[43] Abridged from the Romance of London, vol. i. pp. 225-232.
[44] The old Golden Cross Inn, Charing Cross, stood a short distance west of the present Golden Cross Hotel, No. 452, Strand. Of the former we read: "April 23, 1643. It was at this period, by order of the Committee or Commission appointed by the House, the sign of a tavern, the Golden Cross, at Charing Cross, was taken down, as superstitious and idolatrous."—In Suffolk-street, Haymarket, was the Tavern before which took place "the Calves' Head Club" riot.—See Vol. I., p. [27].
[45] In Jermyn-street, Haymarket, was the One Tun Tavern, a haunt of Sheridan's; and, upon the site of "the Little Theatre," is the Café de l'Europe.
[46] Canonbury Tavern was in the middle of the last century a small ale-house. It was taken by a Mr. Lane, who had been a private soldier: he improved the house, but its celebrity was gained by the widow Sutton, who kept the place from 1785 to 1808, and built new rooms, and laid out the bowling-green and tea-gardens. An Assembly was first established here in the year 1810. Nearly the entire premises, which then occupied about four acres, were situated within the old park wall of the Priory of St. Bartholomew; it formed, indeed, a part of the eastern side of the house; the ancient fish-pond was also connected with the grounds. The Tavern has been rebuilt.
[47] Robins's Paddington, Past and Present.
[48] Stolen Marriages were the source of the old Knightsbridge tavern success; and ten books of marriages and baptisms solemnized here, 1658 to 1752, are preserved. Trinity Chapel, the old edifice, was one of the places where these irregular marriages were solemnized. Thus, in Shadwell's Sullen Lovers, Lovell is made to say, "Let's dally no longer; there is a person at Knightsbridge that yokes all stray people together; we'll to him, he'll dispatch us presently, and send us away as lovingly as any two fools that ever yet were condemned to marriage." Some of the entries in this marriage register are suspicious enough—"secrecy for life," or "great secrecy," or "secret for fourteen years" being appended to the names. Mr. Davis, in his Memorials of Knightsbridge, was the first to exhume from this document the name of the adventuress "Mrs. Mary Aylif," whom Sir Samuel Morland married as his fourth wife, in 1697. Readers of Pepys will remember how pathetically Morland wrote, eighteen days after the wedding, that when he had expected to marry an heiress, "I was, about a fortnight since, led as a fool to the stocks, and married a coachman's daughter not worth a shilling."
[49] Davis's Memorials of Knightsbridge.
[50] The last relic of "Jenny's Whim" was removed in November, 1865.
[51] In 1755, a quarto satirical tract was published, entitled "Jenny's Whim; or, a Sure Guide to the Nobility, Gentry, and other Eminent Persons in this Metropolis."
[52] See the Descriptions of Vauxhall Gardens in Curiosities of London, pp. 745-748. Walks and Talks about London, pp. 16-30. Romance of London, vol. iii. pp. 34-44.