CHAPTER XXXVI
THE POULTRY
The Early Home of the London Poulterers—Its Mysterious Desertion—Noteworthy Sites in the Poultry—The Birthplace of Tom Hood, Senior—A Pretty Quarrel at the Rose Tavern—A Costly Sign-board—The Three Cranes—The Home of the Dillys—Johnsoniana—St. Mildred's Church, Poultry—Quaint Epitaphs—The Poultry Compter—Attack on Dr. Lamb, the Conjurer—Dekker, the Dramatist—Ned Ward's Description of the Compter—Granville Sharp and the Slave Trade—Important Decision in favour of the Slave—Boyse—Dunton.
The busy street extending between Cheapside and Cornhill is described by Stow (Queen Elizabeth) as the special quarter, almost up to his time, of the London poulterers, who sent their fowls and feathered game to be prepared in Scalding Alley (anciently called Scalding House, or Scalding Wike). The pluckers and scorchers of the feathered fowl occupied the shops between the Stocks' Market (now the Mansion House) and the Great Conduit. Just before Stow's time the poulterers seem to have taken wing in a unanimous covey, and settled down, for reasons now unknown to us, and not very material to any one, in Gracious (Gracechurch) Street, and the end of St. Nicholas flesh shambles (now Newgate Market). Poultry was not worth its weight in silver then.
The chief points of interest in the street (past and present) are the Compter Prison, Grocers' Hall, Old Jewry, and several shops with memorable associations. Lubbock's Banking House, for instance, is leased of the Goldsmiths' Company, being part of Sir Martin Bowes' bequest to the Company in Elizabeth's time. Sir Martin Bowes we have already mentioned in our chapter on the Goldsmiths' Company.
The name of one of our greatest English wits is indissolubly connected with the neighbourhood of the Poultry. It falls like a cracker, with merry bang and sparkle, among the graver histories with which this great street is associated. Tom Hood was the son of a Scotch bookseller in the Poultry. The firm was "Vernor and Hood." "Mr. Hood," says Mrs. Broderip, "was one of the 'Associated Booksellers,' who selected valuable old books for reprinting, with great success. Messrs. Vernor and Hood, when they moved to 31, Poultry, took into partnership Mr. C. Sharpe. The firm of Messrs. Vernor and Hood published 'The Beauties of England and Wales,' 'The Mirror,' Bloomfield's poems, and those of Henry Kirke White." At this house in the Poultry, as far as we can trace, in the year 1799, was born his second son, Thomas. After the sudden death of the father, the widow and her children were left rather slenderly provided for. "My father, the only remaining son, preferred the drudgery of an engraver's desk to encroaching upon the small family store. He was articled to his uncle, Mr. Sands, and subsequently was transferred to one of the Le Keux. He was a most devoted and excellent son to his mother, and the last days of her widowhood and decline were soothed by his tender care and affection. An opening that offered more congenial employment presented itself at last, when he was about the age of twenty-one. By the death of Mr. John Scott, the editor of the 'London Magazine,' who was killed in a duel, that periodical passed into other hands, and became the property of my father's friends, Messrs. Taylor and Hessey. The new proprietors soon sent for him, and he became a sort of sub-editor to the magazine." Of this period of his life he says himself:—
"Time was when I sat upon a lofty stool,
At lofty desk, and with a clerkly pen,
Began each morning, at the stroke of ten,
To write to Bell and Co.'s commercial school,
In Warneford Court, a shady nook and cool,
The favourite retreat of merchant men.
Yet would my quill turn vagrant, even then,
And take stray dips in the Castalian pool;
Now double entry—now a flowery trope—
Mingling poetic honey with trade wax;
Blogg Brothers—Milton—Grote and Prescott—Pope,
Bristles and Hogg—Glynn, Mills, and Halifax—
Rogers and Towgood—hemp—the Bard of Hope—
Barilla—Byron—tallow—Burns and flax."
The "King's Head" Tavern (No. 25) was kept at the Restoration by William King, a staunch cavalier. It is said that the landlord's wife happened to be on the point of labour on the day of the king's entry into London. She was extremely anxious to see the returning monarch, and the king, being told of her inclination, drew up at the door of the tavern in his good-natured way, and saluted her.
The King's Head Tavern, which stood at the western extremity of the Stocks' Market, was not at first known by the sign of the "King's Head," but the "Rose." Machin, in his diary, Jan. 5, 1560, thus mentions it:—"A gentleman arrested for debt: Master Cobham, with divers gentlemen and serving men, took him from the officers, and carried him to the Rose Tavern, where so great a fray, both the sheriffs were fain to come, and from the Rose Tavern took all the gentlemen and their servants, and carried them to the Compter." The house was distinguished by the device of a large, well-painted rose, erected over a doorway, which was the only indication in the street of such an establishment. Ned Ward, that coarse observer, in the "London Spy," 1709, describes the "Rose," anciently the "Rose and Crown," as famous for good wine. "There was no parting," he says, "without a glass; so we went into the Rose Tavern in the Poultry, where the wine, according to its merit, had justly gained a reputation; and there, in a snug room, warmed with brush and faggot, over a quart of good claret, we laughed over our night's adventure. The tavern door was flanked by two columns twisted with vines carved in wood, which supported a small square gallery over the portico, surrounded by handsome iron-work. On the front of this gallery was erected the sign. It consisted of a central compartment containing the Rose, behind which the artist had introduced a tall silver cup, called "a standing bowl," with drinking glasses. Beneath the painting was this inscription:—
"This is
The Rose Tavern,
Kept by
William King,
Citizen and Vintner.