Dickens' London Part 3

Lincoln's Inn was once the property of Henry De Lacy, Earl of Lincoln. It became an Inn of Court in 1310. The New Hall and Library, a handsome structure after the Tudor style, was opened in 1845. The Chapel was built in 1621-23, by Inigo Jones, who laid out the large garden in Lincoln's Inn Fields, close by, in 1620. Lord William Russell was beheaded here in 1683.

In Lincoln's Inn are the Chancery and Equity Courts. Lincoln's Inn vied with the Temple in the masques and revels of the time of James I.

Gray's Inn, nearly opposite the north end of Chancery Lane, once belonged to the Lords Gray of Wilton. Most of its buildings--except its hall, with its black oak roof--are of comparatively modern date. In Gray's Inn lived the great Lord Bacon, a tree planted by whom, in the quaint old garden of the Inn, could, in d.i.c.kens' time, yet be seen--propped up by iron stays.

To-day a diligent search and inquiry does not indicate its whereabouts, which is another manifestation of the rapidity of the age in which we live.

The nine Inns of Chancery allied with the four Inns of Court, the Inner and Middle Temple, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn, are Clifford's Inn, Clement's Inn, Lyons' Inn, New Inn, Furnival's Inn, Thavie's Inn, Sergeant's Inn, Staple Inn, and Barnard's Inn, all of which were standing in d.i.c.kens' day, but of which only Staple Inn and Sergeant's Inn have endured, Clement's Inn having only recently (1903) succ.u.mbed to the house-breaker.

Staple Inn, in Holborn, "the fayrest inne of Chancerie," is one of the quaintest, quietest, and most interesting corners of mediaeval London left to us.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, describing his first wanderings in London, said, "I went astray in Holborn through an arched entrance over which was Staple Inn, and here likewise seemed to be offices; but in a court opening inwards from this, there was a surrounding seclusion of quiet dwelling-houses, with beautiful green shrubbery and gra.s.s-plots in the court and a great many sunflowers in full bloom. The windows were open, it was a lovely summer afternoon, and I had a sense that bees were humming in the court." Many more years have pa.s.sed over the old corner since Hawthorne's visit, but still it retains its ancient charm, and still the visitor is struck by the rapid change from the hurrying stream of Holborn's traffic to this haunt of ancient peace about which Mr. Worsfold writes with pardonable enthusiasm.

With a history traceable backward for many centuries, Staple Inn was at first a.s.sociated in the middle ages with the dealing in the "staple commodity" of wool, to use Lord Chief Justice c.o.ke's words, but about the fifteenth century the wool merchants gave way to the wearers of woollen "stuff," and their old haunt became one of the Inns of Chancery--the Staple Inn of the lawyers--perpetuating its origin in its insignia, a bale of wool. For many years the connection of the Inn with the Law was little beyond a nominal one, and in 1884 the great change came, and the haunt of merchants, the old educational establishment for lawyers, pa.s.sed from the hands of "The Princ.i.p.al, Ancients and Juniors of the Honourable Society of Staple Inn," to those of a big insurance society, while the fine old hall became the headquarters of the Inst.i.tute of Actuaries.

True it is, that perhaps no area of the earth's surface, of say a mile square, has a t.i.the of the varied literary a.s.sociation of the neighbourhood lying in the immediate vicinity of the Temple, the birthplace of Lamb, the home of Fielding, and the grave of Goldsmith.

Shoe Lane, Fleet Street, is still haunted by the memory of the boy Chatterton, and Will's Coffee House, the resort of wits and literary lights of former days, vies with Royal Palaces as an attraction for those who would wors.h.i.+p at the shrines of a bygone age,--a process which has been made the easier of late, now that the paternal Society of Arts has taken upon itself to appropriately mark, by means of a memorial tablet, many of these localities, of which all mention is often omitted from the guide-books. Often the actual houses themselves have disappeared, and it may be questioned if it were not better that in some instances a tablet commemorating a home or haunt of some notability were not omitted. Still if the accompanying inscription is only sufficiently explicit, the act is a worthy one, and truth to tell, a work that is well performed in London.

Suburban London, too, in a way, may well come within the scope of the pa.s.sion of any lover of material things which have at one time or another been a part and parcel of the lives of great men. And so, coupled with literary a.s.sociations, we have the more or less imaginary "Bell" at Edmonton to remind us of Cowper, of many houses and scenes identified with Carlyle, at Chelsea; of the poet Thompson, of Gainsborough, and a round score of celebrities who have been closely identified with Richmond,--and yet others as great, reminiscent of Pepys, Addison, Steele, Thackeray and the whole n.o.ble band of chroniclers, essayists, and diarists of the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The "houses of entertainment"--as the Georgian novelist was pleased to refer to inns and taverns--had in d.i.c.kens' day not departed greatly from their original status. Referring solely to those coaching and posting-houses situated at a greater or lesser distance from the centre of town,--on the main roads running therefrom, and those city establishments comprehended strictly under the head of taverns,--which were more particularly places of refreshment for mankind of the genus male. These two cla.s.ses were, and are, quite distinct from the later-day _caravanserai_ known as hotels, and as such performed vastly different functions.

To be sure, all life and movement of the early nineteenth century, and for a couple of hundred years before, had a great deal to do with inns and taverns.

From Chaucer's famous "Tabard," where--

_"In Southwark at the Tabard as I lay_ _Ready to wenden on my pilgrimage,"_

to "The Bull," at Rochester, whose courtyard is still as described by d.i.c.kens, and the somewhat mythical "Maypole" of "Barnaby Rudge," is a far cry, though it would appear that the kind of cheer and accommodation varies to a much lesser degree than might be supposed. Certainly the demand for brevity and the luxuriousness of the later years of the nineteenth century, and even to some extent during d.i.c.kens' time, with the innovation of railway travel, gas-lamps, the telegraph, and what not, was making an entirely new set of conditions and demands.

The old "Tabard" of Chaucer's day is no more, though an antiquary of 1840 has attempted to construct what it may have been out of the "Talbot" of that day, which stood in the ancient High Street of Southwark, just across London Bridge, where, said the annalist Stow, "there were so many fair inns for receipt of travellers,"--the rivals of the Boar's Heads and Mermaids of another generation.

Of the actual d.i.c.kens' inns, perhaps none is more vividly impressed on the imagination than that of the "Maypole," that fantastic structure of "Barnaby Rudge," the original of which is the "King's Head" at Chigwell on the borders of Epping Forest. It was here that Mr. Willet sat in his accustomed place, "his eyes on the eternal boiler." "Before he had got his ideas into focus, he had stared at the plebeian utensil quite twenty minutes,"--all of which indicates the minutiae and precision of d.i.c.kens'

observations. This actual copper, vouched for by several doc.u.ments of attestation, with an old chair which formerly stood in the Chester Room of the "Maypole," is to-day in the possession of Mr. Bransby Williams, of London, an ardent enthusiast of all matters in connection with d.i.c.kens and his stories.

Of the _Pickwickian Inns_, the "White Horse" at Ipswich--"the overgrown tavern" to which Mr. Pickwick journeyed by the London Coach--is something of tangible reality, and doubtless little changed to this day; the same being equally true of "The Leather Bottle" at Cobham. The old "White Hart"

in the Borough High Street, the scene of the first meeting of Mr. Pickwick and Weller, was demolished in 1889. Not so the "Magpie and Stump,"--that referred to in "Pickwick" as being in the vicinity of the Clare Market, and "closely approximating to the back of the 'New Inn.'" This seems to have been of an imaginary character in nomenclature, at least, though it is like enough that some neighbourhood hostelry--or, as it is further referred to, as being what the ordinary person would call a "low public-house"--was in mind.

The old "Fountain Inn" of the Minories, referred to in "Oliver Twist," and the "little inn" ("The Sun") at Canterbury, where the Micawbers lodged, and the "White Hart" at Hook,--or more probably its predecessor of the same name,--visited by the Pickwickians en route to Rochester,--were realities in every sense of the word, and show once again the blending of truth and fiction which was so remarkable in the novels, and which indicates so strongly the tendency of d.i.c.kens to make every possible use of accessories, sights, and scenes, with which, at one time or another, he had been acquainted.

The "Saracen's Head" at Snow Hill,--a real thing in d.i.c.kens' day,--where the impetuous Squeers put up during his visits to London, has disappeared.

It was pulled down when the Holborn Viaduct was built in 1869, and the existing house of the same name in no way merits the genial regard which is often bestowed upon it, in that it is but an ordinary London "_Pub_"

which does not even occupy the same site as its predecessor.

"The Spaniards," where foregathered the No-Popery rioters, on Hampstead Heath, remains much as of yore; certainly it has not changed to any noticeable degree since Mrs. Bardell, _et als._, repaired hither in the Hampstead stage for their celebrated tea-party, as recounted in "Pickwick."

The very term _Pickwickian Inns_ inspires rumination and imagination to a high degree. Remembrance is all very well, but there is a st.u.r.dy reality about most of the inns of which d.i.c.kens wrote. Thus the enthusiast may, if he so wish, in some cases, become a partaker of the same sort of comfort as did d.i.c.kens in his own time, or at least, amid the same surroundings; though it is to be feared that New Zealand mutton and Argentine beef have usurped the place in the larder formerly occupied by the "primest Scotch"

and the juiciest "Southdown."

It is said there are twenty-five inns mentioned in "Pickwick" alone; the writer has never been able to count up but twenty-two: still the a.s.sertion may be correct; he leaves it to the curious to verify. Certainly such well revered names as the "Golden Cross," "The Bull," at Rochester, which, above all other localities drawn in "Pickwick," has the liveliest a.s.sociations, "The Leather Bottle," "The Magpie and Stump," "The Marquis of Granby," "The Blue Boar," "The White Horse Cellars" in Piccadilly, and "The Great White Horse" at Ipswich are for ever branded upon the memory.

The following half-dozen will perhaps be best recalled: "The Old White Hart" in the Borough High Street; "The George and Vulture," Mr. Pickwick's own favourite; "The Golden Cross," reminiscent of d.i.c.kens' own personality as well; "The White Horse Cellars," the starting-place of the Ipswich Coach; "Osborne's Hotel" in the Adelphi, still occupied as a rather shabby sort of hostelry, though the name has gone; "Jack Straw's Castle," where "Boz" and his friend Forster so often enjoyed that "shoemaker's holiday;" and lastly, "The Spaniards" at Hampstead. A description of one, as it is to-day, must suffice here.

"The Golden Cross," which stands opposite Charing Cross Railway Station, with its floriated gilt crosses usually brightly burnished, and the entire edifice resplendent in new paint.

There is still, however, something of the air of the conservatism of a former day, if only in the manner of building, which in the present case furthers the suggestion that the ways of the modern architect--striving for new and wonderful constructive methods--were unknown when the walls of this old hostelry were put up.

Its courtyard has disappeared, or rather has been incorporated into a sort of warehouse or stable for a parcels delivery company, and the neighbourhood round about has somewhat changed since the days of "Copperfield" and "Pickwick." The Charing Cross Railway Station has come upon the scene, replacing old Hungerford Market, and palatial hotels have been built where the gardens of Northumberland House once were.

St.-Martin's-in-the-Fields is still in its wonted place, but with a change for the worse, in that the platform with its ascending steps has been curtailed during a recent alleged improvement in the roadway in St.

Martin's Lane.

The National Gallery remains as of yore, except that it has recently been isolated by pulling down some adjoining structures to the northwest, as a precautionary measure against fire.

The Nelson Monument in Trafalgar Square, then newly arrived, is as it was in the days of d.i.c.kens' early life. But there is little suggestion in the hotel or its surroundings of its ever having been a "mouldy sort of an establishment in a close neighbourhood," and it is hard to believe that Copperfield's bedroom "smelt like a hackney-coach and was shut up like a family vault."

d.i.c.kENS' LITERARY LIFE

A brief account is here given of d.i.c.kens' literary career, which presents chronologically a review of his productions as they appeared.

The first of his literary efforts was the tragedy of "The Sultan of India," written in his precocious school-days at Chatham, when, if we except his Parliamentary journalistic work, nothing else was put forth until "The Dinner at Poplar Walk" was published in the _Monthly Magazine_ (1833). The original "Sketches by Boz"--the first of which bore no signature--also followed in the _Monthly Magazine_. Other sketches under the same generic t.i.tle also appeared in the _Evening Chronicle_, and yet others, under the t.i.tle of "Scenes and Characters," were published in "Bell's Life in London" and the "Library of Fiction."

In 1836 a number of these fugitive pieces were collected into a volume, the copyright of which was sold to one Macrone for 100, who published them under the first and best known t.i.tle, "Sketches by Boz." The familiar story of "Pickwick," its early conception and its final publication, is well known. Its first publication (in parts) dated from 1836-37. About this time d.i.c.kens had another bad attack of stage-fever, and wrote a farce, "The Strange Gentleman," the libretto of an opera called "The Village Coquettes," and a comedy, "Is She His Wife?" more particularly perhaps for amateur representation, in which he was very fond of taking part. "Oliver Twist," a courageous attack on the Poor Laws and b.u.mbledom, followed in 1838, though it was not completed until after "Nicholas Nickleby" began to appear in 1839.

At this time was started _Master Humphrey's Clock_, a sort of miscellany in which it was intended to publish a series of papers written chiefly by d.i.c.kens himself after the style of Addison's _Spectator_ of a former day.

It was not at first successful, and only upon the commencement therein of the "Old Curiosity Shop" did it take on in any sense.

Master Humphrey's Clock ran down with the completion of the novel, though this story, in company with "Barnaby Rudge," a tale of the riots of '80, was not issued in book form until 1848 and 1849.

The authors.h.i.+p of "Pickwick" was unknown by the great ma.s.s of the public until very nearly the completion of the work in serial parts. Much conjecture was raised, and a writer in _Bentley's Miscellany_ published the following lines under the t.i.tle of:

IMPROMPTU

_"Who the_ d.i.c.kens _'Boz' could be_ _Puzzled many a learned elf,_ _Till time revealed the mystery,_ _And 'Boz' appeared as_ d.i.c.kens' _self."_

The other contributions made by d.i.c.kens to this periodical were afterward added to his published works under the t.i.tle of "Master Humphrey's Clock."

d.i.c.kens' first tour to America followed the abandonment of the periodical in 1842. This event called forth the following verses by Tom Hood, ent.i.tled:

TO CHARLES d.i.c.kENS

_On his Proposed Voyage to America, 1842._

_"Pshaw! away with leaf and berry_ _And the sober-sided cup!_ _Bring a Goblet and bright Sherry!_ _And a b.u.mper fill me up.--_ _Tho' I had a pledge to s.h.i.+ver,_ _And the longest ever was,--_ _Ere his vessel leaves our river,_ _I will drink a health to 'Boz.'_

_"Here's success to all his antics,_ _Since it pleases him to roam,_ _And to paddle o'er Atlantics,_ _After such a sale at home_ _May he shun all rocks whatever,_ _And the shallow sand that lurks,--_ _And his pa.s.sage be as clever_ _As the best among his works."_