Читать книгу Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present - Thomas 1839- Miller - Страница 8

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HE Cathedral of St. Paul’s is the great landmark of London. Long before the eye of the approaching stranger obtains a glimpse of the graceful spires, grey massy towers, and tall columns which ascend from every corner of the outstretched city, it rests upon that mighty dome, which looms through the misty sky, like some dim world hanging amid the immensity of space; for so does it seem suspended when the smoke from ten thousand homes throws a vapoury veil over the lower portion of the invisible building. From the long range of hills that overlook Surrey and Kent, from the opposite heights of Highgate and Hampstead, and for miles away in the level valley through which the Thames ebbs and flows, that rounded dome is seen standing sentinel day and night over the two-million peopled city. Above the busy hum of the multitude it keeps watch by day, and through the hushed night it looks up amid the overhanging stars, and throws back from its golden cross (emblem of our salvation) the silvery rays of the bright moon, when all the miles of streets below are wrapt in drowsy silence. High up it towers, a tribute of man to his Maker, carrying our thoughts almost unconsciously to God while we gaze upon it, and pointing out to the unbelieving heathens who have crossed the great deep a Christian land: an image of religion reflected in the deep tide of our commerce, shadowing forth a haven beyond the grave, when the fever and the fret of this life will have died away like a forgotten dream. It stands like a calm bay amid the ever-heaving sea of restless London, into which the tempest-tost mariner may at any time enter and anchor his barque nearer the shores of eternity; for while all around him the wild elements of worldly gain are raging, scarcely a sound from without falls upon his ear to break the solemn silence which reigns in that mighty fabric.

No stranger can say that he has seen the vastness of London until he has mounted the hundreds of steps which lead to the Golden Gallery, and looked out upon the outstretched city and suburbs below. It is a sight never to be forgotten; the passengers underneath scarcely appear a foot high, and the omnibuses so diminished, that you fancy you could take one under your arm and walk off with it easily. But it is the immense range of country which the eye commands that astonishes the stranger. Here railroads branch out, there the noble river seems narrowed by distance to an insignificant brook; while weary miles of houses spread out every way, and the largest edifices of the metropolis are dwarfed beneath the lofty height from which you gaze. There are hills before and hills behind: to the right, a dim country, lost in purple haze; to the left, thousands of masts, which look like reeds, while the hulls of the ships seem to have dwindled to the smallness of boats.

Never did that cathedral appear to us more holy than when we visited it last summer during the Anniversary Meeting of the Charity Children; never did the sunbeams which occasionally streamed through the vaulted dome seem so much like the golden ladder on which the “angels of God ascended and descended” in the dream of the patriarch of old, as when they shone for a few moments upon the heads of those thousands of children who were congregated beneath. We seemed to picture Charity herself newly alighted from heaven, and standing in the midst overshadowing them with her white wings, while her angelic smile lighted up the holy fabric, as she stood with her finger pointing to the sky. It was a sight that went home to every heart, and made an Englishman proud of the land of his birth, to know that thousands of those children, who were fatherless and motherless, were watched over and tended by the angel of charity; and that hundreds who waited to do her bidding, with willing hearts and open hands, were assembled in the temple which her overpowering presence then hallowed. Then to know that so vast a multitude formed but a portion of the numbers which English charity clothed, fed, and educated; and that, if all could have been assembled tier above tier, as they then sat, they would have reached to the very summit of the dome itself, extending, as it were, to heaven, and with folded hands and meek supplicating faces seeming to plead in our behalf before the footstool of God.

It was a sight never to be forgotten, to see those thousands of clean and neatly clad children ranged one above another, to the height of

ST. PAUL’S CATHEDRAL. CHARITY CHILDREN’S ANNIVERSARY FESTIVAL.

twenty feet, beneath the huge overshadowing dome; to see the girls at the beginning or ending of a prayer (as if touched by the wand of some magician) raise or drop their thousands of snow-white aprons at the self-same instant of time, was like the sudden opening and folding of innumerable wings, which almost made the beholder start, as if he had stepped suddenly upon the threshold of another world. The gaudiest gardens that figure in oriental romance, with all their imaginary colouring, never approached in beauty the rich and variegated hues which that great group of children presented. Here the eye rested upon thousands of little faces that peeped out from the pink trimmings of their neat caps; there the pretty head-gear was ornamented with blue ribands, looking like blue-bells and white lilies blended together; farther on the high range of heads stood like sheeted May-blossoms, while the crimson baise which covered the seats looked in the distance as if the roses of June were peeping in between the openings of the branches. The pale pearled lilac softened into a primrose-coloured border, which was overhung by the darker drapery of the boys, upon whom the shadows of the arches settled. Ever and anon there was a sparkling as of gold and silver, as the light fell upon the glittering badges which numbers of the children wore, or revealed the hundreds of nosegays which they held in their little hands, or wore proudly in their bosoms. High above this vast amphitheatre of youthful heads, the outspreading banners of blue, and crimson, and purple, emblazoned with gold, were ranged, all filled with

“Stains and splendid dyes,

As are the tiger-moth’s deep-damask’d wings.”

And when the sunlight at intervals fell upon the hair or the innocent faces of some snow-white group of girls, they seemed surrounded with

“A glory like a saint’s.

They look’d like splendid angels newly drest,

Save wings, for heaven.”—Keats.

Eastward the organ rose with its sloping gallery of choristers, selected from Westminster, the Royal Chapel, and St. Mark’s; and from thence the full choir burst, and the sounds were caught up and joined by thousands of voices, until the huge building seemed to throb again beneath that mighty utterance. The eye fairly ached as it rested on the vast plane of human faces, which inclined from the west end of the cathedral, and came dipping down almost to the very foot of the choir, so chequered was the richly-coloured field it fell upon.

As the anthem stole upon the ear, we seemed borne away to another state, to that heaven of which we catch glimpses in our sweetest dreams, when all those childish voices joined in the thrilling chorus; when we beheld thousands of childish faces in the ever-shifting light, we could almost fancy that we stood amid those ranks “who veil their faces with their wings” before the blinding glory of heaven. Over all pealed the full-voiced organ, sounding like music that belongs not to earth, now high, now low, near or remote, as the reverberated sound rose to the dome or traversed the aisles, coming in and out like wavering light between the pillars and shadowy recesses, spots in which old echoes seem to sleep, old voices to linger, which only broke forth at intervals to join in the solemn anthem that rose up and floated away, and would only become indistinct when it reached the star-paved courts above.

There was something pleasing in the countenances of many of the girls, something meek and patient in the expression they wore, especially in the little ones. You could almost fancy you could distinguish those who were orphans, by their looking timidly round, as if seeking among the spectators for some one to love them.

From such a scene our mind naturally turned to the huge amphitheatres of old, when the populace of ancient cities congregated to see some gladiator die, or to witness the struggle between man and the savage beast, while the air was rent with applauding shouts, as the combatants bled beneath each other’s swords, or were torn by the tusks of infuriated animals. How great the contrast! Instead of the shouts of the heathen multitude, here the solemn anthem was chanted by thousands of childish voices, while every heart seemed uplifted in silent prayer to God. Here we saw the youthful aspirants of heaven tuning their notes like young birds, dim, half-heard melodies, which can only burst forth in perfect music when they reach that immortal land where “one eternal summer ever reigns;” and we sighed as we thought how many thousands still uncared for were scattered through the streets and alleys of London, and left to live as they best could amid ignorance, rags, and hunger, with no one to teach them that, outcasts as they are on earth, they have still a Father in heaven who careth for them. Charitably disposed as England is to her poor children, she has yet much to do before her great work is perfected; she has yet to bring together her homeless thousands who have neither food nor raiment, nor any place at night where they can lay their weary and aching heads. The time will come when she will be convinced that she must do more than save a remnant, when there will be none left in hunger and ignorance to hang about her great cathedral, as we saw them then, envying the thousands of clean and healthy-looking children, who, more fortunate than they, were under the care of charitable guardians. All these her protecting arms will in time encircle in one warm motherly embrace, without distinction. God send that the time may be near at hand!

Many a “rapt soul” looked out with moistened eyes from that assemblage, which, when this earthly pilgrimage is ended, shall hear the voice of the great Master whom they have served exclaim: “For I was an hungered, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in.” Such we could distinguish, who felt no greater pleasure than in sharing their wealth amongst the poor and needy; on whose brow benevolence had set her seal; who do good by stealth, and “blush to find it fame.” Such as these feel an innate pleasure which the miser never experienced while gloating over his hoarded gold; and when the Angel of Death comes, he will bear them away gently; and in the soft beating of his dark wings they will hear again the sweet voices of those dear children singing a little way before, as if they had but to shew their faces, when the gates of Paradise would

“Wide on their golden hinges swing;”

while outstretched arms would be seen through the surrounding halo, holding forth the crowns of glory which had been prepared for them “from the foundation of the world.”

Glancing at the building, we must state that, from the base to the top of the cross, which overlooks the dome, the height is 400 feet; and that of the campanile towers, which front Ludgate-hill, 220 feet; the length of the building, from east to west, is 500 feet; and the breadth 100 feet; while the ground enclosed by the palisade measures upwards of two acres. As all the world knows, the architect was Sir Christopher Wren, whose grave is in the crypt below, and whose monument is the building itself; such a pile as no monarch ever erected to his own memory. The choir is enriched by the beautiful carving of Grinling Gibbons, who ought to have slept beside the great architect of St. Paul’s in the vault beneath. The sculpture on the west front is by Bird, and the beholder will be struck by the colossal size of the figures, if he pauses to look out as he ascends the dome. They are, Paul preaching to the Romans, his Conversion, &c.; while those at the sides represent the Evangelists. The minute-hand of the clock measures eight feet, and the dial is fifty-seven feet in circumference; while the great bell, which strikes the hour, weighs between four and five tons. It is only tolled at the deaths and burials of the royal family, and a few others, who may have been connected with the cathedral.

The Whispering-gallery, the Clock-room, the Library, and Model-room, have been so often described, that we shall pass them by, and briefly glance at the monuments.

The monument to Nelson, by Flaxman, interests us all the more through knowing that the remains of the hero of Trafalgar, encased in a portion of the mainmast of L’Orient, repose below. The memorial to Abercrombie, by one stroke of genius, carries the mind to Egypt, while gazing on the symbols which are introduced. There are statues or monuments to Lord Cornwallis, Sir John Moore, Lord Heathfield, Collingwood, St. Vincent, Howe, Rodney, Ponsonby, and Picton, and many other naval and military heroes. John Saunders, in Knight’s London, says, “There must be something shocking to a pure and devout mind filled with the spirit of Him who came to preach ‘peace on earth, good will among men,’ to find the records of deeds of violence and slaughter intruded upon his notice in the very temples where he might least expect to find such associations, … to make every pier, and window, and recess in our chief cathedral repeat the same melancholy story of war, war, still every where war. There are now about forty-eight monuments in St. Paul’s, of which there are but seven devoted to other than naval and military men … ‘paragraphs of military gazettes,’ to use Flaxman’s phrase.” The other monuments are to Howard the philanthropist, Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Sir William Jones, Bishop Heber, Babington, Middleton, and Sir Astley Cooper.

The paintings by Sir James Thornhill look dim and faded, and can scarcely be seen at all except through a few chinks in the dome, which you cannot peep down through without feeling dizzy, such a depth yawns beneath. This door, or trap, or whatever it is called, that opens above the dome, is for the convenience of hoisting up great and celebrated visitors, who are too distinguished and too lazy to climb the 600 steps which lead to the summit of St. Paul’s. Speaking of the summit recals to our recollection that, when we looked from it in the afternoon sunshine, the shadow of St. Paul’s extended to the Bank, while the dome threw all the houses on the left of Cheapside into the shade, and its rounded shoulder darkened the crowded buildings far behind, thus depriving hundreds of the citizens of sunshine.

In conclusion, we have only to add that Divine service commences at a quarter past ten in the morning, and a quarter to three in the afternoon; and that to see the whole of the building, above and below, the visitor must submit to pay the sum of 4s. 4d.; “which,” as gossiping old Pepys says, “is pretty to observe”—we mean, the amount.

There is but little to detain us in the streets behind Ludgate-hill, running into Upper Thames-street and Earl-street, beyond the mere mention of Apothecaries’ Hall, which stands in the Broadway, that unites with Water-lane, and which was built soon after the Fire of London. There is a portrait of James I., and a statue of Delware, at whose intercession James granted a charter of incorporation. The controversy between this Company and the College of Physicians called forth Garth’s poem entitled “The Dispensary,” which was very popular at that period, and is still worthy of perusal.

The Times Office, in Printing-house-square, is the great lion of this neighbourhood; and the same spot was occupied by the king’s printers at least as far back as the reign of Charles II. A description of this mighty lever of the “fourth estate” does not come within the compass of our light pages.

Neither St. Andrew’s-hill nor Addle-hill requires much notice, though the former contains one of Wren’s churches, called St. Andrew by the Wardrobe; also a beautiful monument to the Rev. W. Romaine. Paul’s Chain and Bennet-hill bring us back again to St. Paul’s; and here our readers will consider that we make a fair start eastward, with the intention of describing the principal objects of interest that lie between the nearest great thoroughfare and the river on the south side of the way, while a few of the principal objects in the streets on the north will arrest our attention as we return on our journey westward.

Paul’s Chain took its name from the chain thrown across the road during the time of Divine service; a duty now performed by policemen, who, although they do not bar up the way, caution the drivers to go on slowly during service-time.

We have now arrived at Doctors’ Commons, and our engraving over-leaf represents the Prerogative Court, one of the chambers in which the wills of the dead are deposited. Through those doors many a beating and anxious heart enters to return disappointed, or half delirious with delight, through dreaming of the many pleasures which riches will procure. What thousands of human beings, fluttering between hope and fear, have passed through the shadow of that arched gateway which opens into St. Paul’s Churchyard; many to repass the possessors of riches, but never again to find that sweet sleep which hard-handed industry brought, and which moderate competency had never before heaved a sigh for! Legacies left, which proved a curse instead of a comfort, by arousing ambitious thoughts to soar amid airy speculations, where hundreds of captivating bubbles floated, tinged with the richest hues, until all in a moment burst, and left but a naked desolation behind—a hideous barrenness—never seen while those painted vapours danced before the eye. Wealth, over which Care ever after kept watch with sleepless eyes and furrowed brow, uncertain into which stream of enjoyment he should launch with his freight, and so pondered until old age and then death came, and instead of the castle he had so long contemplated purchasing, he was installed without a tear into the narrow coffin, and borne without a sigh to the grave. Others, again, raised from enduring and patient poverty to undreamed-of comfort, because he who would not have advanced them a shilling, would it have saved them from starvation and death, was now powerless; his greatest agony, when he passed away, being the thought that he could not carry his unforgiving vengeance beyond the grave; that he had not power to disinherit the child whom he spurned and hated. We have gazed on those dark-bound volumes in the Prerogative Will-Office, and thought that if the dead were permitted to return again, what ghastly forms would enter that room, shrieking aloud names once beloved, and blotting out for ever such as they had in their blind passion inserted. One stroke of the pen, and she who sits weeping and plying her needle in one of the neighbouring attics (her children crying around her for bread) might have been trailing the roses around the trellised porch of some beautiful cottage, while they were playing on the green lawn, strangers to sorrow and hunger.

Let us pause for a few moments and examine the attitudes and countenances of those who are perusing the wills. See how that woman’s hand shakes as she turns over the leaves; look at the working of the muscles of that young man’s face; behold the play of light over the wrinkled features of that old lady; see how she clasps her hands together and is looking upward; and you may tell what each has discovered as clearly as if you knew them, had stood beside them, and had read every line which they have been reading. That low sound, falling on the ear like the faint dropping of the summer rain on the leaves, is caused by the tears shed by that pale young lady in deep mourning; they fall quicker and quicker on the pages, and she rests her head on her hand, for she can no longer see to read through those blinding tears. The old objects of a once happy home are floating before the eye of her imagination; it may be that they are all there enumerated; that she has in fancy been passing from room to room, looking into the mirror that threw back her image in happy childhood, leaning from the window where stood the box of mignonette which she watered in the dewy morning, while her shadow fell upon the sunshine which slept on the chamber-floor. Old faces and old voices have again been before and around her; and she weeps not at finding that she is forgotten, but because those she so fondly loved are either no more or far away, and refuse to countenance her for marrying the object of her love, a man rejected by all her family only

PREROGATIVE COURT, DOCTORS COMMONS.

because he was poor. In that great mustering-ground beyond the grave, who would not rather occupy the place of that sufferer than stand ranged amid the ranks of those who have thus neglected her? Contrast her deportment with that of the young man at the end of the desk; his fists are clenched, the nails of his fingers are embedded in the palms of his hands, his teeth set, his eyebrows knit; he strikes his hat as he places it on his head, closes the door with a loud slam, and curses the memory of a dead man, because he has left a reckless spendthrift just enough to live on all his life without working, yet so bequeathed it that he can but draw a given sum monthly. He is savage because he cannot have the whole legacy at once in his possession. If he could, he would be likely enough to squander it all away in a single night at some notorious gambling-house.

On another countenance you behold utter amazement slowly changing into the expression of contempt, disgust; and at last it settles down into black and sullen hatred. She, whose features have in a few moments undergone so many sudden alterations, finds that all her deeply-laid schemes and subtle plans have been of no avail, but that the poor relative, whose character she was ever disparaging in the eyes of the old man, and whom she kept from his bedside by the falsehoods she uttered to both, is now the possessor of all his riches. She is gnawing the end of her glove through sheer vexation: all he has left her is a book, an old volume, entitled, The Value of true Sincerity. The hypocrite is justly rebuked in his last will and testament. She departs burning red through shame and anger, and would give the world could she but leave her conscience behind her.

Watch that old man tottering on the very verge of the grave, and with hardly strength enough to lift the volume which he so eagerly scans: although he could already bury himself in gold, and leave the yellow lucre piled high above his narrow bed, he still covets more. He who has neither appetite nor taste for any rational enjoyment, who is compelled to sit up half the night because he cannot rest, is still eager to increase his riches. For what? the love of money alone. If he lends it, he never considers for what object; it may be good or evil, that concerns him not; all he looks to is the security, and the interest he is to receive on his capital: it may be to bring waste lands into cultivation, to aid a poor and industrious people; but one per cent more, and he would supply any armed tyrant with funds to destroy the whole peaceful populace, to leave their homes a mass of burning ruins, and the furrows of their fields running red with blood.

Here is the last Will and Testament of the immortal Shakspeare; the very handwriting of the mighty bard “who was not for an age, but for all time.” On that document his far-seeing eyes looked, on that page his hand rested; the same hand which obeyed the influence of his high-piled thoughts while he drew Hamlet, and Lear, and Macbeth, Desdemona, Ophelia, Perdita, and Imogen, held the pen which traced the very lines we now look upon. But for such old home-touches as these, we should almost doubt whether that god-like spirit ever descended to the common duties of this hard work-a-day world. But here we find him

“Not too bright or good

For human nature’s daily food.”

But for proofs like these, we might fancy that such a soul had but mistaken its way while wandering from the abodes of the gods, and brought with it to the earth all the wisdom and poetry which it had taken an immortality to gather; that when he returned to his native home, the gates of heaven closed not suddenly enough upon him to shut out the undying echoes of his golden utterance; but that for ever the winds of heaven were chartered to repeat them—to blow them abroad into every corner of the earth—nor cease their mission until the language he spoke shall be uttered by “every nation, kindred, and tongue.” Such a deed as this alone proves his mortality; for the creations of his genius carry him as far away from the common standard of men as heaven is from earth.

What records have we here of old families long since passed away!—their very names forgotten in the places where they once enjoyed

“A little rule—a little sway,

A sunbeam on a winter’s day,

Between the cradle and the grave.”—Dyer.

Perhaps the last of the race perished a pauper in some obscure poorhouse; it may be, the one which his ancestors founded a century or two ago.

Another visits the Will-Office, who gained information of the death of some near and wealthy relative by chance—perhaps through the scrap of an old newspaper which formed the wrapper of the pennyworth of butter or cheese purchased at the little huckster’s shop at the corner of the filthy court in which for years the poor family have resided—spots in which misery clings to misery for companionship. Letter after letter had they written, but received no answer; no one would take the trouble to reply. Then they sank lower and lower, and removed from place to place, until, at last, one single room in an undrained and breathless alley held all their cares and all their heart-aches; and there they tried to forget their wealthy relatives—to bury the remembrance of what they once were.

Meantime, he who had long been dead had remembered them on his deathbed; letters had been written and advertisements had appeared, announcing “something to their advantage,” but they had fallen amongst the very poor, who, though living in the heart of London, concerned not themselves with matters foreign to their own wretched neighbourhood, unless it were some execution or low spectacle, suited to their depraved tastes. Poverty had long ago prostrated all their finer feelings. Even such as these have we seen enter the doors of the Prerogative Court, after they had with difficulty raised the shilling which they were compelled to pay before searching for the will, and come out exultingly the possessors of thousands.

A strange place is that Prerogative Court, a fine picture of the great out-of-door world; for there Hope and Despair stand sentinels at the doors, and the living seem to jostle the dead in their eager hurry to hunt after what those in the grave have left them. There is a smell as of death about the place, as if grey old departed spirits lurked in the musty folios, and had scattered their ashes amid the yellow and unearthly-looking parchments, which rise up again in clouds of dust, while you turn over the mouldy and crackling leaves, making you sneeze again, while a hundred old echoes take up the sound, until every volume seems to shake and laugh and mock you, as if the grim old dead found it a rare spot to make merry in—to “mop and mow,” and play off a thousand devilish antics upon the living. That court is the great mart of merriment and misery, and its open doors too often lead to madness; groaning and moaning, when they open or shut, as if the spirits within wailed over those who come in search of wealth, to return disappointed. Beauty, Virtue, and Innocence also enter there, preceded by Pity; while Hope, with downcast eyes, leads them gently by the hand—her smile subdued, and her sweet countenance sorrowful. But these are angel visitants, who are compelled to appear in that court—who come in tears, and, when their duty is done, pass away for ever. There is a sound of sighs within those walls—a smell of green, stagnant tears: if you listen, you seem to hear the dead rustling among the old parchments: they move like black-beetles, and murmur to one another in an old Saxon language. Wickedness and Wrong have also their lurking-places there—where they lie concealed, and laugh at Right and Justice amid a pile of black-lettered laws, beneath which you find injured Poverty mourning unpitied. The grim judge, who has sat here for hundreds of years, is deaf and blind: he acts but for the dead—the living he can neither hear nor see—but ever sits with his elbow resting on a pile of musty volumes, mute as a marble image. It is a place filled with solemn associations—the ante-room of Life-in-Death.

Knowing fellows are the porters who hang about this neighbourhood; you can tell that they have not plied there for years without picking up “a thing or two;” they appear almost as “ ’cute” as the learned proctors themselves; and should you find yourself the possessor of a fat legacy, and be so ignorant as to apply to these white-aproned messengers as to the best way of getting it at once, they will undertake to introduce you to a gentleman, who, from what you hear, you almost believe to be so clever that he could whip your name into a will if he chose, and obtain for you a fortune, if even you had no legal claim to a single shilling. “God bless you, sir, we knows plenty of people what’s got thousands as never expected to have a blessed mag whatsomdever.” And green countrymen follow these plump images of Hope, and treat them to whatever they please to take.

Besides the Prerogative Will-Office, Doctors’ Commons contains the Court of Arches, a name well known to all the readers of newspapers; the Court of Faculties and Dispensation, having a good deal to do with marriage-licenses, and many other less lawful matters; the Consistory Court of the Bishop of London, and the High Court of Admiralty, so that “all is fish” which falls into the net of these courts—from a lady running away from her husband, to one ship running down another. A captive of Cupid’s or a capture in war, is all the same to these able practitioners, where either the owner or the husband of the Nancy Dawson may find redress—for either ship or spouse come alike to advocate or proctor.

Here we have, also, the Heralds’ College, well worthy of notice, as it contains many curious rolls and valuable manuscripts.

At the bottom of Bennet’s-hill stood Paul’s-wharf—a famous landing-place before the Great Fire; the church still bears the name of St. Bennet, Paul’s-wharf. Here Knightrider-street and Carter-lane extend in the line of the river. Carter-lane has become classic ground, through one Richard Quyney having directed a letter from the Bell Inn, which formerly stood there, to Shakspeare. Little did Quyney dream how much the handwriting of the poet he was then addressing would one day be valued—of the hundreds of pilgrims who would visit the adjoining Court to see the will of Shakspeare. The society which bears his name are doing “good service” by hunting up and publishing such records as these, for they throw a charm around the old poetical neighbourhood of Blackfriars Bridge, and give to such places as Carter-lane an interest which they never before possessed;

“For there is link’d unto a poet’s name

A spell that can command the voice of fame.”

Knightrider-street, Stowe tells us, derived its name from the knights of old riding through it on their way from the Tower to Smithfield to hold their jousts and tournaments. It was in Knightrider-street that the mace was found which was stolen from the Lord Chancellor’s closet, in Great Queen-street, on Tuesday night, February 6th, 1676. A small quarto pamphlet, of eight pages, published in 1676, bears the following title:—“A perfect Narrative of the Apprehension, Trial, and Confession of the five several persons who were confederates in stealing the Mace and the two Privy Purses from the Lord High Chancellor of England, as it was attested at the Sessions held at Justice Hall, in the Old Bailey, the seventh and eighth of March, anno 1676.” The following extract is curious, as a picture of the old London thieves, and also of the lodging-house keepers, many of whom still inherit the gift of “opening the lock with a knife,” or any thing that first comes to hand:—“The manner of their apprehension was thus: some of the head of the gang had taken a lodging in Knightrider-street, near Doctors’ Commons, and there, in a closet, they had lodged the mace and purses. The woman’s daughter of the house going up in their absence to make the bed, saw some silver spangles, or some odd ends of silver, scattered about the chamber, which she with no small diligence picked up, not knowing from whence such riches should proceed. In this admiration she paused awhile, and it was not long before her fancy led her, like the rest of her sex, to pry into and search the furthermost point of this new and strange apparition; and directing her course to the closet-door, she through the keyhole could discern something that was not commonly represented to her view, which was the upper end of the mace, but knew not what it was; however, she thought it could not be amiss to acquaint her beloved mother with what she had beheld; and with this resolve she hastens down stairs, and with a voice betwixt fear and joy she cries out, ‘O mother, mother! yonder is the king’s crown in the closet. Pray, mother, come along with me and see it.’

“The admiring mother being something surprised at her daughter’s report, as also having no good opinion of her new lodgers, makes haste, good woman, and goes to the closet-door, and opening the lock with a knife, she entered into the closet, where she soon discerned it was not a crown but a mace, and having heard that such a thing was lost, sends immediately away to acquaint my Lord Chancellor that the mace was in her house; upon which information a warrant was soon granted, and officers sent to Mr. Thomas Northy, constable of Queenhithe ward, who, with a sufficient assistance, went into Knightrider-street to their lodging, and very luckily found them, being five in number, and of both sexes, viz. three men and two women, whom they carried before the Right Worshipful Sir William Turner, who, after examination, according to justice, committed them to the common jail of Newgate.”

It was only five years before that Colonel Blood had attempted to steal the crown from the Tower, but he—more fortunate than Sadler—escaped with his life, while the latter was hanged at Tyburn; the only one, we believe, who was executed for stealing the Lord Chancellor’s mace and purses.

What melancholy processions passed through Knightrider-street, as prisoners to the Tower, the old historian Stowe mentions not: like many another ancient street, it was often the highway of merriment and misery.

St. Paul’s School was founded by the venerable Dean Colet about the year 1500, who made the Company of Mercers his trustees. The present building was erected in 1824. At the commencement of June, when Anne Boleyn passed through the City on her way from the Tower to Westminster, to be crowned, we find, in Hall’s Chronicle, that “at St. Paul’s School, on a scaffold, stood two hundred children, well appareled, who recited various English versions of the ancient poets, to the honour of the king and queen, which her grace highly commended.”

To the church of St. Austin, or Augustin, Old Change and Watling-street, was united that of St. Faith under St. Paul’s, after the Fire. The present church was built by Wren. The church of St. Faith stood in the crypt of old St. Paul’s, beneath the choir. Fuller called it the “babe of old St. Paul’s.” The author of the Ingoldsby Legends, who has never been surpassed in the art of grafting modern incident on the stem of old ballad lore, was the rector of St. Augustin’s.

To see this closely-crowded neighbourhood thoroughly would require many “ups and downs.” Old Fish-street was formerly the great fish-market of London, when Queenhithe rivalled Billingsgate, and was the greatest landing quay in the City; the church of St. Mary Somerset, built by Wren, stands here. The former church was called St. Mary’s Mounthaut, or Mounthaw, as I find it spelt in an old pamphlet, which states that Mr. Thrall was “sequestered and shamefully abused” when the clergymen of London had to make room for the Puritans. Old Fish-street-hill had then two churches, but after the Great Fire that of St. Mary’s Mounthaw was not rebuilt. This is the old Saxon name of the berry of the hawthorn, and there was a time when Old Fish-street-hill was celebrated for its hawthorns, when it was called Hagthorn-hill or Mounthaw, long before old St. Mary’s was built upon it. The pamphlet I have alluded to was printed in 1661, and is entitled, “A general Bill of the Mortality of the Clergy of London, or a brief Martyrology and Catalogue of the learned, grave, religious, and painful Ministers of the City of London, who have been imprisoned, plundered, and barbarously used, and deprived of all livelihood for themselves and their families, in the late Rebellion, for their constancy in the Protestant religion established in this kingdom, and their loyalty to the king under that grand Persecution. London: printed against Bartholom’ Day.” This pamphlet, as the date shews, was issued soon after the restoration of Charles II., no doubt with the view of giving him a broad hint that their loyalty and sufferings ought not to be forgotten in the then “good time coming.” Whether or not any thing was done for them by the “Merry Monarch,” we have no means of ascertaining. We shall occasionally refer to this curious list, to shew the sufferings of the clergy during the period of the Commonwealth.

Stowe tells us that the monuments of the old church of St. Mary Somerset were defaced; but whether by time or sacrilegious hands, he says not, nor can we now know, for the Great Fire destroyed all the traces that time had so long spared. We would rather the old church with the poetical name had been rebuilt on the ancient Hawthorn Mount than this. Stowe thinks that the old name of St. Mary Somerset was Summer Hithe. Summer and hawthorns! how we love the memory of the old historian for calling up these pleasant associations! We may be wrong in the name, but, for the sake of the poetry, we must picture the pretty Saxon maids, before London was a city, wandering down Mounthaw to Summer-wharf between long lines of hawthorn hedges, to see their lovers return from fishing in the Thames, or to watch the arrival of some corn-barque lower down the bank by Queenhithe. In Fish-street we have still a portion of the old burial-ground that belonged to St. Mary’s Mounthaw.

St. Nicholas’s Cold Abbey stands at the corner of Old Fish-street-hill, and is one of the first churches completed after the Fire. There is nothing either remarkable about this church or the neighbouring one called St. Mary’s Magdalen in Old Fish-street, except that both were rebuilt by Wren. In the pamphlet before alluded to I find the following entry: “St. Maudlin, Old Fish-street, Dr. Griffith sequestered, plundered; wife and children turned out of doors; his wife dead with grief. Mr. Weld, his curate, assaulted, beaten in the church, and turned out.” Rather rough handling of the old royalist clergymen in the stormy times of Cromwell. What talk there must have been amongst the parishioners of old St. Mary’s Magdalen, or Maudlin, when the Ironsides walked into the ancient City churches, and thus dragged out and beat the venerable pastors. These brief entries bespeak volumes; and yet we wish the details were more fully given. Some of the worthy citizens no doubt dealt a blow or two in defence of their ministers. Poor Mr. Chestlin seems to have made his escape for a time only to be recaptured. “St. Matthew’s, Friday-street, Mr. Chestlin sequestered, plundered, and imprisoned in Newgate, whence being let out, he was forced to fly, and since imprisoned again in Peter House.”

Peter House stood in Aldersgate-street, and was used by Cromwell as a prison at this period, as were also several other celebrated houses.

Friday-street was famous in former times for its taverns. Our engraving represents the Saracen’s Head, which was taken down about seven years ago.

THE SARACEN’S HEAD, FRIDAY STREET.

The stone beside the door in the wall of Allhallow’s, Bread-street, and in Watling-street, tells us that here John Milton was baptised on the 20th of December, 1608—that is, in the old church before the Fire. The well-known lines, commencing “Three poets in three distant ages born,” &c., are engraved on the same stone that records the date of Milton’s baptism. We wish that all the City churches had their names engraved on some stone, like that of Allhallow’s, Bread-street. We shall scarcely be believed, when we say, that in one or two instances the people living next the church did not know its name. When we consider how many churches are crowded together here, on the space of a few acres of ground, we think it would be of service to strangers visiting London, and to thousands who reside in the City and suburbs, to have the names either legibly engraved or painted on each building. Lower down is the church of St. Mildred, also built by Wren. The interior is rather pleasing, and there is some beautiful work about the pulpit; but we know nothing of any interest connected with the church or the street, beyond that Milton was born in it, which, to dreamers like ourselves, makes Bread-street hallowed ground, although the Fire has swept away every trace of the building in which the God-gifted poet first saw the light. That this, the spot on which the great poet was born, was classic ground long centuries ago, the portion of the Roman wall, and the ancient lamp (which we have engraved), and which were discovered in Bread-street about five years ago, fully prove. Who can tell what foot, renowned in Roman history, may have trampled on the spot where the author of Paradise Lost was born?

ROMAN LAMP.

Bread-street formerly contained a famous tavern and a prison. The Mermaid is mentioned by Ben Jonson. There seems to have been a celebrated tavern here long before the time of Stowe, for he mentions Gerrarde’s Hall in his days as a hostelry for travellers, and, in his gossiping way, gives us an old-world story about the old building, which stood above the ancient crypt, which we have here engraved (as one of the vestiges of the London of our forefathers, doomed to be sacrificed to modern improvement), and in it he gives us a giant, and a long pole, which this son of Anak is said to have wielded in the wars. We have heard that this Gerrarde the giant was buried under the ancient crypt, which to this day sounds hollow to the tread. But the good old historian, with his simple and child-like belief, and love for all undated traditions, shall “tell the tale.”

GERARD THE GIANT.

“On the north side of Basing-lane is one great house of old time, built upon arched vaults, and with arched gates of stone, brought from Caen in Normandy, the same is now [about 1600] a common hostelry [inn] for receipt of travellers, commonly and corruptly called Gerrarde’s Hall, of a giant said to have dwelt there. In the high-roofed hall of this house some time stood a large fir-pole, which reached to the roof thereof, and was said to be one of the staves that Gerrarde the giant used in the wars to run with [away?]. There stood also a ladder of the same length, which (as they say) served to ascend to the top of the staff. Of later years this hall is altered, and divers rooms are made in it. [Alas, then, as now, they would improve; and cared not for their home antiquities even in good old Stowe’s time!] Notwithstanding, the pole is removed to one corner of the hall, and the ladder hanged broken upon a wall in the yard. The hostelar of that house said to me, ‘The pole lacketh half a foot of forty in length.’ I measured the compass thereof, and found it fifteen inches. Reasons of the pole could the master of the hostelry give me none; but bade me read the ‘great’ Chronicles, for there he heard of it. [Our hosts were reading men we see in the time of Elizabeth; and we love the epithet ‘great’ before Chronicles, for we believe it was the host’s word and not Stowe’s.] I will now note what myself have observed concerning that house. I read that John Gisors, Mayor of London in the year 1245, was owner thereof [it might have been old then, for Stowe does not say that the mayor built it]; and that Sir John Gisors, constable of the Tower, 1311, and divers others of that name and family since that time owned it. [The Gisors must have been men of eminence for one to have become constable of the Tower in that jealous age, when the Normans ruled with an iron hand.] So it appeareth that this Gisors’ Hall of late time, by corruption, hath been called Gerrardes’ Hall for Gisors’ Hall. The pole in the hall might be used of old time [as then the custom was in every parish] to be set up in the summer, as a May-pole. The ladder served [serving?] for the decking of the May-pole and roof of the hall.”—Stowe.

Surely this crypt ought to be spared for the sake of Stowe, and Gerard the giant, and the May-pole—the compass of which the honest old historian measured. What a picture it would make—Stowe, the host, and the ostler, with the old building and the broken ladder! what rich material for a chapter in an historical romance! If we live, we will do it some day. Of course the old hall was swept away in the Great Fire, and Gerard the giant (which we have here engraved) grew up after the flames had died out; though they went roaring and reddening above the ancient crypt, over which the generations of six centuries have trampled. The vaults are of great antiquity—at least as old as the building mentioned by Stowe—the date of which he does not give, although he mentions John Gisors, Mayor of London, as a resident there in 1245, that is, more than 600 years ago.

In Little Trinity-street we have Painter-Stainers’ Hall, well worth a visit, although it is so badly lighted, that it is difficult to see the portraits. The principal pictures it contains are, Camden, Charles II. and his queen, William of Orange, by Kneller, and Queen Anne. The company also possesses a curious cup left by the celebrated antiquary Camden, and which is still used at their anniversary dinners. The church of the Holy Trinity was destroyed in the Great Fire, and not rebuilt: a small chapel, of which we know nothing, stands on the site of the old church.

GERARD’S HALL CRYPT.

The church of St. Michael, Queenhithe, is remarkable for nothing except some carving at the east end, and the vane, which resembles a ship, and is said to be large enough to hold a bushel of corn.

The dues derived from the quay of Queenhithe belonged to the queens of England from a very early period, probably ever since the Norman conquest. Mention is made of Eleanor, so famous in our old ballad lore as the rival and poisoner of Fair Rosamond, as possessing all the dues obtained from this royal landing-place. Raising the old drawbridge of London Bridge every time a ship went under, with all the trouble and stoppage of vehicles, when this was the only bridge leading into London, did, no doubt, as much for increasing the traffic of Billingsgate as if a law had been passed to make it a royal quay.

At the foot of Southwark Bridge stands Vintners’ Hall. We can readily imagine that the old company of Vintners have ever been “right royal,” and great advocates for processions; that, when the City conduits ran wine, a great portion of the cost found its way into their coffers. Pepys tells us that, when Charles II. rode through the City the day before his coronation, “Wadlow the vintner, at the sign of the Devil, in Fleet-street, did lead a fine company of soldiers, all young comely men, in white doublets;” and we now find in the hall portraits of Charles II., James II., and others. That prince of rough wits, Tom Brown, in a bantering letter “from a vintner in the City to a young vintner in Covent Garden,” says, “You desire to know whether a vintner may take an advantage of people when they are in their cups, and reckon more than they have had? To which I answer in the affirmative, that you may, provided it be done in the way of trade, and not for any sinister end. This case has been so adjudged, many years ago, in Vintners’ Hall, and you may depend upon it.”

Bow-lane is the only place to obtain a good view of the beautiful tower of St. Mary, Aldermanbury, one of the finest, in our opinion, in the City. This is another of Wren’s edifices, erected after the Fire. It is said to be a model of the former building, and that the great architect was compelled to adopt the style through the conditions of a bequest, according to Malcolm’s statement, of “Henry Rogers, Esq., who, influenced by sincere motives of piety, and affected with the almost irreparable loss of religious buildings, left the sum of 5000l. to rebuild a church in the City of London.” He died before the building was commenced, and left his lady executrix of his will; and so the present church was erected after the model of the one built by Henry Kebles, it is said, who died at the commencement of the fifteenth century. Stowe says it was called Aldermary, because it was the oldest church in the City dedicated to St. Mary. It is said that the crypt of the old church still remains under two of the houses now standing in Bow-lane. The tower, as seen from Bow-lane, is splendid, but little of the church is visible from Watling-street; nor have we any thing further to notice in this old Roman highway, for such, no doubt, it formerly was, saving the church of St. Anthony, or Antholin, rebuilt by Wren, the dome of which is supported by columns. The early prayers at St. Antholin’s are alluded to by our old dramatists. Here we have only to turn up a court, a little farther on, and we are at once in Bow Churchyard, and under the very shadow of the tower in which swing the far-famed bells. Our engraving is a view of Bow Church as seen from Cheapside, one of the busiest thoroughfares in the whole City of London. Old Bow Church would of itself form a history, but, as we have not even described old St. Paul’s, and as we wish to make our readers acquainted with the London of to-day as well as the old City, which never arose again from its ruins, we shall glance briefly at the present neighbourhood, and pass on our way eastward.

BOW CHURCH, CHEAPSIDE.

Bow-bells have become a by-word, more probably through those who were born within the sound of their peal being called true cockneys, than for the superior quality of their music. The steeple is very beautiful; from the ground to the nave there is a harmony about it, and a lightness in the pillars, which seem as if they only required the air to rest upon. The form of the galleries is by some considered a beauty, by others a blot, as destroying the effect of the interior. The present church is built on a fine old crypt, perhaps as ancient as any remains to be found in the City, as the original Bow Church seems to have been the first that was built on stone arches. It is mentioned as far back as the time of William the Conqueror, and from it the Court of Arches takes its name. The old church suffered from tempest, fire, and siege. Murder was at last committed in it, and then it was pronounced unholy, and its doors and windows were filled with thorns, for