“Mrs. Jellyby had very good hair, but was too much occupied with her African duties to brush it. The shawl in which she had been loosely muffled dropped on to her chair, when she advanced towards us; and, as she turned to resume her seat, we could not help noticing that her dress didn’t nearly meet up the back, and that the open space was railed across with a lattice work of staylace—like a summer house. . . . ‘You find me, my dears,’ said Mrs. Jellyby, ‘as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. . . . We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger.”—See “Bleak House,” chapter 4.
The Buffet of Messrs. Spiers and Pond will be found a short distance eastward from Holborn Circus, on the right, next the terminus of the London, Chatham, and Dover railway. A visit to its welcome “contiguity of shade” is confidently recommended to those who may be disposed for necessary rest and refreshment.
RAMBLE IV
Holborn Circus to Tottenham Court Road
Langdale’s Distillery—Barnard’s Inn; Pip’s Chambers—Furnival’s Inn; Dickens’s and John Westlock’s Apartments—Staple Inn; Mr. Grewgious’s Chambers, P.J.T.; Rooms of Neville Landless and Mr. Tartar; “The Magic Bean-Stalk Country”—Gray’s Inn; Mr. and Mrs. Traddles and “the girls;” Offices of Mr. Perker—The Bull Inn; Scene of Lewsome’s Illness—Kingsgate Street; Poll Sweedlepipe’s Shop; Sairey Gamp’s Apartments—Mrs. Billickin’s Lodgings in Southampton Street; Miss Twinkleton and Rosa Budd—Bloomsbury Square; Lord Mansfield’s Residence—Queen Square—The Children’s Hospital; Johnny’s Will—Foundling Hospital; “No Thoroughfare;” Walter Wilding—“The Boot Tavern”—No. 48 Doughty Street—Tavistock House, Tavistock Square—Mrs. Dickens’s Establishment, No. 4 Gower Street, North; Mrs. Wilfer’s Doorplate—No. 1 Devonshire Terrace—Mr. Merdle’s House, Harley Street—Mr. Dombey’s House—Madame Mantalini’s, Wigmore Street—Wimpole Street; Mr. Boffin’s West-end Residence—Welbeck Street; Lord George Gordon’s Residence—Brook Street, Claridge’s Hotel; Mr. Dorrit’s Return—Devonshire House; Guild of Literature and Art—Hatchett’s Hotel; White Horse Cellars; Mr. Guppy in attendance—193 Piccadilly; Messrs. Chapman and Hall—Golden Square; Ralph Nickleby’s Office—Apartments of the Kenwigs family—The Crown Inn—“Martha’s” Lodgings—Newman Street; Mr. Turveydrop’s Academy—Carlisle House; Doctor Manette and Lucie.
From Holborn Circus the Rambler now proceeds westward by the main thoroughfare of Holborn, passing Fetter Lane on the left, and arrives at (No. 26) the old premises, now partially rebuilt, formerly Langdale’s Distillery. Half of the same remains (at the moment), but will shortly be superseded by a modern building. The eastern portion is occupied by Messrs. Buchanan, whisky merchants, who have recently purchased the premises. This establishment was sacked (1780) by the Gordon rioters. Mr. Langdale being a Catholic, was obnoxious to the No-Popery mob; and the stores of liquor at this distillery afforded an additional temptation for the attack. The terrible scenes enacted on the occasion are powerfully described in “Barnaby Rudge,” chapters 67 and 68—
“At this place a large detachment of soldiery were posted, who fired, now up Fleet Market, now up Holborn, now up Snow Hill—constantly raking the streets in each direction. At this place too, several large fires were burning, so that all the terrors of that terrible night seemed to be concentrated in one spot.
“Full twenty times, the rioters, headed by one man who wielded an axe in his right hand, and bestrode a brewer’s horse of great size and strength, caparisoned with fetters taken out of Newgate, which clanked and jingled as he went, made an attempt to force a passage at this point, and fire the vintner’s house. Full twenty times they were repulsed with loss of life, and still came back again; and though the fellow at their head was marked and singled out by all, and was a conspicuous object as the only rioter on horseback, not a man could hit him. . . .
“The vintner’s house, with half-a-dozen others near at hand, was one great, glowing blaze. All night, no one had essayed to quench the flames, or stop their progress; but now a body of soldiers were actively engaged in pulling down two old wooden houses, which were every moment in danger of taking fire, and which could scarcely fail, if they were left to burn, to extend the conflagration immensely.
“. . . The gutters of the street, and every crack and fissure in the stones, ran with scorching spirit, which being dammed up by busy hands, overflowed the road and pavement, and formed a great pool, into which the people dropped down dead by dozens. They lay in heaps all round this fearful pond, husbands and wives, fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, women with children in their arms and babies at their breasts, and drank until they died. While some stooped with their lips to the brink and never raised their heads again, others sprang up from their fiery draught, and danced, half in a mad triumph, and half in the agony of suffocation, until they fell, and steeped their corpses in the liquor that had killed them. . . .
“On this last night of the great riots—for the last night it was—the wretched victims of a senseless outcry, became themselves the dust and ashes of the flames they had kindled, and strewed the public streets of London.”
It will be remembered that Mr. Langdale and Mr. Haredale, being in the house that night, were rescued by Edward Chester and Joe Willett, all four finding their way to safety by a back entrance.
“The narrow lane in the rear was quite free of people. So, when they had crawled through the passage indicated by the vintner (which was a mere shelving-trap for the admission of casks), and had managed with some difficulty to unchain and raise the door at the upper end, they emerged into the street without being observed or interrupted. Joe still holding Mr. Haredale tight, and Edward taking the same care of the vintner, they hurried through the streets at a rapid pace.”
This door gives into Fetter Lane (No. 79), and still exists for the inspection of the curious. The old house in Holborn has, for more than a century, replaced the premises so destroyed. Close at hand (by No. 23) is the entrance to Barnard’s Inn—
“The dingiest collection of shabby buildings ever squeezed together in a rank corner as a club for tom-cats.”