When first I saw these knockers, which were all of solid brass, seventeen of the doors of the four-and-twenty houses in Dean Street were adorned with them, and the good housewives’ care was to keep them as bright as the chimney-sweeper’s ladle on May-day. As my mind from my earliest remembrance was of an inquisitive nature, my curiosity urged me to learn why this street, above all others, was thus adorned; and my inquiry was, as I then thought, at once answered satisfactorily.
This ground and the houses upon it belong to the Fishmongers’ Company, was the answer returned by one of the oldest inhabitants; and the heraldic reader will recollect that the arms of that worshipful and ancient body are dolphins. Not being satisfied with this assertion, however, I went to Fishmongers’ Hall, and was there assured that the Company never had any property in Dean Street, Fetter Lane. On the 17th of May, 1829, I visited this street in order to see how many of my brazen-faced acquaintances exposed themselves, and I found that Dean Street was nearly as deficient in its dolphin knockers as a churchyard is of its earliest tombstones, for out of seventeen only three remained.[225]
In the commencement of this year I took lodgings in Gerrard Street, and acquiesced in the regulations of my landlady; one of the principal of which was, that I never was to expect to be let in after twelve o’clock, unless the servant was apprised of my staying out later, and then she was to be permitted to sit up for me. Being in my twenty-first year, of a lively disposition, and moreover fond of theatrical representations, I did not at all times “remember twelve”; for although Mrs. Siddons sounded it so emphatically upon my ear, I could never quit the theatre till half an hour after. My finances at this period being sometimes too slender to afford an additional lodging for the night, and not often venturing to expose myself to insult, or the artful and designing, by perambulating the city, unless the moon invited me, I fortunately hit upon the following expedient, which not only sheltered me from rain, but afforded me a seat by the fireside. I either used to go to the watch-house of St. Paul, Covent Garden, or that of St. Anne, Soho; so, having made myself free of both by agreeing with the watch-house keeper to stand the expense of two pots of porter upon every nocturnal visit, I was enabled to see what is called “life and human nature.”
A LONDON WATCH HOUSE
One of the curious scenes witnessed upon a more recent occasion afforded me no small amusement. Sir Harry Dinsdale, usually called Dimsdale, a short, feeble little man, was brought in to St. Anne’s watch-house, charged by two colossal guardians of the night with conduct most unruly. “What have you, Sir Harry, to say to all this?” asked the Dogberry of St. Anne. The knight, who had been roughly handled, commenced like a true orator, in a low tone of voice, “May it please ye, my magistrate, I am not drunk; it is languor. A parcel of the bloods of the Garden have treated me cruelly, because I would not treat them. This day, Sir, I was sent for by Mr. Sheridan to make my speech upon the table at the Shakspeare Tavern, in Common Garden; he wrote the speech for me, and always gives me half a guinea, when he sends for me to the tavern. You see I didn’t go in my Royal robes; I only put ’um on when I stand to be member.” Constable—“Well, but Sir Harry, why are you brought here?” One of the watchmen then observed, “That though Sir Harry was but a little shambling fellow, he was so upstroppolus and kicked him about at such a rate, that it was as much as he and his comrade could do to bring him along.” As there was no one to support the charge, Sir Harry was advised to go home, which, however, he swore he would not do at midnight without an escort. “Do you know,” said he, “there’s a parcel of raps now on the outside waiting for me.”
The constable of the night gave orders for him to be protected to the public-house opposite the west end of St. Giles’s Church, where he then lodged. Sir Harry hearing a noise in the street, muttered, “I shall catch it; I know I shall.” “See the conquering hero comes” (cries without). “Ay, they always use that tune when I gain my election at Garrett.”
Although many of my readers may recollect Sir Harry Dinsdale, yet it may be well for the information of others to state who and what he was. Before I commence his history, however, I should observe that the death of Sir Jeffery Dunstan, a dealer in old wigs, who had been for many years returned member for Garrett, first gave popularity to Harry Dinsdale, who, from the moment he stood as candidate, received mock knighthood, and was ever after known under the appellation of “Sir Harry.”[226] There are several portraits of this singular little object, by some called “Honeyjuice,” as well as of his more whimsical predecessor, Sir Jeffery Dunstan, better known as “Old Wigs.” Sir Harry exercised the itinerant trade of a muffinman in the afternoon; he had a little bell, which he held to his ear, smiling ironically at its tingling. His cry was “Muffins! muffins! ladies come buy me! pretty, handsome, blooming, smiling maids.” Flaxman the sculptor, and Mrs. Mathew, of blue-stocking memory, equipped him as a hardware man, and as such I made two etchings of him.
