Saunterings in and about London

by Max Schlesinger

This is one of the chief distinctions between London and Paris and other continental capitals. Paris has much outside glitter, much startling show. Its Boulevards, its Place de la Concorde, Place Vendôme, Rue de la Paix, Rue Rivoli, and sundry others of its streets and public places are unrivalled; London cannot vie with them in architectural prodigies. But the brilliant points of Paris, of which Frenchmen are in the habit of boasting, attract our attention only to divert it from the narrow crooked lanes, and the filth of the other parts of their town. Paris sports a clean shirt-front merely to hide the uncleanliness of its general nature. The French are adepts in the art of draping. The English, on the contrary, know nothing whatever of that noble art. The cut of their clothes is inelegant, but the cloth is the best of its kind; their dwelling-houses have the appearance of old chimneys, but the inside is replete with comfort and unpretending wealth; their language is rough, and without melody; but it is energetic, flexible, and expressive. Their metropolis, too, conceals its real beauties. It requires some investigation, some instinct and discernment to discover and enjoy them.

In the broadest part of Holborn, there are on either side certain suspicious-looking lanes, in which pawnbrokers and cobblers “hang out,” and where a roaring, though not a very fragrant, trade is driven in greens, meat, and fish. The lanes on the north side communicate with Gray’s Inn; on the south, they form an intricate labyrinth, which we enter on our way to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

Travellers proceeding from London to Dover pass through a series of monstrous tunnels, which have been bored through those mountains of chalk, the bulwarks of the British islands. As they emerge from the darkness of the last tunnel, they feel happy and grateful for the fresh sea-breeze which plays around and the vast, boundless view which opens before them. In a like manner, do we breathe more freely as we emerge from the last of these narrow, and by no means sweetly-smelling lanes.

A broad square, filled with trees, flowers, and garden-ground, opens before us. This is one of the many “squares” of which you, O my beloved countrymen, entertain such crude and indistinct notions!

“Squares” are wide, open spots, surrounded by houses, exactly like our own “Plätze.” But, instead of the monuments of saints, whom the Anglican Church ignores; instead of the pestilence-columns, which Englishmen object to (though London, like every other respectable old town, had its plagues in olden times); and instead of our beautiful market-fountains, the poesy of which is a sealed book to the English mind, their “Plätze” have been converted into Gardens with broad commodious streets all round the railings. These gardens are not by any means so small as the Germans generally believe. Indeed, in the larger squares, they are of considerable extent. The curiosity of the passers-by is repelled by trees, shrubs, and carefully-trimmed hedges, and the shady walks and the grassplots in the centre are strictly private. Of these squares, Lincoln’s Inn Fields is the largest; it covers an area of twelve acres. The joint extent of all the London squares is one thousand two hundred acres. With the exception of Smithfield and Trafalgar-square, all the London squares have gardens, and the trees and shrubs which grow in them improve the air of all the neighbouring streets. Such gardens are found in all quarters of the town, and in many cases they are hidden among the narrowest alleys and gloomiest courts, where the wanderer least expects to find them. They are the most beautiful spots in London, for they present specimens of nature’s paradise, blooming in concealment, and all the more lovely are they for that very reason.

Let us return to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

We stand on classic soil. Three sides of this large square are surrounded with buildings, whose open doors shew at once that they are not mere ordinary dwelling-houses. One of them attracts our special attention; it is so black and its columns are so many and so high. It is the Royal College of Surgeons, where the medical students pass their examination in surgery. This house, too, shelters the famous Anatomical Museum which John Hunter bequeathed to the College of Surgeons. All the other buildings are owned by the guild of the lawyers. In the heart of the city, the houses, from the cellars to the garrets, are let out as offices and store-rooms. The houses in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, too, are devoted to the special accommodation of lawyers. A walk up and down, and a look at the door-posts, which are black with the names of advocates, suffice to convince us of the lamentable condition of English law.

We have said that this is classic soil. Sir Thomas More, Shaftesbury the statesman, and Lord Mansfield, studied in the precincts of Lincoln’s Inn; and Oliver Cromwell passed two years of his eventful life in the same locality. The square has its sad reminiscences too. In the centre of the gardens, where flowers blow and birds sing, there stood at one time a scaffold; and on that scaffold died one of the noblest patriots of England, Lord Russell, an ancestor of Finality John, and son to William, Earl of Bedford.

The crown of England rested in those days on the head of the second Charles. At his side was his brother, the Duke of York, the evil genius of Charles and of England. Charles, and James his brother, listened to the counsels of France and of Rome, for they wanted money, and the Whigs would only consent to vote the people’s money in exchange for some crumbs of liberty for the people. Thus it came to pass that England’s honour was sold to France, and the “rebellious” Parliament was dissolved, and the press put down; the liberties of the city were curtailed; venal men were placed on the bench, and venal witnesses thronged the courts; the best men of England were put into jail and arraigned on charges of high treason. Among the best and bravest was William Russell.

They accused him of having conspired against the king’s life, and sent him to the Tower. Witnesses were bribed to appear against him; they were men of proverbial villany. Among them was Lord Howard, of whom the king himself had said he would not hang the worst cur in his kennel on the evidence of that man. But that man’s evidence sufficed to bring the best man in all England to the block. It is the old story—a tail-wagging cur is more considered at court than a thinking man. Lord Russell’s head fell in the centre of this very square. Vainly did his wife implore the king’s mercy. Lord Russell’s head fell in the immediate vicinity of his estates; and the Londoners of those days saw him pass through Holborn on his way to the scaffold. Many wept—many abused him; others jeered at him. The people of that time had even less respect for its heroes and martyrs than the present generation. In our days, even the vilest of the vile are awed into silence when the princes of this earth deliver their political adversaries to the hangman’s rope or the “mercy” of a platoon of rifles.