We can hardly close our account of St. Paul's without referring to that most beautiful and touching of all London sights, the anniversary of the charity schools on the first Thursday in June. About 8,000 children are generally present, ranged in a vast amphitheatre under the dome. Blake, the true but unrecognised predecessor of Wordsworth, has written an exquisite little poem on the scene, and well it deserves it. Such nosegays of little rosy faces can be seen on no other day. Very grand and overwhelming are the beadles of St. Mary Axe and St. Margaret Moses on this tremendous morning, and no young ensign ever bore his colours prouder than do these good-natured dignitaries their maces, staves, and ponderous badges. In endless ranks pour in the children, clothed in all sorts of quaint dresses. Boys in the knee-breeches of Hogarth's school-days, bearing glittering pewter badges on their coats; girls in blue and orange, with quaint little mob-caps white as snow, and long white gloves covering all their little arms. See, at a given signal of an extraordinary fugleman, how they all rise; at another signal how they hustle down. Then at last, when the "Old Hundredth" begins, all the little voices unite as the blending of many waters. Such fresh, happy voices, singing with such innocent, heedful tenderness as would bring tears to the eyes of even stony-hearted old Malthus, bring to the most irreligious thoughts of Him who bade little children come to Him, and would not have them repulsed.
Blake's poem begins—
"'Twas on a Holy Thursday, their innocent faces clean,
Came children walking two and two, in red and blue and green;
Grey-headed beadles walked before, with wands as white as snow,
Till into the high dome of Paul's they like Thames' waters flow.
"Oh, what a multitude they seemed, those flowers of London town;
Seated in companies they were, with radiance all their own;
The hum of multitudes was there, but multitudes of lambs,
Thousands of little boys and girls, raising their innocent hands.
"Now like a mighty wind they raise to heaven the voice of song,
Or like harmonious thunderings the seats of heaven among;
Beneath them sit the aged men, wise guardians of the poor;
Then cherish pity, lest you drive an angel from your door."
The anniversary Festival of the Sons of the Clergy, in the middle of May, when the choirs of Westminster and the Chapel Royal sing selections from Handel and other great masters, is also a day not easily to be forgotten, for St. Paul's is excellent for sound, and the fine music rises like incense to the dome, and lingers there as "loth to die," arousing thoughts that, as Wordsworth beautifully says, are in themselves proofs of our immortality. It is on such occasions we feel how great a genius reared St. Paul's, and cry out with the poet—
"He thought not of a perishable home
Who thus could build."
CHAPTER XXII
ST. PAUL'S CHURCHYARD
St. Paul's Churchyard and Literature—Queen Anne's Statue—Execution of a Jesuit in St. Paul's Churchyard—Miracle of the "Face in the Straw"—Wilkinson's Story—Newbery the Bookseller—Paul's Chain—"Cocker"—Chapter House of St. Paul's—St. Paul's Coffee House—Child's Coffee House and the Clergy—Garrick's Club at the "Queen's Arms," and the Company there—"Sir Benjamin" Figgins—Johnson the Bookseller—Hunter and his Guests—Fuseli—Bonnycastle—Kinnaird—Musical Associations of the Churchyard—Jeremiah Clark and his Works—Handel at Meares' Shop—Young the Violin Maker—The "Castle" Concerts—An Old Advertisement—Wren at the "Goose and Gridiron"—St. Paul's School—Famous Paulines—Pepys visiting his Old School—Milton at St. Paul's.
The shape of St. Paul's Churchyard has been compared to that of a bow and a string. The south side is the bow, the north the string. The booksellers overflowing from Fleet Street mustered strong here, till the Fire scared them off to Little Britain, from whence they regurgitated to the Row. At the sign of the "White Greyhound" the first editions of Shakespeare's "Venus and Adonis" and "The Rape of Lucrece," the first-fruits of a great harvest, were published by John Harrison. At the "Flower de Luce" and the "Crown" appeared the Merry Wives of Windsor; at the "Green Dragon," in the same locality, the Merchant of Venice; at the "Fox," Richard II.; at the "Angel," Richard III.; at the "Gun," Titus Andronicus; and at the "Red Bull," that masterpiece, King Lear. So that in this area near the Row the great poet must have paced with his first proofs in his doublet-pocket, wondering whether he should ever rival Spenser, or become immortal, like Chaucer. Here he must have come smiling over Falstaff's perils, and here have walked with the ripened certainty of greatness and of fame stirring at his heart.