We have heard that the letters he receives average 200 a day; and supposing only the tenth part of them to be from ladies, and not answered! what abuse he gets privately, publicly, and by post, gratis, must, as old Pepys says, “please him mightily.”
Though shorn of its ancient grandeur by blocked-up windows and a flat unsightly roof, there is still something very striking in the noble dimensions of the hall, which is 152 feet long, 50 wide, and 55 feet high. But it is in the crypt where we see the true architecture of the building uninjured, where the clustered pillars throw out their reedy ramifications to support the roof with all that wild grace which our early architects so well understood when they copied the forest-avenues.
“Those leafy temples, solemn, tall, and grand,
Pillar’d with oaks, and roof’d by Heaven’s own hand.”
This relic of the past is, we understand, to be cleared of its dingy covering—the accumulated dust and dirt of centuries—and thrown open to the public: may it be done quickly! I find the following mention of Guildhall and the Giants that stood therein at the time Ned Ward wrote his London Spy. He says, “I entered [Guildhall] with as great astonishment to see the Giants, as the Morocco ambassador did London when he saw the snow fall. I asked my friend the meaning and design of setting [up] those two lubberly preposterous figures; for I supposed they had some peculiar end in it. ‘Truly,’ says my friend, ‘I am wholly ignorant of what they intended by them, unless they were set up to shew the City what huge loobies their forefathers were, or else to frighten stubborn apprentices into obedience; for the dread of appearing before two such monstrous loggerheads will sooner reform their manners, or would force them into a compliance with their master’s will, than carrying them before my Lord Mayor or the Chamberlain of London; for some of them are as much frightened at the name of Gog and Magog as little children are at the terrible sound of Raw-head and Bloody-bones.
“ ‘Pray,’ said I, ‘what are yonder cluster of people doing, that seem as busy as so many fools at the Royal-oak Lottery?’
“ ‘Truly,’ said my friend, ‘you are something mistaken in your comparison: if you had said knaves, you had hit it; for that is the Sheriff’s Court; and I must give them that character, that I never knew one fool amongst them, though they have to do with a great many. All those tongue-plodders who are chattering within the bar, are picking the pockets of those that stand without. You may know the sufferers by their pale faces: the passions of Hope, Fear, and Revenge have put them into such disorder, that they are as easy to be distinguished in a crowd by their looks, as an owl from a hawk, or a country esquire from a town-sharper.’
“ ‘He’s a very comely gentlemen,’ said I, ‘that sits upon the bench, and puts on so pleasing a countenance, as if, like a god, he viewed with pleasure the fuss and discords of contending mortals, that fret and fume beneath him.’
“My friend replied, ‘He might well look merrily who sits the playing of so many great games, and is sure always to be on the winning side. For you must know,’ says he, ‘these courts are like public gaming-tables; the steward’s the box-keeper, and the clients the fools that are bubbled out of their money.’
“ ‘Pray, what is that crowd doing at the other end of the hall?’ ‘That,’ says my friend, ‘is a court of Conscience, whose business is to take care that a debtor of a sum under forty shillings shall not pay money faster than he can get it. It is a very reasonable establishment for the prevention of poor people’s ruin, who lie at the mercy of a parcel of rascally tallymen, and such-like unconscionable traders, who build their own welfare upon the miseries and wants of others. There are several other courts held here beside what we now see sitting; but this, I think, does the most good of any of them, except to the lawyers, and they look upon it with an evil-eye.’ ”—London Spy, 1699.
The principal monuments are those of Lord Chatham, William Pitt, and Nelson; the inscription on the first was written by Burke, on the second by Canning, and the last by Sheridan. In the Council Chamber there are pictures of the death of Wat Tyler, Siege of Gibraltar, the judges who sat after the Great Fire and settled all differences about rebuilding the City; also a full-length portrait of Queen Anne. We feel disappointed that there are so few relics of old London on the hundreds of feet of bare walls that Guildhall and the courts within it contain—there could hardly be found a more appropriate place for the display of old city antiquities. It is true that the Library is enriched with many interesting objects, the chief of which is the autograph of Shakspeare appended to a deed, which is shewn in a glass-case for its better preservation. How many rare deeds and scarce manuscripts might be shewn if thus guarded! for there is much truth in the “old sayed-saw,” that