Read Ebook: Haunted London by Thornbury Walter Walford Edward Editor Fairholt F W Frederick William Illustrator

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The Devil Tavern--London Bankers and Goldsmiths--A Whim of John Bushnell, the Sculptor--Irritating Processions-- The Bonfire at Inner Temple Gate--A Barbarous Custom-- Called to the Bar--A Curious Old Print of 1746--The White Cockades--An Execution on Kennington Common-- Shenstone's "Jemmy Dawson"--Counsellor Layer--Dr. Johnson in the Abbey--The Proclamation of the Peace of Amiens--The Dispersion of the Armada--City Pageants and Festivities--The Guildhall--The Guildhall Twin Giants-- Proclamation of War--A Reflection pp. 4-24

Essex Street--Beheading a Bishop--Exeter Place--The Gipsy Earl--Running a-muck--Lettice Knollys--A Portrait of Essex--Robert, Earl of Essex, the Parliamentary General--The Poisoning of Overbury--An Epicurean Doctor--Clubable Men--The Grecian--The Templar's Lounge--Tom's Coffee-house--A Princely Collector--"The Long Strand"--"Honest Shippen"--Boswell's Enthusiasm-- Sale and the Koran--The Infamous Lord Mohun--A fine Rebuke--Jacob Tonson pp. 25-55

The Protector Somerset--Denmark House--The Queen's French Servants--The Lying-in-State of Cromwell--Scenes at Somerset House--Sir Edmondbury Godfrey--Old Somerset House--Erection of the Modern Building--Carlini's Grandeur--A Hive of Red Tapists--Expensive Auditing--The Royal Society--The Geological and the Antiquarian Societies--A Legend of Somerset House--St. Martin's Lane Academy--An Insult to Engravers--Rebecca's Practical Jokes--A Fashionable Man actually Surprised--Lying in State pp. 56-81

The Folly--Fountain Court and Tavern--The Coal-hole--The Kit-cat Club--Coutts's Bank--The Eccentric Philosopher-- Old Salisbury House--Robert the Devil--Little Salisbury House--Toby Matthew--Ivy Bridge--The Strand Exchange-- Durham House--Poor Lady Jane--The Parochial Mind--A Strange Coalition--Garrick's Haunt--Shipley's School of Art--Barry's Temper--The Celestial Bed--Sir William Curtis pp. 82-105

The Earl of Savoy--John Wickliffe--A French King Prisoner--The Kentish Rebellion--John of Gaunt--The Hospital of St. John--Cowley's Regrets--Secret Marriages--Conference between Church of England and Presbyterian Divines--An Illegal Sanctuary--A Lampooned General--A Fat Adonis--John Rennie--Waterloo Bridge--The Duchy of Lancaster pp. 106-125

York House--Lord Bacon--"To the Man with an Orchard give an Apple"--"Steenie"--Buckingham Street--Zimri--York Stairs--Pepys and Etty--Scenery on the Banks of the Thames--The London Lodging of Peter the Great--The Czar and the Quakers--The Hungerford Family--The Suspension Bridge--Grinling Gibbons--The Two Smiths--Cross Readings--Northumberland Street--Armed Clergymen pp. 126-145

Faithorne, the Engraver--The Stupendous Arch--The Murder of Miss Ray--One of Wren's Churches--Thomas Rymer--Dr. Johnson at Church--Shallow's Revelry--Low Comedy Preachers--New Inn--Alas! poor Yorick!--The first Hackney Coaches--Doyley--The Beef-steak Club--Beef and Liberty--Madame Vestris--Old Thomson--Irene in a Garret--Mathews at the Adelphi--The Bad Points of Mathew's Acting--The Old Adelphi--A Riot in a Theatre-- Dr. Johnson's Eccentricities pp. 146-189

The Gunpowder Plot--Lord Herbert's Chivalry--A Schoolboy Legend--Goldsmith's Audience--Dobson Buried in a Garret--Charing--Queen Eleanor--A Brave Ending-- Great-hearted Colonel Jones--King Charles at Charing Cross--A Turncoat--A Trick of Curll's--The Cock Lane Ghost--Savage the Poet--The Mews--The Nelson Column--The Trafalgar Square Fountains--Want of Pictures of the English School--Turner's Pictures--Mrs. Centlivre of Spring Gardens--Maginn's Verses--The Hermitage at Charing Cross--Ben Jonson's Grace--The Promised Land pp. 190-238

A Certain Proof of Insanity--An Eccentric Character-- Experimentum Crucis--St. Martin's-in-the-Fields--Gibb's Opportunity--St. Martin's Church--Good Company--The Thames Watermen--Copper Holmes--Old Slaughter's-- Gardelle the Murderer--Hogarth's Quack--St. Martin's Lane Academy--Hayman's Jokes--The Old Watch-house and Stocks--Garrick's Tricks--An Encourager of Art--John Wilkes--The Royal Society of Literature--The Artist Quarter pp. 239-261

The Plague--Great Queen Street--Burning Panama--Lord Herbert's Poetry--Kneller's Vanity--Conway House-- Winchester House--Ryan the Actor--An Eminent Scholar and Antiquary--Miss Pope--The Freemasons' Hall--Gentleman Lewis--Franklin's Self-denial--The Gordon Riots--Colonel Cromwell--An Eccentric Poetaster--Black Will's Rough Repartee--Ned Ward--Prior's Humble Cell--Stothard--The Mug-houses--Charles Lamb pp. 262-286

Drury House--Donne's Vision--Donne in his Shroud--The Queen of Bohemia--Brave Lord Craven--An Anecdote of Gondomar--Drury Lane Poets--Nell Gwynn--Zoffany--The King's Company--Memoranda by Pepys--Anecdotes of Joe Haines--Mrs. Oldfield's Good Sense--The Wonder of the Town--Quin and Garrick--Barry and Garrick--The Bellamy-- The Siddons--Dicky Suett--Liston's Hypochondria--The First Play--Elliston's Tears--The End of a Man about Town--Edmund Kean--Grimaldi--Kelly and Malibran--Keeley and Harley--Scenes at Drury Lane--"Wicked Will Whiston"--Henley's Butchers--"Il faut vivre"--Henley's Sermons--The Leaden Seals pp. 287-348

The Lollards--Cobham's Death--The Lazar House--Holborn First Paved--The Mud Deluge--French Protestants--The Plague Cart--The Plague Time--Brought to his Knees--The New Church--The Grave of Flaxman--The Thorntons--Hog Lane--The Tyburn Bowl--The Swan on the Hop--The Irish Deluge--Sham Abraham--Simon and his Dog--Hiring Babies-- Pavement Chalkers--Monmouth Street pp. 349-386

The Earl of Lincoln's Garden--The Headless Chancellor-- Spelman a late Ripener--Denham and Wither--Lord Lyndhurst--Warburton and Heber--Ben Jonson the Bricklayer--A Murder in Whetstone Park--The Dangers of Lincoln's Inn Fields--Shelter in St. John's Wood--Lord William Russell--A Brave Wife--Pelham--The Caricature of a Duke--Wilde and Best--Lindsey House--The Dukes of Ancaster--Skeletons--Lady Fanshawe--Lord Kenyon's Latin--The Belzoni Sarcophagus--Sir John Soane--Worthy Mrs. Chapone--The Duke's House--Betterton--Mrs. Bracegirdle--A Riot--Rich's Pantomime--The Jump pp. 387-442

INDEX pp. 467-476

PAGE

THE LORD MAYOR'S SHOW. From the picture by Hogarth 19

TEMPLE BAR, 1746, copied from an undated print published soon after the execution of the rebel adherents of the young Pretender. The view is surrounded by an emblematic framework, and contains representations of the heads of Townley and Fletcher, remarkable as the last so exposed; they remained there till 1772 23

TWO VIEWS OF ARUNDEL HOUSE, 1646, after Hollar. These views, unique of their kind, are particularly valuable for the clear idea they give of a noble London mansion of the period. Arundel House retains many ancient features, particularly in its dining-hall, which, with the brick residence for the noble owner, is the only dignified portion of the building. The rest has the character of an inn-yard--a mere collection of ill-connected outhouses and stabling. The shed with the tall square window in the roof was the depository of the famous collection of pictures and antiques made by the renowned Earl, part of which still forms the Arundel Collection at Oxford 40, 41

PENN'S HOUSE, NORFOLK STREET, 1749, from a view by J. Buck. The view is taken from the river, looking up Norfolk Street to a range of old houses, still standing, in the Strand. Penn's house was the last on the west side of the street , overlooking the water 55

JACOB TONSON'S BOOK-SHOP, 1742, from an etching by Benoist. The shop of this famous bibliopole was opposite Catherine Street. The view is obtained from the background of the print representing a burlesque procession of Masons, got up by some humourist in ridicule of the craft 82

OLD HOUSES IN THE STRAND, 1742, copied from the same print as the preceding view. These houses stood on the site of the present Wellington Street 104

THE SAVOY, FROM THE THAMES, IN 1650, after Hollar 106

THE SAVOY CHAPEL, from an original drawing 119

THE SAVOY PRISON, 1793, from an etching by J. T. Smith 125

DURHAM HOUSE, 1790, from an etching by J. T. Smith 126

THE WATER GATE, 1860, from a Sketch 133

YORK STAIRS AND SURROUNDING BUILDINGS, circa 1745, after an original drawing by Canaletti in the British Museum. This is one of the few interesting views of Old London sketched by Canaletti during his short stay in England. It comprises the famous water-gate designed by Inigo Jones, and the tall wooden tower of the York Buildings Water Company. The large mansion behind this was that inhabited by Pepys from 1684, and in which he entertained the members of the Royal Society during his presidency. The house at the opposite corner is that in which the Czar Peter the Great resided for some time, when he visited England for instruction in shipbuilding 144

CROCKFORD'S FISH-SHOP, from an original sketch 146

THE OLD ROMAN BATH, from a drawing 169

EXETER CHANGE, 1821, from an etching by Cooke 188

BARRACK AND OLD HOUSES on the site of Trafalgar Square in 1826, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt. The view is taken from St. Martin's Church, looking toward Pall Mall; the building in the distance, to the left, is the College of Physicians 239

OLD SLAUGHTER'S COFFEE-HOUSE, 1826, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt 260

SALISBURY AND WORCESTER HOUSES IN 1630, from a drawing by Hollar in the Pepysian Library, Cambridge 262

CRAVEN HOUSE, 1790, from an original drawing in the British Museum 287

CHURCH LANE AND DYOT STREET, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt 349

THE SEVEN DIALS, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt 386

LINCOLN'S INN FIELDS THEATRE IN 1821, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt 387

THE BLACK JACK, Portsmouth Street, Lincoln's Inn Fields, from an original sketch by F. W. Fairholt. This public-house was the resort of the actors from the theatre, and among them Joe Miller, who was buried in the graveyard close by, where the hospital now stands. The house was also frequented by Jack Sheppard, and was sometimes termed "The Jump," from the circumstance of his having once jumped from one of the first-floor windows to escape from officers of justice 441

HAUNTED LONDON.

INTRODUCTION.

One day when Fuseli and Haydon were walking together, they reached the summit of a hill whence they could catch a glimpse of St. Paul's.

There was the grey dome looming out by fits through rolling drifts of murky smoke. The two little lion-like men stood watching "the sublime canopy that shrouds the city of the world." Now it spread and seethed like the incense from Moloch's furnace; now it lifted and thinned into the purer blue, like the waft of some great sacrifice, or settled down to deeper and gloomier grandeur over "the vastness of modern Babylon." That brown cloud hid a huge ants' nest teeming with three millions of people. That dome, with its golden coronet and cross, rose like the globe in an emperor's hand--a type of the civilisation, and power, and Christianity of England.

The hearts of the two men beat faster at the great sight.

"Be George!" said Fuseli, shaking his white hair and stamping his little foot, "be George! sir, it's like the smoke of the Israelites making bricks for the Egyptians."

It is of the multitudinous streets of this more than Egyptian city, their traditions, and their past and present inhabitants, that I would now write. I shall not pass by many houses where any eminent men dwell or dwelt, without some biographical anecdote, some epigram, some illustration; yet I will not stop long at any door, because so many others await me. I have "set down," I hope, "nought in malice." Truth I trust has been, and truth alone shall be, my object. I shall stay at Charing Cross to point out the heroism of the dying regicides; I shall pause at Whitehall to narrate some redeeming traits even in the character of a wilful king.

The growth of London, and its conquest of suburb after suburb, has roused the imagination of poets and essayists ever since the days of Queen Elizabeth.

It is difficult to select from what centre to commence a pilgrimage. For old Roman London we might start from the Exchange or the Tower; for mediaeval London from Chepe or Aldermanbury; for fashionable London from Charing Cross; for Shaksperean London from the Globe or Blackfriars. Even then our tours would be circuitous, and sometimes retrograde, and we should turn and double like hares before the hounds.

I have for several reasons, therefore, and after some consideration, decided to start from Temple Bar, and walk westward along the Strand to Charing Cross; then to turn up St. Martin's Lane, and return by Longacre and Drury Lane to Lincoln's-Inn-Fields.

That walk embraces the long line of palaces which once adorned the Strand, or river-bank street, the countless haunts of artists in St. Martin's Lane, the legends of Longacre, the theatrical reminiscences of Drury Lane, and the old noblemen's houses in Lincoln's-Inn-Fields. It comprises a period not so remote as East London, and not so modern as that of the West End. It brings us acquainted not only with many of the contemporaries of Shakspere and Dryden, but also with many celebrities of Garrick's time and of Dr. Johnson's age.

If this is not the best point of departure, it has at least much to be said in its favour, as the loop I have drawn includes nothing intramural, and comprises a part of London inhabited by persons who lived more within the times of memoir-writing than those in the farther East,--a district, too, more within the range of the antiquary than the newer region of the West.

I trust that in these remarks I have in some degree explained why I have spent so much time in pouring "old wine into new bottles."

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