In King Street died Spenser “for lack of bread,” said Ben Jonson. But he goes on to add that the dying poet refused money sent him by the Earl of Essex. The story has been accepted without question by almost everyone who writes upon Spenser. Yet it is incredible on the face of it, when one begins to consider, for the simple reason that starving men never do refuse help, even at the last gasp. There is no doubt that in the Irish Rebellion Spenser lost one child, who perished in the flames of the burning house. He escaped, it is said, with his wife. That he was desperately poor at this juncture we need not doubt; that he was wretched is also without doubt; that he died in misery we need not doubt; but if the Earl of Essex sent him money he would certainly have taken it if he was starving; if his wife was with him he would have taken it for her sake if he was dying.
As a matter of fact he was not suffering from want of money; and since the death of an infant does not often kill the child’s father, we need not suppose that he died of heart-break. Nor is it probable that he died of a broken heart over the loss of MSS. He was Sheriff of Cork; he had his estate, which was not lost, although the rebels burned his house—they burned his house because he was Sheriff. He had, besides the estate, a small pension; he had still his wife and his children, and his friends. He was only forty-six years of age, a time when the world is still lying fair and far stretched out before the pilgrim. None the less he died—of what? Of fever caused by the excitement and the trouble of the rebellion; by exposure; by this or by that—he died. He was buried in the Abbey near the resting-place of Chaucer; all the poets wrote elegies and threw them, together with the pens that wrote them, into the grave of “the little man who wore short hair.” And his widow married again and quarreled with her eldest son about the estate; and there were descendants of Edmund Spenser in Ireland until a hundred years ago, when the last one died.
Queen Square, which is now Queen Anne’s Gate, and Petty France, now York Street, represent the respectable side of old Westminster. Peg Woffington lived in Queen Square; so did Bentham. In Petty France Milton lived when he gave up his chambers in Whitehall Palace. His house was taken down a year or two ago. Hazlitt occupied Milton’s house for some years.
GRIFFINS FROM THE ROOF OF HENRY VII.’S CHAPEL.
Another respectable quarter was the group of streets at the back of Dean’s Yard, known as Great College Street, Barton Street, and Cowley Street. There is not anywhere in and about the cities of London and Westminster a more secluded, peaceful retreat than can be found in these three streets. The first, whose upper windows look out upon the broad lawns and noble trees, formerly the garden of the Infirmary, now the garden of the Canons, might be a street in Amsterdam if its ground-floor windows were only higher; under this street still flows the stream which once helped to separate the Isle of Bramble from the marshes and the meadows; halfway down, hidden by stables, stands the old Jewel House of the King’s House of Westminster; at the west end is the modern gateway, still preserving some semblance of its former appearance, the last that is left of the four gateways of the Abbey. It leads into Dean’s Yard, the quietest of squares, and, under ancient gates, into ancient cloisters and covered ways, and the relics and fragments of the Benedictine Abbey. Behind Great College Street stand Barton Street and Cowley Street. And for quiet and solitude these should belong to a city of the dead; or better still, they should be what they pretend to be. For the houses among themselves pretend to be the Cathedral Close; they whisper to the stray traveler: “Seek no farther. This, and none other, is the Close of the Cathedral or Collegiate Church of St. Peter. In this quiet retreat live, we assure you, the canons and the minor canons. Step lightly, lest you disturb their meditations.” There are many such spots about London which thus pretend, and so carry themselves with pride: one such, for instance, is in Bermondsey, affected by the memory of the Abbey and the presence of the Parish Church; and another there is at Hampstead; and in most country towns there is such a quiet, dignified Street; one such street, so quiet, so dignified, stands in Albany, New York State; and one in Boston, Massachusetts.
Once there was a tavern in Barton Street, known to all men by its sign as The Salutation. The excellence of the painting is proved by the fact that in the Commonwealth the same sign without alteration served for a new name—viz., The Soldier and Citizen. After
