Chapter 6

Chancery Lane is largely identified with the story of "Bleak House." The garden of Lincoln's Inn was fondly referred to by little Miss Flite as "her garden." Law offices, stationers' shops, and eating-houses abound in the purlieus of Chancery Lane, which, though having undergone considerable change in the last quarter-century, has still, in addition to the majesty which is supposed to surround the law, something of those "disowned relations of the law and hangers-on" of which Dickens wrote.

In this immediate neighbourhood--in Lincoln's Inn Fields--was Mr. Tulkinghorn's house, of which an illustration is here given, and which is still standing (1903). This house, which is readily found,--it is still No. 58,--is now given over to lawyers' offices, though formerly it was the residence of Dickens' biographer, Forster, where Dickens gave what was practically the first of his semi-public readings, on the occasion when he came from Italy especially to read the "Christmas story," "The Chimes," to a few favoured friends.

Hard by, just off the southwestern corner of the square, is the apocryphal "Old Curiosity Shop," a notable literary shrine, as is mentioned elsewhere, but not the original of the novel which bears the same name, as Dickens himself has said.

The "Clare Market," an unsavoury locality which had somewhat to do with "Pickwick," was near by, but has practically disappeared from view in a virtuous clearing-up process which has recently been undertaken.

In Portugal Street, leading into Lincoln's Inn Fields, was Mr. Solomon's headquarters; while further east, toward the city, we find the "George and Vulture," mentioned in "Pickwick," existing to-day as "a very good old-fashioned and comfortable house." Its present nomenclature is "Thomas' Chop-House," and he who would partake of the "real thing" in good old English fare, served on pewter plates, with the brightest of steel knives and forks, could hardly fare better than in this ancient house in St. Michael's Alley.

By one of those popular and ofttimes sentimental conclusions, "poor Jo's crossing" has been located as being on Holborn, near where Chancery Lane comes into that thoroughfare.

This may like enough be so, but as all crossings are much alike, and all sweepers of that impoverished class which we recognize in the description of "Jo" (now luckily disappearing), it would seem a somewhat doubtful accomplishment in attempting to place such a spot definitely.

Mrs. Jellyby lived in Thavie's Inn,--"Only 'round the corner" from Chancery Lane, said Guppy,--one of the seven inns allied with the four great Inns of Court, all of which had a particular sentiment for Dickens, both in his writings and his life. In fact, he began with "Pickwick" to introduce these "curious little nooks" and "queer old places." Indeed, he lived in Furnival's Inn when first married, and there wrote the most of the "Boz" sketches as well as "Pickwick."

Clifford's Inn, too, now on the eve of departure, is also a reminder of "Pickwick." One, "a tenant of a 'top set,' was a bad character--shut himself in his bedroom closet and took a dose of arsenic," as is told in "Pickwick," Chapter XXI.

To "Mr. Perker's chambers," in Gray's Inn,--which still endures as one of the four great Inns of Court,--went Mr. Pickwick one afternoon, to find no one at home but the laundress. In Holborn Court, in Gray's Inn, lived also Traddles and his bride.

Pip was quartered in Barnard's Inn, called by him a "dingy collection of shabby buildings."

The Temple has ever been prolific in suggestion to the novelist, and Dickens, like most others who have written of London life, has made liberal use of it in "Barnaby Rudge," in "The Tale of Two Cities," and in many other of his novels.

Staple Inn, at "Holborn Bars," is perhaps the most quaint and unmodern of any considerable structure in all London. Mr. Grewgious and Mr. Tartar lived here; also Landless, who occupied "some attic rooms in a corner," and here Mr. Snagsby was wont to ramble in this old-world retreat.

The "little hall," with "a little lantern in its roof," and its weathercock, is still there, and the stroller down that most businesslike thoroughfare, known in its various continuations as "High Holborn," "Holborn Bars," and "Holborn Viaduct," will find it difficult to resist the allurements of the crazy old timbered frontage of Staple Inn, with its wooden gateway and tiny shops, looking for all the world like a picture from out of an old book.

In Bishop's Court, leading from Chancery Lane, was Crook's rag and bottle shop, where its owner met so ghastly a death. A court to the back of this shop, known as "Chichester Rents," harboured a public house called by Dickens "Sol's Arms." To-day it exists as the "Old Ship," if supposedly authoritative opinion has not erred.

Took's Court is to-day unchanged. Dickens was pleased to call it "Cook's Court." By some it has been called dirty and dingy; it is hardly that, but it may well have been a more sordid looking place in days gone by. At any rate, it was a suitable enough environment for Snagsby, identified to-day as the stationer's shop next the Imperial Chambers.

As vivid a reminiscence as any is that of the old debtors' prison of Marshalsea. The institution was a court of law and a prison as well, and was first established in 1376 for the determination of causes and differences among the king's menials; and was under the control of the knight marshal, hence its name. Later this court had particular cognizance of murders and other offences committed within the king's court; and here also were committed persons guilty of piracies.

In 1381 the Kentish rebels "broke down the houses of the Marshalsea and the King's Bench in Southwark," and in 1593 "a dangerous insurrection arose in Southwark, owing to the attempt of one of the knight marshal's men to serve a warrant upon a feltmaker's apprentice."

At this time the inhabitants of Southwark complained that "the Knight Marshal's men were very unneighbourly and disdainful among them," with every indication that a prolonged insurrection would endure. However, the matter was brought to the attention of the lord chamberlain, and such edict went forth as assured the inhabitants of the borough freedom from further annoyance. The old gaol building was purchased in 1811 by the government, and at that time refitted as a prison for debtors.

"The entrance gate fronts the High Street near St. George's Church, and a small area leads to the keeper's house. Behind it is a brick building, the ground floor of which contains fourteen rooms in a double row, and three upper stories, each with the same number. They are about ten and a half feet square by eight and a half feet high, and are with boarded floors, a glazed window, and fireplace in each, for male debtors. Nearly adjoining to this is a detached building called the 'Tap,' which has on the ground floor a wine and beer room. The upper story has three rooms for female debtors, similar to those for men. At the extremity of this prison is a small courtyard and building for admiralty prisoners, and a chapel."

The above description, taken from Allen's "History and Antiquities of Southwark," must synchronize with the appearance of the Marshalsea at the time of which Dickens wrote concerning it in "Little Dorrit," based, of course, upon his personal knowledge of the buildings and their functions when the elder Dickens was imprisoned therein in 1822, and the family were living in mean quarters in near-by Lant Street, whither they had removed from Gower Street, North, in order to be near the prison.

Until quite recently it is possible that certain portions of the old Marshalsea were still standing, though as a prison it was abolished in 1841, but, with the opening of one of those municipal pleasure grounds,--one cannot call them gardens, being merely a flagged courtyard,--the last vestiges are supposed to have disappeared from general view. Indeed, it appears that Dickens himself was not aware of any visible portions of the old building still remaining. This assertion is based on the following lines taken from the preface of "Little Dorrit:"

"I found the outer front courtyard metamorphosed into a butter-shop; and then I almost gave up every brick for lost.... I then came to Marshalsea Place; ... and whoever goes here will find his feet on the very paving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea Gaol,--will see its narrow yard to the right and to the left but very little altered, if at all, except that the walls were lowered when the place got free."

When the elder Dickens was carried to prison, like Mr. Dorrit, he was lodged in the top story but one, in the chamber afterward occupied by the Dorrits, when Charles, it was said, went often (before the family removed across the river) to visit him, crossing presumably the old picturesque London Bridge. In "David Copperfield," it is evidently the same edifice which is disguised as the "King's Bench Prison."

In the immediate neighbourhood of the Marshalsea was St. George's Vestry, where, on the cushions, with the church register for a pillow, slept Little Dorrit on the night on which she was shut out of the prison.

Opposite, on High Street, stood until recently the little pie-shop, where Flora read out her lecture to Little Dorrit. Near by, also, was Mr. Cripple's dancing academy. (Deliciously Dickenesque--that name.) Guy's--reminiscent of Bob Sawyer--is but a stone's throw away, as also Lant Street, where he had his lodgings. Said Sawyer, as he handed his card to Mr. Pickwick: "There's my lodgings; it's near Guy's, and handy for me, you know,--a little distance after you've passed St. George's Church; turns out of High Street on right-hand side the way." Supposedly the same humble rooms--which looked out upon a pleasant prospect of a timber-yard--in which lived the Dickens family during the elder Dickens' imprisonment.

In Horsemonger Lane, which runs out of the High Street, was the tobacco-shop of Mrs. Chivery. In the High Street, too, was the old "White Hart" of Sam Weller and even Jack Cade. "The George," "The Spur," "The Queen's Head," and "The King's Head"--all reminiscent of Dickens--were also here in the immediate neighbourhood.

Crossing the river northward, one may retrace their steps toward St. Paul's, near which, a quarter of a century back, might have been seen the arcaded entrance to Doctors' Commons, an institution described by Sam Weller, and which, among other functions, formerly kept guard of all the wills probated in London. The building has since disappeared, and the erstwhile valuable documents removed to Somerset House.

Beyond the "Bank" is Leadenhall Street, where in St. Mary Axe, Dickens had located Pubsey and Co. The firm was domiciled in an "old, yellow, overhanging, plaster-fronted house," and, if it ever existed out of Dickens' imagination, has given way to a more modern and substantial structure.

Fenchurch Street and Mincing Lane are not far away. In the latter was "Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles" Counting-House, and still further on Trinity House and Tower Hill to remind one of the locale of certain scenes in "Our Mutual Friend."

In the Minories, leading from Tower Hill, was until recently the "Little Wooden Midshipman" of "Dombey and Son," standing over the door at Messrs. Norie and Wilson's, the nautical publishers. From Tower Hill, whither would one go but through the Ratcliffe Highway, now St. George's Street, whereby is suggested the nocturnal wanderings of "The Uncommercial Traveller." Wapping, Shadwell, and Stepney, with its famous waterside church, are all redolent of the odours of the sea and reminiscence of Dickens' characters.

Somewhere between here and Limehouse Hole was Brig Place, not discoverable to-day, where lived the genial one-armed "Cuttle."

Limehouse, with its "Reach" and "foul and furtive boats," is closely connected with the personality of Dickens himself, having been the residence of his godfather, one Huffam, a rigger employed in a waterside shipyard. What wonder then that the fascination of riverside London fell early upon the writer of novels?

At the gate of Limehouse Church, Rokesmith lay in wait, on murder intent, and all Limehouse is odorous with memories of riverside crime and such nefarious deeds as were instigated by Hexham and Riderhood, an incident suggested, it is said by Dickens' biographer Forster, by the novelist having seen, in one of his walks in the neighbourhood, a placard on the hoardings announcing that a body of a person had been

FOUND DROWNED.

A neighbouring public house, "The Two Brewers," is supposed to be the original of that referred to by Dickens as "The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters," "a dropsical old house," as he called it, like so many old-world houses, all but falling down, if judged by appearances, but actually not in the least danger of it.

One topic crops up in the notes and queries columns of the literary papers every once and again, viz., the location of the "filthy graveyard" of "Bleak House." It has been variously placed in the churchyard of St. Dunstan's-in-the-West, St. Bartholomew-the-Less, and again in Drury Lane Court, now disappeared. Most likely it was the latter, if any of these neighbourhoods, though it is all hearsay now, though formerly one of the "stock sights" of the "Lady Guide Association," who undertook to gratify any reasonable whim of the inquisitive American.

A recent foregathering of members of the "Boz Club" at Rochester, which celebrated the thirty-first anniversary of the novelist's death on June 9, 1870, occurred in the homely "Bull Inn." This little band of devoted "Dickensians" contained among them Mr. Henry Dickens, K. C., the son of the novelist; Mr. Percy Fitzgerald, who had the honour of being intimately associated with Dickens on _Household Words_; Mr. Luke Fildes, R. A., among whose many famous paintings is that pathetic story-telling canvas, "The Empty Chair," being a reproduction of that portion of Dickens' study at Gad's Hill, wherein stood the writer's desk and chair.

On such a day as that on which the immortal Pickwick "bent over the balustrades of Rochester Bridge contemplating nature and waiting for breakfast," the club (in June, 1903) had journeyed to Rochester to do homage to the fame of their master. The mediæval, cramped High Street, "full of gables, with old beams and timbers carved into strange faces," seems to bask and grow sleepier than ever in the glaring sunlight. It is all practically just as Dickens saw it for the last time three days before his death, as he stood against the wooden palings near the Restoration House contemplating the old Manor House--just the same even to "the queer old clock that projects over the pavement out of a grave red-brick building, as if Time carried on business there, and hung out his sign." Those of the visitors so "dispoged" had lunch in the coffee-room of the "Bull," unchanged since the days of the original Pickwickians, but it is only in fancy and framed presentments that one now sees the "G. C. M. P. C." and his disciples, Messrs. Tupman, Snodgrass, Winkle, and Jingle. So closely, however, do we follow in the footsteps of Mr. Pickwick (wrote a member of the party) that we look through the selfsame coffee-room blinds at the passengers in the High Street, in which entertaining occupation we were disturbed, as was Mr. Pickwick, by the coming of the waiter (perhaps one should say a waiter, not _the_ waiter) to announce that the carriages are ready--"an announcement which the vehicles themselves confirm by forthwith appearing before the coffee-room blinds aforesaid."

"'Bless my soul!' said Mr. Pickwick, as they stood upon the pavement while the coats were being put in. 'Bless my soul! who's to drive? I never thought of that.'

"'Oh! you, of course,' said Mr. Tupman.

"'I!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

"'Not the slightest fear, sir,' interposed the hostler.

"'He don't shy, does he?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.

"'Shy, sir?--He wouldn't shy if he was to meet a vaggin-load of monkeys with their tails burnt off.'"

The ruined castle and the cathedral are visited, the castle looking more than ever "as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out." Before the cathedral, as Mr. Grewgious did before us, we stand for a contemplative five minutes at the great west door of the gray and venerable pile.

"'Dear me,' said Mr. Grewgious, peeping in, 'it's like looking down the throat of Old Time.'

"Old Time heaved a mouldy sigh from tomb and arch and vault; and gloomy shadows began to deepen in corners; and damps began to rise from green patches of stone; and jewels, cast upon the pavement of the nave from stained-glass by the declining sun, began to perish."

Or, to quote the more genial Jingle:

"Old Cathedral, too--earthly smell--pilgrims' feet worn away the old steps--little Saxon doors--confessionals like money takers' boxes at theatres--queer customers those monks--Popes, and Lord Treasurers, and all sorts of old fellows, with great red faces, and broken noses, turning up every day--buff jerkins, too--matchlocks--sarcophagus--fine place--old legends too--strange stories, too; capital."

DISAPPEARING LONDON

Place names are always of interesting origin, in fact, all proper names have a fascination for the historian and litterateur alike. Dickens himself was fond enough of the unusual, and doubtless he made good use of those bygones of a former age, which seemed best to suit his purpose. On the other hand, where would one find in reality such names as Quilp, Cheeryble, Twist, Swiveller, Heep, Tulkinghorn, or Snodgrass? Where indeed! except in the Boston (U. S. A.) Directory? Here will be found Snodgrass and Twist and even a Heep, though he spells it Heap. It would be still further interesting to know the derivation of the names of these individuals; but inasmuch as it would probably throw no additional light on Dickens' own personality, it is passed by without further comment. It is not that these names are any more unusual than many that really do exist, and possibly they all may have had a real entity outside of the author's brain; still it does represent a deal of thought that each and every character throughout all of Dickens' works should seem so singularly appropriate and in keeping with their names.

With place names Dickens took another line. Occasionally he played upon a word, though often he did not disguise it greatly; nor did he intend to. In many more instances, he presented no counterfeit whatever. For picturesqueness and appropriateness, in conjunction with the lives of the individuals of which his novels abound, one could hardly improve on many actual places of which he wrote.

London street names, in general, may be divided into two classes: those named for distinguished, or, for that matter, notorious persons, as Duke Street, Wellington Street, George Street, Berkeley, Grosvenor, or Bridgewater Squares; or secondly, those named for topographical or architectural features, both classes of which, in the earlier times or immediately following the "Great Fire," underwent no inconsiderable evolution.

In a later day this will perhaps not prove equally true; remodelling and rearranging of streets and squares not only changes the topography, but--aside from the main arteries--names as well are often changed or suppressed altogether. Since Dickens' time many spots, which must have been dearly known and beloved of him, have disappeared, and the process is going on apace, until, with the advent of another century, it will doubtless be difficult to recognize any of the localities of a hundred or more years before.

Some remarkable corruptions have been recorded from time to time, such as Candlewick Street into Cannon Street, Cannon Row to Channel Row, and Snore Hill to Snow Hill, all of which are easily enough followed. Strype's Court (after the historian's family) to Tripe Court, or Duck Lane into Duke Street, are not so easy.

Tavern signs, too, are supposed to have undergone similar perversions, not always with euphonious success, as witness the following: "The Bachnals" into "Bag of Nails," "The God Encompasseth Us" into "Goat and Compasses;" both of the former existed in Victorian days, as does the latter at the present time. Many of these old tavern signs are to be seen to-day in the museum at the Guild Hall.

The actual changes of street names are equally curious, when one attempts to follow the connection, which, for a fact, mostly cannot be done. Thus they stand in their modified form, either as an improvement or debasement. Hog Lane, St. Giles, is now Crown Street; Grub Street is now gloriously named Milton Street, and Shoreditch Lane becomes Worship Street.

The matter of street lighting is ever one which appeals to the visitor to a strange city. Curious customs there be, even to-day, in the city of London, which have come down from the age which knew not the gas-jet or the electric globe.

In Dickens' time, it is confident to say that the "linkman" was not the _rara avis_ that he is to-day, though evidences are still to be noted in residential Mayfair and Belgravia, and even elsewhere, of the appurtenances of his trade, referring to the torch-extinguishers which were attached outside the doorways of the more pretentious houses.

As an established trade, link-carrying has been extinct for nearly a century, but the many extinguishers still to be seen indicate that the custom died but slowly from the days when the sturdy Briton,--

_"Round as a globe and liquored every chink,_ _Goodly and great, sailed behind his link."_

--_Dryden._

The first street lighted with gas was Pall Mall, in 1807, and oil was solely used in many streets and squares as late as 1860.

The old London watchman--the progenitor of the modern policeman--used to cry out, "Light! Light! hang out your light." Later came enclosed glass lamps or globes, replacing the candles of a former day. These endured variously, as is noted, until very near the time when electric refulgence was beginning to make itself known. On the whole, until recently, London could not have been an exceedingly well-lighted metropolis, and even now there is many a dark court and alley, which would form in itself a fitting haunt for many a lower-class ruffian of the type Dickens was wont to depict.

The mortality among the old inns of Holborn has been very high of late, and still they vanish. "The Black Bull," known well to Dickens, is the last to come under sentence. Its sign, a veritable bull of Bashan, sculptured in black and gold, has been familiar to all who go down to the City in omnibuses. Until recently the old courtyard of the inn might still have been seen, though the galleried buildings which surrounded it were modern. Before Holborn Viaduct was built, the "Black Bull" stood just at the top of Holborn Hill, that difficult ascent which good citizens found too long, and bad ones too short. "Sirrah, you'll be hanged; I shall live to see you go up Holborn Hill," says Sir Sampson Legend to his thriftless son in Congreve's "Love for Love."