“In eighteen hundred and forty-two
Four things the sun shall view;
London’s rich and famous town
Hungry earth shall swallow down;
Storm and rain in France shall be,
Till every river runs a sea;
Spain shall be rent in twain,
And famine waste the land again;
So say I, the Monk of Dree,
In the twelve hundredth year and three.”
The other is fathered on the famous astrologer, Dr. Dee:
“The Lord have mercy on you all,
Prepare yourselves for dreadful fall
Of house and land and human soul—
The measure of your sin is full.“In the year One, Eight, and Forty-two,
Of the year that is so new,
In the third month, of that sixteen,
It may be a day or two between.“Perhaps you’ll soon be stiff and cold,
Dear Christian, be not stout and bold;
The mighty Kingly proud will see
This comes to pass, as my name’s Dee.”
And people were found to believe in this doggerel—especially frightened were the Irish in London, and the lower classes generally. There was a great exodus of the former, some even listening to the entreaties of their friends, and returning to Ireland, and many of the latter moved eastward of the church of St. Dunstan’s, Stepney, which they considered would be the last edifice to fall. Nor was belief in the earthquake confined to the east end of London, for I read of a man, formerly a police constable, living in Paddington, St. Marylebone, who sold a good business to provide the means of his leaving London; and of a clerk, with a salary of £200 a year, residing in the same parish, resigning his post, so that he might escape the calamity.
The fateful day arrived and passed, and, of course, the dreaded event did not take place, but the belief in it is evidenced in a paragraph in the Times of 17 March:
“The Earthquake.—The scene witnessed in the neighbourhoods of St. Giles’s and Seven Dials during the whole of yesterday was, perhaps, the most singular that has presented itself for many years. Many of the Irish resident in those localities have left for the shores of the Emerald Isle, but by far the larger number, unblessed with this world’s goods, have been compelled to remain where they are, and to anticipate the fearful event which was to engulf them in the bowels of the earth. The frantic cries, the incessant appeals to Heaven for deliverance, the invocations to the Virgin and the Saints for mediation, the heartrending supplications for assistance, heard on every side during the day, sufficiently evidenced the power with which this popular delusion had seized the mind of these superstitious people. Towards the end of the day, a large number of them determined not to remain in London during the night, and, with what few things they possessed, took their departure for what they considered more favoured spots. Some violent contests arose between the believers and the sceptics—contests, which in not a few cases, were productive of serious results.
“The poor Irish, however, are not the only persons who have been credulous in this matter; many persons from whom better things might have been expected, were amongst the number who left London to avoid the threatened catastrophe. To the Gravesend steamboat companies the ‘earthquake’ proved a source of immense gain; and the same may be said with regard to the different railways. Long before the hour appointed for the starting of steamboats from London Bridge Wharf, Hungerford Market, and other places, the shore was thronged by crowds of decently attired people of both sexes; and, in many instances, whole families were to be seen with an amount of eatables and drinkables which would have led one to suppose that they were going a six-weeks’ voyage. About 11 o’clock, the Planet came alongside the London Bridge Wharf, and the rush to get on board of her was tremendous, and, in a few minutes, there was scarcely standing room on board. The trains on the various railways were, during the whole of Tuesday and yesterday morning, unusually busy in conveying passengers without the proscribed limits of the Metropolitan disaster. To those who had not the means of taking trips to Gravesend, or by railway, other places which were supposed to be exempted from the influence of the ‘rude commotion’ about to take place, were resorted to. From an early hour in the morning, the humbler classes from the east end of the Metropolis sought refuge in the fields beyond the purlieus of Stepney. On the north, Hampstead and Highgate were favoured with a visit from large bodies of the respectable inhabitants of St. Giles’s; and Primrose Hill, also, was selected as a famous spot for viewing the demolition of the leviathan city. The darkness of the day, and the thickness of the atmosphere, however, prevented it being seen.”
Brighton, too, felt the advantage of the “earthquake,” as numbers of families of the middle and upper classes went there to avoid its consequences. It was noted that on the night of the 15th nearly 20 carriages arrived there, a circumstance that had not occurred since the opening of the London and Brighton Railway.
To “talk scandal about Queen Elizabeth” is a matter serious enough, but to say that Queen Victoria drank grog on board one of her own ships is rank treason, and must be explained, as it was by the John Bull. “The true version of Her Majesty’s tasting the grog on board of The Queen, during her late visit to Portsmouth, is as follows: Strict orders had been given to the men, that when Her Majesty came down to the lower deck, to see them at mess, they should not speak a word, but preserve as profound a silence as possible. Jack, of course, was too much taken up with watching the Royal visitor, to think of talking, save, perhaps, the desire of whispering to his messmate a comment or so on the meteor passing before him. All was still. Her Majesty tasted the cocoa, and approved of it—yet all was still. Her Majesty then inquired whether there was no stronger beverage allowed the men, and forthwith a tumbler of ‘three-water grog’ was handed her. She raised it to her lips—when Jack forgot his orders, and three distinct cheers ran round the deck, with such ‘a will,’ that the ship’s sides seemed to start with the sudden explosion; the honour done was more than a sailor could bear without clearing his heart with an huzzah.”
It was on 8 Feb., 1841, that Fox Talbot provisionally registered his patent “for improvements in obtaining pictures, or representations of objects,” which is now in vogue, his improvement being the printing of the photo on paper. He,
himself, made no public practical use of his invention, and one of the first, if not the first photographer who adopted it was Mr. Beard, of Parliament and King William Streets. It was quite a new thing when Prince Albert went to his studio on 21 Mar., 1842, and sat for his portrait. This made the process fashionable, and henceforth photography was a practical success.