This satire led to a retort by Sir George Rose, the judge and well-known legal writer, in extemporaneous lines written at a dinner:
"Why should Honesty fly to some safer retreat,
From attorneys and barges?—'od rot 'em!—
For the lawyers are just at the top of the street,
And the barges are just at the bottom."
THE LION, NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.
Lawyers still have their offices in Craven Street, but the coal-barges vanished in 1876. A few doors from James Smith's, in the house on the left-hand side from the Strand, there lodged, in 1885, the celebrated American comedian, John Sleeper Clarke (1834-1899). His rooms overlooked the back of what was then the Avenue Theatre. This house, opened on March 11, 1882, was rebuilt by Mr Cyril Maude, and, on the eve of its re-opening, December 5, 1905, it was destroyed by the fall of the roof of Charing Cross Station. Again rebuilt by Mr Maude, it was opened, on January 28, 1907, as the Playhouse. The theatrical associations of this part of London are, indeed, like Mr Weller's knowledge of London, "extensive and peculiar."
FOOTNOTES:
[64] The Court of England under the Stuarts, Jesse, vol. iii., pp. 356-7.
[65] Forster's Goldsmith.
[66] Old and New London, vol. iii., p. 140.