Picturesque Sketches of London, Past and Present

by Thomas Miller

Here the young lover purchases for his fair one the blue forget-me-not; the graceful acacia, emblem of elegance; the myrtle, the old Grecian symbol of love; pansies—“that’s for thoughts;” the red-streaked woodbine, which denotes devoted affection; the lily, that ancient representative of purity of heart; the rose, the queen of beauty, and for the earliest of which five or ten shillings is no unusual sum to pay; with every flower that makes up the great alphabet of love.

The epicure may here feast his eyes with delight; and, if he is wealthy enough, purchase the natural produce of April or May while the snows of February are whitening the ground; for so has science triumphed over nature, by the aid of heat and manures, that there is scarcely any thing too difficult for your forcing-gardeners to accomplish. New potatoes, peas, and fruit of almost every description, are here to be found, fresh gathered, before spring has hung out a single leaf upon the oak. Green April is made to produce green gooseberries; and marrow-fats come in with the blossoms of May. Here conservatories are also formed over the colonnades; and the choicest and most delicate flowers that ever bloomed in kingly gardens may be found as healthy and beautiful amid London smoke as if flourishing a hundred miles away in the country.

Those itinerant dealers who make the streets of London ring with the pleasant spring-cry of “All a-blowing, all a-growing!” as they move along with barrow, basket, and cart, are generally supplied from this market; and few would credit the many hundreds of pounds expended in the metropolis for the purchase of flower-roots, to be re-planted in the little back-yards called gardens, which are a peculiar feature in most of the London streets beyond the city boundaries. Places which, to pass in front, a stranger would think no green thing had ever grown for years near such a neighbourhood; yet in the rear they contain choice wall-flowers, sweet-williams, carnations, Canterbury-bells, hollyhocks, sun-flowers, and fancy dahlias, which have been grown within a mile or so of the bridges, and have been sent forth to “dispute the prize” at a flower-show. Many a poor man has often expended his shilling when he could ill spare it, to purchase a choice tulip or dahlia, which he treasured as the pride of his garden; and this is one amongst other pleasing sights to witness in this market. The artisan here finds enjoyment as well as the wealthy citizen, or the aristocratic lady, who treads with “mincing gait” through the arcade, attended by John the page, and all his “eruption of buttons.” Fine specimens of English beauty are often met with here—faces that look not unlike our own island roses; the fine blue-eyed Saxon cast of countenance, and the long fair hair, such as centuries ago drooped about the brow of Rowena, and were the cause of King Vortigern losing his kingdom and his life.

In contrast to these are our Covent-Garden portresses—sturdy daughters of Erin, clad in almost manly attire, and, with scarcely an exception, every soul a smoker and drinker of neat gin. Wonderful are the loads which these “juvenile antiques” carry; they would make the neck of a strong man, unused to bearing such burdens, ache again, were he only to carry one a moderate distance. Their faithfulness and honesty are deserving of the highest praise: no matter how valuable the load may be that you purchase, or how great the distance it has to be borne into the suburbs, you have but to pay the trifle agreed upon, furnish the right address, and when you return home, there you will find every bud and blossom uninjured, for Biddy may be trusted with uncounted gold. They are all a sturdy, short-necked race; moving caryatides, strong enough to support a temple, although such forms never mingled with the dreams of our ancient sculptors. Beside a good-natured, it requires a strong-armed man to help to replace the load upon their heads when they have rested; and few gentlemen, we hope, resist the appeal of “Will your honour plase to lend a lift to the basket?”

At a very early hour in the morning, and while the rest of London—excepting in the markets—seem wrapt in sleep, the whole of the streets which open into Covent Garden are thronged with vehicles, and buyers and sellers; for either the greengrocer or his man must be here early, if our dinner-table is to be supplied with first-rate vegetables; and from the most remote street of the suburbs the greengrocers are compelled to come either to the Borough, to Farringdon, or Covent-Garden markets, for their stock; for these, with the exception of Spitalfields, which is celebrated for potatoes, are the only garden-markets. From one or other of these places have all those tempting shows of flowers, fruit, and vegetables, which give such a country-look to the greengrocers’ shops, been brought at an early hour.

Here an imaginative lover of good living may feed his fancy, and feast his eyes with the first rhubarb-pie of the season—conjure up the roast shoulder of lamb that is to accompany the asparagus—match the new potatoes with the brown veal cutlet—see a couple of ducks lying prostrate beside a dish of green peas—run streaks of fanciful pastry between the rich lines of raspberries—thrust bundles of sage and onions inside some stubble-fed goose, or call up the plump leg of mutton that is to be boiled along with those lily-white turnips; while cauliflowers, spinach, brocoli, and greens of every description may be found to match with the finest joints that either Leadenhall or Newgate markets can produce; for here they are to be seen “thick as leaves that strew the Vale of Vallambrosa.”

The poet may also ramble here, and call up visions of the Garden of Eden, where our first mother stood “half-spied, so thick the blushing roses round about her blowed;” or the golden fields of Enna and Proserpina, and her nymphs; and the wheels of that gloomy chariot, which ploughed up the waving flowers,—of Cupid and Psyche; and the beautiful vale of Arcady, and Venus mourning over her beloved Adonis, from whose blood there sprang a rich array of peerless blossoms.

But, independent of these associations, Covent Garden has an interest of its own. Above six hundred years ago it bore the name of Convent Garden, and originally belonged to Westminster Abbey. A pleasant walk must it have been, a few centuries ago, from that grave and venerable pile to the garden, before even the village of Charing existed, and when probably the whole line of road from the Abbey consisted of avenues of trees and open fields, where the daisies blowed and the skylark built and sang. We can picture those early fathers of the Church, with the rich missals in their hands, wiling away the hours in pleasant meditation, as they sauntered leisurely along between the Abbey and the Covent Garden, “in cope and stole arrayed.” Within the last three hundred years it was walled round, and covered with trees, whose blossoms waved white and beautiful in the breezes of spring, and in summer displayed a rich array of trembling green; while half a dozen thatched cottages and a convent were the only habitations that then heaved up in this small neighbourhood. A few noblemen’s mansions were all that at this time stood beside the river from Temple Bar to the Abbey; and these, with their beautiful gardens, sloped down by the edge of the water. Only a few years ago Covent Garden consisted of a mass of unsightly wooden sheds and open standing-places, inferior to the market of many a common country town; and it was not until about 1828 that this mass of rubbish began to be swept away, and the present market to be built. The foundations of the old convent, from which no doubt this place takes its name, are not yet wholly swept away, a considerable portion being at present enclosed within the house occupied by Mr. Bohn, the bookseller, in York-street. Here two or three bulky piles of masonry, no doubt containing the remains of the early fathers, who wandered about this ancient neighbourhood, while, with the exception of the convent, it was all one garden-ground, may still be seen. This convent, if we remember rightly, has escaped the notice of several of the London historians, who, because it was built on land belonging to the Abbey, seem to have lost sight of it as a separate structure.

It was not until the time of Charles I. that any material improvement commenced in this neighbourhood. The name of Inigo Jones is connected with the first advances architecture made in this direction, through the spirited exertions of the fourth Earl of Bedford. A few of the princely mansions which rise up in the neighbourhood of Lincoln’s Inn are fine specimens of the buildings which were erected about this period.

What an uncomfortable place must the old City have been, with its little poking market in Honey-lane, now covered by the City of London School and the Stocks Market, long since removed, and with only one bridge leading into this large London, which was then rapidly bursting its ancient barriers and shooting out far beyond its weather-beaten walls, while all propositions for improvement were considered as death-blows aimed at its old and barbarous privileges. Our forefathers never knew, nor needed, such places as the present Covent Garden Market.