"Fal. But to say I know more harm in him than in myself were to say more than I know. That he is old (the more the pity!), his white hairs do witness it; but that he is (saving your reverence) a whore-master, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, God help the wicked! If to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned. If to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh's lean kine are to be loved. No, my good lord! Banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins; but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is, old Jack Falstaff—banish not him thy Harry's company; banish not him thy Harry's company! Banish plump Jack, and banish all the world!"
"In Love Lane," says worthy Strype, "on the north-west corner, entering into Little Eastcheap, is the Weigh-house, built on the ground where the church of St. Andrew Hubbard stood before the fire of 1666. Which said Weigh-house was before in Cornhill. In this house are weighed merchandizes brought from beyond seas to the king's beam, to which doth belong a master, and under him four master porters, with labouring porters under them. They have carts and horses to fetch the goods from the merchants' warehouses to the beam, and to carry them back. The house belongeth to the Company of Grocers, in whose gift the several porters', &c., places are. But of late years little is done in this office, as wanting a compulsive power to constrain the merchants to have their goods weighed, they alleging it to be an unnecessary trouble and charge."
In former times it was the usual practice for merchandise brought to London by foreign merchants to be weighed at the king's beam in the presence of sworn officials. The fees varied from 2d. to 3s. a draught; while for a bag of hops the uniform charge was 6d.
THE WEIGH-HOUSE CHAPEL
The Presbyterian Chapel in the Weigh-house was founded by Samuel Slater and Thomas Kentish, two divines driven by the Act of Uniformity from St. Katherine's in the Tower. The first-named minister, Slater, has distinguished himself by his devotion during the dreadful plague which visited London in 1625 (Charles I.). Kentish, of whom Calamy entertained a high opinion, had been persecuted by the Government. Knowle, another minister of this chapel, had fled to New England to escape Laud's cat-like gripe. In Cromwell's time he had been lecturer at Bristol Cathedral, and had there greatly exasperated the Quakers. Knowles and Kentish are said to have been so zealous as sometimes to preach till they fainted. In Thomas Reynolds's time a new chapel was built at the King's Weigh-house. Reynolds, a friend of the celebrated Howe, had studied at Geneva and at Utrecht. He died in 1727, declaring that, though he had hitherto dreaded death, he was rising to heaven on a bed of roses. After the celebrated quarrel between the subscribers and non-subscribers, a controversy took place about psalmody, which the Weigh-house ministers stoutly defended. Samuel Wilton, another minister of Weigh-house Chapel, was a pupil of Dr. Kippis, and an apologist for the War of Independence. John Clayton, chosen for this chapel in 1779, was the son of a Lancashire cotton-bleacher, and was converted by Romaine, and patronised by the excellent Countess of Huntingdon; he used to relate how he had been pelted with rotten eggs when preaching in the open air near Christchurch. While itinerating for Lady Huntingdon, Clayton became acquainted with Sir H. Trelawney, a young Cornish baronet, who became a Dissenting minister, and eventually joined the "Rational party." An interesting anecdote is told of Trelawney's marriage in 1778. For his bride he took a beautiful girl, who, apparently without her lover's knowledge, annulled a prior engagement, in order to please her parents by securing for herself a more splendid station. The spectacle was a gay one when, after their honeymoon, Sir Harry and his wife returned to his seat at Looe, to be welcomed home by his friend Clayton and the servants of the establishment. The young baronet proceeded to open a number of letters, and during the perusal of one in particular his countenance changed, betokening some shock sustained by his nervous system. Evening wore into night, but he would neither eat nor converse. At length he confessed to Clayton that he had received an affecting expostulation from his wife's former lover, who had written, while ignorant of the marriage, calling on Trelawney as a gentleman to withdraw his claims on the lady's affections. This affair is supposed to have influenced Sir Harry more or less till the end of his days, although his married life continued to flow on happily.
Clayton was ordained at the Weigh House Chapel in 1778; the church, with one exception, unanimously voted for him—the one exception, a lady, afterwards became the new minister's wife. Of Clayton Robert Hall said, "He was the most favoured man I ever saw or ever heard of." He died in 1843. Clayton's successor, the eloquent Thomas Binney, was pastor of Weigh House Chapel for more than forty years. So ends the chronicle of the Weigh House worthies.
