Bridge Street, that the venal and scurrilous heroes of that poem emulate one another, at the call of Dullness, in seeing who can plunge deepest into the mud and dirt. "This labour past, by Bridewell all descend, To where Fleet ditch, with disemboguing streams, Here strip, my children! here at once leap in; This part of the games being over, "Through Lud's famed gates, along the well-known Fleet, Rolls the black troop, and overshades the street; Till showers of sermons, characters, essays, In circling fences whiten all the ways: So clouds replenished from some bog below, The "well-known Fleet" is the prison just mentioned, the side of which appears to have been visible at that time in Ludgate Hill, and where it was a joke (too often founded in truth) to suppose authors incarcerated. "Few sons of Phoebus in the courts we meet ; says a prologue of Sheridan's. The Fleet having "rules," like the King's Bench, authors were found in the neighbourhood also. Arthur Murphy, provoked by the attacks of Churchill and Lloyd, describes them as among the poor hacks, * The whipping of the criminals in Bridewell took place after the church service. † Dunciad, book ii. v. 269. BOOKSELLERS' SHOPS. "On Ludgate Hill who bloody murders write, Or pass in Fleet Street supperless the night." 109 Booksellers' shops were then common as now in Fleet Street and the Strand, in Paternoster Row, and St. Paul's Churchyard. This is pleasant to think of; for change is not desirable without improvement. One feels gratified, where difference is not demanded of us, in being able to have the same association of ideas with such men as Pope and Dryden, even if it be upon no higher ground than the quantity of books in Paternoster Row, or the circumstance that Ludgate Hill still leads into Fleet Street. 110 CHAP. III. FLEET STREET. Burning of the Pope.- St. Bride's Steeple.. Milton. - Illuminated Clock. -Melancholy End of Lovelace the Cavalier.-Chatterton. - Generosity of Hardham, of Snuff Celebrity.-Theatre in Dorset Garden.- Richardson, his Habits and Character.-Whitefriars, or Alsatia. - The Temple Its Monuments, Garden, &c. - Eminent Names connected with it. Goldsmith dies there. Boswell's first Visit there to Johnson. - Johnson and Madame de Boufflers. Bernard Lintot. - Ben Jonson's Devil Tavern. Other Coffee-houses and Shops. - Goldsmith and Temple-bar.- Shire Lane, Bickerstaff, and the Deputation from the Country. The Kit-Kat Club. - Mrs. Salmon. - Isaac Walton.Cowley. Chancery Lane, Lord Strafford, and Ben Jonson. - Serjeant's Inn. - Clifford's Inn. - The Rolls.-Sir Joseph Jekyll. - Church of St. Dunstan in the West. - Dryden's House in Fetter Lane. Johnson, the Genius Loci of Fleet Street. - His Way of Life. - His Residence in Gough Square, Johnson's Court, and Bolt Court. - Various Anecdotes of him connected with Fleet Street, and with his favourite Tavern, the Mitre. W E are now in Fleet Street, and pleasant memories thicken upon us. To the left is the renowned realm of Alsatia, the Temple, the Mitre, and the abode of Richardson; to the right divers abodes of Johnson; Chancery Lane, with Cowley's birth-place at the corner; Fetter Lane, where Dryden once lived; and Shire or Sheer Lane, immortal for the Tatler. Fleet Street was, for a good period, perhaps for a longer one than can now be ascertained, the great place for shows and spectacles. Wild beasts, monsters, and other marvels, used to be exhibited there, as the wax-work was lately; and here took place the famous ceremony of burning the Pope, with its long procession, and bigoted anti-bigotries. BURNING OF THE POPE. 111 However, the lesser bigotry was useful, at that time, in keeping out the greater. Roger North has left us a lively account of one of these processions, in his Examen. It took place towards the close of the reign of Charles the Second, when just fears were entertained of his successor's design to bring in Popery. The day of the ceremony was the birth-day of Queen Elizabeth, the 17th March. "When we had posted ourselves," says North, "at windows, expecting the play to begin" (he had taken his stand in the Green Dragon Tavern), "it was very dark; but we could perceive the street to fill, and the hum of the crowd grew louder and louder; and at length, with help of some lights below, we could discern, not only upwards towards the bar, where the squib-war was maintained, but downwards towards Fleet Bridge, the whole street was crowded with people, which made that which followed seem very strange; for about eight at night we heard a din from below, which came up the street, continually increasing till we could perceive a motion; and that was a row of stout fellows, that came, shouldered together, cross the street, from wall to wall on each side. How the people melted away, I cannot tell; but it was plain those fellows made clear board, as if they had swept the street for what was to come after. They went along like a wave; and it was wonderful to see how the crowd made. way: I suppose the good people were willing to give obedience to lawful authority. Behind this wave (which, as all the rest, had many lights attending), there was a vacancy, but it filled apace, till another like wave came up; and so four or five of these waves passed, one after another; and then we discerned more numerous lights, and throats were opened with hoarse and tremendous noise; and with that advanced a pageant, borne along above the heads of the crowd, and upon it sat an huge Pope, in pontificalibus, in his chair, with a seasonable attendance for state; but his premier minister, that shared most of his ear, was Il Signior Diavolo, a nimble little fellow, in a proper dress, that had a strange dexterity in climbing and winding about the chair, from one of the Pope's ears to the other. 112 ST. BRIDE'S STEEPLE. (for there was always a decent space between them) came another, with some ordinary persons with halters, as I took it, about their necks; and one, with a stenterophonic tube, sounded, 'Abhorrers! Abhorrers!' most infernally; and, lastly, came one, with a single person upon it, which some said was the pamphleteer, Sir Roger L'Estrange, some the King of France, some the Duke of York; but, certainly, it was a very complaisant, civil gentleman, like the former, that was doing what every body pleased to have him; and, taking all in good part, went on his way to the fire." The description concludes with a brief mention of burning the effigies, which, on these occasions, appear to have been of pasteboard. * One of the great figurers in this ceremony was the doleful image of Sir Edmondbury Godfrey, a magistrate, supposed to have been killed by the Papists during the question of the plot. Dryden has a fine contemptuous couplet upon it, in one of his prologues ; "Sir Edmondbury first, in woful wise, Leads up the show, and milks their maudlin eyes." We will begin with the left side, as we are there already; and first let us express our thanks for the neat opening by which St. Bride's church has been rendered an ornament to this populous thoroughfare. The steeple is one of the most beautiful of Wren's productions, though diminished, in consequence of its having been found to be too severely tried by the wind. But a ray now comes out of this opening as we pass the street, better even than that of the illuminated clock at night time; for there, in a lodging in the churchyard, lived Milton, at the time that he undertook the education of his sister's children. He was then young and unmarried. He is said to have ren * See Walter Scott's edition of Dryden, vol. x. p. 372. "Abhorrers " were addressers on the side of the court, who had avowed "abhorrence " of the proceedings of the Whigs. The word was a capital one to sound through a trumpet. |