Old and New London Part 75

Commercial men contest the right of a seat with the guard or coachman; some careful mother helps her pale, timid daughter up the steps; while a fat old lady already occupies two-thirds of the seat--what will be done?

Bags of epistles innumerable stuff the boots; formidable bales of the daily journals are trampled small by the guard's heels. The clock will strike in less than five minutes; the clamour deepens, the hubbub seems increasing; but ere the last sixty seconds expire, a sharp winding of warning bugles begins. Coachee flourishes his whip, greys and chestnuts prepare for a run, the reins move, but very gently, there is a parting crack from the whipcord, and the brilliant cavalcade is gone--_exeunt omnes!_ Lombard Street is a different place now, far more imposing, though still narrow and dark; the clean-swept roadway is paved with wood, cabs pa.s.s noiselessly--a capital thing, only take care you are not run over. Most of the banks and a.s.surance offices have been converted into stone."

In Plough Court (No. 1), Lombard Street, Pope's father carried on the business of a linen merchant. "He was an honest merchant, and dealt in Hollands wholesale," as his widow informed Mr. Spence. His son claimed for him the honour of being sprung from gentle blood. When that gallant baron, Lord Hervey, vice-chamberlain in the court of George II., and his ally, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, disgraced themselves by inditing the verses containing this couplet--

"Whilst none thy crabbed numbers can endure, Hard as thy heart, _and as thy birth obscure_;"

Pope indignantly repelled the accusation as to his descent.

"I am sorry (he said) to be obliged to such a presumption as to name my family in the same leaf with your lords.h.i.+p's; but my father had the honour in one instance to resemble you, for he was a younger brother. He did not indeed think it a happiness to bury his elder brother, though he had one, who wanted some of those good qualities which yours possessed.

How sincerely glad should I be to pay to that young n.o.bleman's memory the debt I owed to his friends.h.i.+p, whose early death deprived your family of as much wit and honour as he left behind him in any branch of it. But as to my father, I could a.s.sure you, my lord, that he was no mechanic (neither a hatter, nor, which might please your lords.h.i.+p yet better, a cobbler), but, in truth, of a very tolerable family, and my mother of an ancient one, as well born and educated as that lady whom your lords.h.i.+p made use of to educate your own children, whose merit, beauty, and vivacity (if transmitted to your posterity) will be a better present than even the n.o.ble blood they derive from you. A mother, on whom I was never obliged so far to reflect as to say, she spoiled me; and a father, who never found himself obliged to say of me, that he disapproved my conduct. In a word, my lord, I think it enough, that my parents, such as they were, never cost me a blush; and that their son, such as he is, never cost them a tear."

The house of Pope's father was afterwards occupied by the well-known chemists, Allen, Hanbury, and Barry, a descendant of which firm still occupies it. Mr. William Allen was the son of a Quaker silk manufacturer in Spitalfields. He became chemical lecturer at Guy's Hospital, and an eminent experimentalist--discovering, among other things, the proportion of carbon in carbonic acid, and proving that the diamond was pure carbon. He was mainly instrumental in founding the Pharmaceutical Society, and distinguished himself by his zeal against slavery, and his interest in all benevolent objects. He died in 1843, at Lindfield, in Suss.e.x, where he had founded agricultural schools of a thoroughly practical kind.

The church of St. Edmund King and Martyr (and St. Nicholas Acons), on the north side of Lombard Street, stands on the site of the old Gra.s.s Market. The only remarkable monument is that of Dr. Jeremiah Mills, who died in 1784, and had been President of the Society of Antiquaries many years. The local authorities have, with great good sense, written the duplex name of this church in clear letters over the chief entrance.

The date of the first building of St. Mary Woolnoth of the Nativity, in Lombard Street, seems to be very doubtful; nor does Stow help us to the origin of the name. By some antiquaries it has been suggested that the church was so called from being beneath or nigh to the wool staple. Mr.

Gwilt suggests that it may have been called "Wool-nough," in order to distinguish it from the other church of St. Mary, where the wool-beam actually stood.

The first rector mentioned by Newcourt was John de Norton, presented previous to 1368. Sir Martin Bowes had the presentation of this church given him by Henry V., it having anciently belonged to the convent of St. Helen's, Bishopsgate. From the Bowes's the presentation pa.s.sed to the Goldsmiths' Company. Sir Martin Bowes was buried here, and so were many of the Houblons, a great mercantile family, on one of whom Pepys wrote an epitaph. Munday particularly mentions that the wills of several benefactors of St. Mary's were carefully preserved and exhibited in the church. Strype also mentions a monument to Sir William Phipps, that lucky speculator who, in 1687, extracted 300,000 from the wreck of a Spanish plate-vessel off the Bahama bank. Simon Eyre, the old founder of Leadenhall Market, was buried in this church in 1549.

Sir Hugh Brice, goldsmith and mayor, governor of the Mint in the reign of Henry VII., built or rebuilt part of the church, and raised a steeple. The church was almost totally destroyed in the Great Fire, and repaired by Wren. Sir Robert Viner, the famous goldsmith, contributed largely towards the rebuilding, "a memorial whereof," says Strype, "are the vines that adorn and spread about that part of the church that fronts his house and the street; insomuch, that the church was used to be called Sir Robert Viner's church." Wren's repairs having proved ineffectual, the church was rebuilt in 1727. The workmen, twenty feet under the ruins of the steeple, discovered bones, tusks, Roman coins, and a vast number of broken Roman pottery. It is generally thought by antiquaries that a temple dedicated to Concord once stood here.

Hawksmoor, the architect of St. Mary Woolnoth, was born the year of the Great Fire, and died in 1736. He acted as Wren's deputy during the erection of the Hospitals at Chelsea and Greenwich, and also in the building of most of the City churches. The princ.i.p.al works of his own design are Christ Church, Spitalfields, St. Anne's, Limehouse, and St.

George's, Bloomsbury. Mr. J. G.o.dwin, an excellent authority, calls St.

Mary Woolnoth "one of the most striking and original, although not the most beautiful, churches in the metropolis."

On the north side of the communion-table is a plain tablet in memory of that excellent man, the Rev. John Newton, who was curate of Olney, Bucks, for sixteen years, and rector of the united parishes of St. Mary Woolnoth and St. Mary Woolchurch twenty-eight years. He died on the 21st of December, 1807, aged eighty-two years, and was buried in a vault in this church.

On the stone is the following inscription, full of Christian humility:--

"John Newton, clerk, once an infidel and libertine, a servant of slaves in Africa, was, by the rich mercy of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, preserved, restored, pardoned, and appointed to preach the faith he had long laboured to destroy."

Newton's father was master of a merchant-s.h.i.+p, and Newton's youth was spent in prosecuting the African slave-trade, a career of which he afterwards bitterly repented. He is best known as the writer (in conjunction with the poet Cowper) of the "Olney Hymns."

The exterior of this church is praised by competent authorities for its boldness and originality, though some critic says that the details are ponderous enough for a fortress or a prison. The elongated tower, from the arrangement of the small chimney-like turrets at the top, has the appearance of being two towers united. Dallaway calls it an imitation of St. Sulpice, at Paris; but unfortunately Servandoni built St. Sulpice some time after St. Mary Woolnoth was completed. Mr. G.o.dwin seems to think Hawksmoor followed Vanbrugh's manner in the heaviness of his design.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ST. MARY WOOLNOTH.]

St. Clement's Church, Clement's Lane, Lombard Street, sometimes called St. Clement's, Eastcheap, is noted by Newcourt as existing as early as 1309. The rectory belonged to Westminster Abbey, but was given by Queen Mary to the Bishop of London and his successors for ever. After the Great Fire, when the church was destroyed, the parish of St. Martin Orgar was united to that of St. Clement's. The parish seem to have been pleased with Wren's exertions in rebuilding, for in their register books for 1685 there is the following item:--"To one-third of a hogshead of wine, given to Sir Christopher Wren, 4 2s."

One of the rectors of St. Clement's, Dr. Benjamin Stone, who had been presented to the living by Bishop Juxon, being deemed too Popish by Cromwell, was imprisoned for some time at Crosby Hall. From thence he was sent to Plymouth, where, after paying a fine of 60, he obtained his liberty. On the restoration of Charles II., Stone recovered his benefice, but died five years after. In this church Bishop Pearson, then rector, delivered his celebrated sermons on the Creed, which he afterwards turned into his excellent Exposition, a text-book of English divinity, which he dedicated "to the right wors.h.i.+pful and well-beloved, the paris.h.i.+oners of St. Clement's, Eastcheap."

[Ill.u.s.tration: INTERIOR OF MERCHANT TAYLORS' HALL.]

The interior is a parallelogram, with the addition of a south aisle, introduced in order to disguise the intrusion of the tower, which stands at the south-west angle of the building. The ceiling is divided into panels, the centre one being a large oval band of fruit and flowers.

The pulpit and desk, as well as the large sounding-board above them, are very elaborately carved; and a marble font standing in the south aisle has an oak cover of curious design. Among many mural tablets are three which have been erected at the cost of the paris.h.i.+oners, commemorative of the Rev. Thomas Green, curate twenty-seven years, who died in 1734; the Rev. John Farrer, rector (1820); and the Rev. W. Valentine Ireson, who was lecturer of the united parishes thirty years, and died in 1822.

In digging a new sewer in Lombard Street a few years ago (says Pennant, writing in 1790), the remains of a Roman road were discovered, with numbers of coins, and several antique curiosities, some of great elegance. The beds through which the workmen sunk were four. The first consisted of fact.i.tious earth, about thirteen feet six inches thick, all acc.u.mulated since the desertion of the ancient street; the second of brick, two feet thick, the ruins of the buildings; the third of ashes, only three inches; the fourth of Roman pavement, both common and tessellated, over which the coins and other antiquities were discovered.

Beneath that was the original soil. The predominant articles were earthenware, and several were ornamented in the most elegant manner. A vase of red earth had on its surface a representation of a fight of men, some on horseback, others on foot; or perhaps a show of gladiators, as they all fought in pairs, and many of them naked. The combatants were armed with falchions and small round s.h.i.+elds, in the manner of the Thracians, the most esteemed of the gladiators. Some had spears, and others a kind of mace. A beautiful running foliage encompa.s.sed the bottom of this vessel. On the fragment of another were several figures.

Among them appears Pan with his _pedum_, or crook; and near to him one of the _lascivi Satyri_, both in beautiful skipping att.i.tudes. On the same piece are two tripods; round each is a serpent regularly twisted, and bringing its head over a bowl which fills the top. These seem (by the serpent) to have been dedicated to Apollo, who, as well as his son aesculapius, presided over medicine. On the top of one of the tripods stands a man in full armour. Might not this vessel have been votive, made by order of a soldier restored to health by favour of the G.o.d, and to his active powers and enjoyment of rural pleasures, typified under the form of Pan and his nimble attendants? A plant extends along part of another compartment, possibly allusive to their medical virtues; and, to show that Bacchus was not forgotten, beneath lies a _thyrsus_ with a double head.

On another bowl was a free pattern of foliage. On others, or fragments, were objects of the chase, such as hares, part of a deer, and a boar, with human figures, dogs, and horses; all these pieces prettily ornamented. There were, besides, some beads, made of earthenware, of the same form as those called the _ovum anguinum_, and, by the Welsh, _glain naidr_; and numbers of coins in gold, silver, and bra.s.s, of Claudius, Nero, Galba, and other emperors down to Constantine.

St. Mary Abchurch was destroyed by the Great Fire, and rebuilt by Wren in 1686. Maitland says, "And as to this additional appellation of _Ab_, or _Up-church_, I am at as great a loss in respect to its meaning, as I am to the time when the church was at first founded; but, as it appears to have anciently stood on an eminence, probably that epithet was conferred upon it in regard to the church of St. Lawrence Pulteney, situate below."

Stow gives one record of St. Mary Abchurch, which we feel a pleasure in chronicling:--"This dame Helen Branch, buried here, widow of Sir John Branch, Knt., Lord Mayor of London, an. 1580, gave 50 to be lent to young men of the Company of Drapers, from four years to four years, for ever, 50. Which lady gave also to poor maids' marriages, 10. To the poor of Abchurch, 10. To the poor prisoners in and about London, 20.

Besides, for twenty-six gowns to poor men and women, 26. And many other worthy legacies to the Universities."

The pulpit and sounding-board are of oak, and the font has a cover of the same material, presenting carved figures of the four Evangelists within niches. On the south side of the church is an elaborate monument of marble, part of which is gilt, consisting of twisted columns supporting a circular pediment, drapery, cherubim, &c, to Mr. Edward Sherwood, who died January 5th, 1690; and near it is a second, in memory of Sir Patience Ward, Knt., Alderman, and Lord Mayor of London in 1681.

He died on the 10th of July, 1696. The east end of the church is in Abchurch Lane, and the south side faces an open paved s.p.a.ce, divided from the lane by posts. This was formerly enclosed as a burial-ground, but was thrown open for the convenience of the neighbourhood.

The present church was completed from the designs of Sir Christopher Wren in 1686. In the interior it is nearly square, being about sixty-five feet long, and sixty feet wide. The walls are plain, having windows in the south side and at the east end to light the church. The area of the church is covered by a large and handsome cupola, supported on a modillion cornice, and adorned with paintings which were executed by Sir James Thornhill; and in the lower part of this also are introduced other lights. "The altar-piece," says Mr. G. G.o.dwin, "presents four Corinthian columns, with entablature and pediment, grained to imitate oak, and has a carved figure of a pelican over the centre compartment. It is further adorned by a number of carved festoons of fruit and flowers, which are so exquisitely executed, that if they were a hundred miles distant, we will venture to say they would have many admiring visitants from London. These carvings, by Grinling Gibbons, were originally painted after nature by Sir James. They were afterwards covered with white paint, and at this time they are, in common with the rest of the screen, of the colour of oak. Fortunately, however, these proceedings, which must have tended to fill up the more delicately carved parts, and to destroy the original sharpness of the lines, have not materially injured their general effect."

CHAPTER XLVII.

THREADNEEDLE STREET.

The Centre of Roman London--St. Benet Fink--The Monks of St.

Anthony--The Merchant Taylors--Stow, Antiquary and Tailor--A Magnificent Roll--The Good Deeds of the Merchant Taylors--The Old and the Modern Merchant Taylors' Hall--"Concordia parvae res cresc.u.n.t"--Henry VII. enrolled as a Member of the Taylors'

Company--A Cavalcade of Archers--The Hall of Commerce in Threadneedle Street--A Painful Reminiscence--The Baltic Coffee-house--St. Anthony's School--The North and South American Coffee-house--The South Sea House--History of the South Sea Bubble--Bubble Companies of the Period--Singular Infatuation of the Public--Bursting of the Bubble--Parliamentary Inquiry into the Company's Affairs--Punishment of the Chief Delinquents--Restoration of Public Credit--The Poets during the Excitement--Charles Lamb's Reverie.

In Threadneedle Street we stand in the centre of Roman London. In 1805 a tesselated pavement, now in the British Museum, was found at Lothbury.

The Exchange stands, as we have already mentioned, on a mine of Roman remains. In 1840-41 tesselated pavements were found, about twelve or fourteen feet deep, beneath the old French Protestant Church, with coins of Agrippa, Claudius, Domitian, Marcus Aurelius, and the Constantines, together with fragments of frescoes, and much charcoal and charred barley. These pavements are also preserved in the British Museum. In 1854, in excavating the site of the church of St. Benet Fink, there was found a large deposit of Roman _debris_, consisting of Roman tiles, gla.s.s, and fragments of black, pale, and red Samian pottery.

The church of St. Benet Fink, of which a representation is given at page 468, was so called from one Robert Finck, or Finch, who built a previous church on the same site (destroyed by the Fire of 1666). It was completed by Sir Christopher Wren, in 1673, at the expense of 4,130, but was taken down in 1844. The tower was square, surmounted by a cupola of four sides, with a small turret on the top. There was a large recessed doorway on the north side, of very good design.

The arrangement of the body of the church was very peculiar, we may say unique; and although far from beautiful, afforded a striking instance of Wren's wonderful skill. The plan of the church was a decagon, within which six composite columns in the centre supported six semi-circular vaults. Wren's power of arranging a plan to suit the site was shown in numerous buildings, but in none more forcibly than in this small church.

"St. Benedict's," says Maitland, "is vulgarly Bennet Fink. Though this church is at present a donative, it was anciently a rectory, in the gift of the n.o.ble family of Nevil, who probably conferred the name upon the neighbouring hospital of St. Anthony."

Newcourt, who lived near St. Benet Fink, says the monks of the Order of St. Anthony hard by were so importunate in their requests for alms that they would threaten those who refused them with "St. Anthony's fire;"

and that timid people were in the habit of presenting them with fat pigs, in order to retain their goodwill. Their pigs thus became numerous, and, as they were allowed to roam about for food, led to the proverb, "He will follow you like a St. Anthony's pig." Stow accounts for the number of these pigs in another way, by saying that when pigs were seized in the markets by the City officers, as ill-fed or unwholesome, the monks took possession of them, and tying a bell about their neck, allowed them to stroll about on the dunghills, until they became fit for food, when they were claimed for the convent.

The Merchant Taylors, whose hall is very appropriately situated in Threadneedle Street, had their first licence as "Linen Armourers"

granted by Edward I. Their first master, Henry de Ryall, was called their "pilgrim," as one that travelled for the whole company, and their wardens "purveyors of dress." Their first charter is dated 1 Edward III.

Richard II. confirmed his grandfather's grants. From Henry IV. they obtained a confirmatory charter by the name of the "Master and Wardens of the Fraternity of St. John the Baptist of London." Henry VI. gave them the right of search and correction of abuses. The society was incorporated in the reign of Edward IV., who gave them arms; and Henry VII., being a member of the Company, for their greater honour transformed them from Tailors and Linen Armourers to Merchant Taylors, giving them their present acting charter, which afterwards received the confirmation and _inspeximus_ of five sovereigns--Henry VIII., Edward VI., Philip and Mary, Elizabeth, and James I.

There is no doubt (says Herbert) that Merchant Taylors were originally _bona fide_ cutters-out and makers-up of clothes, or dealers in and importers of cloth, having tenter-grounds in Moorfields. The ancient London tailors made both men's and women's apparel, also soldiers'

quilted surcoats, the padded lining of armour, and probably the trappings of war-horses. In the 27th year of Edward III. the Taylors contributed 20 towards the French wars, and in 1377 they sent six members to the Common Council, a number equalling (says Herbert) the largest guilds, and they were reckoned the seventh company in precedence. In 1483 we find the Merchant Taylors and Skinners disputing for precedence. The Lord Mayor decided they should take precedence alternately; and, further, most wisely and wors.h.i.+pfully decreed that each Company should dine in the other's hall twice a year, on the vigil of Corpus Christi and the feast of St. John Baptist--a laudable custom, which soon restored concord. In 1571 there is a precept from the Mayor ordering that ten men of this Company and ten men of the Vintners'

should ward each of the City gates every tenth day. In 1579 the Company was required to provide and train 200 men for arms. In 1586 the master and wardens are threatened by the Mayor for not making the provision of gunpowder required of all the London companies. In 1588 the Company had to furnish thirty-five armed men, as its quota for the Queen's service against the dreaded Spanish Armada.

In 1592 an interesting entry records Stow (a tailor and member of the Company) presenting his famous "Annals" to the house, and receiving in consequence an annuity of 4 per annum, eventually raised to 10. The Company afterwards restored John Stow's monument in the Church of St.

Andrew Undershaft. Speed, also a tailor and member of the Company, on the same principle, seems to have presented the society with valuable maps, for which, in 1600, curtains were provided. In 1594 the Company subscribed 50 towards a pest-house, the plague then raging in the City, and the same year contributed 296 10s. towards six s.h.i.+ps and a pinnace fitted out for her Majesty's service.

In 1603 the Company contributed 234 towards the 2,500 required from the London companies to welcome James I. and his Danish queen to England. Six triumphal arches were erected between Fenchurch Street and Temple Bar, that in Fleet Street being ninety feet high and fifty broad.