The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon
the arch-mage who ruled over this magical fraternity.
Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to enter. I
obeyed with singular hardihood, for how did I know whether a wave of his
wand might not metamorphose me into some strange monster or conjure me
into one of the bottles on his mantelpiece? He proved, however, to be
anything but a conjurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all the
magic and mystery with which I had enveloped this antiquated pile and
its no less antiquated inhabitants.
It appeared that I had made my way into the centre of an ancient asylum
for superannuated tradesmen and decayed householders, with which was
connected a school for a limited number of boys. It was founded upwards
of two centuries since on an old monastic establishment, and retained
somewhat of the conventual air and character. The shadowy line of old
men in black mantles who had passed before me in the hall, and whom I
had elevated into magi, turned out to be the pensioners returning from
morning, service in the chapel.
John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities whom I had made the
arch magician, had been for six years a resident of the place, and
had decorated this final nestling-place of his old age with relics
and rarities picked up in the course of his life. According to his
own account, he had been somewhat of a traveller, having been once in
France, and very near making a visit to Holland. He regretted not having
visited the latter country, “as then he might have said he had been
there.” He was evidently a traveller of the simple kind.
He was aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I found,
from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blind
man who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum was
profoundly ignorant, and a broken-down gentleman who had run through
a fortune of forty thousand pounds left him by his father, and ten
thousand pounds, the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemed
to consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as of lofty
spirit to be able to squander such enormous sums.
P.S.--The picturesque remnant of old times into which I have thus
beguiled the reader is what is called the Charter House, originally
the Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on the remains of an ancient
convent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble charities set
on foot by individual munificence, and kept up with the quaintness and
sanctity of ancient times amidst the modern changes and innovations
of London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen better days,
are provided in their old age with food, clothing, fuel, and a yearly
allowance for private expenses. They dine together, as did the monks of
old, in the hall which had been the refectory of the original convent.
Attached to the establishment is a school for forty-four boys.
Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, speaking of the
obligations of the gray-headed pensioners, says, “They are not to
intermeddle with any business touching the affairs of the hospital,
but to attend only to the service of God, and take thankfully what is
provided for them, without muttering, murmuring, or grudging. None to
wear weapon, long hair, colored boots, spurs, or colored shoes, feathers
in their hats, or any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but such as
becomes hospital-men to wear.” “And in truth,” adds Stow, “happy are
they that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the world, and
fixed in so good a place as these old men are; having nothing to care
for but the good of their souls, to serve God, and to live in brotherly
love.”
For the amusement of such as have been interested by the preceding
sketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know a
little more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of local
history put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a small
brown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquainted
shortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a little
dubious at first whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales often
passed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have brought
our general character for veracity into such unmerited reproach. On
making proper inquiries, however, I have received the most satisfactory
assurances of the author’s probity, and indeed have been told that he
is actually engaged in a full and particular account of the very
interesting region in which he resides, of which the following may be
considered merely as a foretaste.
LITTLE BRITAIN.
What I write is most true..... I have a whole booke of cases lying by
me, which if I should sette foorth, some grave auntients (within the
hearing of Bow Bell) would be out of charity with me. NASH.
IN the centre of the great City of London lies a small neighborhood,
consisting of a cluster of narrow streets and courts, of very venerable
and debilitated houses, which goes by the name of LITTLE BRITAIN. Christ
Church School and St. Bartholomew’s Hospital bound it on the west;
Smithfield and Long Lane on the north; Aldersgate Street, like an arm
of the sea, divides it from the eastern part of the city; whilst the
yawning gulf of Bull-and-Mouth Street separates it from Butcher Lane
and the regions of Newgate. Over this little territory, thus bounded and
designated, the great dome of St. Paul’s, swelling above the intervening
houses of Paternoster Row, Amen Corner, and Ave-Maria Lane, looks down
with an air of motherly protection.
This quarter derives its appellation from having been, in ancient times,
the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As London increased, however,
rank and fashion rolled off to the west, and trade, creeping on at their
heels, took possession of their deserted abodes. For some time Little
Britain became the great mart of learning, and was peopled by the busy
and prolific race of booksellers: these also gradually deserted it, and,
emigrating beyond the great strait of Newgate Street, settled down
in Paternoster Row and St. Paul’s Churchyard, where they continue to
increase and multiply even at the present day.
But, though thus fallen into decline, Little Britain still bears traces
of its former splendor. There are several houses ready to tumble down,
the fronts of which are magnificently enriched with old oaken carvings
of hideous faces, unknown birds, beasts, and fishes, and fruits and
flowers which it would perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also,
in Aldersgate Street, certain remains of what were once spacious and
lordly family mansions, but which have in latter days been subdivided
into several tenements. Here may often be found the family of a petty
tradesman, with its trumpery furniture, burrowing among the relics of
antiquated finery in great rambling time-stained apartments with fretted
ceilings, gilded cornices, and enormous marble fireplaces. The lanes and
courts also contain many smaller houses, not on so grand a scale, but,
like your small ancient gentry, sturdily maintaining their claims to
equal antiquity. These have their gable ends to the street, great bow
windows with diamond panes set in lead, grotesque carvings, and low
arched doorways.*
* It is evident that the author of this interesting
communication has included, in his general title of Little
Britain, man of those little lanes and courts that belong
immediately to Cloth Fair.
In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed several
quiet years of existence, comfortably lodged in the second floor of
one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My sitting-room is an old
wainscoted chamber, with small panels and set off with a miscellaneous
array of furniture. I have a particular respect for three or four
high-backed, claw-footed chairs, covered with tarnished brocade, which
bear the marks of having seen better days, and have doubtless figured
in some of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to
keep together and to look down with sovereign contempt upon their
leathern-bottomed neighbors, as I have seen decayed gentry carry a
high head among the plebeian society with which they were reduced to
associate. The whole front of my sitting-room is taken up with a
bow window, on the panes of which are recorded the names of previous
occupants for many generations, mingled with scraps of very indifferent
gentleman-like poetry, written in characters which I can scarcely
decipher, and which extol the charms of many a beauty of Little Britain
who has long, long since bloomed, faded, and passed away. As I am an
idle personage, with no apparent occupation, and pay my bill regularly
every week, I am looked upon as the only independent gentleman of
the neighborhood, and, being curious to learn the internal state of a
community so apparently shut up within itself, I have managed to work my
way into all the concerns and secrets of the place.
Little Britain may truly be called the heart’s core of the city, the
stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of London as it was in
its better days, with its antiquated folks and fashions. Here flourish
in great preservation many of the holiday games and customs of yore.
The inhabitants most religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday, hot
cross-buns on Good Friday, and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send
love-letters on Valentine’s Day, burn the Pope on the Fifth of November,
and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at Christmas. Roast beef and
plum-pudding are also held in superstitious veneration, and port and
sherry maintain their grounds as the only true English wines, all others
being considered vile outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders, which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world, such as the great bell
of St. Paul’s, which sours all the beer when it tolls; the figures that
strike the hours at St. Dunstan’s clock; the Monument; the lions in the
Tower; and the wooden giants in Guildhall. They still believe in dreams
and fortune-telling, and an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth
Street makes a tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods
and promising the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered
uncomfortable by comets and eclipses, and if a dog howls dolefully at
night it is looked upon as a sure sign of death in the place. There
are even many ghost-stories current, particularly concerning the old
mansion-houses, in several of which it is said strange sights are
sometimes seen. Lords and ladies, the former in full-bottomed wigs,
hanging sleeves, and swords, the latter in lappets, stays, hoops, and
brocade, have been seen walking up and down the great waste chambers
on moonlight nights, and are supposed to be the shades of the ancient
proprietors in their court-dresses.
Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of the most
important of the former is a tall, dry old gentleman of the name
of Skryme, who keeps a small apothecary’s shop. He has a cadaverous
countenance, full of cavities and projections, with a brown circle round
each eye, like a pair of horn spectacles. He is much thought of by the
old women, who consider him as a kind of conjurer because he has two or
three stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop and several snakes in
bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers, and is much
given to pore over alarming accounts of plots, conspiracies, fires,
earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions; which last phenomena he considers
as signs of the times. He has always some dismal tale of the kind to
deal out to his customers with their doses, and thus at the same time
puts both soul and body into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens