Rambles in Dickens' Land Part 9

Farther on, on the same side of Leadenhall Street, we reach St. Mary Axe, turning northward at No. 117, which we notice _en pa.s.sant_ as the thoroughfare in which _Pubsey and Co._ had their place of business; "a yellow overhanging plaster-fronted house"-reconstructed, with many others, some years since-at the top of which _Riah_ (the manager) arranged his town garden; where the Dolls' Dressmaker invited _Fascination Fledgby_ to "come up and be dead." All of which is duly set forth in the pages of "Our Mutual Friend." The position of the house cannot now be localised.

Proceeding to the other end of St. Mary Axe, we may turn (right) into _Bevis Marks_, where there once existed the House of Mr. Sampson Bra.s.s, No. 10, but this and others have long since been rebuilt and re-enumerated. Here lived that honourable attorney and his sister the fair Sally; aided in their professional duties by a young gentleman of eccentric habits and "prodigious talent of quotation." Here the _Marchioness_ lived, or rather starved, in attendance as maid-of-all-work, and first made the acquaintance of d.i.c.k Swiveller, her future husband; being by him initiated into the mysteries of cribbage and the peculiarities of purl. Here lodged the "single gentleman," who evinced such exceptional interest in the national drama, and so discovered a clue to the retreat of Little Nell and her grandfather.

On the north side of the street there still flourishes the old RED LION INN, an establishment patronised in his time by Mr. Richard, and once eulogised by that gentleman on the occasion of his specifying "the contingent advantages" of the neighbourhood. "There is mild porter in the immediate vicinity."

For these and the other a.s.sociations of this spot the tourist is referred to the pages of the "Old Curiosity Shop."

Following downwards through Bevis Marks and Duke Street beyond, we come into _Aldgate_, keeping still on the left-hand side of the way to _Aldgate High Street_, where at a short distance we pa.s.s the Station of the Metropolitan Railway. At No. 24, just ahead, is the Bull Inn Yard, once the City Terminus of Coaches travelling north-east. From this point Mr. Pickwick started per coach for Ipswich, accompanied by the red-haired Mr. Peter Magnus; Mr. Tony Weller officiating as driver. On which occasion we read that Mr. Weller's conversation, "possessing the inestimable charm of blending amus.e.m.e.nt with instruction," beguiled "the tediousness of the journey during the greater part of the day."

Returning westward on the other side of the way, the Rambler may turn, at No. 81, into the _Minories_; and, at the second house on the right, may observe the figure of _the Wooden Mids.h.i.+pman_, previously referred to as removed from its original position in Leadenhall Street. The route being continued (same side) from the Minories, we can note, as we pa.s.s into _Fenchurch Street_, Aldgate Pump, standing at the top of Leadenhall Street. There is a reference to this old pump in "Dombey," as being a stated object of _Mr. Toots's_ special evening excursions from "The Wooden Mids.h.i.+pman," when that gentleman desired some temporary relief from the hopeless contemplation of Walter Gay's happiness.

The tourist will now soon arrive at (No. 42) Mincing Lane, leading to Great Tower Street. This short street is entirely occupied by wholesale merchants and brokers, and it will be remembered that _Messrs. Chicksey_, _Veneering_, _and s...o...b..es_, wholesale druggists, flourished in this locality in the days of the "Golden Dustman." The fourth house on the left from Fenchurch Street, next to _Dunster Court_, has been indicated as the probable whereabouts of the firm. We may remember that R.

Wilfer's office was on the ground-floor, next the gateway.

Here, then, in this prosaic neighbourhood, _John Rokesmith_, following _Bella Wilfer_, came to the warehouse where Little _Rumty_ was sitting at the open window at his tea, and much surprised that gentleman by a declaration of love for his daughter; what time "The Feast of the Three Hobgoblins" was so agreeably celebrated. This place is also a.s.sociated with other pleasant episodes connected with the history of the Wilfer family, the details of which are fully furnished in the pages of "Our Mutual Friend."

Proceeding through Mincing Lane, we turn to the right through _Eastcheap_, which leads westward to the top of FISH STREET HILL. The tourist now proceeds southward, pa.s.sing the _Monument_ on the left. At a short distance beyond (No. 34) we arrive at _King's Head Court_, "a small paved yard," in which are certain city warehouses and a dairy. On the south side of the court, now occupied by the warehouses aforesaid, once stood the Commercial Boarding-House of Mrs. Todgers-an old-fas.h.i.+oned abode even in the days of Mr. Pecksniff-which has long since given place to other commercial considerations. In the 9th chapter of "Martin Chuzzlewit" full, true, and particular account is given of this establishment as it used to be. We may here call to remembrance the characters of _Bailey junior_, _Mr. Jinkins_, _Augustus Moddle_, and others in connection with the domestic economy of Mrs. Todgers and the several Pecksniffian a.s.sociations of the place; notably, the festive occasion of that Sunday's dinner when Cherry and Merry were first introduced to London society; the moral Mr. Pecksniff thereafter exhibiting alarming symptoms of a chronic complaint. (See chapter 9.) And we may indulge in a kindly reminiscence of good-hearted Mrs. Todgers herself, worried with the anxieties of "gravy" and the eccentricities of commercial gentlemen. "Perhaps the Good Samaritan was lean and lank, and found it hard to live." We now come to London Bridge, the scene of Nancy's interview with Mr. Brownlow and Rose Maylie (see "Oliver Twist"), which took place on the steps near St. Saviour's Church, on the Surrey side of the river-

"These stairs are a part of the bridge; they consist of three flights. Just below the end of the second, going down, the stone wall on the left terminates in an ornamental pilaster, facing towards the Thames."

And it will be remembered that _Noah Claypole_ here ensconced himself as an unseen listener.

As we come to the Surrey side of the Thames, a pa.s.sing thought may be given to _Mrs. Rudge_ and her son Barnaby, who lived near at hand "in a by-street in Southwark, not far from London Bridge"; and we may recall the incident of _Edward Chester_ being brought hither by _Gabriel Varden_, having been found wounded by a highwayman on the other side of the river. But it is altogether impossible to locate the house, the neighbourhood having so entirely changed during the present century.

Onwards by the main thoroughfare of the Borough, we shall find, on the left-hand side of the way (No. 61), the (former) location of "The White Hart," described in "Pickwick" as

"An old inn, which has preserved its external features unchanged, and which has escaped alike the rage for public improvement and the encroachments of private speculation. A great, rambling, queer old place, with galleries and pa.s.sages and staircases, wide enough and antiquated enough to furnish materials for a hundred ghost stories."

The old inn has been pulled down some years since; the original gateway only remains, leading to White Hart Yard. A tavern and luncheon-bar of modern erection now occupy one side of the old coach-yard in which _Messrs. Pickwick_, _Wardle_, and _Perker_ made their first acquaintance with _Mr. Samuel Weller_, on that memorable occasion when _Mr. Jingle_ had eloped from _Dingley Dell_ with _Miss Rachael Wardle_, and had brought the lady to this establishment. Farther on, towards the end of the Borough, we arrive at Angel Place, a narrow pa.s.sage near to St.

George's Church. It leads into _Marshalsea Place_, of which d.i.c.kens writes as follows in his preface to "Little Dorrit":-

"Whoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of Angel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard to the right, and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon the rooms in which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of many miserable years."

This, then, was The Marshalsea Prison, in which, during d.i.c.kens's youthful days, his father was imprisoned for debt; and the place is intimately a.s.sociated with the story of _Little Dorrit_ and her family.

We must be all familiar with the Father of the Marshalsea, his brother Frederick, Maggie, and the several others of the _dramatis personae_ of that charming tale.

St. George's Church, close at hand, will be remembered in connection with the above, as once affording refuge in its vestry for Little Dorrit, when the s.e.xton accommodated her with a bed formed of the pew-cus.h.i.+ons, the book of registers doing service as a pillow. She was afterwards married to Arthur Clennam in this church. Full particulars of the ceremony will be found in the last chapter of the tale. At a short distance from this point, down Blackman Street, on the right, is (No. 90) Lant Street. In Forster's Biography it is narrated that d.i.c.kens, when a boy, lodged in this street what time his father was imprisoned in the Marshalsea. The house stood on part of the site now occupied by the Board School adjoining No. 46-

"A back attic was found for me at the house of an insolvent-court agent, who lived in Lant Street, in the Borough, where _Bob Sawyer_ lodged many years afterwards. A bed and bedding were sent over for me, and made up on the floor. The little window had a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard; and when I took possession of my new abode, I thought it was a Paradise."

This opinion of his boyhood seems to have been somewhat modified fifteen years later, when the "Pickwick Papers" were written, and Mr. Robert Sawyer had taken residence in the locality. We read-

"There is an air of repose about Lant Street, in the Borough, which sheds a gentle melancholy upon the soul. A house in Lant Street would not come within the denomination of a first-rate residence, in the strict acceptation of the term; but it is a most desirable spot, nevertheless.

If a man wished to extract himself from the world, to remove himself from within the reach of temptation, to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of the window, he should by all means go to Lant Street."

Walking onwards from "this happy valley" past Suffolk Street, to the westward, turning off _Borough Road_, we may note on the north corner the site of the old King's Bench Prison, in which _Mr. Micawber_ was detained-in the top storey but one-pending the settlement of his pecuniary liabilities. Later on in the Copperfield history, Micawber appointed a meeting for David and Tom Traddles as follows:-

"Among other havens of domestic tranquillity and peace of mind, my feet will naturally tend towards the King's Bench Prison. In stating that I shall be (D.V.) on the outside of the south wall of that place of incarceration on civil process, the day after to-morrow, at seven in the evening, precisely, my object in this epistolary communication is accomplished."

See chapter 49 for particulars of the subsequent interview. This "_dead wall_" of the prison is also mentioned in the same book as the place where young David requested "the long-legged young man"-who had charge of his box for conveyance to the Dover coach-office-to stop for a minute while he (David) tied on the address. It will be remembered that poor David lost his box and his money on this occasion, when he started for Dover,

"Taking very little more out of the world, towards the retreat of his aunt, Miss Betsy, than he had brought into it on the night when his arrival gave her so much umbrage;"

the total sum of his remaining cash amounting to three half-pence.-See chapter 12.

The first reference of our author to King's Bench Prison will be found in "Nicholas Nickleby" (chapter 46), on the occasion of the hero's first visit to _Madeline Bray_, who resided with her father in one

"Of a row of mean and not over cleanly houses, situated within 'the rules' of the King's Bench Prison; ... comprising some dozen streets in which debtors who could raise money to pay large fees-from which their creditors did not derive any benefit-were permitted to reside."

We learn from Allen's "History of Surrey" that these rules comprehended all St. George's Fields, one side of Blackman Street, and part of the Borough High Street, forming an area of about three miles in circ.u.mference. They could be purchased by the prisoners at the rate of five guineas for small debts, eight guineas for the first hundred pounds of debt, and about half that sum for every subsequent hundred.

The site of the prison is now occupied by workmen's model dwellings named "Queen's Buildings," divided, north and south, by Scovell's Road.

At the opposite side (east) of _Newington Causeway_, which here commences, is _Union Road_, late _Horsemonger __Lane_; a short distance down which, on its south side, is "THE PUBLIC PLAYGROUND FOR CHILDREN,"

formerly the site of Horsemonger Lane Gaol, erected at the back of the Surrey Sessions House. Here the execution of the Mannings took place, November 13th, 1849, on which occasion Charles d.i.c.kens was present. The same day he sent a notable letter to the _Times_, directing general attention to the demoralising effect of such public exhibitions; thus setting on foot an agitation which shortly resulted in the adoption of our present private mode of carrying out the last penalty of the law.

After giving a forcible and graphic picture of the night scenes enacted by the disorderly crowd in waiting, the letter was thus continued:-

"When the sun rose brightly-as it did-it gilded thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth or callousness, that a man had cause to shrink from himself as fas.h.i.+oned in the image of the devil. When the two miserable creatures who attracted all this ghastly sight about them, were turned quivering into the air, there was no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, no more restraint in any of the previous obscenities, than if the name of Christ had never been heard in this world, and there was no belief among men but that they perished like the beasts. I have seen, habitually, some of the worst sources of general contamination and corruption in this country, and I think there are not many phases of London life that could surprise me. I am solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity could devise to be done in this city, in the same compa.s.s of time, could work such ruin as one public execution; and I stand astounded and appalled by the wickedness it exhibits."

Mr. Chivery resided with his family in _Horsemonger Lane_, in close proximity to the old prison, and kept a tobacconist's shop for the supply of his Marshalsea customers and the general public of the neighbourhood-

"A rural establishment one storey high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane Jail, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt."

In the little back-yard of the premises, "Young John"-disappointed in love-was accustomed to sit and meditate; taking cold among the "tuneless groves" of the newly-washed family linen, and composing suitable epitaphs to his own memory, in melancholy antic.i.p.ation of an early decease.

Proceeding along the Borough Road, we arrive in due course at St.

George's Obelisk, which stands at the meeting-point of six roads. In the twelfth chapter of "David Copperfield" we read of the Obelisk as the place near to which the "long-legged young man with a very little empty donkey-cart" was standing, whom David engaged to take his box to the Dover coach-office for sixpence. And we all remember the sad _denouement_ of that engagement, as previously mentioned. Near at hand, at the top of Blackfriars Road, stands The Surrey Theatre, at which _f.a.n.n.y Dorrit_ was engaged as a dancer, while her Uncle Frederick played the clarionet in the orchestra.

Crossing over to the opposite thoroughfare of _Lambeth Road_, the Rambler will find, at a short distance on the left, the entrance to Bethlehem Hospital, familiarly known as Bedlam. A reference to this asylum will be found in the pages of "The Uncommercial Traveller," where our author implies the idea that the sane and insane are, at all events, equal in their dreams-

"Are not all of us outside this Hospital, who dream more or less, in the condition of those inside it, every night of our lives?"

The question may afford us matter for speculation as the route is continued through Lambeth Road, at the end of which we turn to the right, in the direction of the river. At the angle of the roads, past the Lambeth Police Office, we reach Christchurch, conspicuous for style and position, at which the Rev. Newman Hall some years since officiated. We may here recall the criticism given by d.i.c.kens with reference to this popular preacher in the book above referred to. See "_Two Views of a Cheap Theatre_," as contained in "The Uncommercial Traveller."

We now come onwards by _Westminster Bridge Road_, pa.s.sing beneath the span of the London and South-Western Railway. Near Westminster Bridge, on the left, is the old site of Astley's Theatre (non-existent since 1896). This establishment had cause to bless itself once a quarter, in days gone by, when Christopher Nubbles, Barbara, and friends patronised the performance. We may here remember the occasion when Kit knocked a man over the head with his bundle of oranges for "scroudging his parent with unnecessary violence;" also the happy evening that followed, when little Jacob first saw a play and learnt what oysters meant (_vide_ the "Old Curiosity Shop"). On the site formerly occupied by this favourite place of entertainment, there now stand five handsome houses and shops, Nos. 225 to 233 Westminster Bridge Road.

Past a few doors beyond these, above, on the same side, we reach Lambeth Palace Road, turning by which we may walk (or ride by tramcar) a short distance southward. Leaving on the right the seven handsome buildings of ST. THOMAS'S HOSPITAL, we pa.s.s-on the left-farther on, LAMBETH EPISCOPAL PALACE, and cross the Thames by LAMBETH SUSPENSION BRIDGE.

On the Middles.e.x sh.o.r.e we come into _Millbank Street_, and bestow a brief thought on Poor "Martha," following her in imagination as she took her melancholy way southward in this same street, towards the waste riverside locality, "near the great blank prison" of Millbank, long since replaced by _Tate's Gallery_.

Here it will be remembered that _David Copperfield_ and his trusty friend _Mr. Peggotty_ saved the despairing girl from a self-sought and miserable death.

At a few minutes' distance northward from the bridge, _Church Street_ will be found, leading (left) to _Smith Square_. In this street lived The Dolls' Dressmaker, little _Jenny Wren_. The whimsical description of the central church-ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST'S-as given in the pages of "Our Mutual Friend," may be worth comparison with the original-

"In this region are a certain little street called Church Street, and a certain little blind square called Smith Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a very hideous church, with four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some petrified monster, frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs in the air."

The house in which Jenny and her father lived is stated to have been one of the modest little houses which stand at the point where the street gives into Smith Square. The Rambler will observe four houses answering this description on the north side of Church Street; No. 9 has been indicated as the humble home in question, where "_the person of the house_" and her "_bad boy_" resided. Here, also, _Lizzie Hexam_ lodged for some time after the death of her father, during the days when her uncertain lover, _Eugene Wrayburn_, was yet a bachelor.

We may now return to the main road and continue the northward route by _Abingdon Street_, crossing _Old Palace Yard_. A pa.s.sing thought may here be given to Mr. John Harmon, the _Julius Handford_ of "Our Mutual Friend," who furnished the Police authorities with his address-The Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, Westminster. Such a house of resort no longer exists in this vicinity.