Rambles in Dickens' Land

by Robert Allbut

This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler.

RAMBLES IN
DICKENS’ LAND

BY ROBERT ALLBUT

WITH INTRODUCTION BY
GERALD BRENAN
AND ILLUSTRATIONS BY
HELEN M. JAMES

LONDON
S. T. FREEMANTLE
217 PICCADILLY
1899

NOTICE

The several Extracts from the Works of Dickens contained in this Manual, are used for the better illustration of the text, by kind permission of Messrs. Chapman & Hall.

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson and Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

CONTENTS

	PAGE
List of Illustrations	[vii]
Introduction	[ix]
Author’s preface	[xxv]
RAMBLE I
Charing Cross to Lincoln’s InnFields	[1]
RAMBLE II
Lincoln’s Inn to the MansionHouse	[15]
RAMBLE III
Charing Cross to Thavies Inn, HolbornCircus	[31]
RAMBLE IV
Holborn Circus to Tottenham CourtRoad	[43]
RAMBLE V
Bank of England to her Majesty’sTheatre	[67]
RAMBLE VI
Excursion to Chatham, Rochester andGadshill	[82]
RAMBLEVII
Excursion to Canterbury andDover	[103]
RAMBLE VIII
Excursion toHenley-on-Thames	[116]
RAMBLE IX
By Great Eastern Route from London toYarmouth	[128]
RAMBLE X
London to Dorking andPortsmouth	[141]
Appendix	[150]
Index	[167]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Henley-on-Thames	Frontispiece
	To face page
Old Roman Bath	[10]
The Old Curiosity Shop	[12]
Fountain Court, Temple	[21]
Doorway in Staple Inn	[48]
The Children’s Hospital	[53]
Tavistock House	[56]
The Drawing-room, Devonshire House	[61]
The “Leather Bottle,” Cobham	[84]
Eastgate House, Rochester	[89]
Restoration House, Rochester	[90]
Gadshill Place	[99]
The Home of Agnes	[112]
The “King’s Head,” Chigwell	[129]
The “Great White Horse,” Ipswich	[132]
Dickens’ Birthplace	[145]
“The Spaniards,” Hampstead Heath	[152]

INTRODUCTION

It is one of the magic legacies left by the great romancers, that the scenes and characters which they described should possess for most of us an air of reality, so convincing as sometimes to put staid history to the blush. The novelist’s ideals become actual to the popular mind; while commonplace truth hides itself among its dry-as-dust records, until some curious antiquary or insistent pedant drags it forth to make a nine days’ wonder. We sigh over “Juliet’s Tomb” in spite of the precisians, sup in the inn kitchen at Pennaflor with Gil Blas at our elbow, and shudder through the small hours outside the haunted House of the Black Cat in Quaker Philadelphia. At Tarascon they show you Tartarin’s oriental garden; and you must hide the irrepressible smile, for Tartarin is painfully real to these good cap-shooters. The other day an illustrated magazine published pictures of Alexander Selkirk’s birthplace, and labelled them “The Home of Robinson Crusoe.” The editor who chose that caption was still under the spell of Defoe. To him, as to the vast majority, Crusoe the imaginary seemed vividly real, while the flesh-and-blood Selkirk was but a name. And if you have that catholic sympathy which is the true test of the perfect lover of romance, read “David Copperfield” once again, and then, by way of experiment, spend an afternoon in Canterbury. You will find yourself expecting at one moment to see Mr. Micawber step jauntily out of the Queen’s Head Inn, at another to catch a glimpse of the red-haired Heep slinking along North Lane to his “’umble dwelling.” You will probably meet a dozen buxom “eldest Miss Larkinses,” and obnoxious butcher-boys—perhaps even a sweet Agnes Wickfield, or a Miss Betsy Trotwood driving in from Dover. And, above all, you will certainly enjoy yourself, and thank your gods for Charles Dickens.

Mr. Would-be Wiseman may affect to sneer at our pilgrimages to this and other places connected with the imaginary names of fiction; but he must recognise the far-reaching influence for good exercised by symbols and associations over the human mind. The sight of a loved home after many years—the flutter of one’s country’s flag in foreign lands—these things touch keenly our better nature. In a like manner is the thoughtful man impressed when he treads a pathway hallowed by the writings of some favourite poet or romancer. The moral lesson which the author intended to convey, his insight into character or loving eye for Nature’s beauties, and many exquisite passages from his books appeal to us all the more, when we recall them in the very rooms where they were written—among the gloomy streets or breezy hills which he has filled with his inventions. Says Washington Irving in his essay on Stratford: “I could not but reflect on the singular gift of the poet; to be able thus to spread the magic of his mind over the very face of Nature; to give to things and places a charm and character not their own, and to turn this ‘working-day’ world into a perfect fairyland. He is indeed the true enchanter, whose spell operates, not upon the senses, but upon the imagination and the heart. Under the wizard influence of Shakespeare I had been walking all day in a complete delusion. . . . I had been surrounded with fancied beings; with mere airy nothings conjured up by poetic power; yet which, to me, had all the charm of reality. I had heard Jaques soliloquise beneath his oak; had beheld the fair Rosalind and her companion adventuring through the woodlands; and, above all, had been once more present in spirit with fat Jack Falstaff and his contemporaries, from the august Justice Shallow down to the gentle Master Slender and the sweet Anne Page. Ten thousand honours and blessings on the bard who has thus gilded the dull realities of life with innocent illusions.” Wherefore, in spite of the sneers of Master Would-be Wiseman, let us continue to make these pleasant pilgrimages; not alone for our own satisfaction and betterment, but also in memory of those who have opened before us so many delectable lands of fancy, and given us so many agreeable companions of the road.

This volume, then, is the pilgrim’s guide to Dickens’ Land—the loving topography of that fertile and very populous region. No far away foreign country is Dickens’ Land. It lies at our doors; we may explore it when we choose, with never a passport to purchase nor a Custom House to fear. The sojourner in London can scarce look from his windows without beholding scores of its interesting places. To parody that passage which describes Mr. Pickwick’s outlook into Goswell Street—Dickens’ Land is at our feet; Dickens’ Land is on our right hand as far as the eye can reach; Dickens’ Land extends on our left, and the opposite side of Dickens’ Land is over the way. Nor do the bounds of this genial territory confine themselves to London alone. Outlying portions spread north and south, east and west, over England. There is even, as Sala showed, a Dickens’ quarter in Paris; and we have unexpectedly encountered small colonies of Dickens’ Land across the wide Atlantic. But the best of it lies close to the great heart of the world—in London, or in the counties thereabout; and if “Rambles in Dickens’ Land” succeeds in guiding its readers with pleasure and profit over this storied ground, it will have faithfully fulfilled its mission.

Trouble has not been spared to make this topography accurate as well as entertaining. Mr. Weller the younger, with all his “extensive and peculiar” knowledge of London—Mr. Weller the elder and his brothers of the whip, with their knowledge of post-roads and coaching inns, could hardly have identified the various localities more clearly than the compiler has done. Wherever doubts and disputes arise—as in regard to the site of the “Old Curiosity Shop”—all sides of the case are given, and the reader is asked to sum up the arguments and judge for himself. In nearly every instance a quotation is offered from the author, by means of which the pilgrim is enabled to refresh his memory and bring his own recollections of the book to bear upon the question of the site. These quotations will be found to act admirably as aids to memory, and to obviate the necessity of carrying a whole library of Dickens about on one’s rambles. Take, for example, the excerpts from “David Copperfield” in connection with the visit to Dover. The facetious answers of the boatmen to David when, sitting ragged and forlorn in the Dover Market Place, he inquires for his aunt’s house, bring back at a single touch the whole sad story of the boy’s tramp from London to the coast. It does not require much imagination to picture him sitting there “on the step of an empty shop,” with his weary, pinched face and his “dusty sunburnt, half-clothed figure,” while the sea-faring folk (lineal forbears of those who frequent the place to-day) made mock of him with their clumsy japes, until at length happened by the friendly fly-driver, who showed him how to reach the residence of the old lady who “carries a bag—bag with a good deal of room in it—is gruffish, and comes down upon you, sharp.” It is easy, too, with the help of our guide, to follow the shivering child along the cliffs to Miss Trotwood’s—nay, to identify the “very neat little cottage, with cheerful bow-windows,” where that good soul looked after Mr. Dick, and defended her “immaculate grass-plot” against marauding donkeys. It is this present writer’s privilege to know a charming elderly lady who boasts of Dover as her birthplace, and who, when she has exhausted the other lions of that town, is accustomed to close her remarks with the statement that she “lived for years within a stone’s-throw of Miss Betsy Trotwood’s cottage.” Occasionally the Superior Person (who, alas, is rarely absent nowadays!) points out with a smile of tolerance that neither Miss Trotwood nor yet her house ever existed save in the novelist’s brain. Whereupon this charming old lady shakes her finger testily at the transgressor, and exclaims, “It is quite evident that you have never lived in Dover. Miss Betsy Trotwood a myth, indeed! Let me tell you that my own mother knew the dear woman well—yes, and that delightful Mr. Dick too; and she remembered seeing Mr. Dickens drive up in a fly from the railway station to visit them. Of course their names were not ‘Trotwood’ and ‘Dick’ at all; it would never have done for Mr. Dickens to put them in his book under the real names, particularly as Mr. Dick was related to many good families in that part of Kent. I have even a dim recollection of seeing Miss Trotwood being wheeled about in a bath-chair when I was a very little girl and she a very old woman. Myth, indeed! Why, there are old men in Dover now who were warned off the grass-plot by David Copperfield’s aunt when they were donkey-boys.” The animation of the speaker shows that she believes everything she says. Perhaps a lady possessing the characteristics of Miss Betsy did once upon a time inhabit the cottage in Dover. Perhaps there was a real Mr. Dick. Otherwise these recollections are but another example of that hypnotism exercised over posterity by the great romancers, to which allusion has already been made.

Again, the many references and the quotations made from several of Dickens’ works, illustrative of the Temple and the Lincoln’s Inn quarter—(pages 2 to 25 in the ensuing “Rambles”)—are certain to be appreciated by the Rambler. With their assistance he can summon back to his memory the tender love story of Ruth Pinch, and so dream away a happy hour in peaceful Fountain Court; follow in fancy Maypole Hugh and the illustrious Captain Sim Tappertit as they ascended the stairs to Sir John Chester’s chambers in Paper Buildings; stroll thoughtfully along King’s Bench Walk with the spirit of Sidney Carton; and, in the purlieus of Chancery Lane, review the legal abuses of the past—(perhaps even some of those that survive to-day)—reflect upon “Jarndyce and Jarndyce,” or upon the banished sponging-houses of this district, and once more admit that Dickens the great novelist was also Dickens the great reformer.

An important feature of “Rambles in Dickens’ Land” will be found in the exhaustive references to Dickens’ own haunts and homes, and the haunts and homes of many of his relatives and friends. Naturally, these are in numerous cases intimately bound up with the creations of his novels, for Dickens did not “write out of an inkwell,” but looked for inspiration to real life and real scenes. At Portsmouth our volume guides you to the house where he was born, and to the old church register wherein the christening is entered of—(how strangely the full name sounds!)—“Charles John Huffham Dickens.” But the same venerable seaport is thronged with memories of Nicholas Nickleby and his player-friends, Miss Snevellicci, the Crummles family, poor Smike and the rest. It is interesting to remember that an American writer once suggested the possibility that Dickens had obtained Nickleby’s experiences as an actor from personal adventures with a travelling “troupe” during his youth. This is not impossible, although Forster makes no mention of such an adventure; the early years of Dickens are by no means fully accounted for, and it is certain that the stage had always a great fascination for him.

Back of old Hungerford Stairs, behind what is now Charing Cross Station, you may visit the spot where the two boys—the real and the imaginary—Charles Dickens and David Copperfield spent so many hours while working for a scant pittance in that “crazy old house with a wharf of its own abutting on the water when the tide was in, and on the mud when it was out, and literally overrun with rats.” Gadshill, where Dickens lived and died, is on the very borders of historic Rochester, teeming with reminders of “Edwin Drood,” not to say of the genial Pickwick and his companions. Of Furnival’s Inn where “Pickwick” was written, and where its author spent the first months of his married life, only the site remains; but these “Rambles” will help you to find all, or nearly all, of his other homes, even to that last home of all—the grave in Westminster Abbey, in which he was laid on the 14th of June 1870. His friends’ houses too, and the scores of spots noteworthy by reason of association with him personally, you will be given an opportunity of visiting if you follow this careful cicerone. At No. 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields still stands Forster’s house, where, in 1844, Dickens read “The Chimes” to Carlyle, Douglas Jerrold, Maclise, and others, and which is also utilised in “Bleak House” to supply a model for the dwelling-place of Mr. Tulkinghorn. The office of Household Words, founded by Dickens, is now part of the Gaiety Theatre. The old taverns about Hampstead, whither he loved to resort for a friendly flagon “and a red-hot chop,” are much as they were in the novelist’s day, save in one regrettable instance where the proprietor has preferred, in order to cater to an unappreciative class, to disfigure his inn into a mere modern public-house of the conventional type, such that Dickens, who loved the place when it was old-fashioned and comfortable, would utterly disown now. The ancient “Spaniards,” however, is much the same as it was in the days of the Gordon riots, when the then host of the quaint little tavern saved Lord Mansfield’s country house at Caen Wood by allowing the rioters to devastate his cellars, while he privily sent for the Guards. The reckless waste of liquor on that occasion is said to have suggested to Dickens the scene in “Barnaby Rudge,” where John Willet watches the sack of his beloved “Maypole” and sees his cellars drained of their best, as he lies bound and helpless in the bar. That the novelist frequently visited the “Spaniards,” the old records of the house can show; and in “Pickwick” he makes it the scene of a memorable tea-party, attended by Mrs. Bardell, just before those “sharp practitioners,” Dodson and Fogg, caused the injured lady’s arrest. The “Bull and Bush,” another old Hampstead inn much frequented of Dickens, also exists unharmed by the “renovator.” And while we are upon the subject of inns known to our author, let us not forget the “Maypole” itself, here shown to be the “King’s Head” at Chigwell. Dickens was in ecstasies over the “King’s Head” and the surrounding neighbourhood, when a chance visit disclosed to him their attractions; and the letters which he wrote to his friends at this period are full of Chigwell and its picturesque hostelry. Little wonder, therefore, that he afterwards made them famous in “Barnaby Rudge.” The pilgrim will not be disappointed in the “King’s Head” of to-day, if he accepts the good advice offered by the compiler of these “Rambles,” i.e. to take his ideal of the place from Dickens’ own description rather than from the elaborate drawing of Cattermole. He may perhaps notice that in “Barnaby Rudge” no hint is conveyed of the close proximity of Chigwell church, which is simply across the road. Doubtless this is a sign of the novelist’s artistic sense. To have his “Maypole” windows looking directly into the graveyard would have detracted from that air of warmth and conviviality with which he wished to endow his rare old inn. In most other respects the description exactly fits the “King’s Head” as it must have been in “No Popery” times—as it is with little alteration to-day. The trim green sward at the rear—once evidently the bowling-green—is a famous resting-place in summer; and in one of the small arbours Dickens is said to have written during his stay here. The village, although showing signs of the approach of that fell barbarian the Essex builder, is still sufficiently picturesque and old-world to keep one’s illusions alive. There is a grammar school at Chigwell, the boys of which are learned in neighbouring Dickens’ lore. If you are credulous—as it becomes a pilgrim to be—these grammarians will show you John Willet’s tomb in the churchyard, and Dolly Varden’s path with the real Warren, on the skirts of Hainault Forest, at the farther end of it. Both in Chigwell and Chigwell Row some village worthies are still to be met with who have conversed with Charles Dickens and the kindred spirits that came hither in his company. At the “King’s Head,” if Mr. Willet’s successor be agreeable, one may lunch or sup in the Dickens’ Room, also held to have been the chamber in which Mr. Haredale and the elder Chester held their memorable interview.

Some other inns to which Dickens is known to have resorted are: the “Bull” at Rochester, the “Leather Bottle” at Cobham, and the “Great White Horse” at Ipswich—all with Pickwickian associations; the “Old Cheshire Cheese” in Fleet Street, and the “George and Dragon” at Canterbury. To many minor taverns in London he was also a frequent visitor, for he sought his characters in the market-place rather than in the study. His signature, with the familiar flourish underneath, is treasured in hotel registers not a few, and it is esteemed a high honour to be permitted to slumber in the “Dickens’ Room.”

To all and each of these places “Rambles in Dickens’ Land” leads the way, if the reader chooses to follow. A notable advantage of these rambles is the ease with which they may be undertaken. An ordinary healthy man or woman may set forth without apprehension in the author’s footsteps from the beginning to the end of any particular journey which he describes, and even the invalid may saunter through a “Ramble” without fatigue. Conveyances are only needed to bring the pilgrim to the starting-point of the voyage, and in several instances even these aids to locomotion may be dispensed with altogether when the sightseer is one after Dickens’ own heart—a sturdy pedestrian. By pursuing the routes indicated, there is no reason why a Grand Tour of Dickens’ Land should not be made by easy stages and at slight cost. Or the pilgrim may pick out some particular trip, when leisure and chance carry him in that direction. The volume is in truth a serviceable guide-book, leading its clients by the best ways, and even informing them where, when sight-seeing is over, a place may be found for rest, refreshment, and reflection. And it is happier than most guide-books in that it is never called upon to describe the stupid and uninteresting, which have no existence in Dickens’ Land.

Into Dickens’ Land, therefore, my masters, an you will and when you will! The high-roads thither are always open, the lanes and by-paths are free for us to tread. He that found out this rare world has made it fully ours. Let us visit our inheritance, or revisit it, if that be the better word. Let us make real the scenes we have read of and dreamt of—peopling them with the folk of Dickens, so that familiar faces shall look upon us from familiar windows, familiar voices greet us as we pass. Shall we travel abroad in the fashion of the corresponding committee of the Pickwick Club? Then here is this book, with a wealth of shrewd information between its covers, ready to be our own particular Samuel Weller—to wear our livery, whether of sadness or of joy—to point out to us the sights and the notabilities, to be garrulous when we look for gossip, and silent when our mood is for silence—to act, in short, as that useful individual whom we all “rayther want,” “somebody to look arter us when we goes out a-wisitin’.”

Where, if you please, shall we “wisit” first? It is hard to choose, since there is so much to choose from. We may ramble about London town, where, like Mr. Weller, our guide is “werry much at home.” If so, we are sure to encounter a host of old cronies. Perhaps we shall see the great Buzfuz entering court, all in his wig and silk, nodding with lofty condescension to his struggling brother, Mr. T. Traddles, which latter is bringing “Sophy and the girls” to set Gray’s Inn a-blooming. Or Tom Pinch going towards Fountain Court to meet the waiting Ruth. Or David Copperfield joyously ushering J. Steerforth into his rooms in the Adelphi. Or Captain Cuttle steering for the sign of the “Wooden Midshipman,” which he may eventually find (and make a note of) at its new moorings in the Minories. Or Dick Swiveller, poor soul, loafing to his dingy lodgings. Or that precious pair, Bob Sawyer and Benjamin Allen, startling the sullen repose of Lant Street with bacchanalian revelry.

And, if the London Dickens’ Land palls, doth not this most inviting country stretch to all points of the compass? Northward goes yonder well-appointed coach, whereof the driver has just been escorted from a certain public-house in Portugal Street by a mottle-faced man, in company with two or three other persons of stout and weather-beaten aspect—the driver himself being stouter and more weather-beaten than all. Let us take the box-seat by his side, and lead him on to talk of “shepherds in wolves’ clothing,” until presently he tools us into Ipswich, pulling up under the sign of that “rapacious animal” the Great White Horse. In Ipswich we may catch a glimpse of a mulberry-coloured livery slinking by St. Clement’s Church, and guess therefrom that one Alfred Jingle is here at his old game of laying siege to the hearts of susceptible females with money. Here, too, behind that green gate in Angel Lane, resides the pretty housemaid soon to become Mrs. Sam Weller. But we must not linger in Ipswich. Yarmouth lies before us, with its phantom boat-house still upturned on the waste places towards the sea, with Little Em’ly, and the Peggottys, and with Mr. Barkis waiting in the Market Place to jog us out to sleepy “Blunderstone.”

Back again in London, there is another coach-of-fancy prepared to take us into Kent, from the yard of the Golden Cross. Four gentlemen—one a beaming, spectacled person in drab shorts—are outside passengers for Rochester. And see, here is the ubiquitous Jingle again, clambering to the roof with all his worldly goods wrapped up in a brown paper parcel. “Heads—heads—take care of your heads,” he cries, as we rumble under the old archway; and then, hey! for hopfields and cherry orchards, for “mouldy old cathedrals” in “Cloisterham” or Canterbury, for jolly Kentish yeomen and bright-eyed maids of Kent. . . . Who was that wan-faced, coatless urchin we passed just now in a whirl of chalky dust? His name is Copperfield, and he is on his way to Dover. And is not that Mr. Wardle driving his laughing women-folk to the review? And again, yonder on the brown common, by the Punch and Judy show, there is a grey old man, pillowing in his loving arms a little blue-eyed girl. These, too, we know; and our hearts go out to them, for who of us is there that has not—

“. . . with Nell, in Kentish meadows,
Wandered, and lost his way”?

Of introduction there is no more to be said. The book itself lies open before you; and at your own sweet will you may ramble with it, high and low, through all the land of Dickens.

G. B.

PREFACE

The great majority of English readers—on both sides of the Atlantic—claim personal acquaintance with “Samivel” Weller, Mark Tapley, Oliver Twist, and many more besides: the old companions of our schoolboy days. We cherish pleasant remembrance of the familiar “green leaves” of Dombey, David Copperfield, and the rest, as they first afforded us their monthly quota of interest and enjoyment; and have always maintained intimate relations with Captain Cuttle, Tom Pinch, Mr. Peggotty, and the more recent dramatis personæ of the works of Dickens. We sympathise with Florence, Agnes, and Esther as with sisters, and keep corners of our hearts sacred to the memory of Little Nell, Paul Dombey, and the child-wife Dora.

The creations of “bonnie Prince Charlie” have thus become veritable “household words”; part and parcel of our home associations, instinct with personality and life. We never think of them as the airy nothings of imaginative fiction, but regard them as familiar friends, having “a local habitation and a name” amongst us; with whose cheerful acquaintance we could ill afford to part, and who bear us kindly company on the hot and dusty highway of our daily lives.

Charles Dickens was essentially a Londoner, always having a fond regard for the highways and by-ways of this great Metropolis, and confessedly deriving his inspiration from the varied phases of Town life and Society. We accordingly find that the main incidents and characters of his novels have here their mise en scène.

In homage to the genius of his favourite Author, the writer of the following pages has endeavoured to localise many of the more familiar associations of the great Novelist with as much exactitude as may be possible; but it must be remembered that London has undergone considerable alteration and reconstruction, during the last fifty years.

Thus far reads the original Preface to this Work, as written thirteen years since; the first (and smaller) edition of which was published in 1886, under the title of Rambles in London with Charles Dickens. The author now begs to thankfully acknowledge its favourable reception, generously accorded by the Press in particular, and the reading-world in general.

The present arrangement of the book includes some important additions as well as considerable revision, the latter being rendered necessary by the disappearance of many houses and buildings in the course of intervening years, and the steady progress of Metropolitan improvements. Thus it comes to pass that only the memory of what has been remains, in regard to many of these Dickensian localities and landmarks; and it has been the object of the author (1899) to indicate the former whereabouts of these old places, as heretofore existent. Especially in the Strand and neighbourhood (Ramble I.), as well as in Chancery Lane and Holborn (Rambles II. and IV.), many alterations have taken place, and another London is springing up around a younger generation, not known to Dickens. Our Author says (in Martin Chuzzlewit), “Change begets change; nothing propagates so fast”: and the London of to-day, and the activities of our Metropolitan County Council, at the close of this nineteenth century, afford striking testimony to the truth of the aphorism, “The old order changeth, giving place to new.”

The Pall Mall Magazine, July 1896, contains a contribution by Mr. C. Dickens, junr.—“Notes on Some Dickens’ Places and People”—in which he deprecates the endeavours of those inquirers who have attempted any localisation of these places. “It is true,” says he, “that many of the places described in Charles Dickens’s books were suggested by real localities or buildings, but the more the question comes to be examined, the more clear it is that all that was done with the prototype, was to use it as a painter or a sculptor uses a sketch, and that, under the hand of the writer and in the natural process of evolution, it has grown, in almost every case, into a finished picture, with few, if any, very salient points about it to render its origin unmistakable.” He also quotes, with emphatic approval, from a review of Mr. P. Fitzgerald’s Bozland, then recently published: “Dickens, like Turner in the sister art of painting—like all real artists indeed—used nature, no doubt, but used it as being his slave and in no wise his master. He was not content simply to reproduce the places, persons, things that he had seen and known. He passed them through the crucible of his imagination, fused them, re-combined their elements, changed them into something richer and rarer, gave them forth as products of his art. Are we not doing him some disservice when we try to reverse the process?” “With these words I most cordially agree.—Charles Dickens the Younger.”

The author of this book would submit that the attempt to preserve the memory of these localities in association with their original use by “the Master,” does not “reverse the process”; but, rightly considered, may help the reader to a better comprehension of the genius and method of Dickens. The dictum of the Rev. W. J. Dawson, given a few years since in The Young Woman (referring to a previous edition of this Work), is worth consideration: “The book casts a new light upon Dickens’s methods of work, and shows us how little he left to invention, and how much he owed to exact observation.” And in this connection there may be quoted the opinion of Sir Walter Besant, who published an appreciative article in The Queen, 9th May 1896, anent these selfsame “Rambles,” which thus concludes: “With this information in your hand, you can go down the Strand and view its streets from north to south with increased intelligence and interest. I am not certain whether peopling a street with creations of the imagination is not more useful—it is certainly more interesting—than with the real figures of the stony-hearted past.”

The writer, therefore, still believes that such a Dickensian Directory as is now prepared will be found a valuable practical guide for those who may desire to visit the haunts and homes of these old friends, whose memory we cannot “willingly let die;” and to recall the many interests connected with them by the way.

Though not professing to be infallible, he begs to assure those whom it may concern that his information—gleaned from many sources—has been collected con amore with carefulness and caution; and he ventures to hope that his book may be of service to many Metropolitan visitors, as indicating (previous to the coming time when the New Zealander shall meditate over the ruins of London) some few pleasant “Rambles in Dickens’ Land.”

R. A.

London, September 20, 1899.

RAMBLE I
Charing Cross to Lincoln’s Inn Fields

The Golden Cross; Associations with Pickwick and Copperfield—Craven Street; Residence of Mr. Brownlow—Charing Cross Terminus—Hungerford Stairs and Market; Lamert’s Blacking Manufactory; Micawber’s Lodgings; Mr. Dick’s Bedroom—No. 3 Chandos Street; Blacking Warehouse—Bedfordbury; “Tom All-Alone’s”—Buckingham Street; Copperfield’s Chambers—The Adelphi Arches—The Adelphi Hotel; Snodgrass and Emily Wardle—“The Fox-under-the-Hill”; Martin Chuzzlewit and Mark Tapley—The Residence of Miss La Creevy—Offices of Household Words and All the Year Round—Covent Garden Market; Hummums and Tavistock Hotels, associated with “Great Expectations,” etc.—Bow Street—Old Bow Street Police Court; “The Artful Dodger”—Covent Garden Theatre—Broad Court; Mr. Snevellicci—St. Martin’s Hall; Dickens’s First London Readings—Russell Court; Nemo’s Burial Place—Clare Court; Copperfield’s Dining-Rooms—Old Roman Bath; Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings—St. Clement Danes—Portsmouth Street; “The Old Curiosity Shop”—The Old George the Fourth; “The Magpie and Stump”—Portugal Street; “The Horse and Groom”; Mr. Tony Weller and his Legal Adviser—Lincoln’s Inn Fields; Mr. John Forster’s House; Residence of Mr. Tulkinghorn.

Starting from Charing Cross Post Office as a convenient centre, and taking an eastward course up the Strand, we immediately reach, on the left-hand (north) side—a few doors from the Post Office—The Golden Cross Hotel. Sixty years since this establishment was one of the principal Coaching Houses of the Metropolis. It was the starting-point of the Rochester Coach, by which, on May 13, 1827, Mr. Pickwick and his friends commenced their travels. Driving by cab from the vicinity of that gentleman’s residence in Goswell Street, here it was that the pugnacious cabman, having mistaken the purpose of Mr. P.’s note-book, committed assault and battery upon the four Pickwickians, “sparring away like clockwork,” from which unexpected attack they were rescued by the redoubtable Mr. Alfred Jingle. In those days there was an arched entrance leading from the Strand beneath the front of the hotel to the coach-yard behind. Hence Mr. Jingle’s warning to his new acquaintances—“Heads, heads; take care of your heads!” which recommendation was followed by the first recorded anecdote as given by that loquacious pretender—

“Terrible place—dangerous work—other day—five children—mother—tall lady, eating sandwiches—forgot the arch—crash—knock—children look round—mother’s head off—sandwich in her hand—no mouth to put it in—head of a family off—shocking—shocking.”

This coach-yard and its entrance existed until the days of Copperfield, who came to The Golden Cross in the nineteenth chapter of his history, having just finished his education at Dr. Strong’s. He arrived “outside the Canterbury Coach,” and here met Steerforth, his former schoolboy patron, who speedily arranged for his transference from No. 44, “a little loft over a stable,” to No. 72, a comfortable bedroom next his own. Here, says David, “I fell asleep in blissful condition . . . until the early morning coaches rumbling out of the archway underneath made me dream of thunder and the gods.” This entrance was abolished in 1851, giving place to a more convenient exterior arrangement and doorway; again remodelled, 1897.

The Golden Cross is again referred to in the Copperfield experience (chapter 40) as the place where David conferred with Mr. Peggotty, one snowy night, after their unexpected meeting opposite St. Martin’s Church (close at hand on the north, at the corner of St. Martin’s Lane), when Martha listened at the door.

“In those days there was a side entrance” (Duncannon Street, now appropriated by the London and North-Western Railway Company) “nearly opposite to where we stood. I pointed out the gateway, put my arm through his, and we went across. Two or three public rooms opened out of the stable-yard; and looking into one of them, and finding it empty, and a good fire burning, I took him in there.”

Opposite the principal entrance of The Golden Cross is Craven Street, leading to the Thames Embankment. It now mainly consists of private hotels and boarding-houses, at which visitors to London may be conveniently accommodated on reasonable terms. In the days of Oliver Twist these were, for the most part, private houses; and here was Mr. Brownlow’s Residence—taken after his removal from Pentonville—in which was the back parlour where full confession was extorted from Monks, alias Edward Leeford. The house, No. 39 (now Barnett’s Private Hotel), centrally situated on the east side, is stated to have been assigned as the residence aforesaid.

On the south side of the Strand we immediately reach the Charing Cross Terminus of the South-Eastern Railway, built on the site of old Hungerford Market. At No. 30 Hungerford Stairs, at the back of this locality, Charles Dickens, when a lad, did duty at the Blacking Manufactory of a relative, by name James Lamert, at a salary of six or seven shillings a week, as his first employment in life. It was the last house on the left-hand side of the way, a crazy, tumble-down old place abutting on the river. Here his work was to cover and label the pots of paste-blacking. To this episode of his youthful experience he refers in the history of “David Copperfield,” chapter 11, David becoming “a labouring hind” in the service of Messrs. Murdstone and Grinby. In old Hungerford Market, too, was The Chandler’s Shop over which Mr. Peggotty slept on the night of his first arrival in London; the bedroom being afterwards appropriated by Mr. Dick.

“There was a low wooden colonnade before the door, which pleased Mr. Dick mightily. The glory of lodging over this structure would have compensated him for many inconveniences. . . . He was perfectly charmed with his accommodation. Mrs. Crupp had indignantly assured him that there wasn’t room to swing a cat there; but, as Mr. Dick justly observed, ‘You know, Trotwood, I don’t want to swing a cat. I never do swing a cat. Therefore, what does that signify to me!’”—See “Copperfield,” chapters 32 and 35.

Hungerford is also mentioned in the same book (chapter 57) as the place where, previous to their departure for Australia, the Micawber Family had lodgings “in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and whose protruding wooden rooms overhung the river.”

By a parallel street near at hand (next turning on the left of the Strand—Agar Street) we come into Chandos Street, where are situated the large stores of the Civil Service Supply Association, which, during recent years, have been enlarged, extending westward in Chandos Street. This extension occupies the former site of No. 3, whilom a chemist’s shop, kept by a Mr. Wellspring. Here, in the days that are gone, was established a second warehouse of Lamert’s blacking trade, the business being removed in course of time to this address; and here Dickens, with other lads, was often busily employed near the window. They acquired such dexterity in finishing off the pots, that many persons would stand outside, looking on with interest at the performance.

On the opposite side of Chandos Street is Bedfordbury—a northward thoroughfare leading to New Street, Covent Garden—on the right of which stands a range of five large five-storied blocks known as Peabody’s Buildings. These afford respectable accommodation for artizans. This was the locality of Tom All-Alone’s, that wretched rookery of evil repute in the days of Poor Joe, as described in chapter 16 of “Bleak House.” But, in these degenerate times, the black, dilapidated streets and tumbling tenements have given place to wholesome dwellings, and the neighbourhood is associated with the name of a great American philanthropist.

Returning to the south side of the Strand, we next come to Buckingham Street (turning on right, by No. 37), at the end house of which, on the right, facing the river, was the top set of chambers in the Adelphi, consisting of

“A little half-blind entry, where you could hardly see anything, a little stone-blind pantry, where you could see nothing at all, a sitting-room and a bedroom.”

Here David Copperfield for some time resided under the housekeeping supervision of Mrs. Crupp, and the residence was afterwards shared by Miss Betsy Trotwood. At the next turning in the Strand—by No. 64, same side of the way—we arrive at Durham Street, which leads to the no thoroughfare of The Adelphi Arches, about and through which the lad Charles Dickens loved in his leisure time to roam. David Copperfield says—

“I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from one of these arches, on a little public-house, close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing.”

Of this place more anon.

Continuing our onward journey, we come to Adam Street (right-hand turning by No. 72), looking down which may be seen, at the corner of John Street, The Adelphi Hotel. This hotel was known in the days of Pickwick as Osborn’s Hotel, Adelphi. To this establishment, it will be remembered, came Mr. Wardle, visiting London with his daughter Emily, after Mr. Pickwick’s release from the Fleet Prison, also accompanied by his trusty retainer, the fat boy, Joe. The last plate but one in the book illustrates the plan adopted by Mary when inducing that intelligent youth to observe a discreet silence as to the visit of Mr. Snodgrass to his young mistress at this hotel; and we may recollect the contretemps which afterwards took place here at dinner-time, involving the detention of the clandestine lover, and resulting in a very satisfactory dénouement.—See “Pickwick,” chapter 54.

Passing the next block onwards, we arrive at the handsome frontage of the Hotel Cecil. In former days, at western corner of same, close to No. 75, there existed a narrow and precipitous passage which was formerly the approach to the halfpenny boats. It led to a little public-house, “The Fox-under-the-Hill,” for a long time shut up and in ruinous condition—once situated on the water-side, the site of which is now covered by the west wing of the Hotel Cecil.

This place is spoken of in Mr. Forster’s Biography as being one of our author’s favourite localities, and referred to in “Copperfield,” as before mentioned, in connection with the Adelphi Arches. This, then, was doubtless the tavern at which Martin Chuzzlewit, junr., was accommodated, on his arrival in London, “in the humbler regions of the Adelphi;” and where he was unexpectedly visited by Mark Tapley, who then and there became his “nat’ral born servant, hired by fate,” and his very faithful friend.—See “Martin Chuzzlewit,” chapter 13.

Farther onwards, on the same side, towards the centre of the Strand, there stood near Savoy Street the house which in all probability was the Residence of Miss La Creevy. It will be recollected that Ralph Nickleby, visiting his relations at this address in the Strand, is described as stopping

“At a private door, about halfway down that crowded thoroughfare.”

No. 111 was an old-fashioned house in just such a position, with a private door—a somewhat unusual convenience in the Strand. A photographer’s case had, for many years, displaced the “large gilt frame screwed upon the street door,” in which Miss La Creevy aforetime displayed her painted miniatures. The place has been pulled down, together with the adjoining house. Handsome modern business premises are erected on the double site.—See “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter 2.

We now cross to the north side of the Strand, and take the next turning on the left, Wellington Street North. Passing the Lyceum Theatre, we may note, on the opposite side, the offices of the Gaiety Theatre, No. 16. For many years this was the Office of “Household Words”; this well-known miscellany being started under the conductorship of Charles Dickens, March 30, 1850.

It was afterwards removed to No. 26, higher up, on the same side of the way, at which address the later issue of All the Year Round was published, as conducted by Charles Dickens, the son.

Proceeding a short distance onwards, and turning to the left, we come into the precincts of Covent Garden Market. At the south corner of Russell Street we may note the position of the old Hummums Hotel, mentioned in “Great Expectations” as the place where Pip slept, in accordance with the warning received from Mr. Wemmick—“Don’t go home.”

The present establishment was erected on the site of the former hotel (as it stood in the days of Mr. Pip’s sojourn), 1892; on completion of the new Flower Market, The Tavistock Hotel, Piazzas, on the north side of the market, was the house at which were held the fortnightly meetings of “The Finches of the Grove,” Herbert Pocket and Mr. Pip being members of the Club known by this appellation in the book above mentioned. The end and aim of this institution seemed to be “that the members should dine expensively once a fortnight, to quarrel among themselves as much as possible after dinner, and to cause six waiters to get drunk on the stairs.”

A general description of Covent Garden will be found in “Little Dorrit” (chapter 14), and a graphic reference to “the seamy side” of this locality is contained in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend” (chapter 9, Book 4).

Returning by Russell Street, we soon reach Bow Street, and on the left may observe an open space contiguous to the Foreign Fruit Market. On this space there stood No. 4, in recent times occupied by Mr. Stinchcombe, costumier. Some years since this was the situation of Bow Street Police Court, now removed to the handsome new building facing Covent Garden Theatre. This, therefore, was the place at which the Artful Dodger, when committed for trial by the presiding magistrate, thus reserved his defence:—

“This ain’t the shop for justice; besides which my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with the Vice-President of the House of Commons; but I shall have something to say elsevere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and respectable circle of acquaintances, as’ll make them beaks wish they’d never been born.”—See “Oliver Twist,” chapter 43.

At a short distance onwards, we may note Covent Garden Theatre, selected by David Copperfield as his first place of entertainment in London, after dinner at the Golden Cross Hotel—

“Being then in a pleasant frame of mind . . . I resolved to go to the play. It was Covent Garden Theatre that I chose; and there, from the back of a centre box, I saw “Julius Cæsar” and the new pantomime. To have all those noble Romans alive before me, and walking in and out for my entertainment, instead of being the stern taskmasters they had been at school, was a most novel and delightful effect.”

This theatre, as attended by David, was destroyed by fire March 4, 1856, six years after his autobiography was published, and afterwards rebuilt.

Exactly opposite the façade of the theatre is Broad Court, past the new magisterial building above referred to. This was the location given by Mr. Snevellicci (at Portsmouth), on a convivial occasion, described in “Nicholas Nickleby” (chapter 30), as his London address:—

“I am not ashamed of myself; Snevellicci is my name. I’m to be found in Broad Court, Bow Street, when I’m in town. If I’m not at home, let any man ask for me at the stage-door.”

There is also historical reference to Bow Street in “Barnaby Rudge,” as the place where “another boy was hanged,” after the suppression of the Gordon riots.

Exactly facing the north end of Bow Street, which gives into Long Acre, is a large building, now a stationer’s warehouse, recently used as the Clergy Co-operative Stores. Thirty-five years since this site was occupied by St. Martin’s Hall, in which Dickens gave his first series of paid readings in London (sixteen nights), under the management of Mr. Arthur Smith, 1858. The hall was a short time afterwards burnt down, and the Queen’s Theatre was here erected in its stead by Mr. Wigan; which theatre was since converted to the commercial uses of the Clergy as aforesaid.

Proceeding up Long Acre to Drury Lane, we turn to the right, and in five minutes pass the back of Drury Lane Theatre. The second turning on the same side is Russell Court, a narrow passage leading to Catherine Street. The entire area between the two streets, for some distance, is cleared for building improvements, so that the indications immediately following refer to the past, and not practically to the present. These things have been, but are not.

In this court, about halfway on the right, was to be found (until 1897) the entrance to what was once the pauper Burial Ground where Captain Hawdon—known as Nemo in the pages of “Bleak House”—was interred, and where Lady Dedlock was afterwards found dead at the gateway, she having fled from her husband, Sir Leicester, in despair, dreading the exposé threatened by Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is also associated with Poor Jo, the crossing-sweeper.—See “Bleak House,” chapters 11 and 59.

“With houses looking on, on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate—with every villainy of life in action close on death, and every poisonous element of death in action close on life—here, they lower our dear brother down a foot or two: here, sow him in corruption, to be raised in incorruption: an avenging ghost at many a sick bedside: a shameful testimony to future ages, how civilisation and barbarism walked this boastful island together.”

This intermural graveyard was attached to the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, and has been closed for many years. The enclosure was converted into a recreation ground, and formally opened as such by Lady George Hamilton, May 19, 1886, on behalf of the Metropolitan Public Garden Association. But the entire locality is changed, the “avenging ghost” has ceased to walk, and the “shameful testimony” has ended.

At a short distance in Drury Lane, towards the Strand, we turn (left) by No. 106, into Clare Court, referred to in Forster’s Biography as follows—(C.D. loq.):—

“Once, I remember tucking my own bread (which I had brought from home in the morning) under my arm, wrapped up in a piece of paper like a book, and going into the best dining-room in Johnson’s a la mode beef-house in Clare Court, Drury Lane, and magnificently ordering a small plate of a la mode beef to eat with it. What the waiter thought of such a strange little apparition, coming in all alone, I don’t know, but I can see him now, staring at me as I ate my dinner, and bringing up the other waiter to look. I gave him a halfpenny, and I wish now that he hadn’t taken it.”

This episode of the author’s experience as a poor boy in London was reproduced in “David Copperfield,” chapter 11. The dining-house mentioned then existed (1824) at No. 13 in the court, in a prominent corner position. It has been unknown to fame for the last thirty years.

Returning by Drury Court to the Strand, and passing on the south side of the church above mentioned, we turn by No. 162a into Strand Lane, where may be visited, at No. 5, The Old Roman Bath referred to by David Copperfield, who says, “In which I have had many a cold plunge.” (See chapter 35.) The bath itself is lined with white marble, and dates from the sixteenth century. It is supplied from an old Roman reservoir adjoining, about 2000 years old.

Passing Surrey Street, just beyond, we come (next on the right) to Norfolk Street, in which there may be noted the former whereabouts of Mrs. Lirriper’s Lodgings; and we may here recall the pleasant associations connected with the Christmas numbers of All the Year Round, 1863 and 1864. The houses in this street are not enumerated beyond forty-five, all told. The figures 81, as given in the tale referred to, should be reversed; but sad to relate, No. 18—long standing as an old-fashioned boarding-house on the western side, below Howard Street—has disappeared, and certain modern buildings, offices, etc., recently erected, now occupy the old site. At a short distance farther on, in a central position in the Strand, stands the church of St. Clement Danes. It is of interest in this connection as the scene of Mrs. Lirriper’s wedding, some forty years previous to the narration of her business experience; and where she still retained “a sitting in a very pleasant pew, with genteel company, and her own hassock, being partial to evening service, not too crowded.”

Retracing our steps, three minutes, to the Church of St. Mary-le-Strand, again leaving the Strand by Newcastle and Houghton Streets, and turning left and right (leaving Clare Market on the left), we shortly arrive at Portsmouth Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields. At No. 14 will be found (for a short time only) a small old-fashioned house, on the front of which is painted an inscription, “The Old Curiosity Shop, Immortalised by Charles Dickens,” now occupied by Mr. H. Poole, dealer in wastepaper. This is said to be the house assigned by the novelist for the residence of Little Nell and her grandfather, with whose pathetic history we are all familiar—

“One of those receptacles for old and curious things, which seem to crouch in odd corners of this town, and to hide their musty treasures from the public eye in jealousy and distrust.”

It cannot, however, be regarded as absolutely certain that this particular house was the author’s intended “local habitation” for one of the best-known and loved of his creations. The tale itself concludes with a reference to Kit’s uncertainty as to the whereabouts of the place:—

“The old house had long ago been pulled down, and a fine broad road was in its place. At first he would draw with his stick a square upon the ground to show them where it used to stand. But he soon became uncertain of the spot, and could only say it was thereabouts, he thought, and that these alterations were confusing.”

[A lady, personally acquainted with the great novelist, has informed the author that she was once taken by Mr. Dickens to No. 10 Green Street (approaching Leicester Square from the east)—at the corner of Green and Castle Streets, behind the National Gallery—the business of curiosity-dealing being then and there carried on. Mr. Dickens himself localised this house as the home of little Nell, pointing out an inner room—divided from the shop by a glass partition—as her bedroom. The premises are now rebuilt.]

At a short distance from this locality, and at an opposite angle of the street, there existed (until 1898) one of the old-fashioned taverns of the metropolis. The house was noteworthy, with its overhanging front resting on rough wooden pillars, and was named Old George IVth.

It is now replaced by a newly-built house of the same name, in modern style of plate glass, mahogany, and glitter.

It is highly probable that the old tavern represented the location and character of “The Magpie and Stump,” the rendezvous of Mr. Lowten (Perker’s clerk) and other choice spirits in the days of Pickwick. It is described in the Pickwickian history as being near Clare Market, at the back of New Inn, and to this position the “Old George IVth” will correspond. Joe Miller, of jocular celebrity, was, aforetime, a frequenter of this establishment, when his quips “were wont to set the table in a roar.” His seat was still shown in the bar of the old house. Dickens and Thackeray were also well remembered as visitors to this ancient hostelry. There is now a “Magpie and Stump” in Fetter Lane, at some distance hence; but it is evident that Dickens transferred the name to a tavern in this neighbourhood. It will be remembered that here Mr. Pickwick enjoyed an hour’s entertainment, listening to the legends of “those curious old nooks,” the Inns of London, as related by Jack Bamber—see “Pickwick,” chapter 21—also containing a description of the advertisements of the tavern, as then displayed therein.

“In the lower windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cyder and Dantzic spruce, while a large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public, that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth, in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend.”

Dick Swiveller would doubtless occasionally patronise this establishment. He lodged hereabouts “in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane;” but it is difficult to indicate any particular house which Dickens may have selected for his accommodation.

Stretching eastward from this point is Portugal Street, famed in the same book as containing the Old Public House patronised by Mr. Tony Weller and his confrères of the coach-driving persuasion. This house—opposite the Insolvent Debtors’ Court—existed until a few years since, by name, “The Horse and Groom.” It and many more besides, have now given place to a range of new offices and buildings in Elizabethan style, on the south side of the street (forming the north boundary of New Court), and the Insolvent Court has been recently appropriated to the uses of the Bankruptcy Court. It will be remembered that it was here Mr. Samuel Weller got into difficulties, and was hence consigned to the Fleet Prison at the instance of his father; the professional services of the suave Mr. Solomon Pell being retained on that occasion. Here also a select committee of friends assembled to assist at an oyster lunch and the proving of Mrs. Weller’s will, when Mr. Pell again conducted the business to the satisfaction of all concerned.—See “Pickwick,” chapters 43 and 55.

Returning through Portsmouth Street, we come into Lincoln’s Inn Fields; and, keeping on its western side—passing Sardinia Street, with its old archway, on the left—we may note Mr. John Forster’s House, No. 58. At this house resided the friend and biographer of Dickens, and here our author was, of course, a frequent visitor. On December the 2nd, 1844, Charles Dickens here first read his new Christmas book, “The Chimes,” to a select and critical audience, including Messrs. Forster, Maclise, Douglas Jerrold, Carlyle, Laman Blanchard, Fox, Stanfield, Harness, and Dyce. The house is itself described in the pages of “Bleak House” (chapter 10) as the

Residence of Mr. Tulkinghorn.

“In a large house, formerly a house of state, lives Mr. Tulkinghorn. It is let off in sets of chambers now; and in those shrunken fragments of its greatness, lawyers lie, like maggots in nuts. But its roomy staircases, passages, and antechambers still remain; and even its painted ceiling, where Allegory in Roman helmet and celestial linen sprawls among balustrades and pillars, flowers, clouds, and big-legged boys, and makes the head ache, as would seem to be Allegory’s object always, more or less.”

As in the time spoken of, the house is still in legal possession, being let out as solicitors’ offices; but the old Allegory has disappeared beneath modern whitewash. Within two minutes’ distance northward, the weary rambler may reach the central thoroughfare of Holborn, where (turning to the left), close at hand, will be found the Holborn Restaurant, at which Sam Weller’s advice on the subject of a “little dinner” (or luncheon) may be worth practical consideration:—

“Pair of fowls and a weal cutlet; French beans, ’taturs, tart, and tidiness.”

Certain it is that everything at this establishment will be found “werry clean and comfortable,” on reasonable terms.

RAMBLE II
Lincoln’s Inn to the Mansion House

Lincoln’s Inn Hall; “Jarndyce and Jarndyce”—Old Square; Offices of Kenge and Carboy; Chambers of Sergeant Snubbin—Bishop’s Court; Miss Flite’s Lodging at Krook’s Rag and Bottle Warehouse; Nemo; Tony Weevle—The Old Ship Tavern; “The Sol’s Arms”—Coavinses’ Castle—Mr. Snagsby’s Residence, Took’s Court, Cursitor Street—Bell Yard; Lodgings of Neckett and Gridley—Tellson’s Bank, Fleet Street—The Temple; Fountain Court (Ruth Pinch and John Westlock); Garden Court (Pip’s Chambers); Pump Court (Chambers of the elder Martin Chuzzlewit); Paper Buildings (Sir John Chester and Mr. Stryver, K.C.)—Offices of Messrs. Lightwood and Wrayburn—Bradley Headstone’s Look-out—Clifford’s Inn; John Rokesmith and Mr. Boffin—St. Dunstan’s Pump and Maypole Hugh—St. Dunstan’s Church; “The Chimes”—Bradbury and Evans, Bouverie Street—Office of the Daily News—Hanging Sword Alley; Mr. Cruncher’s Rooms,–“Ye old Cheshire Cheese”—Farringdon, formerly Fleet, Market—Fleet Prison; Mr. Pickwick and Sam Weller’s Imprisonment—Belle Sauvage Yard—London Coffee House; Arthur Clennam’s arrival—St. Paul’s Churchyard—Dean’s Court—Doctors’ Commons; Messrs. Spenlow and Jorkins—“Bell Tavern”—Wood Street; Coach Office at which Pip first arrived—The London Stereoscopic Company; “Grip,” the Raven—Bow Church—The Guildhall; Bardell v. Pickwick—Grocers’ Hall Court—The Mansion House; References in “Barnaby Rudge,” “Christmas Carol,” and “Martin Chuzzlewit”—“Dombey and Son.”

The Rambler now crosses Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and, on its eastern side, enters the precincts of Lincoln’s Inn, through an arched gateway, from Serle Street. Passing the imposing building of the Dining-Hall and Library on the left, with New Square on the right, we shortly arrive at old Lincoln’s Inn Hall, the Lord High Chancellor’s Court, with its central turret and lantern, bearing the initials of the reigning Treasurer, 1818, where Chancery suits were tried thirty years since. Here that cause célèbre, Jarndyce and Jarndyce, dragged “its slow length along” through the weary years, involving

“Bills, cross-bills, answers, rejoinders, injunctions, affidavits, issues, references to masters, masters’ reports—mountains of costly nonsense.”

Here, on a seat at the side of the hall, stood little Miss Flite, in her squeezed bonnet, carrying “her documents,” and

“Always expecting some incomprehensible judgment in her favour.”—See “Bleak House,” chapter 1.

The business of Chancery procedure is now transferred to the New Law Courts. Hard by, on the north, passing through the cloisters of the Chapel of Lincoln’s Inn, we come into the enclosure of Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn, where the Offices of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy were situated. Esther Summerson says:—

“We passed into sudden quietude, under an old gateway, and drove on through a silent square, until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep broad flight of stairs, like an entrance to a church.”

The houses in this square have been all rebuilt; but Kenge and Co.’s offices used to flourish in the north-west corner, where still the rising of the ground necessitates an exterior flight of steps. The chambers of Sergeant Snubbin, counsel for the defence in “Bardell v. Pickwick,” were also located in this square, probably on the opposite side.

Returning to Lincoln’s Inn, we may follow Esther Summerson’s directions, and visit the apartments of Miss Flite—

“Slipping us out of a little side gate, the old lady stopped most unexpectedly in a narrow back street, part of some courts and lanes immediately outside the wall of the inn, and said, ‘This is my lodging. Pray walk up!’”

Thus, passing at the back of the Inn, and taking the next turning on the left, we arrive at Bishop’s Court, near at hand, a narrow, dark, and old passage leading to Chancery Lane. On the left hand, nearest the Inn, was Krook’s Rag and Bottle Warehouse, probably No. 3. But during recent years, all the old houses of the court have been substituted by modern buildings, offices, and shops; so that the location only remains of the “Lord Chancellor,” and his place of business, yclept by the neighbours the “Court of Chancery.” The old shop, at one time, possessed the private door and stairway leading to Miss Flite’s lodging.

“She lived at the top of the house, in a pretty large room, from which she had a glimpse of the roof of Lincoln’s Inn Hall.”

Here, too, Captain Hawdon, otherwise Nemo, the law-writer, lived and died in a bare room on the second floor. A notice may have been observed in the old shop window, “Engrossing and Copying.” It will be remembered that this room was afterwards occupied by Mr. Tony Weevle, during whose tenancy it was decorated with a choice collection of magnificent portraits, being—

“Copper-plate impressions from that truly national work, the Divinities of Albion, or Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty; representing ladies of title and fashion, in every variety of smirk, that art, combined with capital, is capable of producing.”

Returning to the top of the court, and passing a short distance along Star Yard, we reach, at the corner of Chichester Rents, a modern warehouse (No. 7), recently erected on the site of “The Old Ship Tavern,” now non est, named in the pages of “Bleak House” The Sol’s Arms, it being the house at which the Inquest was held, following the death of Nemo, as described in chapter 11; on which occasion the proffered evidence of Poor Jo was virtuously rejected by the presiding coroner.

“Can’t exactly say; won’t do, you know. We can’t take that in a Court of Justice, gentlemen. It’s terrible depravity. Put the boy aside.”

The old tavern has given place to the exigencies of modern commerce (1897). The ghost of Little Swills may still linger in the neighbourhood, but the musical evenings of the past are silent, being now superseded by the prosaics of ordinary business.

The real Sol’s Arms still exists, No. 65 Hampstead Road, N.W., at the corner of Charles Street, once known as Sol’s Row. Its name was derived from the “Sol’s Society,” whose meetings, held therein, were of a Masonic character. It has been suggested that Dickens transferred the style and name of this house to the neighbourhood of Chancery Lane, as above.

Coming now into Chancery Lane, we may observe, nearly opposite the old gateway of Lincoln’s Inn, Cursitor Street, a thoroughfare leading eastward from the Lane. It will be noticed that the houses in this street are comparatively of recent erection, and we may now look in vain for Coavinses’ Castle, which has been swept away by the besom of modern destruction and improvement. This old sponging-house flourished (in the days of Harold Skimpole) on the left of the street, on the site now occupied by Lincoln’s Inn Chambers, No. 1.

At a short distance in Cursitor Street (No. 9) we come to a turning on the left to Took’s Court, referred to in “Bleak House” as Cook’s Court, in which was Mr. Snagsby’s Residence and Law Stationer’s Shop. The court is not a long one, and consists mainly of offices connected with the legal profession. The location of Mr. Snagsby’s shop was at the central corner on the left, the site being now occupied by modern offices and stores. “The little drawing-room upstairs” is described as commanding

“A view of Cook’s Court at one end (not to mention a squint into Cursitor Street) and of Coavins’s, the Sheriff’s Officer’s, backyard on the other.”

The memorable, but now non-existent room, as prepared for the reception of the Rev. Mr. Chadband (Chaplain-in-Ordinary to Mrs. Snagsby), who was “endowed with the gift of holding forth for four hours at a stretch.” On that occasion, it will be remembered that Poor Jo—brought to Cook’s Court by a police constable—was eloquently addressed by the reverend gentleman, but was not greatly edified by his admonitions.

“At this threatening stage of the discourse, Jo, who seems to have been gradually going out of his mind, smears his right arm over his face, and gives a terrible yawn. Mrs. Snagsby indignantly expresses her belief that he is a limb of the arch-fiend.”

Returning by Chancery Lane, on the left hand, we may note Bream’s Buildings, as being the northern boundary of the former site of Symond’s Inn, which hence extended onward to No. 22.

“A little, pale, wall-eyed, woebegone inn, like a large dust-bin of two compartments and a sifter. It looks as if Symond were a sparing man in his day, and constructed his inn of old building materials, which took kindly to the dry rot, and to dirt, and all things decaying and dismal, and perpetuated Symond’s memory with congenial shabbiness.”

This inn has ceased to exist for many years past, its position being now occupied by a large printer’s establishment and other offices. Readers of “Bleak House” will remember that the professional chambers of Mr. Vholes were here situated, and that Richard Carstone and his young wife Ada resided in the next house, in order that Richard might have his legal adviser close at hand. Here occurred the early death of poor Richard; and we all cherish the remembrance of dear Ada’s wifely devotion, to which Esther Summerson thus refers:—

“The days when I frequented that miserable corner which my dear girl brightened can never fade in my remembrance. I never see it, and I never wish to see it now; I have been there only once since; but in my memory there is a mournful glory shining on the place, which will shine for ever.”

Leaving Chancery Lane, and turning (right) by Carey Street, we reach Bell Yard, leading to Fleet Street. This place has been mentioned by Dickens as containing a “chandler’s shop, left-hand side,” where lodged Gridley, “the man from Shropshire,” and Neckett, the faithful servitor of Coavinses. The name—Bell Yard—forms the heading of chapter 15, “Bleak House,” which affords information of the Neckett family—Charlie, Tom, and the limp-bonneted baby. For full details, reference should be made to this very touching and beautifully-written chapter as above. Great alterations have been made, and are still being made, in this narrow lane, since the erection of the New Law Courts in the immediate vicinity; but some of the older houses still remain on the left-hand side of the way. Of these, No. 9 is a small, tall, squeezed-looking house, about half-way down the alley, and may be safely assigned (thirty years since) to the tenancy of the good-natured Mrs. Blinder.

Passing through Bell Yard, we reach Fleet Street, at the point where once Temple Bar gave ancient entrance to the City. Its position is marked by a bronze griffin, surmounting a memorial pedestal beneath. Exactly on the opposite side of the street is the handsome modern erection of Child’s Bank. This new building dates from 1878, when the structure of old Temple Bar was removed. It replaces one of the very old-fashioned houses of London, in which for many years Messrs. Child carried on their important banking business. This house is spoken of by Dickens, in his “Tale of Two Cities,” as Tellson’s Bank, on the outside of which the mysterious Mr. Cruncher was usually in attendance as “odd-job man, and occasional porter and messenger.”

“Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, was an old-fashioned place even in the year 1780. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. Any one of the partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. Thus it had come to pass that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s, down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters; where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper and the shadow of Temple Bar.”

Passing Newton’s (optician) we arrive at the outer Gate of the Temple, by which we enter Middle Temple Lane, following which a short distance and turning to the right, by Middle Temple Hall, we reach Fountain Court. The fountain standing here, conspicuously in a central position, is associated with the history of Ruth Pinch. Here it was that Tom and his sister made appointments for meeting—

“Because, of course, when she had to wait a minute or two, it would have been very awkward for her to have had to wait in any but a quiet spot; and that was as quiet a spot, everything considered, as they could choose.”

On further reference to the pages of “Martin Chuzzlewit,” we may recall the auspicious occasion when Ruth was under the special escort of John Westlock—

“Brilliantly the Temple fountain sparkled in the sun, and merrily the idle drops of water danced and danced; and, peeping out in sport among the trees, plunged lightly down to hide themselves, as little Ruth and her companion came towards it.”

See chapter 53. In Garden Court beyond, Mr. Pip and his friend, Herbert Pocket, had residence. In “Great Expectations,” he says—

“Our Chambers were in Garden Court, down by the river. We lived at the top of the last house.”

Here Pip’s patron and benefactor, the convict Magwitch, alias Provis, disclosed himself one memorable night, much to his “dear boy’s” discomfiture; and it will be remembered that temporary accommodation was found for him at

“A lodging-house in Essex Street, the back of which looked into the Temple, and was almost within hail of ‘Pip’s’ windows.”

The houses in this court have been rebuilt, and we may look in vain for the actual chambers specified. Returning to Middle Temple Lane, the visitor may walk directly across it to Elm Court, and proceed through the same and a narrow passage beyond, turning to the left, through The Cloisters, which (left again) give into the central location of Pump Court, an oblong old-fashioned court of offices, four storeys high. Here, in all probability, were situated The Chambers where Tom Pinch was mysteriously installed as librarian to an unknown employer, by the eccentric Mr. Fips.

“He led the way through sundry lanes and courts, into one more quiet and gloomy than the rest; and, singling out a certain house, ascended a common staircase . . . stopping before a door upon an upper storey. . . . There were two rooms on that floor; and in the first, or outer one, a narrow staircase leading to two more above.”

Here, also, old Martin Chuzzlewit revealed himself to the astonished Tom in his true character, and surprised the virtuous Mr. Pecksniff by a “warm reception,” when “the tables were turned completely upside down.”—See “Chuzzlewit,” chapters 39 and 52.

Proceeding past Lamb Buildings, on the east side of the Cloisters, and by a passage six steps downwards, leading beneath the Inner Temple Dining-Hall, we may note across the road (right) a short range of substantial houses, known as Paper Buildings, facing King’s Bench Walk, where it will be remembered that Sir John Chester had his residential chambers, no doubt selecting a central position—say, at No. 3. Here at various times Mr. Edward Chester, Hugh, Sim Tappertit, and Gabriel Varden had audience with Sir John; for full particulars of which “overhaul the wollume”—“Barnaby Rudge.”

In this neighbourhood also were situated the chambers of Mr. Stryver, K.C., where Sydney Carton served as “jackal” to that “fellow of delicacy;” as we read in “The Tale of Two Cities,” how Sydney

“Having revived himself by twice pacing the pavements of King’s Bench Walk and Paper Buildings, turned into the Stryver Chambers.”

Returning to Fleet Street by Lamb Buildings, and passing in front of the Old Temple Church, we come to Goldsmith’s Buildings (right), which overlook the old burial-ground and the tomb of the doctor. This surely is the “dismal churchyard” referred to in “Our Mutual Friend” as being closely contiguous to the offices of Messrs. Lightwood and Wrayburn.

“Whosoever . . . had looked up at the dismal windows commanding that churchyard, until at the most dismal window of them all, he saw a dismal boy, would in him have beheld . . . the clerk of Mr. Mortimer Lightwood.”

N.B.—Note the last window on the left (second floor), nearest the west wing, lately rebuilt.

Coming again into Fleet Street, by the arched gateway of Inner Temple Lane, the wayfarer may recall the circumstance of Bradley Headstone’s nightly watchings opposite this point for the outgoings of Mr. Eugene Wrayburn, and the many fruitless journeys which were hence commenced, as Eugene enjoyed “the pleasures of the chase” at the expense of his unfortunate rival.

Nearly facing us, on the north side of Fleet Street, is Clifford’s Inn Passage, into whose retirement Mr. Rokesmith, the hero of “Our Mutual Friend,” withdrew from the noise of Fleet Street, with Mr. Boffin, when offering that gentleman his services as secretary.

Close at hand stands St. Dunstan’s Church, near to which the pump was, but is not, from whose refreshing streams “Hugh” (from the Maypole, Chigwell) sobered himself by a drenching on one occasion previous to visiting Sir John Chester at Paper Buildings. (Vide “Barnaby Rudge,” chapter 40.) The old pump has been replaced by a drinking-fountain.

Toby Veck surely must have known that pump; for though there is no precise location given by Dickens in “The Chimes” for the church near to which Toby waited for jobs, there is an etching by Stanfield in the original edition of that book (page 88), which is unmistakably the counterfeit presentment of St. Dunstan’s Tower.

Continuing the route, we pass Bouverie Street (Bradbury and Evans—now Bradbury, Agnew, and Co.—in this street were the publishers of several of the works of Dickens, “The Chimes” included) on the right, next arriving at Whitefriars’ Street on the same side.

At the corner of the street, No. 67, is the public Office of “The Daily News.” This influential newspaper was started January 21, 1846, under the supervision of Charles Dickens, and in the earlier numbers of the journal were published instalments of his “Pictures from Italy.” Dickens shortly relinquished the editorship, being succeeded by his friends Jerrold and Forster. The fact is, Charles never greatly cared for the study of general or party politics; but he always identified himself with “the People—spelt with a large P, who are governed,” rather than “the people—spelt with a small p, who govern.”

A short distance down Whitefriars’ Street is a passage (left) from which, at a right angle riverwards, we may look into Hanging Sword Alley, where Mr. Jeremiah Cruncher, messenger at Tellson’s, had his two apartments. These “were very decently kept” by his wife, whose “flopping” proclivities gave so much umbrage to Jerry.

On the opposite side of Fleet Street—No. 146—just beyond, we turn (left) into Wine Office Court, and, on the right, we arrive at “Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese.” In “The Tale of Two Cities,” Book 2, chapter 4, we read that Charles Darnay, being acquitted of the charge of high treason, on his trial at the Old Bailey, was persuaded by the young lawyer, Sydney Carton, to dine in his company thereafter:—

“Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street, and so up a covered way into a tavern.”

This, of course, was the tavern intended; it having been a noted resort with literary and legal men for more than a century past. Here Doctor Johnson and Oliver Goldsmith frequently dined together in days gone by, gravely discoursing over their punch afterwards; and, in more recent years, Thackeray, Dickens, Jerrold, Sala, and others have been reckoned among the customary guests of the establishment. Mr. George Augustus Sala, in a pleasant description of the place, writes as follows:—

“Let it be noted in candour that Law finds its way to the ‘Cheese’ as well as Literature; but the Law is, as a rule, of the non-combatant, and, consequently, harmless order. Literary men who have been called to the Bar, but do not practise; briefless young barristers, who do not object to mingling with newspaper men; with a sprinkling of retired solicitors (amazing dogs these for old port wine; the landlord has some of the same bin which served as Hippocrene to Judge Blackstone when he wrote his ‘Commentaries’)—these make up the legal element of the ‘Cheese.’”

The journey being resumed through Fleet Street, the visitor attains Ludgate Circus, from which Farringdon Street leads northward on the left. A short detour along this thoroughfare, facing the handsome bridge of the Holborn Viaduct, will afford a sight of Farringdon Market on the left side. Its position will recall the description given in “Barnaby Rudge,” in whose days it was known as Fleet Market,

“At that time a long irregular row of wooden sheds and penthouses occupying the centre of what is now called Farringdon Street. . . . It was indispensable to most public conveniences in those days that they should be public nuisances likewise, and Fleet Market maintained the principle to admiration.”

Here the rioters assembled—as narrated in the book before mentioned—and passed a merry night in the midst of congenial surroundings. Retracing our steps, we may note, on the east side of Farringdon Street, the site of the old Fleet Prison, on a part of which now stands the Congregational Memorial Hall. The prison—fifty years since—stretched eastward in the rear as far as the present premises of Messrs. Cassell and Co., Belle Sauvage Yard. Its last remaining walls were removed in 1872, when the foundation-stone of the “Memorial Hall” aforesaid was laid. Here was imprisoned our amiable friend Mr. Pickwick, attended by his faithful Sam, until the time when the costs of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg in re Bardell versus Pickwick were by him fully paid and satisfied.

Proceeding up Ludgate Hill, we may soon note the Belle Sauvage Yard (turning by No. 68, on the left). The old inn, with its central metropolitan coach-yard, sixty years since occupied this site, where now the extensive printing and publishing offices of Cassell and Co. hold benignant sway. The place is referred to in an anecdote of Sam Weller’s anent the preparation of his father’s marriage licence, as arranged at Doctors’ Commons, the place being evidently regarded by that respected coachman as his parochial headquarters in London—

“‘What is your name, sir?’ says the lawyer. ‘Tony Weller,’ says my father. ‘Parish?’ says the lawyer. ‘Belle Savage,’ says my father; for he stopped there when he drove up, and he know’d nothing about parishes, he didn’t.”

The plan of the inn-yard is considerably changed from its olden style. In Mr. Weller’s time it comprised two courts, the outer one being approached from Ludgate Hill by the present entrance, and the Belle Sauvage Inn forming a second quadrangle, with an archway about half-way up from the main entrance. In this interior court was the coach-yard, surrounded by covered wooden galleries, in accordance with the fashion of the times.

Passing onwards on the same side, past Old Bailey, we arrive at the site of the London Coffee Tavern, No. 46 Ludgate Hill, now occupied by the corner shop of Messrs. Hope Brothers, the well-known outfitters. The old house was pulled down in 1872. Here Mr. Arthur Clennam rested awhile on his arrival “from Marseilles by way of Dover, and by Dover coach, ‘the Blue-Eyed Maid,’” one dismal Sunday evening, as narrated in chapter 3 of “Little Dorrit.” We now soon come to St. Paul’s Churchyard, facing the dial by which Ralph Nickleby corrected his watch on his way to the London Tavern, no doubt “stepping aside” into No. 1—Dakin’s—“doorway” to do it; and we may probably be disposed to endorse John Browdie’s verdict with reference to St. Paul’s Cathedral itself. “See there, lass, there be Paul’s Church. Ecod, he be a soizable one, he be.” This locality is also mentioned in “Barnaby Rudge” as being in the line of road taken by Lord George Gordon when entering London with his friends en route for his residence in Welbeck Street. On the right, within a short distance, we come to Dean’s Court, formerly Doctors’ Commons. This place is referred to by Sam Weller as being in

“St. Paul’s Churchyard—low archway on the carriage side, bookseller’s at one corner, hot-el on the other, and two porters in the middle, as touts for licences.”

He further relates to Mr. Pickwick the circumstance of his father’s having been here persuaded to take a marriage licence, directing the lady’s name to be filled in on speculation.

We hear more of Doctors’ Commons in the chronicles of “David Copperfield.”

The Offices of Spenlow and Jorkins were situated in this locality; but the site is now occupied by the Post Office Savings’ Bank in Knightrider Street. Passing through the Archway and by the Deanery of St. Paul’s (right), we cross Carter Lane, and proceed by a narrow court, Bell Yard, to the street above mentioned. At the corner of Carter Lane and Bell Yard is the “Bell Tavern,” which it may be interesting to note, as a house where Mr. Dickens frequently rested, making his notes in preparation for David’s “choice of a profession.” For full particulars the Rambler is referred to chapter 23 of David’s autobiography.

It may also be remembered that the worthy Mr. Boffin (see “Our Mutual Friend”), when instructing his attorney, seemed to be somewhat mixed in his ideas relative to this institution. In conversation with Mr. Lightwood, he once referred to the same as a legal personality—“Doctor Scommons!”

This locality has, of late years, altogether changed both its name and aspect. The old archway has disappeared. As previously stated, it is now known as Dean’s Court. In connection with its old associations, there exists The Bishop of London’s Registry and Marriage Licence Office, at the east corner of the court; and there are some Proctors’ offices doing business, as in the days of Copperfield, in the neighbourhood.

On the east side of the Cathedral, the visitor turns into Cheapside, soon arriving, on the left-hand side of the way (No. 122), at Wood Street. Associated with “Great Expectations,” as containing “Cross Keys Inn” (“The Castle,” No. 25), at which house Mr. Pip arrived when first visiting London, in accordance with instructions received per Mr. Jaggers.

Crossing Cheapside, and onwards by the south side, we reach the well-known establishment of the London Stereoscopic Company, No. 54. It may be interesting to know that this firm possesses the stuffed original of “Grip,” the Raven, the fortunate bird that received a double passport to fame, Dickens having narrated the particulars of its decease, and Maclise having sketched its apotheosis. This relic, so intimately associated with the tale of “Barnaby Rudge,” was purchased at the public sale of Mr. Dickens’s effects for £110, and its photographic portrait may be now obtained at this address.

A few steps farther on the same side stands the old Church of St. Mary-le-Bow, whose bells recalled Dick Whittington to fame and fortune. These same bells are mentioned in the history of “Dombey and Son,” chapter 4, as being within hearing at the offices of that important firm.

Passing on, and crossing to the north side of the thoroughfare, we arrive at King Street (turning by No. 92), at the top of which is The Guildhall. In the City Court attached thereto, that memorable case for breach of promise of marriage, “Bardell v. Pickwick,” was contested, on which occasion Mr. Weller, senr., emphatically insisted (from the body of the Court) on Sam’s spelling his name with a “we,” and afterwards much deplored the absence of certain technical defence on Mr. Pickwick’s behalf—“Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy vorn’t there a alleybi?” Are not all these and other particulars written in the chronicles of the “Pickwick Papers”?—See chapter 34.

Resuming the promenade of Cheapside (still in the reverse direction of the progress of Lord George Gordon and his escort), we come into the Poultry, at the farther end, passing a turning on the left therefrom, known as Grocers’ Hall Court. It will be remembered that on one occasion when Mr. Pickwick desired a quiet glass of brandy and water, Sam Weller, whose “knowledge of London was extensive and peculiar,” led the way from the Mansion House, proceeding by the second court on the right, to the last house but one on the same side of the way, where he directed his master to

“Take the box as stands in the first fireplace, ’cos there a’n’t no leg in the middle of the table.”

In pursuance of these explicit instructions, we shall find that this house is now in possession of Mr. Sheppard, gasfitter, but it is recollected that it was, aforetime, a restaurant of the old-fashioned sort. Mr. Weller, the elder, was here introduced to his son’s patron, and thereupon arranged for Mr. Pickwick’s journey to Ipswich. At the end of the Poultry we next approach, on the right, The Mansion House, mentioned in “Barnaby Rudge” as the residence of the Mayor of London. We read of this civic potentate in the pages of “The Christmas Carol,” when, one Christmas Eve,

“The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor’s household should.”

Mark Tapley also—in America—once made jocose reference to this location. When speaking of Queen Victoria, he informed certain members of the Watertoast Association to the following effect:—

“She has lodgings, in virtue of her office, with the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, but don’t often occupy them, in consequence of the parlour chimney smoking.”

Messrs. Dombey and Son had their offices in the City, within the sound of Bow Bells, and not far from the Mansion House. Their position was probably in proximity to The Royal Exchange, but the address cannot be definitely indicated. Here Mr. Carker, the manager, reigned supreme, and schemed for his own aggrandisement, regardless of the prosperity of the house.

The name of the firm is still perpetuated in the City, and the thriving establishment of the well-known merchant tailors—Dombey & Son—will be found at No. 120 Cheapside, at which a large and well-conducted business is carried on.

From this point we may conveniently visit “His Lordship’s Larder” (at three minutes’ distance), Cheapside, where we may advantageously refresh, “rest, and be thankful.”

RAMBLE III
Charing Cross to Thavies Inn, Holborn Circus

South-Eastern Terminus—Spa Road Station—Jacob’s Island; Sykes’s last Refuge—Butler’s Wharf, formerly Quilp’s Wharf—Quilp’s House, Tower Hill—Trinity House and Garden; Bella Wilfer’s Waiting-place—Southwark Bridge; Little Dorrit’s Promenade—The General Post Office—Falcon Hotel, Falcon Square; John Jasper’s patronage—Little Britain; Office of Mr. Jaggers—Smithfield—Newgate Prison; Pip’s description in “Great Expectations”—The Old Bailey Criminal Court, as per “Tale of Two Cities”—The Saracen’s Head; Associations with Nicholas Nickleby—Clerkenwell Green; Oliver Twist and his Companions—Scene of the Robbery—Line of Route taken by Oliver and “The Artful Dodger” from the Angel to Saffron Hill—Hatton Garden Police Court; Administration of Mr. Fang—Great Saffron Hill and Field Lane—Fagin’s House and the “Three Cripples”—Bleeding Hart Yard; Factory of Doyce and Clennam; the Plornish Family—Ely Place—Thavies Inn; Mrs. Jellyby’s Residence.

From the South-Eastern Terminus at Charing Cross there are frequent trains by which the Rambler can travel to Spa Road Station, Bermondsey (about twenty minutes’ ride), from which point the situation of what was once Jacob’s Island may be conveniently visited. This place was associated with the adventures of Oliver Twist, being the last refuge to which Sykes, the murderer of Nancy, betook himself on his return to London, and where he met a righteous retribution when attempting his escape. It is described by Dickens—nearly sixty years since—as being

“Near to that part of the Thames on which the church at Rotherhithe abuts, where the buildings on the banks are dirtiest, and the vessels on the river blackest, with the dust of colliers and the smoke of close-built, low-roofed houses. In such a neighbourhood, beyond Dockhead, in the borough of Southwark, stands Jacob’s Island, surrounded by a muddy ditch, six or eight feet deep, and fifteen or twenty wide when the tide is in, once called Mill Pond, but known in the days of this story as Folly Ditch.”

Arriving at Spa Road, the explorer turns left and right by the short routes of West Street South, Fream Street, and Rouel Road, into Jamaica Road (five minutes from station); passing from the opposite side of which, through Parker’s Row to the thoroughfare of Dockhead, he will find himself face to face with a tavern on the north side, named “The Swan and Sugar Loaf.” A short cut on the right of this house leads immediately to London Street, its northern side forming the south boundary of the old site of Jacob’s Island. Folly Ditch, flowing from the Thames through Mill Street, took its course through London Street (it has been filled in since 1851); and in these streets wooden bridges crossed to the Island, and “crazy wooden galleries, common to the backs of half-a-dozen houses”—referred to by the novelist—used to “ornament the banks of Folly Ditch.” To the right we pass into George Row, enclosing Jacob’s Island (east), and may note en passant the blocks of workmen’s dwellings, erected 1883, named “Wolseley’s Buildings,” which occupy the site of the old Island on its eastern side. From George Row we turn (right) into Jacob Street, north of the Island, by which we come into Mill Street (west); again returning to London Street, and so completing the circumnavigation of this interesting locality. Some of the old wooden erections still exist in Farthing Alley, Halfpenny Alley, and Edward Street, which intersect the area. In his preface to the first cheap edition of “Oliver Twist,” the author makes a further reference, as follows:—

“In the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty, it was publicly declared in London by an amazing alderman, that Jacob’s Island did not exist, and never had existed. Jacob’s Island continues to exist (like an ill-bred place as it is) in the year one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, though improved and much changed.”

Starting westward from “The Swan and Sugar Loaf,” we now proceed through Thornton Street, and turn to the right, by one block in the street beyond, into Queen Street, which leads directly north to the riverside. At the end of this street is the locality of Quilp’s Wharf and place of business, aforetime described in the pages of “The Old Curiosity Shop”:—

“A small, rat-infested, dreary yard, in which were a little wooden counting-house, burrowing all awry in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds, and ploughed into the ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors, several large iron rings, some piles of rotten wood, and two or three heaps of old sheet copper—crumpled, cracked, and battered.”

The place has been altogether altered and improved during the last forty years, and is now known as “Butler’s Wharf,” but the original prototype of Quilp is still remembered by some of the older residents of the neighbourhood.

The westward route being continued by the side of the river, we walk through Shad Thames and Pickle Herring Street (underneath an archway) to Vine Street, where is the southern entrance of the Tower Subway, by which we may cross below the river to the other side. Emerging near the Tower, Quilp’s House, on Tower Hill, is near at hand. No. 6 Tower Dock, facing the public entrance to the Tower, is said to have comprised the lodging assigned by Dickens for the accommodation of Mr. and Mrs. Daniel Quilp and Mrs. Jiniwin. We may here recall the matrons’ tea-meeting, as described in chapter 4 of “The Old Curiosity Shop,” when Quilp’s conduct as a husband was freely discussed, and much good advice tendered to Mrs. Quilp for the true assertion of her rights and dignity. Also the notable occasion when, the master of the house being missing and thought to be drowned, Mr. Sampson Brass was in consultation, and the party were unpleasantly surprised, as they were preparing a descriptive advertisement, by the sudden appearance of the Dwarf, as lively and sarcastic as ever.

“A question now arises with regard to his nose. ‘Flat,’ said Mrs. Jiniwin. ‘Aquiline!’ cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature with his fist. ‘Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat? Do you? Eh?’”

Hard by this locality stands Trinity House, Tower Hill, with its garden in front, and it may be remembered that Mr. Wilfer suggested this neighbourhood as a waiting-place for Bella, on the occasion of their “innocent elopement” to Greenwich, while he should array himself in new garments at her expense, to do honour to the expedition. We now turn westward by Tower Street, and may save time by taking train at Mark Lane Station for the Mansion House, about ten minutes’ ride. On arrival at the Mansion House Station we shall find Queen Street close at hand, leading riverwards to Southwark Bridge, referred to in “Little Dorrit” as the Iron Bridge. This was Amy Dorrit’s favourite promenade, it being quieter than many of the neighbouring thoroughfares; and we may recall the scene when young John Chivery was obliged to take no for an answer, when he attempted the proffer of his hand and heart.

Proceeding onwards through Cannon Street, we turn to the right through St. Paul’s Churchyard, crossing Cheapside to the stately edifice of the General Post Office, St. Martin’s-le-Grand. This building, in the times of “Nicholas Nickleby,” occasioned honest John Browdie some surprise:—

“Wa-at dost thee tak’ yon place to be, noo, that ’un ower the wa’? Ye’d never coom near it, gin ye thried for twolve moonths. It’s na but a Poast-office. Ho, ho! they need to charge for double latthers. A Poast-office! What dost thee think of that? Ecod, if that’s on’y a Poast-office, loike to see where the Lord Mayor o’ Lunnon lives!”

Aldersgate Street leads northward from St. Martin’s-le-Grand; passing the first block in which, Falcon Street turns on the right (No. 16) towards Falcon Square, a small city piazza, where may be found (No. 8) The Falcon Hotel. This is the place at which John Jasper sojourned when visiting London. In “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” we read the following commendation of the house in question:—

“It is hotel, boarding-house, or lodging-house at its visitor’s option. It announces itself, in the new Railway advertisers, as a novel enterprise, timidly beginning to spring up. It bashfully, almost apologetically, gives the traveller to understand that it does not expect him, on the good old constitutional hotel plan, to order a pint of sweet blacking for his drinking, and throw it away; but insinuates that he may have his boots blacked instead of his stomach, and may also have bed, breakfast, attendance, and a porter up all night, for a certain fixed charge.”

Returning to Aldersgate Street, we shall find that the opposite turning, leading to Smithfield, is Little Britain. In “Great Expectations” we learn that the Offices of Mr. Jaggers, the Old Bailey lawyer, were here situated, in near proximity to Bartholomew Close; but the house cannot be precisely indicated. Here Mr. Wemmick assisted his Principal in the details of his professional business. He may be remembered as having a decided preference for “portable property.”

Proceeding onward by Duke Street, the visitor will shortly come into Smithfield, a locality which is considerably changed since the days when Pip first arrived in London. He says—

“When I told the clerk that I would take a turn in the air while I waited, he advised me to go round the corner and I should come into Smithfield. So I came into Smithfield; and the shameful place, being all asmear with filth, and fat, and blood, and foam, seemed to stick to me. So, I rubbed it off with all possible speed by turning into a street where I saw the great black dome of Saint Paul’s bulging at me from behind a grim stone building which a bystander said was Newgate Prison.”

Adopting the same line of route, the Rambler may pass the south front of the Metropolitan Meat Market, turning to the left by St. Bartholomew’s Hospital into Giltspur Street, which leads to Newgate Street, and faces on the opposite corner of Old Bailey Newgate Prison. In “Great Expectations,” Pip describes his visit to the interior, at the invitation and in the company of Mr. Wemmick:—

“We passed through the Lodge, where some fetters were hanging up, on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrong-doing—and which is always its longest and heaviest punishment—was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavour of their soup. It was visiting-time when Wemmick took me in, and a potman was going his rounds with beer, and the prisoners behind bars in yards were buying beer and talking to friends; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was.”

Again, it may be remarked that things have much improved since the good old days. Inter alia, the principles and rules of prison management and discipline have greatly changed for the better.

In the tale of “Barnaby Rudge” is the narrative of the burning of Newgate and the liberation of the prisoners by the rioters (1780), on which occasion it will be remembered that our old friend Gabriel Varden was somewhat roughly handled. For full particulars, see chapter 64.

Immediately south of Newgate is the adjacent Central Criminal Court of The Old Bailey, the scene of Charles Darnay’s trial in “The Tale of Two Cities.” At the time there described (1775)—

“The Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly Inn yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage to the other world, traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom.”

Facing eastward from Newgate Street is the Holborn Viaduct, which has for many years superseded the old ascending and descending road of Holborn Hill.

The Saracen’s Head, the old coaching-house on Snow Hill, with which we have been familiar from the days of “Nicholas Nickleby,” as the headquarters of Mr. Squeers, has disappeared since 1868, having been pulled down long ago, with many other buildings of this neighbourhood, giving room to the great improvements which have taken place in this part of London. Hereabouts it stood, on a lower level, not far from St. Sepulchre’s Church—

“Just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastward seriously think of falling down on purpose, and horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident.”

The present Police Station, Snow Hill, stands on part of the site formerly occupied by this old hostelry.

This modern thoroughfare of Snow Hill commences at the first turning on the right, in which has been erected a commodious hotel of the same name (No. 10), where, by the aid of a little refreshment and a slight exercise of imagination, we may recall the departure of Nicholas for Dotheboy’s Hall, Greta Bridge, by the Yorkshire coach, with Mr. Squeers and the pupils; also the later arrival in London of Mr. and Mrs. Browdie, accompanied by the lovely Fanny as bridesmaid, and the first meeting of Nicholas with Frank Cheeryble, newly returned from Continental travel.

Snow Hill leads to the lower level of Farringdon Road, at a point immediately north of the Holborn Viaduct spanning the thoroughfare, in which, turning to the right, we walk onwards to the intersection of Clerkenwell Road (eight minutes’ work). On the right hand, across the railway, is Clerkenwell Green, referred to in “Oliver Twist” as

“That open square in Clerkenwell which is yet called by some strange perversion of terms The Green.”

It was near this place that little Oliver became enlightened as to the business of Charley Bates and the Artful Dodger. We read that the boys, traversing a narrow court in this neighbourhood, came out opposite a bookstall, where Mr. Brownlow was reading, abstracted from all other mundane considerations, so affording “a prime plant” for the operations of these light-fingered gentlemen. This court leads from the road opposite the Sessions House into Pear Tree Court, giving into the main road at some distance beyond, at which the scene above referred to was enacted.

Walking onwards by the King’s Cross Road we soon come to the point where Exmouth Street joins it from the east, facing the south-east angle of the House of Correction. Here we strike into the route taken by Oliver Twist when he first came from Barnet to London, under the escort of Mr. John Dawkins. The text of the story is as follows:—

“They crossed from the ‘Angel’ into St. John’s Road, struck down the small street which terminates at Sadler’s Wells Theatre, through Exmouth Street and Coppice Row, down the little court by the side of the Workhouse, across the classic ground which once bore the name of Hockley-in-the-Hole, thence into Little Saffron Hill, and so into Saffron Hill the Great.”

Following the line thus indicated from Exmouth Street, we come on the south side of the Workhouse, nearly opposite Little Saffron Hill, which leads into Great Saffron Hill as above. Crossing Clerkenwell Road, and proceeding for a short distance down Great Saffron Hill, we arrive at the cross street of Hatton Wall, in which, past two doors to the left on the south side, will be found—between the Hat and Tun Inn and No. 17 beyond—the entrance of Hatton Yard, a long narrow lane or mews (leading to Kirby Street), occupied by carmen and stabling. In this eligible position was situated, some fifty years since, “the very notorious Metropolitan Police Court” to which Oliver Twist was taken on the charge of theft; and we may here recall the administration of the presiding magistrate, the notable Mr. Fang, as shown in the examination of the prisoner.

The premises (No. 9, on the left) once formed part and parcel of the police court referred to; but the arrangements of the neighbourhood have been subjected to much alteration during the last half century. Mr. Forster states that Dickens “had himself a satisfaction in admitting the identity of Mr. Fang, in ‘Oliver Twist,’ with Mr. Laing of Hatton Garden.” In a letter (now in possession of Mr. S. R. Goodman, of Brighton) written to Mr. Haines, Reporter, June 3rd, 1838, Dickens writes as follows:—

“In my next number of ‘Oliver Twist’ I must have a magistrate; and, casting about for a magistrate whose harshness and insolence would render him a fit subject to be shown up, I have as a necessary consequence stumbled upon Mr. Laing of Hatton Garden celebrity. I know the man’s character perfectly well; but as it would be necessary to describe his personal appearance also, I ought to have seen him, which (fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be) I have never done. In this dilemma it occurred to me that perhaps I might under your auspices be smuggled into the Hatton Garden office for a few moments some morning. If you can further my object I shall be really very greatly obliged to you.”

“The opportunity was found; the magistrate was brought up before the novelist; and shortly after, on some fresh outbreak of intolerable temper, the Home Secretary found it an easy and popular step to remove Mr. Laing from the Bench.”

Returning to Great Saffron Hill, we may recall its description as given in the days of “Oliver Twist”—

“The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odours. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the place were the public-houses, and in them the lowest orders of the Irish were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of houses where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth.”

Field Lane, in the immediate vicinity, was

“Near to that spot on which Snow Hill and Holborn Hill meet . . a narrow dismal alley leading to Saffron Hill. In its filthy shops are exposed for sale huge bunches of second-hand silk handkerchiefs of all sizes and patterns, for here reside the traders who purchase them from the pickpockets.”

This place has been effaced by the Holborn Valley improvements, and we may now look in vain for the precise locality of the house of Fagin the Jew. In this neighbourhood also was situated “The Three Cripples,” a public-house of evil repute patronised by Sykes, Fagin, and Monks. We may recall the circumstance of Mr. Morris Bolter’s (alias Noah Claypole’s) arrival at this house, when he and Charlotte first came to London, and of his subsequent interview with the wily Jew.

It is pleasant to remark that Saffron Hill has greatly improved in its character since the above-quoted description was correct. It now affords accommodation for the headquarters of the Central Shoeblacks’ Society (as established under the auspices of the late Earl of Shaftesbury), and about midway in the street where thieves “did once inhabit,” a large Board School is doing good educational service for the elevation of the humbler classes.

Turning from Great Saffron Hill westward by the One Tun public-house, we come into Charles Street, on the south side of which, towards Hatton Garden, is Bleeding Hart Yard (entrance by the Bleeding Hart Tavern, No. 19). This locality is associated with the tale of “Little Dorrit.” It will be remembered that here the factory of Messrs. Doyce and Clennam was situated, and here also resided Mr. and Mrs. Plornish, the humble friends of the Dorrit family. In these degenerate days the place has much altered, and the amiable Mr. Casby would certainly find it more difficult than ever to collect his weekly dues, even by the agency of his energetic assistant, Mr. Pancks.

Passing from this unpretending locality, we come (at No. 8) into Hatton Garden, which leads southward to Holborn Circus.

In Hatton Garden, on the east side, can be observed (No. 20) the old-established warehouse of Messrs. Rowland and Son. In this connection there may be remembered the mad old gentleman “in small clothes,” who lived next door to the Nicklebys, at Bow. On the only occasion of his visiting the family indoors, he incidentally referred to “Mrs. Rowland, who, every morning, bathes in Kalydor for nothing.”—See “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter 49.

Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment, situated in Ely Place, Holborn, is entitled to passing mention as the place where David and his friend Traddles met each other for the first time after their schoolboy days, on the occasion of a dinner-party, at which also Agnes Wickfield and Uriah Heep attended. Ely Place is situated on the north side of Holborn Circus, and once comprised the rose garden of the Bishop of Ely, afterwards leased to Sir Christopher Hatton.

On the opposite side of the Circus, and near to St. Andrew’s Church, is situated Thavies Inn, in which Mrs. Jellyby and family resided, in the days when her daughter Caddy acted as amanuensis in re the affairs of Borrioboola-Gha.

It is described in “Bleak House” as being

“A narrow street of high houses like an oblong cistern to hold the fog.”

The house No. 13, on the right, has been indicated as once the disorderly residence of the Jellyby family. We may recollect it as the place where Esther Summerson and Ada were accommodated for their first night in London, on which occasion little unfortunate Peepy was found with his head between the area railings, and the house generally turned upside down; while Mrs. Jellyby serenely dictated her correspondence in the family sitting-room, altogether oblivious of such minor domestic accidents.

Esther thus narrates her first impressions:—

“Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair, but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped on to her chair, when she advanced towards us; and, as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back, and that the open space was railed across with a lattice work of staylace—like a summer house. . . . ‘You find me, my dears,’ said Mrs. Jellyby, ‘as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. . . . We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.”—See “Bleak House,” chapter 4.

The Buffet of Messrs. Spiers and Pond will be found a short distance eastward from Holborn Circus, on the right, next the terminus of the London, Chatham, and Dover railway. A visit to its welcome “contiguity of shade” is confidently recommended to those who may be disposed for necessary rest and refreshment.

RAMBLE IV
Holborn Circus to Tottenham Court Road

Langdale’s Distillery—Barnard’s Inn; Pip’s Chambers—Furnival’s Inn; Dickens’s and John Westlock’s Apartments—Staple Inn; Mr. Grewgious’s Chambers, P.J.T.; Rooms of Neville Landless and Mr. Tartar; “The Magic Bean-Stalk Country”—Gray’s Inn; Mr. and Mrs. Traddles and “the girls;” Offices of Mr. Perker—The Bull Inn; Scene of Lewsome’s Illness—Kingsgate Street; Poll Sweedlepipe’s Shop; Sairey Gamp’s Apartments—Mrs. Billickin’s Lodgings in Southampton Street; Miss Twinkleton and Rosa Budd—Bloomsbury Square; Lord Mansfield’s Residence—Queen Square—The Children’s Hospital; Johnny’s Will—Foundling Hospital; “No Thoroughfare;” Walter Wilding—“The Boot Tavern”—No. 48 Doughty Street—Tavistock House, Tavistock Square—Mrs. Dickens’s Establishment, No. 4 Gower Street, North; Mrs. Wilfer’s Doorplate—No. 1 Devonshire Terrace—Mr. Merdle’s House, Harley Street—Mr. Dombey’s House—Madame Mantalini’s, Wigmore Street—Wimpole Street; Mr. Boffin’s West-end Residence—Welbeck Street; Lord George Gordon’s Residence—Brook Street, Claridge’s Hotel; Mr. Dorrit’s Return—Devonshire House; Guild of Literature and Art—Hatchett’s Hotel; White Horse Cellars; Mr. Guppy in attendance—193 Piccadilly; Messrs. Chapman and Hall—Golden Square; Ralph Nickleby’s Office—Apartments of the Kenwigs family—The Crown Inn—“Martha’s” Lodgings—Newman Street; Mr. Turveydrop’s Academy—Carlisle House; Doctor Manette and Lucie.

From Holborn Circus the Rambler now proceeds westward by the main thoroughfare of Holborn, passing Fetter Lane on the left, and arrives at (No. 26) the old premises, now partially rebuilt, formerly Langdale’s Distillery. Half of the same remains (at the moment), but will shortly be superseded by a modern building. The eastern portion is occupied by Messrs. Buchanan, whisky merchants, who have recently purchased the premises. This establishment was sacked (1780) by the Gordon rioters. Mr. Langdale being a Catholic, was obnoxious to the No-Popery mob; and the stores of liquor at this distillery afforded an additional temptation for the attack. The terrible scenes enacted on the occasion are powerfully described in “Barnaby Rudge,” chapters 67 and 68—

“At this place a large detachment of soldiery were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow Hill—constantly raking the streets in each direction. At this place too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot.

“Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer’s horse of great size and strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this point, and fire the vintner’s house. Full twenty times they were repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could hit him. . . .

“The vintner’s house, with half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely.

“. . . The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them. . . .

“On this last night of the great riots—for the last night it was—the wretched victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of London.”

It will be remembered that Mr. Langdale and Mr. Haredale, being in the house that night, were rescued by Edward Chester and Joe Willett, all four finding their way to safety by a back entrance.

“The narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding Mr. Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they hurried through the streets at a rapid pace.”

This door gives into Fetter Lane (No. 79), and still exists for the inspection of the curious. The old house in Holborn has, for more than a century, replaced the premises so destroyed. Close at hand (by No. 23) is the entrance to Barnard’s Inn—

“The dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats.”

The locality is referred to in these complimentary terms by Mr. Pip (in the pages of “Great Expectations”), who lived here with his friend Herbert Pocket for a short time when he first came to London. Mr. Joe Gargery’s verdict is worth remembrance:—

“The present may be a wery good inn, and I believe its character do stand i; but I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself, not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome, and to eat with a meller flavour on him.”

Pip further describes as follows:—

“We entered this haven through a wicket-gate, and were disgorged by an introductory passage into a melancholy little square that looked to me like a flat burying-ground. I thought it had the most dismal trees in it, and the most dismal sparrows, and the most dismal cats, and the most dismal houses (in number half-a-dozen or so), that I had ever seen. . . . A frowzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewed ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole. Thus for my sense of sight; while dry rot, and wet rot, and all the silent rots that rot in neglected root and cellar—rot of rat, and mouse, and bug, and coaching stables near at hand besides—addressed themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, ‘Try Barnard’s Mixture.’”

Great alterations are now (1899) being carried out; the old buildings—as above referred to by Mr. Pip—have been demolished, and a new and better arrangement of the locality is in active progress for the improvement of the neighbourhood.

On the opposite side of Holborn are the handsome and extensive offices of The Prudential Assurance Company. These premises, with their frontage, occupy the site of Furnival’s Inn, which has recently disappeared, having been pulled down to make room for the extension of the Assurance offices above referred to—Sic transit memoria mundi.

Furnival’s Inn was an interesting locality, as associated with the earlier experience of Mr. Dickens himself. Here the young author resided in 1835, the year previous to the production of the “Pickwick Papers,” the first number of that work being published April 1, 1836. On the day following that notable date, Mr. Dickens married Miss Catherine Hogarth; and for some time the young couple resided on the third floor apartments at No. 15 Furnival’s Inn—on the right side of the square. A personal reminiscence of these early days is no doubt intended in chapter 59 of “David Copperfield;” a pleasant description being there given of the residential chambers of Mr. and Mrs. Traddles, as located in Gray’s Inn just beyond.

Mr. John Westlock had his bachelor apartments in this same place at Furnival’s Inn (vide “Martin Chuzzlewit”), and here he received the unexpected visit of Tom Pinch on his first arrival in London. We may remember the incidents of that cordial welcome, when

“John was constantly running backwards and forwards to and from the closet, bringing out all sorts of things in pots, scooping extraordinary quantities of tea out of the caddy, dropping French rolls into his boots, pouring hot water over the butter, and making a variety of similar mistakes, without disconcerting himself in the least.”

In the centre of the interior square, standing within the precincts of Furnival’s Inn during the past seventy-five years, and flourishing in recent days—a quiet oasis of retirement and good cheer amidst the bustle and noise of central London—there existed (until 1895) Woods’ Hotel. This hotel was associated with “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” being the house at which Mr. Grewgious found accommodation for the charming Rosa Budd (on the occasion of her flight from the importunities of Jasper at Cloisterham), including an “unlimited head chambermaid” for her special behoof and benefit.

“Rosa’s room was airy, clean, comfortable, almost gay. The Unlimited had laid in everything omitted from the very little bag (that is to say, everything she could possibly need), and Rosa tripped down the great many stairs again, to thank her guardian for his thoughtful and affectionate care of her.

“‘Not at all, my dear,’ said Mr. Grewgious, infinitely gratified; ‘it is I who thank you for your charming confidence and for your charming company. Your breakfast will be provided for you in a neat, compact, and graceful little sitting-room (appropriate to your figure), and I will come to you at ten o’clock in the morning. I hope you don’t feel very strange indeed, in this strange place.’

“‘Oh no, I feel so safe!’

“‘Yes, you may be sure that the stairs are fire-proof,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘and that any outbreak of the devouring element would be perceived and suppressed by the watchmen.’

“‘I did not mean that,’ Rosa replied. ‘I mean, I feel so safe from him.’

“‘There is a stout gate of iron bars to keep him out,’ said Mr. Grewgious smiling; ‘and Furnival’s is fire-proof, and specially watched and lighted, and I live over the way!’ In the stoutness of his knight-errantry, he seemed to think the last-named protection all-sufficient. In the same spirit he said to the gate-porter as he went out, ‘If some one staying in the hotel should wish to send across the road to me in the night, a crown will be ready for the messenger.’ In the same spirit, he walked up and down outside the iron gate for the best part of an hour, with some solicitude; occasionally looking in between the bars, as if he had laid a dove in a high roost in a cage of lions, and had it on his mind that she might tumble out.”

The Hotel was originally built 1818–19, and was enlarged as recently as 1884. Woods was the proprietor for fifty years.

Crossing to the other side of the street, at a short distance onwards, opposite Gray’s Inn Road, the Rambler reaches (by No. 334 High Holborn) the gateway of Staple Inn; a little nook, composed of two irregular quadrangles behind the most ancient part of Holborn, where certain gabled houses, some centuries of age, still stand looking on the public way. Staple Inn was the favourite summer promenade of the meditative Mr. Snagsby (see “Bleak House”); and in this Inn Mr. Grewgious occupied a set of chambers. The house is No. 10, in the inner quadrangle, “presenting in black and white, over its ugly portal, the mysterious inscription, ‘P. J. T., 1747.’ Perhaps John Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler.” And, under certain social conditions, “for a certainty, P. J. T. was Pretty Jolly Too.” Neville Landless also had rooms in this locality; the top set in the corner (on the right), overlooking the garden “where a few smoky sparrows twitter in the smoky trees, as though they had called to each other, ‘let us play at country.’” Close to these lived Mr. Tartar, in “the neatest, the cleanest, and the best-ordered chambers ever seen under the sun, moon, and stars.” And we may recall the writer’s delicate treatment of this, the blushing “beanstalk country” of dear little Rosa Budd. For the several associations herewith connected, reference should be made to our author’s last book, “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.”—See concluding paragraphs of chapter 21:—

“Rosa wondered what the girls would say if they could see her crossing the wide street on the sailor’s arm. And she fancied that the passers-by must think her very little and very helpless, contrasted with the strong figure that could have caught her up and carried her out of any danger, miles and miles without resting.

“She was thinking further, that his far-seeing blue eyes looked as if they had been used to watch danger afar off, and to watch it without flinching, drawing nearer and nearer: when, happening to raise her own eyes, she found that he seemed to be thinking something about them.

“This a little confused Rosebud, and may account for her never afterwards quite knowing how she ascended (with his help) to his garden in the air, and seemed to get into a marvellous country that came into sudden bloom like the country on the summit of the magic bean-stalk. May it flourish for ever!”

In this connection, the reader may be interested in chapter 22; the first part of which deals most tenderly and beautifully with “love’s awaking,” in the heart of the innocent heroine.

Recrossing to the other side of High Holborn, past Gray’s Inn Road (on the north), at No. 22, we reach the gateway of Gray’s Inn. At No. 2 South Square (formerly Holborn Court) we may find the upper chambers formerly occupied by Mr. Traddles and his wife Sophy, whose domestic arrangements included accommodation for “the beauty” and the other Devonshire sisters. Copperfield says, in the chapter before referred to:—

“If I had beheld a thousand roses blowing in a top set of chambers, in that withered Gray’s Inn, they could not have brightened it half so much. The idea of those Devonshire girls, among the dry law-stationers, and the attorneys’ offices; and of the tea and toast, and children’s songs, in that grim atmosphere of pounce and parchment, red-tape, dusty wafers, ink-jars, brief and draft paper, law reports, writs, declarations, and bills of costs, seemed almost as pleasantly fanciful as if I had dreamed that the Sultan’s famous family had been admitted on the roll of attorneys, and had brought the talking-bird, the singing-tree, and the Golden water into Gray’s Inn Hall.”

The offices of Mr. Perker, the legal adviser of Mr. Pickwick, were also located in Gray’s Inn. We read that the “outer door” of these chambers was to be found “after climbing two pairs of steep and dirty stairs;” but no indication is given of their exact situation.

Proceeding westward from Gray’s Inn, and passing the stately, elegant, and commodious First Avenue Hotel, between Warwick Court and Brownlow Street, and a half-a-dozen side streets beyond, we come, on the north side, at No. 92, to the Bull and Anchor Tavern. This is the house known in the pages of “Martin Chuzzlewit” as “The Bull Inn,” then a more important hostelry than at present. It will be remembered as the inn at which Mr. Lewsome, during his illness, was professionally attended by Sairey Gamp and Betsy Prig, “turn and turn about.”

Passing on to the next turning but one, we reach Kingsgate Street, where Poll Sweedlepipes—barber and bird-fancier—once had his business location, “next door but one to the celebrated mutton-pie shop, and directly opposite the original cat’s-meat warehouse.” At this place the immortal Mrs. Gamp had lodgings on the first floor, where she

“Was easily assailed at night by pebbles, walking-sticks, and fragments of tobacco pipes, all much more efficacious than the street-door knocker, which was so constructed as to wake the street with ease, and even spread alarms of fire in Holborn, without making the smallest impression on the premises to which it was addressed.”

It is recollected in the neighbourhood that, fifty years since, a barber by the name of Patterson (who was also a bird-dealer) lived in this street, at the second house on the left. The shop has been pulled down, is now absorbed by the corner premises in Holborn, and can be only identified by its position. Here, then, did Mr. Pecksniff arrive on his doleful mission, in accordance with the recommendation of Mr. Mould, the undertaker, with regard to the death of old Anthony Chuzzlewit; and here did that memorable teapot cause a lasting difference between two friends, as narrated in chapter 49 of “Martin Chuzzlewit.” “This world-famous personage, Mrs. Gamp, has passed into and become one with the language” whose vernacular she has adorned with her own flowers of speech. As Mr. Forster remarks, “she will remain among the everlasting triumphs of fiction, a superb masterpiece of English humour.” “Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale, her infinite variety.” At the Holborn corner of Kingsgate Street we may remember Mr. Bailey, junior, on the occasion when, at this exact spot, he collided with Poll Sweedlepipes, afterwards going “round and round in circles on the pavement,” the better to exhibit to Poll’s admiring gaze his fashionable livery as Tiger in the service of Mr. Montague Tigg, “rather to the inconvenience of the passengers generally, who were not in an equal state of spirits with himself.”

The next turning but one, westward, on the right, by the West Central Post Office (No. 126), is Southampton Street, leading to Bloomsbury Square.

Here it will be remembered that lodgings were taken by Mr. Grewgious for Miss Twinkleton and Rosa, of the redoubtable Mrs. Billickin, “the person of the ’ouse,” who, from prudential motives, suppressed her Christian name.

“Mr. Grewgious had his agreement-lines and his earnest-money ready. ‘I have signed it for the ladies, ma’am,’ he said, ‘and you’ll have the goodness to sign it for yourself, Christian and Surname, there, if you please.’

“‘Mr. Grewgious,’ said Mrs. Billickin in a new burst of candour, ‘no, sir! You must excuse the Christian name.’

“Mr. Grewgious stared at her.

“‘The door-plate is used as a protection,’ said Mrs. Billickin, ‘and acts as such, and go from it I will not.’

“Mr. Grewgious stared at Rosa.

“‘No, Mr. Grewgious, you must excuse me. So long as this ’ouse is known indefinite as Billickin’s, and so long as it is a doubt with the riff-raff where Billickin may be hidin’, near the street-door or down the airy, and what his weight and size, so long I feel safe. But commit myself to a solitary female statement, no, Miss! Nor would you for a moment wish,’ said Mrs. Billickin, with a strong sense of injury, ‘to take that advantage of your sex, if you were not brought to it by inconsiderate example.’

“Rosa reddening as if she had made some most disgraceful attempt to overreach the good lady, besought Mr. Grewgious to rest content with any signature. And accordingly, in a baronial way, the sign-manual Billickin got appended to the document.”

And we may here recall the incidental passage of arms between the worthy landlady and Miss Twinkleton, Mrs. B. being always in direct antagonism with the schoolmistress, against whom she “openly pitted herself as one whom she fully ascertained to be her natural enemy.” Witness “the B. enveloped in the shawl of State,” as she remarked to Miss Twinkleton that

“‘A rush from scanty feeding to generous feeding, from what you may call messing to what you may call method, do require a power of constitution, which is not often found in youth, particular when undermined by boarding-school. . . . I was put in youth to a very genteel boarding-school, the mistress being no less a lady than yourself, of about your own age, or it may be some years younger, and a poorness of blood flowed from the table, which has run through my life.’

* * * * *

“‘If you refer to the poverty of your circulation,’ began Miss Twinkleton, when again the Billickin neatly stopped her.

“‘I have used no such expressions.’

“‘If you refer, then, to the poorness of your blood—’

“‘Brought upon me,’ stipulated the Billickin, expressly, ‘at a boarding-school—’

“‘Then,’ resumed Miss Twinkleton, ‘all I can say is, that I am bound to believe, on your asseveration, that it is very poor indeed. I cannot forbear adding, that if that unfortunate circumstance influences your conversation, it is much to be lamented, and it is eminently desirable that your blood were richer.’”

Southampton Street is not a long one, and is now chiefly occupied by solicitors and architects; but there is reason to believe that the Billickins’ residence was, aforetime, to be found at No. 18, which is situated next door but one to an archway. As Mrs. B. herself candidly pointed out,

“The arching leads to a mews; mewses must exist.”

The mews aforesaid is now superseded by a factory. Mrs. Billickin has long since relinquished the cares of housekeeping and retired from public life. The present amiable landlady conducts the business on different principles, and will be at all times disposed to give her patrons satisfaction, whether they be of the scholastic persuasion or otherwise.

Southampton Street leads immediately northward into Bloomsbury Square. This place is mentioned in “Barnaby Rudge” as the locality in which Lord Mansfield’s residence was situated at the period of the Gordon Riots. In chapter 66 its destruction by the rioters is thus described:—

“They began to demolish the house with great fury; and setting fire to it in several places, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly furniture, the plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest collection of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world, and, worst of all, because nothing could replace the loss, the great Law Library, on almost every page of which were notes, in the judge’s own hand, of inestimable value; being the results of the study and experience of his whole life.”

The house occupied the site of No. 29, on the east side of the square. We subsequently read in the same book that two of the rioters—cripples—were hanged in this square, the execution being momentarily delayed, as they were placed facing the house they had assisted to despoil. Leaving the square at its north-east angle (right) by Bloomsbury Place, the Rambler shortly comes into Southampton Row, turning left, and proceeding for a short distance upwards to Cosmo Place on the right, a short cut which leads directly to the contiguous shades of Queen Square just beyond. It will be remembered that in this neighbourhood Richard Carstone had furnished apartments at the time when he was pursuing the experimental study of the Law under the auspices of Messrs. Kenge and Carboy (see “Bleak House,” chapter 18). There is reason to believe that the “quiet old” house intended was No. 28 Devonshire Street, leading from the south-east angle of the square.

Leaving Queen Square by Great Ormond Street (eastward), we immediately arrive, on the north side (No. 50), at The Children’s Hospital, adjacent to the Catholic Church and Convent of St. John. In 1858, February 9th, a public dinner was arranged, by way of charitable appeal, for funds necessary to carry on and develop the work. It was happily resolved to invite Charles Dickens to preside on that occasion, and he “threw himself into the service heart and soul.” His earnest, pathetic, but powerful appeal—“majestic in its own simplicity”—that night added more than £3000 to the treasury, which amount was, two months afterwards, substantially increased by the proceeds of a public reading of his “Christmas Carol.” It is pleasant to record that this institution has ever since flourished amain, thus fulfilling the prediction of Dickens when, suggesting that the enterprise could not be possibly maintained unless the Hospital were made better known, he continued as follows:—

“I limit myself to saying—better known, because I will not believe that, in a Christian community of fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters, it can fail, being better known, to be well and richly endowed.”

We may here recall the scene narrated in chapter 9 of “Our Mutual Friend,” when Johnny makes his will and arranges his affairs, leaving “a kiss for the boofer lady”—

“The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light womanly tread and a pleasant fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itself into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face went by—for these little patients are very loving—and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. . . . Over most of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them when they last laid themselves down, and in their innocent grotesqueness and incongruity they might have stood for the children’s dreams.”

Proceeding eastward by Great Ormond Street and turning (left) through Lamb’s Conduit Street, to its northern end, we face the entrance of the Foundling Hospital. This beneficent institution was established by Captain Thomas Coram, about the middle of the last century, and is associated with “No Thoroughfare,” the Christmas number (and last in the series) of “All the Year Round,” 1867. Visitors attending the morning service of the Foundling Church on Sundays are admitted to the children’s Dining-Hall thereafter, and so may have an opportunity of realising the scene portrayed by Dickens, when the “veiled lady” induced a female attendant to point out Walter Wilding:—

“The bright autumnal sun strikes freshly into the wards; and the heavy-framed windows through which it shines, and the panelled walls on which it shines, are such windows, and such walls as pervade Hogarth’s pictures. Neat attendants silently glide about the orderly and silent tables, the lookers-on move or stop as the fancy takes them; comments in whispers on face such a number, from such a window, are not unfrequent—many of the faces are of a character to fix attention. Some of the visitors from the outside public are accustomed visitors. They have established a speaking acquaintance with the occupants of particular seats at the table, and halt at those points to say a word or two.”

In “Little Dorrit,” too, reference is made to this institution, in re the adoption of Tattycoram by good Papa and Mamma Meagles. In the times of Barnaby Rudge, the London streets were not greatly extended northward beyond this (now central) neighbourhood. We may remember that the headquarters of the “Captain,” Sim Tappertit, Hugh, and Dennis were at The “Boot” Tavern, which is described as

“A lone place of public entertainment, situated in the fields at the back of the Foundling Hospital; a very solitary spot at that period, and quite deserted after dark. The Tavern stood at some distance from any high road, and was only approachable by a dark and narrow lane.”

Proceeding onwards through Guilford Street, we reach Doughty Street, Mecklenburgh Square, running transversely north and south. On the east side we may note No. 48 Doughty Street, as the house to which Dickens removed from Furnival’s Inn, in the early spring of 1837, and in which he lived two years and a half, previous to his longer residence at No. 1 Devonshire Terrace. In it “Oliver Twist” and “Nicholas Nickleby” were written; and here, too, the early friendship, which had been for some time steadily developing between Dickens and Forster, became cemented for life. His biographer says:—

“Nor had many weeks passed before he addressed to me from Doughty Street, words which it is my sorrowful pride to remember have had literal fulfilment. ‘I look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment. It shall go hard, I hope, ere anything but death impairs the toughness of a bond now so firmly riveted.’”

The route being retraced to the Foundling Hospital, and thence continued through Guilford Street to Russell Square, we turn (right) by Woburn Place to Tavistock Square, on the south side of which (Tavistock Villas) is situated Tavistock House. To this residence Dickens removed (from Devonshire Terrace) in October 1851, retaining its possession for nearly ten years. During this time “Bleak House” was completed, and “Hard Times,” “Little Dorrit,” and the “Tale of Two Cities” were given to the world. Tavistock House is now transformed into a Jewish College. Hans Christian Andersen, visiting his friend in London, gives the following description:—

“In Tavistock Square stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of garden in front of it are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. A large garden, with a grass plat and high trees, stretches behind the house, and gives it a countrified look in the midst of this coal and gas steaming London. In the passage from street to garden hung pictures and engravings. Here stood a marble bust of Dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom door were inserted the bas-reliefs of Night and Day, after Thorwaldsen. On the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing-table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter Dickens and his friends acted plays to the satisfaction of all parties. The kitchen was underground, and at the top of the house were the bedrooms.”

Leaving this locality at the north-west angle, passing Gordon Square, we turn (right) into Gordon Street, and (left) through Gower Place, to Gower Street, on the west side of which—opposite—is the house once bearing a large brass plate on the door, announcing Mrs. Dickens’s Establishment, being the place at which Mrs. Dickens (mother of Charles) endeavoured to set up a school during the difficult times of 1822. The family lived here for a short time, previous to the Marshalsea imprisonment of Dickens senior; Charles being then a boy ten years of age. In the first chapter of Forster’s Biography is the following:—

“A house was soon found at number four, Gower Street North; a large brass plate on the door announced Mrs. Dickens’s establishment; and the result I can give in the exact words of the then small actor in the comedy, whose hopes it had raised so high: ‘I left at a great many other doors a great many circulars, calling attention to the merits of the establishment. Yet nobody ever came to school, nor do I recollect that anybody ever proposed to come, or that the least preparation was made to receive anybody. But, I know that we got on very badly with the butcher and baker; that very often we had not too much for dinner; and that at last my father was arrested.’ . . . Almost everything by degrees was pawned or sold, little Charles being the principal agent in these sorrowful transactions . . . until at last, even of the furniture of Gower Street, number four, there was nothing left except a few chairs, a kitchen table, and some beds. Then they encamped, as it were, in the two parlours of the emptied house, and lived there night and day.”

Gower Street has been rearranged since that time (there is now no Gower Street North), and the houses are renumbered. No. 145, near Gower Street Chapel, and other houses adjoining, are now in the occupation of Messrs. Maple & Co.; and this No. 145 was the house then enumerated as No. 4 Gower Street North. Mrs. Dickens’s experience, it will be remembered, has been pleasantly referred to in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend;” the stately Mrs. Wilfer therein making a similar experiment, with the same result. In chapter 4 we read of Rumpty’s return home from business: when

“Something had gone wrong with the house door, for R. Wilfer stopped on the steps, staring at it, and cried ‘Hal-loa?’ ‘Yes,’ said Mrs. Wilfer, ‘the man came himself with a pair of pincers and took it off, and took it away. He said that as he had no expectation of ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another Ladies’ School door-plate, it was better (burnished up) for the interests of all parties.’”

On the opposite corner of the street is the Gower Street Station of the Metropolitan Railway, at which train may be taken to Baker Street. On arrival, we turn to the right, by Marylebone Road, to Devonshire Terrace, consisting of three houses at the northern end of High Street, Marylebone. No. 1, now occupied by a legal firm, was for twelve years the residence of Charles Dickens (when in town). It is described by Forster as

“A handsome house with a garden of considerable size, shut out from the New Road by a brick wall, facing the York Gate into Regent’s Park.”

To quote the ironical dictum of its future tenant when the choice was made, it was “a house of great promise (and great premium), undeniable situation, and excessive splendour.” During the period of the author’s residence here several of his best-known books were given to the world—“Master Humphrey’s Clock,” Christmas Books, and “David Copperfield” included. Proceeding forwards and eastward past Devonshire Place, we may take our way, turning on the right down Harley Street, of which we read in “Little Dorrit” that,

“Like unexceptionable society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and their inhabitants were so much alike in that respect that the people were often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner tables, in the shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dulness of the houses. Everybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who take their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform twenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all approachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern of railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything, without exception, to be taken at a high valuation—who has not dined with these?”

In this street lived that great financier and swindler Mr. Merdle, who had his residence in one of the handsomest of these handsome houses; but it would be, perhaps, invidious to point out any particular location for the same, Dickens himself having purposely omitted an exact address. Following the course of Harley Street, we come in due time to Queen Anne Street, running east and west. Adopting the leftward turning (east), we may find at the next corner—Mansfield Street—on the north side, Mr. Dombey’s House, as described in chapter 3 of “Dombey and Son”—

“Mr. Dombey’s house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark, dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and Bryanston Square. It was a corner house, with great wide areas containing cellars, frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by crooked-eyed doors leading to dust-bins. It was a house of dismal state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard.”

It will be observed that the position and character of this mansion exactly correspond to the above description, being in its general style noteworthy and unique. This, then, was the private establishment and “home department” of the Dombey family, where died the gentle Paul; the lonely house in which the neglected Florence grew to lovely womanhood; what time the second wife—the stately Edith—held temporary sway.

Hence a short distance southward leads to Cavendish Square. In this neighbourhood we read that Madame Mantalini’s fashionable dressmaking establishment was situated, at which Kate Nickleby was for some few weeks engaged, on the recommendation of her uncle. The house intended was probably in Wigmore Street, No. 11. In the days of the Mantalini régime the business was advertised

“To the nobility and gentry by the casual exhibition, near the handsomely-curtained windows, of two or three elegant bonnets of the newest fashion, and some costly garments in the most approved taste.”

By the next turning (right) on the north side we come into Wimpole Street; on the east of which, at the corner of the third block, stands The West End Residence—No. 43—aforetime occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Boffin; which became, later on, the property of Mr. John Harmon and his wife. It is described as “a corner house, not far from Cavendish Square.” Near this house Silas Wegg—assuming some knowledge of its affairs—kept his street-stall. He was accustomed to refer to it as “Our House,” its (imaginary) inmates being Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker.

Returning to Wigmore Street, we arrive by the next block at Welbeck Street, running transversely thereto. In this street was the London residence of Lord George Gordon, as referred to in the pages of “Barnaby Rudge.” The house is No. 64, the second from Wigmore Street on the left side. It is within the recollection of the present landlord that the old balcony—from which Lord George was wont to harangue the public—was many years since superseded by the present continuous railing.

We now come south into the West-end artery of Oxford Street, crossing same to Davies Street, by which we may soon reach Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, running east and west. On the south-eastern angle of its intersection stands Claridge’s Hotel. It will be remembered that on Mr. Dorrit’s return from the Continent, after the marriage of his daughter Fanny, “the Courier had not approved of his staying at the house of a friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook Street, Grosvenor Square.” This was doubtless the establishment favoured by the Courier’s preference on that occasion; and where Mr. Merdle paid a state visit to Mr. Dorrit at breakfast-time the next morning; taking him afterwards in his carriage to the City.

Readers of “Dombey and Son” may be reminded that the Feenix Town House was situated in this same Brook Street; but no clue is afforded of its exact whereabouts. It is described as an aristocratic mansion of a dull and gloomy sort; and was borrowed by the Honourable Mrs. Skewton from a stately relative, on the occasion of her daughter’s marriage. Here also, in aftertime, the final interview between Florence and Edith took place.

Keeping on through Davies Street across Berkeley Square, we come through Berkeley Street to Piccadilly, in the close vicinity of Devonshire House, a mansion of fashionable and political repute, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. Here, on the 27th of May 1851, in the great drawing-room and library, Dickens and his confrères of “The Guild of Literature and Art” performed, for the first time, Sir Bulwer Lytton’s comedy (written for the occasion) “Not so Bad as We Seem,” in the presence of the Queen, Prince Albert and a brilliant audience. The Duke not only afforded the necessary accommodation, but (as Mr. Forster writes), in his princely way, discharged all attendant expenses. Many distinguished authors and artists assisted at this performance, including Douglas Jerrold, Maclise, and John Leech.

Near at hand, on the eastern corner of the next turning down Piccadilly (Dover Street), is Hatchett’s Hotel, adjoining The White Horse Cellars, once a well-known coaching establishment. On the opposite side of the way stood in days of yore the old “White Horse Cellars,” of which Hazlitt writes:—

“The finest sight in the Metropolis is the setting out of the mail-coaches from Piccadilly. The horses paw the ground and are impatient to be gone, as if conscious of the precious burden they convey. There is a peculiar secrecy and despatch, significant and full of meaning, in all the proceedings concerning them. Even the outside passengers have an erect and supercilious air, as if proof against the accidents of the journey; in fact, it seems indifferent whether they are to encounter the summer’s heat or the winter’s cold, since they are borne through the air on a winged chariot.”

From this well-known Booking Office, Mr. Pickwick and his friends—accompanied by the fierce Dowler and his fascinating wife—started for Bath, one “muggy, damp, and drizzly morning, by the mail coach; on the door of which was displayed, in gilt letters of a goodly size, the magic name of ‘Pickwick’; a circumstance which seems to have occasioned some confusion of ideas in the mind of the faithful Sam, as evidenced by his indignant inquiry—‘An’t nobody to be whopped for takin’ this here liberty?’”

Readers of “Bleak House” will remember this locality as the destination of the Reading Coach; so indicated by Messrs. Kenge and Carboy in their first communication to Esther Summerson. Here she was met, one foggy November afternoon, on her arrival in London, by the susceptible Mr. Guppy, and by him conducted to Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn. The incident was afterwards feelingly referred to by that young gentleman, on the occasion of his offer of heart, hand, and income to Esther:—

“I think you must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps of the ’ackney coach.”

For the full narrative, see “Bleak House,” chapter 9.

The Rambler can now take an eastward course up Piccadilly, and may casually observe, on the left, past Burlington House, The Albany, where Mr. Fledgby had chambers. The next turning on the same side is Sackville Street, in which it may be recollected that Mr. and Mrs. Lammles resided during the short term of their social prosperity. Mention of these localities in such connection will be found in the pages of “Our Mutual Friend.” Passing onwards on the same side, we arrive at No. 28, St. James’s Hall. It was at this well-known place of assembly that several of those popular Readings were given by Charles Dickens, which always commanded the attention and sympathetic interest of his audience. On these occasions he invariably adopted the extreme of fashionable evening attire, being dressed in irreproachable style, with, perhaps, more of shirt-front than waistcoat; and so “got up” as to present a staginess and juvenility of appearance, possibly somewhat out of keeping with his time of life. Some of his hearers may have desired a more natural and less conventional mode; but they knew that beneath the big shirt and fashionable coat, there throbbed the genial heart of the man they loved, as he read of the sorrows of “Little Emily,” or stood with them in spirit at the bedside of “Paul Dombey.” On the occasion of his final Reading, given here in March 1870, he tendered his last public farewell to his London audience in the following words:

“It would be worse than idle, it would be hypocritical and unfeeling, if I were to disguise that I close this episode of my life with feelings of very considerable pain. For some fifteen years, in this hall and many kindred places, I have had the honour of presenting my own cherished ideas before you for your recognition; and, in closely observing your reception of them, have enjoyed an amount of artistic delight and enjoyment, which perhaps it is given few men to know. In this task and every other, I have ever undertaken as a faithful servant of the public—always imbued with a sense of duty to them, and always striving to do his best—I have been uniformly cheered by the readiest response, the most generous sympathy and the most stimulating support. Nevertheless, I have thought it well, at the full flood-tide of your favour, to retire upon those older associations between us, which date from much further back than these; and henceforth to devote myself exclusively to the art that first brought us together. Ladies and gentlemen, in but two short weeks from this time, I hope that you may enter, in your own homes, on a new series of Readings, at which my assistance will be indispensable; but from these garish lights I vanish now for ever, with one heartfelt, grateful, respectful, and affectionate farewell.”

On the right-hand side of Piccadilly, adjacent to the Prince’s Hall and Institute of Painters, there may be noted, en passant, the premises No. 193, now occupied by the Boys’ Messenger Co. This, for many years, was the address of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers of the works of Dickens. Previous to 1850, the earlier books—“Pickwick” to “Martin Chuzzlewit” inclusive—together with the first issue of their cheaper edition, were published by this well-known house at 186 Strand, the site now occupied by the premises of W. H. Smith and Son. The firm have, for many years past, removed their offices to No. 11 Henrietta Street, Covent Garden.

Passing on to Piccadilly Circus, and crossing northward from the same, we turn (left) into Sherwood Street, which leads, by a short walk, to Brewer Street, in the neighbourhood of Golden Square. Continuing by Lower James Street, opposite, we reach the square itself, in which was formerly situated the Office of Ralph Nickleby. Readers of Dickens will remember that it was a large house, with an attic storey, in which Ralph committed suicide. The house No. 6, on the east side, was probably the one assigned by the author as the usurer’s residence. It is now let off in various suites of offices, professional and otherwise. The neighbourhood has somewhat changed since the time when the “Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby” was first issued, and the following description, given by Dickens, became public property:—

“It is one of the squares that have been—a quarter of the town that has gone down in the world, and taken to letting lodgings. Many of its first and second floors are let, furnished, to single gentlemen, and it takes boarders besides. It is a great resort of foreigners. The dark-complexioned men who wear large rings and heavy watch-guards, and bushy whiskers, and who congregate under the Opera Colonnade, and about the box-office in the season between four and five in the afternoon, when they give away the orders—all live in Golden Square, or within a street of it. Two or three violins and a wind instrument from the opera-band reside within its precincts.”

We read in the same book of the whereabouts of Mr. Kenwigs as being in this neighbourhood—

“A bygone, faded, tumble-down street, with two irregular rows of tall meagre houses, which seem to have stared each other out of countenance years ago; the very chimneys appear to have grown dismal and melancholy from having had nothing better to look at than the chimneys over the way.”

There are many streets in the district of Soho, in this vicinity, which will in some respects correspond with the description given; but much alteration has taken place during the last sixty years. Recollecting that Newman Noggs lodged in the upper part of the same house, it must have been conveniently near Golden Square. In Carnaby Street (immediately north of the Square) there may be remarked a white-fronted, old-fashioned house (No. 48), which, being in proximity to Ralph Nickleby’s Office, may be assigned as aforetime comprising the apartments of the Kenwigs Family.

At the corner of Beak Street and Upper James Street is still existent “The Crown Inn,” well known to Newman Noggs; though, since his time, it must have undergone considerable alteration. In his first letter to Nicholas Nickleby, Newman writes:—

“If you ever want a shelter in London, . . . they know where I live at the sign of the Crown, Golden Square. It is at the corner of Silver Street” [now Beak Street] “and James Street, with a bar door both ways.”

In this neighbourhood, also, Martha’s Lodgings were situated, in the days of David Copperfield, who says:—

“She laid her hand on my arm, and hurried me on to one of the sombre streets of which there are several in that part, where the houses were once fair dwellings, in the occupation of single families, but have, and had, long degenerated into poor lodgings let off in rooms.”

Such a house may be found in Marshall Street, No. 53, close at hand. But at this distance of time it is difficult to assign the exact locality intended by Dickens. We are all familiar with the welcome episode in David’s history when Martha rescued Little Emily, bringing her to these lodgings, and Mr. Peggotty’s dream came true.—See chapter 50.

Proceeding half-way up Marshall Street, we turn (right) through Broad Street, to (left) Poland Street, by which we again attain the main thoroughfare of Oxford Street. Turning eastward, on the north side, we come at a short distance (by No. 90) to Newman Street, in which was situated Mr. Turveydrop’s Dancing Academy, “established in a sufficiently dingy house, at the corner of an archway” (Newman Passage), with Mr. Turveydrop’s great room built out into a mews at the back. The house intended is No. 26, on the east side of the street. Here Caddy Jellyby resided with her husband, Prince Turveydrop, in the upper rooms of the establishment, leaving the better part of the house at the disposal of Mr. Turveydrop, senior; that “perfect model” of parental and social “deportment.” Returning to Oxford Street and passing onwards on the south side, we shortly arrive at Dean Street, leading southward.

At a short distance, running east and west, is Carlisle Street, at the further end of which, to the right, is an old house (by name Carlisle House) which stands facing the observer. It is now occupied by Messrs. Edwards and Roberts, dealers in antique furniture. Readers of “The Tale of Two Cities” will recollect the lodgings of Doctor Manette and daughter Lucie, as described in the 6th chapter (Book the Second) of the Tale, being situated in a quiet street-corner, not far from Soho Square:—

“A quainter corner than the corner where the Doctor lived was not to be found in London. There was no way through it, and the front windows of the Doctor’s lodgings commanded a pleasant little vista of street that had a congenial air of retirement on it. There were few buildings then, north of the Oxford Road, and forest-trees flourished, and wild flowers grew, and the hawthorn blossomed, in the now vanished fields.”

The garden behind the house, referred to in the above-mentioned book, has been converted to the uses of a warehouse, a glass roof having been long ago built over the same. A paved court now exists at the side for the convenience of foot-passengers, giving egress at the end of Carlisle Street, so that the “wonderful echoes” which once resounded in this “curious corner” are now no longer to be heard.

It may be interesting to note that a thoroughfare leading from No. 119 Charing Cross Road to No. 6 Greek Street, Soho, is now named Manette Street; in remembrance of the worthy Doctor, whose London residence in Carlisle Street, as indicated, was near at hand.

We may return to Oxford Street through Soho Square, conveniently terminating the ramble at Tottenham Court Road, just beyond. From this central point there is omnibus communication to all parts of London; and a commodious resting-place may be here recommended to those disposed for dinner, at The Horseshoe Restaurant; which stands in a prominent position near at hand, on the east side of the street.

RAMBLE V
Bank of England to Her Majesty’s Theatre

The Bank; Dombey and Son, Tom Pinch—George and Vulture Inn; Mr. Pickwick’s Hotel—“The Green Dragon,” alias “The Blue Boar,” Leadenhall Market; Tony Weller’s Headquarters—Newman’s Court (alias Freeman’s Court), Cornhill; The Offices of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg—House of Sol Gills, Leadenhall Street; The Wooden Midshipman—St. Mary Axe; Pubsey and Co.—House of Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks—“The Red Lion;” Mr. Dick Swiveller’s recommendation—Bull Inn, Aldgate; Starting-place of the Ipswich Coach—The Minories—Aldgate Pump; Mr. Toots’s Excursions—Mincing Lane; Messrs. Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles—Boarding House of Mrs. Todgers, King’s Head Court—London Bridge; Meeting-place of Rose Maylie and Nancy—“The White Hart Inn”; its Pickwickian Associations—The Marshalsea Prison; The Dorrit Family—St. George’s Church; Little Dorrit’s Night Refuge and Marriage—Lant Street; Dickens and Bob Sawyer’s Lodging—King’s Bench Prison—Horsemonger Lane Gaol—Mr. Chivery’s Shop—St. George’s Obelisk; “the long-legged young man”—The Surrey Theatre; Fanny Dorrit and Uncle—Bethlehem Hospital; “Uncommercial Traveller”—Astley’s Theatre; visit of the Nubbles Family—Millbank; Poor “Martha”—Church Street, Smith Square; the Dolls’ Dressmaker—Julius Handford—Westminster Abbey—The Red Lion, Parliament Street; the “Genuine Stunning”—The Horse Guards’ Clock—St. James’s Park; Meeting between Martin and Mary—Her Majesty’s Theatre.

Our starting-point is now the Bank of England, Dombey and Son’s

“Magnificent neighbour; with its vaults of gold and silver, ‘all among the dead men, underground.’”

Tom Pinch, diffident of requesting information in London, resolved that, in the event of finding himself near the Bank of England,

“He would step in, and ask a civil question or two, confiding in the perfect respectability of the concern.”

Adopting the route viâ Lombard Street, we come, on the left (No. 56), to George Yard, traversing which, there will be found, at the corner of Castle Court (No. 3), the George and Vulture Inn, at which Mr. Pickwick resided when in London, subsequent to his removal from Goswell Street; and which has honourable mention in the history of the Pickwickians.

Through Lombard Street, and turning left into Gracechurch Street, we shortly arrive, on the right, at Bull’s Head Passage (turning by the Branch Post Office, No. 82), in which, at No. 4, is the Green Dragon Tavern, in close proximity to Leadenhall Market. This is, in all probability, the house mentioned in “Pickwick” as “The Blue Boar,” Leadenhall Market, a favourite house of call with the elder Weller, and the place where Sam indited his “Valentine” to Mary, the pretty housemaid, afterwards Mrs. Sam. But the neighbourhood of the Market has undergone considerable renovation since the old coaching-days, and it is difficult to fix the locale of the tavern with certainty.

Proceeding onwards through Gracechurch Street, we come into the thoroughfare of Cornhill; and at No. 73, on the opposite side, arrive at Newman’s Court. It will be remembered that in “Pickwick” the offices of Messrs. Dodson and Fogg (Mrs. Bardell’s attorneys) are located in Freeman’s Court, Cornhill. There is no such place in Cornhill; Freeman’s Court being in Cheapside. It is evident, therefore, that Dickens, for reasons of his own, emulated the special contributor to the Eatanswill Gazette, and so “combined his information.” Taking Cornhill to be the locality intended, we shall find Dodson and Fogg’s Office at the furthest end of the Court, No. 4, still associated with legal business, being in possession of Messrs. Witherby and Co., law stationers.

Passing onwards in Cornhill, past Bishopsgate Street, we come into Leadenhall Street, and may be interested to note, at No. 157 (now an outfitting establishment), the original position of the House of Sol Gills, ships’ instrument maker, at whose door was displayed the figure of

“The Wooden Midshipman; eternally taking observations of the hackney coaches.”

Here our eccentric friend Captain Cuttle remained in charge during the absence of old Sol Gills and his nephew; here Florence, accompanied by the faithful Diogenes, found asylum; and here Walter Gay returned after shipwreck, to make everybody happy and marry the gentle heroine of the story. (See “Dombey and Son” for information in extenso.) Until recent years, these premises were in occupation of Messrs. Norie and Wilson, ships’ instrument makers and chart publishers. They have removed to the Minories, No. 156, where the quaint effigy of the Wooden Midshipman, with his cocked hat and quadrant complete, may now be seen, as bright and brisk as in old days. “When found, make a note of.”

Farther on, on the same side of Leadenhall Street, we reach St. Mary Axe, turning northward at No. 117, which we notice en passant 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 Brass, 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 Dick 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 associations 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 pass 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 amusement 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 Midshipman, 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 pass 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 Midshipman,” 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 Stobbles, 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 associated 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, passing 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-fashioned 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 associations 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 passing 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 passages 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 passage near to St. George’s Church. It leads into Marshalsea Place, of which Dickens 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 Dickens’s youthful days, his father was imprisoned for debt; and the place is intimately associated 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 personæ 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 sexton accommodated her with a bed formed of the pew-cushions, 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 Dickens, 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 circumference. 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 Dickens 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 fashioned 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 compass 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 anticipation 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 dénouement of that engagement, as previously mentioned. Near at hand, at the top of Blackfriars Road, stands The Surrey Theatre, at which Fanny 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 Dickens 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, passing 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 pass—on the left—farther on, Lambeth Episcopal Palace, and cross the Thames by Lambeth Suspension Bridge.

On the Middlesex shore 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 passing 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.

On the west side the Rambler passes the precincts of Westminster Abbey, beneath whose “high embowed roof” repose the sacred ashes of the illustrious dead. To this venerable fane—the especial resting-place of English literary genius—we will return after our concluding ramble to the birthplace of our greatest English novelist.

The onward road takes us past the Houses of Parliament, on the right, to Parliament Street, leading to Whitehall and Charing Cross. At a short distance up this thoroughfare is Derby Street—the first turning on the right; on the north corner of which there stood—until 1899—an old public-house, “The Red Lion” (No. 48). This place may be specially noted as the house at which young David Copperfield gave his “magnificent order” for a glass of the “Genuine Stunning,” and where the landlord’s wife gave him back the money and a kiss besides. This was an actual experience in the boyhood of Dickens, and is referred to in Mr. Forster’s Biography, where the house is indicated as above. It is now being rebuilt and modernised.

Proceeding by Whitehall, and crossing to the opposite side of the street, we shortly arrive at The Horse Guards, and may take passing observation of the Old Clock—famed for its perfection of time-keeping—by whose warning note Mark Tapley regulated the period of the interview next referred to. Passing through the arched passage beneath, we now attain the eastern side of St. James’s Park. This locality will be remembered as the place of meeting between Mary Graham and Martin Chuzzlewit, previous to his departure for America. As the young lady was escorted by Mark in the early morning from a City hotel, we may be certain that the interview must have taken place on this side of the Park, doubtless near the principal gate of the promenade facing the Horse Guards’ entrance.

Leaving the Park northward, by Spring Gardens, we come into Cockspur Street, shortly leading (left) to Pall Mall. At the first corner of the latter stands Her Majesty’s Theatre. At this establishment, as reconstructed during the early years of the century, Mrs. Nickleby attended, by special invitation of Sir Mulberry Hawk, Messrs. Pyke and Pluck assisting on that notable occasion, when, by a prearranged coincidence, Kate and the Wititterlys occupied the adjoining box.—Vide “Nicholas Nickleby,” chapter 27.

This Opera House was burnt down 1789, and rebuilt the following year. It was remodelled 1818, and again destroyed by fire, December 6, 1867. Being a second time rebuilt, it was, for some seasons, closed since 1875. The present theatre is of recent and splendid erection.

At this central position, from which we may readily take departure for any point in London, the present Ramble will terminate. To all those needing reparation of tissue, a visit to Epitaux’s Restaurant, near the Haymarket Theatre, will be satisfactory.

RAMBLE VI
Excursion to Chatham, Rochester, and Gadshill

Emmanuel Church; Mr. Wemmick’s Wedding—Dulwich; Mr. Pickwick’s Retirement—Dulwich Church; Marriage of Snodgrass and Emily Wardle—Cobham—“The Leather Bottle;” Tracy Tupman’s Retreat—Mr. Pickwick’s Discovery—Chatham—Railway Street; Rome Lane Elementary School—The Brook; Residence of the Dickens Family—Clover Lane Academy; Rev. William Giles, Schoolmaster—Fort Pitt; Dr. Slammer’s Duelling-Ground; the Recreation Ground of Chatham—Star Hill; Old Rochester Theatre; Mr. Jingle’s Engagement—Rochester; Eastgate House; The Nuns’ House—Mr. Sapsea’s Residence—Restoration House; Residence of Miss Havisham, “Satis House”—[Joe Gargery’s Forge; Parish of Cooling]—The Monk’s Vineyard—Minor Canon Row—Rochester Cathedral; The Crypts—Durdles—The Cathedral Tower—St. Nicholas Church—The College Gate; John Jasper’s Lodging—Watts’s Charity; “The Seven Poor Travellers”—[Watts’s Almshouses]—Miss Adelaide Procter—The Bull Hotel; the Ball-room—The Crown Hotel; “The Crozier”—The Esplanade—Rochester Bridge; Richard Doubledick—Gadshill Place; Residence of Dickens—Gravesend; Embarkation of Mr. Peggotty and friends—Greenwich Park; “Sketches by Boz”—Church of St. Alphege; Bella Wilfer’s Marriage—Quartermaine’s Ship Tavern; “An Innocent Elopement;” The Rokesmith Wedding Dinner.

Starting from the Holborn Viaduct or Ludgate Hill Station of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway, we cross the Thames and proceed en route for the Kentish uplands. At ten minutes’ distance from the London terminus, passing the Elephant and Castle and Walworth Road Stations, we may observe (on the left) the back of Emmanuel Church, as the train slackens speed for Camberwell. This may be noted as the place where Mr. Wemmick and Miss Skiffins were united in the bonds of matrimony; so we may here suitably recall the scene narrated in “Great Expectations,” and the informal and unexpected procedure adopted by Mr. W. on that occasion—

“We went towards Camberwell Green, and when we were thereabouts, Wemmick said suddenly, ‘Halloa! Here’s a church!’ There was nothing very surprising in that; but again I was rather surprised when he said, as if he were animated by a brilliant idea, ‘Let’s go in!’ We went in and looked all round. In the meantime Wemmick was diving into his coat pockets, and getting something out of paper there. ‘Halloa!’ said he. ‘Here’s a couple of pairs of gloves! Let’s put ’em on!’ As the gloves were white kid gloves, I now began to have my strong suspicions. They were strengthened into certainty, when I beheld the Aged enter at a side door, escorting a lady. ‘Halloa!’ said Wemmick. ‘Here’s Miss Skiffins! Let’s have a wedding!’ . . . True to his notion of seeming to do it all without preparation, I heard Wemmick say to himself, as he took something out of his waistcoat pocket before the service began, ‘Halloa! Here’s a ring!’ . . . ‘Now, Mr. Pip,’ said Wemmick triumphantly, as we came out, ‘let me ask you whether anybody would suppose this to be a wedding party.’”

The route being continued past Herne Hill Station, the train arrives at Dulwich, which we may recollect en passant as being the locality of Mr. Pickwick’s retirement, before the days of railway locomotion. The house—a white, comfortable-looking residence—stands (left) near the station, as we approach, corresponding in style and position with its Pickwickian description. Mr. Tupman, too, may have been met with in olden time, walking in the public promenades or loitering in the Dulwich Picture Gallery—“with a youthful and jaunty air”—still in the enjoyment of single blessedness, and the cynosure of the numerous elderly ladies of the neighbourhood.

Mr. Snodgrass and Emily Wardle, as we all know, were married at Dulwich Church, in this vicinity; the wedding guests—including “the poor relations, who got there somehow”—assembling at Mr. Pickwick’s new house on that interesting occasion; and we may remember the general verdict then unanimously given as to the elegance, comfort, and suitability of our old friend’s suburban retreat—

“Nothing was to be heard but congratulations and commendations. Everything was so beautiful! The lawn in front, the garden behind, the miniature conservatory, the dining-room, the drawing-room, the bedrooms, the smoking-room; and, above all, the study—with its pictures and easy chairs, and odd cabinets and queer tables, and nooks out of number, with a large cheerful window opening upon a pleasant lawn, and commanding a pretty landscape, just dotted here and there with little houses, almost hidden by the trees.”

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Weller and family—retainers in the Pickwickian establishment—also flourished aforetime in these arcadian groves, in faithful attendance on their illustrious patron.

The journey being resumed, we pass onwards (Crystal Palace on the right side of the railway) viâ Penge and Bromley, and several country towns beyond—a pleasant ride of about an hour’s duration—arriving in due course at Sole Street Station (30 miles from London), about a mile south-west from the village of Cobham. A pleasant walk of twenty minutes on the high road will lead the wayfarer through Owlet to the pretty parish aforesaid; the rural retreat—famous in the annals of Pickwickian history—selected by Mr. Tracy Tupman for his retirement from the world, after his disappointment at the hands of Miss Rachael Wardle.

“The Leather Bottle Inn”—where he was found at dinner by his anxious friends—is described as “a clean and commodious village ale-house,” and still maintains its favourable repute. It stands opposite the church at Cobham—

“At Muggleton they procured a conveyance to Rochester. By the time they reached the last-named place, the violence of their grief had sufficiently abated to admit of their making a very excellent early dinner; and having procured the necessary information relative to the road, the three friends set forward again in the afternoon to walk to Cobham.

“A delightful walk it was; for it was a pleasant afternoon in June, and their way lay through a deep and shady wood, cooled by the light wind which gently rustled the thick foliage, and enlivened by the songs of the birds that perched upon the boughs. The ivy and the moss crept in thick clusters over the old trees, and the soft green turf overspread the ground like a silken mat. They emerged upon an open park, with an ancient hall, displaying the quaint and picturesque architecture of Elizabeth’s time. Long vistas of stately oaks and elm-trees appeared on every side; large herds of deer were cropping the fresh grass; and occasionally a startled hare scoured along the ground with the speed of the shadows thrown by the light clouds which swept across a sunny landscape like a passing breath of summer. ‘If this,’ said Mr. Pickwick, looking about him, ‘if this were the place to which all who are troubled with our friend’s complaint came, I fancy their old attachment to this world would very soon return.’

“‘I think so too,’ said Mr. Winkle.

“‘And really,’ added Mr. Pickwick, after half-an-hour’s walking had brought them to the village, ‘really, for a misanthrope’s choice, this is one of the prettiest and most desirable places of residence I ever met with.’

“In this opinion also both Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass expressed their concurrence; and having been directed to the Leather Bottle, a clean and commodious village ale-house, the three travellers entered, and at once inquired for a gentleman of the name of Tupman. The three friends entered a long, low-roofed room, furnished with a large number of high-backed leather-cushioned chairs, of fantastic shapes, and embellished with a great variety of old portraits. At the upper end of the room was a table, with a white cloth upon it, well covered with a roast fowl, bacon, ale, and et ceteras; and at the table sat Mr. Tupman, looking as unlike a man who had taken his leave of the world as possible.”

Resting here awhile, we may recall the “immortal discovery” made by Mr. Pickwick, “which has been the pride and boast of his friends and the envy of every antiquarian in this or any other country”—that famous stone found by the chairman of the Pickwick Club himself; “partially buried in the ground in front of a cottage door,” in this same village of Cobham, on which “the following fragment of an inscription was clearly to be deciphered”:—

Full particulars are duly recorded in “The Pickwick Papers,” chapter 11. We may also remember the celebrated controversy in scientific and erudite circles, to which this remarkable stone gave rise; Mr. Pickwick being “elected an honorary member of seventeen native and foreign societies for the discovery.”

The journey being resumed from Sole Street, we travel viâ Strood, ten miles, to the important station of