There was a simplicity in all this which was very pleasing. After about twenty minutes of devout suspense, during which time Justice Greedy’s “clapper” must have been noisily heard at work in the clamorous stomachs of the lads, the welcome signal was given, and they were permitted to fall on the victuals. Later the signal was given to break off, by sharp blows on the table, when there followed a fresh series of old observances which showed the monastic origin of the place.
The lads who had waited on each other now brought huge baskets to carry away the fragments of bread, etc., the tables were cleared, and the long white cloths carefully folded, which led on to the last and most interesting part of the exhibition, when each division of the eight hundred passed in its turn before the President. Every two advanced together and made him a low bow, or “bob,” which was carefully returned; each division closed up with the servitors, one carrying the basket on his shoulder, another the knife-box, a third the cloth, while a small monk not unpicturesquely wound up the procession, bearing the two garlanded lights.
CHAPTER XXVI.
CANONBURY TOWER.
THE outlying districts of London have each a curiously marked colour and flavour of their own. Thus “the Borough,” the district about Bishopgate Street, the City itself—and Islington, all have a distinct and recognizable air. It would take long to define the elements of each, but the skilled denizen has no difficulty in distinguishing. Islington has a bustling, almost foreign air, and in some sense deserves its epithet “merry.” A little beyond Islington there begins a district of so special and curious a kind as really to have effect on the mind and spirits of the traveller. For here he finds a succession of tame, spiritless villas and terraces, gardens and small squares, not dilapidated, yet all running to seed as it were. There is a general look of monotonous hopelessness that cannot be described. No one seems to be about or doing. There is one compensation—the good, clear, inspiring air. This is felt as we mount those gently-rising hills which lead out of the main road, and land us among the still more saddening squares and abjectly-correct terraces. One of these is Canonbury Road, at the top of which the atmosphere is positively “bracing,” and here—that is, a little way on—we come to a most interesting old memorial, well worthy the long jaunt from the West End.
In strange contrast with its associates rises a grim and gaunt old brick tower, solid, massive, and lofty, against whose veteran sides lean some old gabled houses, part of the structure. A thick and friendly coat of ivy covers a goodly proportion of the old body. An antique rail surmounts the top, while a meagre weathercock gives point and finish to the whole. There is a certain majesty and breadth about this venerable relic, which rises here to a great height, wrapped in the dignity of its own desolation. There is always, indeed, a sense of sadness in the spectacle of one of these old brick towers, all scarred and weather-beaten with the storms and batterings of fortune.
Standing before the low-arched doorway, a genuine portal, the door itself a bit of oak, framed and duly knobbed, I remind myself that this picturesque tenement is associated, oddly enough, with some of the pleasantest literary memories. Like its mediæval neighbour, old “St. John’s Gate,” it was the refuge and shelter of the destitute “hack” more than a hundred and twenty years ago. A regular line of littérateurs have had the odd fancy of deserting their busy Grub Street, and of lying perdu here, either from choice or necessity; and it is easy to call up the rather ungainly figure of Doctor Goldsmith toiling up Canonbury Hill, and hiding here from his creditors.
A worthy woman—albeit garrulous—guides us over the old tower. After saying that “she knew Oliver’s life well,” she added, “Them poets seem to be always poor and in want.” It was astonishing to see the number and spaciousness of the chambers in the old place, and their picturesque rambling disposition. One was struck with admiration at the two spacious rooms on the second and third floors, finely proportioned and baronial, each adorned with ebony-toned oak panelling reaching to the ceiling, and each with an elaborately carved mantelpiece, such as would have rejoiced Charles Lamb at Blakesware. The delicacy and finish of the work cannot be surpassed. There are old solid doors, black as ink, hanging on hinges a yard long; fragments of old oak banisters; while in the upper stories windows with diamond panes are still seen. The stair mounts in an irregular way: off which are curious chambers and many odd “crannies.”
About 1766, the bookseller Newbery, as we learn from the pleasant account of him just published, contracted with a Mr. Fleming, the then tenant, to board and lodge the poet for £50 a year. According to this authority, Goldsmith’s room was that on the second floor, and here he is described as reading to one of the younger Newberys passages from his MS. George Daniel, the bibliophile, who made a pilgrimage to the tower—if he did not reside there—and gathered up the traditions, found that the first-floor room was believed to have been the Doctor’s, and “an old press bedstead in the corner” was shown in proof. Two families, the Tappses and the Evanses, had been in care of the place for over 140 years: and Mrs. Tapps used to retail many stories about the poet to her niece, who was in possession at the time of Mr. Daniel’s visit. Washington Irving was so much interested by the place that he took up his abode there for a time. Other tenants have been the eccentric Dr. Hill, of Garrick’s happy epigram—
For physic and farces
His equal there scarce is:
His farces are physic,
His physic a farce is;
with Smart, the mad poet, who wrote an epic in Bedlam; Humphreys, another poet; “Junius” Woodfall; Chambers, who wrote an encyclopædia; and Speaker Onslow. A later resident was Seymour, the artist, associated with the earlier numbers of “Pickwick,” who shut himself up here with a fellow student to study “High Art,” a line he fortunately abandoned for what was his real gift. What rooms in London offer so curious a succession of tenants? Some time ago a “Young Men’s Association” fixed itself here, but the young men are fled, and once more “desolate is the dwelling of Morna.” The view from the platform on the roof was almost confounding: the vast champaign spreading away below to the wooded hills of Hampstead and Highgate; while the keen inspiriting air blew from these heights. It was a surprise even for a fair and spirituelle antiquary of our acquaintance, who was tempted up to the dizzy elevation, and could scarcely credit that London offered such a spectacle. St. Paul’s seemed to lie at your feet.