Part 9 (1/2)
Old Reptile was extremely attentive to all that was said, though he had heard the same stories every night for twenty years, and upon all occasions winked oracularly to his nephew to particularly mind what pa.s.sed. About ten the innocent twaddle closed by a man coming in with a lantern to light home old Bickerstaff. They were simple and happy times that Steele describes with such kindly humour; and the London of his days must have been full of such quiet, homely haunts.
Mr. R. Wells, of Colne Park, Halstead, kindly informs us that as late as the year 1765 there was a club that still kept up the name of Kit-Kat.
The members in 1765 included, among others, Lord Sandwich (Jemmy Twitcher, as he was generally called), Mr. Beard, Lord Weymouth, Lord Bolingbroke, the Duke of Queensbury, Lord Caresford, Mr. Cadogan, the Marquis of Caracciollo, Mr. Seymour, and Sir George Armytage. One of the most active managers of the club was Richard Phelps (who, we believe, afterwards was secretary to Pitt). Among letters and receipts preserved by Mr. Wells, is one from Thomas Pingo, jeweller, of the ”Golden Head,”
on the ”Paved Stones,” Gray's Inn Lane, for gold medals, probably to be worn by the members.
Even in the reign of James I. s.h.i.+re Lane was christened Rogues' Lane, and, in spite of all the dukes and lords of the Kit-Kat, it never grew very respectable. In 1724 that incomparable young rascal, Jack Sheppard, used to frequent the ”Bible” public-house--a printers' house of call--at No. 13. There was a trap in one of the rooms by which Jack could drop into a subterraneous pa.s.sage leading to Bell Yard. Tyburn gibbet cured Jack of this trick. In 1738 the lane went on even worse, for there Thomas Carr (a low attorney, of Elm Court) and Elizabeth Adams robbed and murdered a gentleman named Quarrington at the ”Angel and Crown”
Tavern, and the miscreants were hung at Tyburn. Hogarth painted a portrait of the woman. One night, many years ago, a man was robbed, thrown downstairs, and killed, in one of the dens in s.h.i.+re Lane. There was snow on the ground, and about two o'clock, when the watchmen grew drowsy and were a long while between their rounds, the frightened murderers carried the stiffened body up the lane and placed it bolt upright, near a dim oil lamp, at a neighbour's door. There the watchmen found it; but there was no clue to guide them, for nearly every house in the lane was infamous. Years after, two ruffianly fellows who were confined in the King's Bench were heard accusing each other of the murder in s.h.i.+re Lane, and justice pounced upon her prey.
One thieves' house, known as the ”Retreat,” led, Mr. Diprose says, by a back way into Crown Court; and other dens had a pa.s.sage into No. 242, Strand. Nos. 9, 10, and 11 were known as Cadgers' Hall, and were much frequented by beggars, and bushels of bread, thrown aside by the professional mendicants, were found there by the police.
The ”Sun” Tavern, afterwards the ”Temple Bar Stores,” had been a great resort for the Tom and Jerry frolics of the Regency; and the ”Anti-Gallican” Tavern was a haunt of low sporting men, being kept by Harry Lee, father of the first and original ”tiger,” invented and made fas.h.i.+onable by the notorious Lord Barrymore. During the Chartist times violent meetings were held at a club in s.h.i.+re Lane. A good story is told of one of these. A detective in disguise attended an illegal meeting, leaving his comrades ready below. All at once a frantic hatter rose, denounced the detective as a spy, and proposed off-hand to pitch him out of window. Permitted by the more peaceable to depart, the policeman scuttled downstairs as fast as he could, and, not being recognised in his disguise, was instantly knocked down by his friends' prompt truncheons.
In s.h.i.+p Yard, close to s.h.i.+re Lane, once stood a block of disreputable, tumble-down houses, used by coiners, and known as the ”Smas.h.i.+ng Lumber.”
Every room had a secret trap, and from the workshop above a shaft reached the cellars to hurry away by means of a basket and pulley all the apparatus at the first alarm. The first man made his fortune, but the new police soon ransacked the den and broke up the business.
In August, 1823, Theodore Hook, the witty and the heartless, was brought to a sponging-house kept by a sheriff's officer named Hemp, at the upper end of s.h.i.+re Lane, being under arrest for a Crown debt of 12,000, due to the Crown for defalcations during his careless consuls.h.i.+p at the Mauritius. He was editor of _John Bull_ at the time, and continued while in this horrid den to write his ”Sayings and Doings,” and to pour forth for royal pay his usual scurrilous lampoons at all who supported poor, persecuted Queen Caroline. Dr. Maginn, who had just come over from Cork to practise Toryism, was his constant visitor, and Hemp's barred door no doubt often shook at their reckless laughter. Hook at length left s.h.i.+re Lane for the Rules of the Bench (Temple Place) in April, 1824.
Previously to his arrest he had been living in retirement at lodgings, in Somer's Town, with a poor girl whom he had seduced. Here he renewed the mad scenes of his thoughtless youth with Terry, Matthews, and wonderful old Tom Hill; and here he resumed (but not at these revels) his former acquaintances.h.i.+p with that mischievous obstructive, Wilson Croker. After he left s.h.i.+re Lane and the Rules of the Bench he went to Putney.
In spite of all bad proclivities, s.h.i.+re Lane had its fits of respectability. In 1603 there was living there Sir Arthur Atie, Knt., in early life secretary to the great Earl of Leicester, and afterwards attendant on his step-son, the luckless Earl of Ess.e.x. Elias Ashmole, the great antiquary and student in alchemy and astrology, also honoured this lane, but he gathered in the Temple those great collections of books and coins, some of which perished by fire, and some of which he afterwards gave to the University of Oxford, where they were placed in a building called, in memory of the ill.u.s.trious collector, the Ashmolean Museum.
To Mr. n.o.ble's research we are indebted for the knowledge that in 1767 Mr. Hoole, the translator of Ta.s.so, was living in s.h.i.+re Lane, and from thence wrote to Dr. Percy, who was collecting his ”Ancient Ballads,” to ask him Dr. Wharton's address. Hoole was at that time writing a dramatic piece called Cyrus, for Covent Garden Theatre. He seems to have been an amiable man but a feeble poet, was an esteemed friend of Dr. Johnson, and had a situation in the East India House.
Another ill.u.s.trious tenant of s.h.i.+re Lane was James Perry, the proprietor of the _Morning Chronicle_, who died, as it was reported, worth 130,000. That lively memoir-writer, Taylor, of the Sun, who wrote ”Monsieur Tonson,” describes Perry as living in the narrow part of s.h.i.+re Lane, opposite a pa.s.sage which led to the stairs from Boswell Court. He lodged with Mr. Lunan, a bookbinder, who had married his sister, who subsequently became the wife of that great Greek scholar, thirsty Dr.
Porson. Perry had begun life as the editor of the _Gazeteer_, but being dismissed by a Tory proprietor, and on the _Morning Chronicle_ being abandoned by Woodfall, some friends of Perry's bought the derelict for 210, and he and Gray, a friend of Barett, became the joint-proprietors of the concern. Their printer, Mr. Lambert, lived in s.h.i.+re Lane, and here the partners, too, lived for three or four years, when they removed to the corner-house of Lancaster Court, Strand.
Bell Yard can boast of but few a.s.sociations; yet Pope often visited the dingy pa.s.sage, because there for some years resided his old friend Fortescue, then a barrister, but afterwards a judge and Master of the Rolls. To Fortescue Pope dedicated his ”Imitation of the First Satire of Horace,” published in 1733. It contains what the late Mr. Rogers, the banker and poet, used to consider the best line Pope ever wrote, and it is certainly almost perfect,--
”Bare the mean heart that lurks behind a star.”
In that delightful collection of Pope's ”Table Talk,” called ”Spence's Anecdotes,” we find that a chance remark of Lord Bolingbroke, on taking up a ”Horace” in Pope's sick-room, led to those fine ”Imitations of Horace” which we now possess. The ”First Satire” consists of an imaginary conversation between Pope and Fortescue, who advises him to write no more dangerous invectives against vice or folly. It was Fortescue who a.s.sisted Pope in writing the humorous law-report of ”Stradling _versus_ Stiles,” in ”Scriblerus.” The intricate case is this, and is worthy of Anstey himself: Sir John Swale, of Swale's Hall, in Swale Dale, by the river Swale, knight, made his last will and testament, in which, among other bequests, was this: ”Out of the kind love and respect that I bear my much-honoured and good friend, Mr.
Matthew Stradling, gent., I do bequeath unto the said Matthew Stradling, gent., all my black and white horses.” Now the testator had six black horses, six white, and six pied horses. The debate, therefore, was whether the said Matthew Stradling should have the said pied horses, by virtue of the said bequest. The case, after much debate, is suddenly terminated by a motion in arrest of judgment that the pied horses were mares, and thereupon an inspection was prayed. This, it must be confessed, is admirable fooling. If the Scriblerus Club had carried out their plan of bantering the follies of the followers of every branch of knowledge, Fortescue would no doubt have selected the law as his special b.u.t.t. ”This friend of Pope,” says Mr. Carruthers, ”was consulted by the poet about all his affairs, as well as those of Martha Blount, and, as may be gathered, he gave him advice without a fee. The intercourse between the poet and his 'learned counsel' was cordial and sincere; and of the letters that pa.s.sed between them sixty-eight have been published, ranging from 1714 to the last year of Pope's life. They are short, unaffected letters--more truly _letters_ than any others in the series.”
Fortescue was promoted to the bench of the Exchequer in 1735, from thence to the Common Pleas in 1738, and in 1741 was made Master of the Rolls. Pope's letters are often addressed to ”his counsel learned in the law, at his house at the upper end of Bell Yard, near unto Lincoln's Inn.” In March, 1736, he writes of ”that filthy old place, Bell Yard, which I want them and you to quit.”
Apollo Court, next Bell Yard, has little about it worthy of notice beyond the fact that it derived its name from the great club-room at the ”Devil” Tavern, that once stood on the opposite side of Fleet Street, and the jovialities of which we have already chronicled.
CHAPTER VII.
FLEET STREET (NORTHERN TRIBUTARIES--CHANCERY LANE).
The Asylum for Jewish Converts--The Rolls Chapel--Ancient Monuments--A Speaker Expelled for Bribery--”Remember Caesar”--Trampling on a Master of the Rolls--Sir William Grant's Oddities--Sir John Leach--Funeral of Lord Gifford--Mrs. Clark and the Duke of York--Wolsey in his Pomp--Strafford--”Honest Isaak”--The Lord Keeper--Lady Fanshawe--Jack Randal--Serjeants' Inn--An Evening with Hazlitt at the ”Southampton”--Charles Lamb--Sheridan--The Sponging Houses--The Law Inst.i.tute--A Tragical Story.
Chancery, or Chancellor's, Lane, as it was first called, must have been a mere quagmire, or cart-track, in the reign of Edward I., for Strype tells us that at that period it had become so impa.s.sable to knight, monk, and citizen, that John Breton, Custos of London, had it barred up, to ”hinder any harm;” and the Bishop of Chichester, whose house was there (now Chichester Rents), kept up the bar ten years; at the end of that time, on an inquisition of the annoyances of London, the bishop was proscribed at an inquest for setting up two staples and a bar, ”whereby men with carts and other carriages could not pa.s.s.” The bishop pleaded John Breton's order, and the sheriff was then commanded to remove the annoyance, and the hooded men with their carts once more cracked their whips and whistled to their horses up and down the long disused lane.
Half-way up on the east side of Chancery Lane a dull archway, through which can be caught glimpses of the door of an old chapel, leads to the Rolls Court. On the site of that chapel, in the year 1233, history tells us that Henry III. erected a Carthusian house of maintenance for converted Jews, who there lived under a Christian governor. At a time when Norman barons were not unaccustomed to pull out a Jew's teeth, or to fry him on gridirons till he paid handsomely for his release, conversion, which secured safety from such rough practices, may not have been unfrequent. However, the converts decreasing when Edward I., after hanging 280 Jews for clipping coin, banished the rest from the realm, half the property of the Jews who were hung stern Edward gave to the preachers who tried to convert the obstinate and stiff-necked generation, and half to the Domus Conversorum, in Chancellor's Lane. In 1278 we find the converts calling themselves, in a letter sent to the king by John the Convert, ”Pauperes Coelicolae Christi.” In the reign of Richard II. a certain converted Jew received twopence a day for life; and in the reign of Henry IV. we find the daughter of a rabbi paid by the keepers of the house of converts a penny a day for life, by special patent.
Edward III., in 1377, broke up the Jewish almshouse in Chancellor's Lane, and annexed the house and chapel to the newly-created office of Custos Rotulorum, or Keeper of the Rolls. Some of the stones the old gaberdines have rubbed against are no doubt incorporated in the present chapel, which, however, has been so often altered, that, like the Highlandman's gun, it is ”new stock and new barrel.” The first Master of the Rolls, in 1377, was William Burstal; but till Thomas Cromwell, in 1534, the Masters of the Rolls were generally priests, and often king's chaplains.
The Rolls Chapel was built, says Pennant, by Inigo Jones, in 1617, at a cost of 2,000. Dr. Donne, the poet, preached the consecration sermon.
One of the monuments belonging to the earlier chapel is that of Dr. John Yonge, Master of the Rolls in the reign of Henry VIII. Vertue and Walpole attribute the tomb to Torregiano, Michael Angelo's contemporary and the sculptor of the tomb of Henry VII. at Westminster. The master is represented by the artist (who starved himself to death at Seville) in effigy on an altar-tomb, in a red gown and deep square cap; his hands are crossed, his face wears an expression of calm resignation and profound devotion. In a recess at the back is a head of Christ, and an angel's head appears on either side in high relief. Another monument of interest in this quiet, legal chapel is that of Sir Edward Bruce, created by James I. Baron of Kinloss. He was one of the crafty amba.s.sadors sent by wily James to openly congratulate Elizabeth on the failure of the revolt of Ess.e.x, but secretly to commence a correspondence with Cecil. The place of Master of the Rolls was Brace's reward for this useful service. The ex-master lies with his head resting on his hand, in the ”toothache” att.i.tude ridiculed by the old dramatists. His hair is short, his beard long, and he wears a long furred robe. Before him kneels a man in armour, possibly his son, Lord Kinloss, who, three years after his father's death, perished in a most savage duel with Sir Edward Sackville, ancestor to the Earls of Elgin and Aylesbury. Another fine monument is that of Sir Richard Allington, of Horseheath, Cambridges.h.i.+re, brother-in law of Sir William Cordall, a former Master of the Rolls, who died in 1561. Clad in armour, Sir Richard kneels,--