Part 17 (1/2)
”'I should like,' said Mr. Reynolds, 'to have seen Pope talking with Patty Blount, and I _have_ seen Goldsmith.' Everyone turned round to look at Mr. Reynolds, as if by so doing they too could get a sight of Goldsmith....
”Erasmus Phillips, who was deep in a game of piquet at the other end of the room, whispered to Martin Burney to ask if Junius would not be a fit person to invoke from the dead. 'Yes,' said Lamb, 'provided he would agree to lay aside his mask.'
”We were now at a stand for a short time, when Fielding was mentioned as a candidate. Only one, however, seconded the proposition. 'Richardson?'
'By all means; but only to look at him through the gla.s.s-door of his back-shop, hard at work upon one of his novels (the most extraordinary contrast that ever was presented between an author and his works), but not to let him come behind his counter, lest he should want you to turn customer; nor to go upstairs with him, lest he should offer to read the first ma.n.u.script of ”Sir Charles Grandison,” which was originally written in twenty-eight volumes octavo; or get out the letters of his female correspondents to prove that ”Joseph Andrews” was low.'
”There was but one statesman in the whole of English history that any one expressed the least desire to see--Oliver Cromwell, with his fine, frank, rough, pimply face and wily policy--and one enthusiast, John Bunyan, the immortal author of 'The Pilgrim's Progress.'....
”Of all persons near our own time, Garrick's name was received with the greatest enthusiasm. He presently superseded both Hogarth and Handel, who had been talked of, but then it was on condition that he should sit in tragedy and comedy, in the play and the farce,--Lear and Wildair, and Abel Drugger....
”Lamb inquired if there was any one that was hanged that I would choose to mention, and I answered, 'Eugene Aram.'”
The present Hare Place was the once disreputable Ram Alley, the scene of a comedy of that name, written by Lodowick Barry and dramatised in the reign of James I.; the plot Killigrew afterwards used in his vulgar _Parson's Wedding_. Barry, an Irishman, of whom nothing much is known, makes one of his roystering characters say,--
”And rough Ram Alley stinks with cooks' shops vile; Yet, stay, there's many a worthy lawyer's chamber 'Buts upon Ram Alley.”
As a precinct of Whitefriars, Ram Alley enjoyed the mischievous privilege of sanctuary for murderers, thieves, and debtors--indeed, any cla.s.s of rascals except traitors--till the fifteenth century. After this it sheltered only debtors. Barry speaks of its cooks, salesmen, and laundresses; and Shadwell cla.s.ses it (Charles II.) with Pye Corner, as the resort of ”rascally stuff.” Lord Clarendon, in his autobiography, describes the Great Fire as burning on the Thames side as far as the ”new buildings of the Inner Temple next to Whitefriars,” striking next on some of the buildings which joined to Ram Alley, and sweeping all those into Fleet Street. In the reign of George I. Ram Alley was full of public-houses, and was a place of no reputation, having pa.s.sages into the Temple and Serjeants' Inn. ”A kind of privileged place for debtors,”
adds Hatton, ”before the late Act of Parliament (9 & 10 William III. c.
17, s. 15) for taking them away.” This useful Act swept out all the London sanctuaries, those vicious relics of monastic rights, including Mitre Court, Salisbury Court (Fleet Street), the Savoy, Fulwood Rents (Holborn), Baldwin's Gardens (Gray's Inn Lane), the Minories, Deadman's Place, Montague Close (Southwark), the Clink, and the Mint in the same locality. The Savoy and the Mint, however, remained disreputable a generation or two later.
Serjeants' Inn, Fleet Street, now deserted by the faithless Serjeants, is supposed to have been given to the Dean and Chapter of York in 1409 (Henry IV.) It then consisted of shops, &c. In 1627 (Charles I.) the inn began its legal career by being leased for forty years to nine judges and fifteen serjeants. In this hall, in 1629, the judges in full bench struck a st.u.r.dy blow at feudal privileges by agreeing that peers might be attached upon process for contempt out of Chancery. In 1723 (George I.) the inn was highly aristocratic, its inmates being the Lord Chief Justice, the Lord Chief Baron, justices, and Serjeants. In 1730, however, the fickle serjeants removed to Chancery Lane, and Adam, the architect of the Adelphi, designed the present nineteen houses and the present street frontage. On the site of the hall arose the Amicable a.s.surance Society, which in 1865 transferred its business to the Economic, and the house is now the Norwich Union Office. The inn is a parish in itself, making its own a.s.sessment, and contributing to the City rates. Its pavement, which had been part of the stone-work of Old St. Paul's, was not replaced till 1860. The conservative old inn retained its old oil lamps long after the introduction of gas.
The arms of Serjeants' Inn, worked into the iron gate opening on Fleet Street, are a dove and a serpent, the serpent twisted into a kind of true lover's knot. The lawyers of Serjeants' Inn, no doubt, unite the wisdom of the serpent with the guilelessness of the dove. Singularly enough Dr. Dodd, the popular preacher, who was hanged, bore arms nearly similar.
Half way down Bouverie Street, in the centre of old Whitefriars, is the office of the _Daily News_. The first number of this popular and influential paper appeared on January 21, 1846. The publishers, and part proprietors, were Messrs. Bradbury & Evans, the printers; the editor was Charles d.i.c.kens; the manager was d.i.c.kens's father, Mr. John d.i.c.kens; the second, or a.s.sistant, editor, Douglas Jerrold; and among the other ”leader” writers were Albany Fonblanque and John Forster, both of the _Examiner_. ”Father Prout” (Mahoney) acted as Roman correspondent. The musical critic was the late Mr. George Hogarth, d.i.c.kens's father-in-law; and the new journal had an ”Irish Famine Commissioner” in the person of Mr. R.H. Horne, the poet. Miss Martineau wrote leading articles in the new paper for several years, and Mr. M'Cullagh Torrens was also a recognised contributor. The staff of Parliamentary reporters was said to be the best in London, several having been taken, at an advanced salary, off the _Times_.
”The speculative proprietors.h.i.+p,” says Mr. Grant, in his ”History of the Newspaper Press,” ”was divided into one hundred shares, some of which were held by Sir William Jackson, M.P., Sir Joshua Watkins, and the late Sir Joseph Paxton. Mr. Charles d.i.c.kens, as editor, received a salary of 2,000 a year.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DORSET GARDENS THEATRE, WHITEFRIARS (_see page 140_).]
The early numbers of the paper contained instalments of d.i.c.kens's ”Pictures from Italy;” yet the new venture did not succeed. Charles d.i.c.kens and Douglas Jerrold took the night-work on alternate days; but d.i.c.kens, who never made politics a special study, very soon retired from the editors.h.i.+p altogether, and Jerrold was chief editor for a little while till he left to set up his _Weekly Newspaper_. Mr. Forster also had the editors.h.i.+p for a short period, and the paper then fell into the hands of the late Mr. Dilke, of the _Athenaeum_, who excited some curiosity by extensively advertising these words: ”See the _Daily News_ of June 1st.” The _Daily News_ of June 1, 1846 (which began No. 1 again), was a paper of four pages, issued at 2-1/2_d._, which, deducting the stamp, at that time affixed to every copy of every newspaper, was in effect three halfpence. One of the features of the new plan was that the sheet should vary in size, according to the requirements of the day--with an eye, nevertheless, at all times to selection and condensation. It was a bold attempt, carried out with great intelligence and spirit; but it was soon found necessary to put on another halfpenny, and in a year or two the _Daily News_ was obliged to return to the usual price of ”dailies” at that time--fivepence. The chief editors of the paper, besides those already mentioned, have been Mr. Eyre Evans Crowe, Mr. Frederick Knight Hunt, Mr. Weir, and Mr. Thomas Walker, who retired in January, 1870, on receiving the editors.h.i.+p of the _London Gazette_.
The journal came down to a penny in June, 1868.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ATTACK ON A WHIG MUG HOUSE (_see page 142_)]
The _Daily News_, at the beginning, inspired the _Times_ with some dread of rivalry; and it is noteworthy that, for several years afterwards, the great journal was very unfriendly in its criticisms on d.i.c.kens's books.
There is no doubt that, over sanguine of success, the _Daily News_ proprietors began by sinking too much money in the foundations. In 1846, the _Times'_ reporters received on an average only five guineas a week, while the _Daily News_ gave seven; but the pay was soon of necessity reduced. Mr. Grant computes the losses of the _Daily News_ for the first ten years at not much less than 200,000. The talent and enterprise of this paper, during the recent (1870) German invasion of France, and the excellence of their correspondents in either camp, is said to have trebled its circulation, which Mr. Grant computes at a daily issue of 90,000. As an organ of the highest and most enlightened form of Liberalism and progress, the _Daily News_ now stands pre-eminent.
Many actors, poets, and authors dwelt in Salisbury Court in Charles II.'s time, and the great Betterton, Underhill, and Sandford affected this neighbourhood, to be near the theatres. Lady Davenant here presided over the Dorset Gardens Company; Shadwell, ”round as a b.u.t.t and liquored every c.h.i.n.k,” nightly reeled home to the same precinct, unsteadily following the guidance of a will-o'-the-wisp link-boy; and in the square lived and died Sir John King, the Duke of York's solicitor-general.
If Salisbury Square boasts of Richardson, the respectable citizen and admirable novelist, it must also plead guilty to having been the residence of that not very reputable personage, Mr. John Eyre, who, although worth, as it was said, some 20,000, was transported on November 1, 1771 (George III.) for systematic pilfering of paper from the alderman's chamber, in the justice room, Guildhall. This man, led away by the thirst for money, had an uncle who made two wills, one leaving Eyre all his money, except a legacy of 500 to a clergyman; another leaving the bulk to the clergyman, and 500 only to his nephew.
Eyre, not knowing of the second will, destroyed the first, in order to cancel the vexatious bequest. When the real will was produced his disappointment and selfish remorse must have produced an expression of repressed rage worthy of Hogarth's pencil.
In Salisbury Square Mr. Clarke's disagreeable confessions about the Duke of York were publicly burned, on the very spot (says Mr. n.o.ble) where the zealous radical demagogue, Waithman, subsequently addressed the people from a temporary platform, not being able to obtain the use of St. Bride's Vestry. Nor must we forget to chronicle No. 53 as the house of Tatum, a silversmith, to whom, in 1812, that eminent man John Faraday acted as humble friend and a.s.sistant. How often does young genius act the herdsman, as Apollo did when he tended the kine of Admetus!
The Woodfalls, too, in their time, lent celebrity to Salisbury Square.
The first Woodfall who became eminent was Henry Woodfall, at the ”Elzevir's Head” at Temple Bar. He commenced business under the auspices of Pope. His son Henry, who rose to be a Common Councilman and Master of the Stationers' Company, bought of Theophilus Cibber, in 1736-37, one-third of a tenth share of the London _Daily Post_, an organ which gradually grew into the _Public Advertiser_, that daring paper in which the celebrated letters of Junius first appeared. Those letters, scathing and full of Greek fire, brought down Lords and Commons, King's Bench and Old Bailey, on Woodfall, and he was fined and imprisoned. Whether Burke, Barre, Chatham, Horne Tooke, or Sir Philip Francis wrote them, will now probably never be known. The stern writer in the iron mask went down into the grave shrouded in his own mystery, and that grave no inquisitive eyes will ever find. ”I am the sole depository of my secret,” he wrote, ”and it shall perish with me.” The Junius Woodfall died in 1805. William Woodfall, the younger brother, was born in 1745, and educated at St. Paul's School. He was editor and printer of the _Morning Chronicle_, and in 1790 had his office in Dorset Street, Salisbury Square (n.o.ble). ”Memory” Woodfall, as William was generally called, acquired fame by his extraordinary power of reporting from memory the speeches he heard in the House of Commons. His practice during a debate (says his friend Mr. Taylor, of the _Sun_) was to close his eyes and lean with both hands upon his stick. He was so well acquainted with the tone and manner of the several speakers that he seldom changed his att.i.tude but to catch the name of a new member. His memory was as accurate as it was capacious, and, what was almost miraculous, he could retain full recollection of any particular debate for a full fortnight, and after many long nights of speaking. Woodfall used to say he could put a speech away on a corner shelf of his mind for future reference. This is an instance of power of memory scarcely equalled by Fuller, who, it is said, could repeat the names of all the shops down the Strand (at a time every shop had a sign) in regular and correct sequence; and it even surpa.s.ses ”Memory” Thompson, who used to boast he could remember every shop from Ludgate Hill to the end of Piccadilly. Yet, with all his sensitively retentive memory, Woodfall did not care for slight interruptions during his writing. Dr. Johnson used to write abridged reports of debates for the _Gentleman's Magazine_ from memory, but, then, reports at that time were short and trivial. Woodfall was also a most excellent dramatic critic--slow to censure, yet never sparing just rebuke. At the theatre his extreme attention gave his countenance a look of gloom and severity. Mr. J. Taylor, of the _Sun_, describes Kemble as watching Woodfall in one of those serious moods, and saying to a friend, ”How applicable to that man is the pa.s.sage in _Hamlet_,--'thoughts black, hands apt.'”
Finding himself hampered on the _Morning Chronicle_, Woodfall started a new daily paper, with the t.i.tle of the _Diary_, but eventually he was overpowered by his compet.i.tors and their large staff of reporters. His eldest son, who displayed great abilities, went mad. Mr. Woodfall's hospitable parties at his house at Kentish Town are sketched for us by Mr. J. Taylor. On one particular occasion he mentions meeting Mr.
Tickel, Richardson (a partner in ”The Rolliad”), John Kemble, Perry (of the _Chronicle_), Dr. Glover (a humorist of the day), and John Coust.