very ludicrous.

"_Shallow._ Oh, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all
night in the windmill in St. George's Fields?

"_Fals._ No more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

"_Shal._ Ha, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork alive?

"_Fals._ She lives, Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ She never could away with me.

"_Fals._ Never, never; she would always say she could not abide
Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ By the mass. I could anger her to the heart. She was
then a bonaroba. Doth she hold her own well?--and had Robin
Nightwork by old Nightwork, before I came to Clement's Inn.

"_Silence._ That's fifty-five years ago.

"_Shal._ Ha, Cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that
this knight and I have seen! Ah, Sir John, said I well?

"_Fals._ We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

"_Shal._ That we have, that we have, that we have; in faith,
Sir John, we have; our watchword was, _Hem, boys_! Come, let's
to dinner: come, let's to dinner: Oh, the days that we have
seen! Come, come."[142]

The sites of Arundel, Norfolk, Surrey, and Howard Streets (the last of which crosses the others), were formerly occupied by the house and grounds originally constituting the town residence of the Bishop of Bath and Wells, then of the Lord High Admiral Seymour, and afterwards of the Howards Earls of Arundel, from whom it came into possession of the Duke of Norfolk. It was successively called Bath's Inn (Hampton Place, according to some, but we know not why), Seymour Place, Arundel House, and Norfolk House. It was a wide low house, but according to Sully, who lodged in it when he was ambassador to James I., very convenient, on account of the multitude of rooms on the same floor.

In this house the Lord High Admiral, Thomas Seymour, brother of the Protector Somerset, in the reign of Edward VI., contrived to place the Princess (afterwards Queen) Elizabeth, with a design of possessing her person, and sharing her succession to the Crown. No doubt is entertained of these views by the historians. Elizabeth was not averse to him, though he had lately married the Queen Dowager (Catherine Parr); and some gossipping stories transpired of the evidences of their good-will. Catherine's death increased the suspicion, and she herself expressed it on her death-bed. Seymour's ambition, however, shortly brought him to the scaffold, and saved us from a King Thomas I., who would probably, as Pennant thinks, have been a very bad one.

We have mentioned the Countess of Nottingham who withheld from Elizabeth the ring sent her by Essex. It was in this house she died. Her husband was a Howard, and, probably, she was on a visit there. We take an opportunity, therefore, of relating the particulars of that romantic story, as collected by the accurate Dr. Birch, and repeated in the _Memoirs of the Peers of England during the reign of James I._ "The following curious story," says the compiler of this work, "was frequently told by Lady Elizabeth Spelman, great grand-daughter of Sir Robert Carey, brother of Lady Nottingham, and afterwards Earl of Monmouth, whose curious memoirs of himself were published a few years ago by Lord Corke."

"When Catherine, Countess of Nottingham, was dying (as she did,
according to his lordship's own account, about a fortnight
before Queen Elizabeth), she sent to her Majesty to desire that
she might see her, in order to reveal something to her Majesty
without the discovery of which she could not die in peace. Upon
the Queen's coming, Lady Nottingham told her, that, while the
Earl of Essex lay under sentence of death, he was desirous of
asking her Majesty's mercy, in the manner prescribed by
herself, during the height of his favour; the Queen having
given him a ring, which being sent to her as a token of his
distress, might entitle him to her protection. But the earl,
jealous of those about him, and not caring to trust any of them
with it, as he was looking out of his window one morning, saw a
boy, with whose appearance he was pleased; and engaging him by
money and promises, directed him to carry the ring, which he
took from his finger and threw down, to Lady Scroope, a sister
of the Countess of Nottingham, and a friend of his lordship,
who attended upon the Queen; and to beg of her that she would
present it to her Majesty. The boy, by mistake, carried it to
Lady Nottingham, who showed it to her husband, the admiral, an
enemy of Lord Essex, in order to take his advice. The admiral
forbid her to carry it, or return any answer to the message;
but insisted upon her keeping the ring.

"The Countess of Nottingham, having made this discovery, begged
the Queen's forgiveness; but her Majesty answered, '_God may
forgive you, but I never can_,' and left the room with great
emotion. Her mind was so struck with the story that she never
went into bed, nor took any sustenance from that instant, for
Camden is of opinion, that her chief reason for suffering the
earl to be executed, was his supposed obstinacy in not applying
to her for mercy."[143]

"In confirmation of the time of the countess's death,"
continues the compiler, "it now appears from the parish
register of Chelsea, extracted by Mr. Lysons (_Environs of
London_, vol. ii., p. 120), that she died at Arundel House,
London, February 25, and was buried the 28th, 1603. Her funeral
was kept at Chelsea, March 21st; and Queen Elizabeth died three
days afterwards."

Clarendon gives a singular character of this house and its master when it was in possession of Thomas Howard, Earl of Arundel. He says that the earl

"Seemed to live, as it were, in another nation, his house being
a place to which all people resorted, who resorted to no other
place; strangers, or such as affected to look like strangers,
and dressed themselves accordingly. He was willing to be
thought a scholar, and to understand the most mysterious parts
of antiquity, because he made a wonderful and costly purchase
of excellent statues whilst in Italy and in Rome (some whereof
he could never obtain permission to remove out of Rome, though
he had paid for them), and had a rare collection of medals. As
to all parts of learning, he was almost illiterate, and thought
no other part of history so considerable as what related to his
own family, in which, no doubt, there had been some very
memorable persons. It cannot be denied that he had in his own
person, in his aspect and countenance, the appearance of a
great man, which he preserved in his gait and motion. He wore
and affected a habit very different from that of the time, such
as men had only beheld in pictures of the most considerable
men; all which drew the eyes of most, and the reverence of
many, towards him, as the image and representative of the
ancient nobility, and native gravity of the nobles, when they
had been most venerable; but this was only his outside, his
nature and true humour being much disposed to levity and
delights, which indeed were very despicable and childish."

The marbles here mentioned, now at Oxford, were collected at Arundel House. This character from the pen of Clarendon has been thought too severe. Perhaps the earl had given the noble historian a repulse when he was nothing but plain Mr. Hyde; for personal resentments of this sort are apparent in his writings. The last Duke of Norfolk but one, who wrote anecdotes on the Howard family, asks how the man who collected the Oxford marbles could be the slave of such family self-love as Clarendon describes, and how it was that he held the first places in the state, and the most important commissions abroad. It is well-known, however, that a man may do all this, and yet be more fortunate than wise. Arundel was certainly proud, if not dull; and the proudest men are not apt to be the brightest. It was he that, in a dispute with Lord Spenser, in the Upper House, when the latter spoke of the treason of the earl's ancestors, said, "My lord, my lord, while my ancestors were plotting treason, yours were keeping sheep." He little thought that his marbles would help to bring about a time, when an historian, by no means indifferent to rank and title, should regard a romantic poem as the "brightest jewel" in a ducal coronet, and that coronet be a Spenser's.[144]