Gay, writing in 1715, describes the small streets branching from Charing Cross as resounding with the shoeblacks’ cry, “Clean your honour’s shoes?” Great improvements were made in 1829-30, when the present arcade leading from West Strand to St. Martin’s Church, and inhabited chiefly by German toymen, was built and named after Lord Lowther then Chief Commissioner of the Woods and Forests.[431] The Strand was also widened, and many old tottering houses were removed.
Porridge Island was the cant name for a paved alley near St. Martin’s Church, originally a congeries of cookshops erected for the workmen at the new church, and destroyed when the great rookery there was pulled down in 1829. It was a part of Bedfordbury, and derived its name from being full of cookshops, or “slap-bangs,” as street boys called such odorous places. A writer in The World, in 1753, describes a man like Beau Tibbs, who had his dinner in a pewter plate from a cookshop in Porridge Island, and with only £100 a year was foolish enough to wear a laced suit, go every evening in a chair to a rout, and return to his bedroom on foot, shivering and supperless, vain enough to glory in having rubbed elbows with the quality of Brentford.[432]
It was in Round Court, in the centre of the key shops, herb shops, and furniture warehouses of Bedfordbury that, in 1836, Robson the actor was apprenticed to a Mr. Smellie, a copperplate engraver, and the printer of the humorous caricatures of Mr. George Cruikshank.[433]
The Swan at Charing Cross, over against the Mews, flourished in 1665, when Marke Rider was the landlord. The token of the house bore the figure of a swan holding a sprig in its mouth. Its memory is embalmed in a curious extempore grace once said by Ben Jonson before King James. These are the verses:—
“Our king and queen the Lord God bless,
The Palsgrave and the Lady Besse;
And God bless every living thing
That lives and breathes, and loves the king;
God bless the Council of Estate,
And Buckingham the fortunate;
God bless them all, and keep them safe,
And God bless me, and God bless Ralph.”
The schoolmaster king being mighty inquisitive to know who this Ralph was, Ben told him it was the drawer at the Swan Tavern, who drew him good canary. For this drollery the king gave Ben a hundred pounds.[434] The story is probably true, for it is confirmed by Powell the actor.[435]
The street signs of London were condemned in the second year of George III.’s reign; but the sweeping Act for their final removal was not passed till nine years later. In 1762, Bonnel Thornton (aided by Hogarth) opened an exhibition of street signs in Bow Street[436] in ridicule of the Spring Gardens exhibition. But as early as 1761 the street signs seem to have been partially removed as dangerous obstructions. A writer in a contemporary paper says,[437] “My master yesterday sent me to take a place in the Canterbury stage; he said that when I came to Charing Cross I should see which was the proper inn by the words on the sign. I rambled about, but could see no sign at all. At last I was told that there used to be such a sign under a little golden cross which I saw at a two pair of stairs window. I entered and found the waiter swearing about innovations. He said that the members of Parliament were unaccountable enemies to signs which used to show trades; that, for his master’s part, he might put on sackcloth, for nobody came to buy sack. ‘If,’ said he, ‘any of the signs were too large, could they not have limited their size without pulling down the sign-posts and destroying the painted ornaments of the Strand?’ On my return I saw some men pulling with ropes at a curious sign-iron, which seemed to have cost some pounds: along with the iron down came the leaden cover to the pent-house, which will cost at least some pounds to repair.”
This was written the year of the first Act (2d George III.), and was probably a groan from some one interested in the existence of the abuse. The inferior artists gained much money from this source. Mr. Wale, one of the first Academicians, painted a Shakspere five feet high[438] for a public-house at the north-west corner of Little Russell Street, Covent Garden. The picture was enclosed in a sumptuous carved gilt frame, and was suspended by rich foliated ironwork. A London street a hundred years ago must have been one long grotesque picture-gallery.
When the meat is all good it is difficult to know where to insert the knife. In travelling, how hard it is to turn back almost in sight of some Promised Land of which one has often dreamed! Like that traveller I feel, when I find it necessary in this chapter to confine myself strictly to the legends, traditions, and history of Charing Cross proper, leaving for other opportunities Spring Gardens, the story of the greater part of which belongs more to St. James’s Park, Whitehall, and Scotland Yard.
