CHAPTER XI
FLEET STREET TRIBUTARIES—SHOE LANE
The First Lucifers—Perkins' Steam Gun—A Link between Shakespeare and Shoe Lane—Florio and his Labours—"Cogers' Hall"—Famous "Cogers"—A Saturday Night's Debate—Gunpowder Alley—Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier Poet—"To Althea, from Prison"—Lilly the Astrologer, and his Knaveries—A Search for Treasure with Davy Ramsay—Hogarth in Harp Alley—The "Society of Sign Painters"—Hudson, the Song Writer—"Jack Robinson"—The Bishop's Residence—Bangor House—A Strange Story of Unstamped Newspapers—Chatterton's Death—Curious Legend of his Burial—A well-timed Joke.
At the east corner of Peterborough Court (says Mr. Timbs) was one of the earliest shops for the instantaneous light apparatus, "Hertner's Eupyrion" (phosphorus and oxymuriate matches, to be dipped in sulphuric acid and asbestos), the costly predecessor of the lucifer match. Nearly opposite were the works of Jacob Perkins, the engineer of the steam gun exhibited at the Adelaide Gallery, Strand, and which the Duke of Wellington truly foretold would never be advantageously employed in battle.
One golden thread of association links Shakespeare to Shoe Lane. Slight and frail is the thread, yet it has a double strand. In this narrow side-aisle of Fleet Street, in 1624, lived John Florio, the compiler of our first Italian dictionary. Now it is more than probable that our great poet knew this industrious Italian, as we shall presently show. Florio was a Waldensian teacher, no doubt driven to England by religious persecution. He taught French and Italian with success at Oxford, and finally was appointed tutor to that generous-minded, hopeful, and unfortunate Prince Henry, son of James I. Florio's "Worlde of Wordes" (a most copious and exact dictionary in Italian and English) was printed in 1598, and published by Arnold Hatfield for Edward Church, and "sold at his shop over against the north door of Paul's Church." It is dedicated to "The Right Honourable Patrons of Virtue, Patterns of Honour, Roger Earle of Rutland, Henrie Earle of Southampton, and Lucie Countess of Bedford." In the dedication, worthy of the fantastic author of "Euphues" himself, the author says:—"My hope springs out of three stems—your Honours' naturall benignitie; your able emploiment of such servitours; and the towardly like-lie-hood of this springall to do you honest service. The first, to vouchsafe all; the second, to accept this; the third, to applie it selfe to the first and second. Of the first, your birth, your place, and your custome; of the second, your studies, your conceits, and your exercise; of the thirde, my endeavours, my proceedings, and my project giues assurance. Your birth, highly noble, more than gentle; your place, above others, as in degree, so in height of bountie, and other vertues; your custome, never wearie of well doing; your studies much in all, most in Italian excellence; your conceits, by understanding others to worke above them in your owne; your exercise, to reade what the world's best writers have written, and to speake as they write. My endeavour, to apprehend the best, if not all; my proceedings, to impart my best, first to your Honours, then to all that emploie me; my proiect in this volume to comprehend the best and all, in truth, I acknowledge an entyre debt, not only of my best knowledge, but of all, yea, of more than I know or can, to your bounteous lordship, most noble, most vertuous, and most Honorable Earle of Southampton, in whose paie and patronage I haue liued some yeeres; to whom I owe and vowe the yeeres I haue to live.... Good parts imparted are not empaired; your springs are first to serue yourself, yet may yeelde your neighbours sweete water; your taper is to light you first, and yet it may light your neighbour's candle.... Accepting, therefore, of the childe, I hope your Honors' wish as well to the Father, who to your Honors' all deuoted wisheth meede of your merits, renowne of your vertues, and health of your persons, humblie with gracious leave kissing your thrice-honored hands, protesteth to continue euer your Honors' most humble and bounden in true seruice, John Florio."
And now to connect Florio with Shakespeare. The industrious Savoyard, besides his dictionary—of great use at a time when the tour to Italy was a necessary completion of a rich gallant's education—translated the essays of that delightful old Gascon egotist, Montaigne. Now in a copy of Florio's "Montaigne" there was found some years ago one of the very few genuine Shakespeare signatures. Moreover, as Florio speaks of the Earl of Southampton as his steady patron, we may fairly presume that the great poet, who must have been constantly at Southampton's house, often met there the old Italian master. May not the bard in those conversations have perhaps gathered some hints for the details of Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and had his attention turned by the old scholar to fresh chapters of Italian story?
No chronicle of Shoe Lane would be complete without some mention of the "Cogers' Discussion Hall," formerly at No. 10. This useful debating society—a great resort for local politicians—was founded by Mr. Daniel Mason as long ago as 1755, and among its most eminent members it glories in the names of John Wilkes, Judge Keogh, Daniel O'Connell, and the eloquent Curran. The word "Coger" does not imply codger, or a drinker of cogs, but comes from cogite, to cogitate. The Grand, Vice-Grand, and secretary were elected on the night of every 14th of June by show of hands. The room was open to strangers, but the members had the right to speak first. The society was Republican in the best sense, for side by side with master tradesmen, shopmen, and mechanics, reporters and young barristers gravely sipped their grog, and abstractedly emitted wreathing columns of tobacco-smoke from their pipes. Mr. J. Parkinson has sketched the little parliament very pleasantly in the columns of a contemporary.
"A long low room," says the writer, "like the saloon of a large steamer. Wainscoat dimmed and ornaments tarnished by tobacco-smoke and the lingering dews of steaming compounds. A room with large niches at each end, like shrines for full-grown saints, one niche containing 'My Grand' in a framework of shabby gold, the other 'My Grand's Deputy' in a bordering more substantial. More than one hundred listeners are wating patiently for My Grand's utterances this Saturday night, and are whiling away the time philosophically with bibulous and nicotian refreshment. The narrow tables of the long room are filled with students and performers, and quite a little crowd is congregated at the door and in a room adjacent until places can be found for them in the presence-chamber. 'Established 1755' is inscribed on the ornamental signboard above us, and 'Instituted 1756' on another signboard near. Dingy portraits of departed Grands and Deputies decorate the walls. Punctually at nine My Grand opens the proceedings amid profound silence. The deputy buries himself in his newspaper, and maintains as profound a calm as the Speaker 'in another place.' The most perfect order is preserved. The Speaker or deputy, who seems to know all about it, rolls silently in his chair: he is a fat dark man, with a small and rather sleepy eye, such as I have seen come to the surface and wink lazily at the fashionable people clustered round a certain tank in the Zoological Gardens. He re-folds his newspaper from time to time until deep in the advertisements. The waiters silently remove empty tumblers and tankards, and replace them full. But My Grand commands profound attention from the room, and a neighbour, who afterwards proved a perfect Boanerges in debate, whispered to us concerning his vast attainments and high literary position.
"This chieftain of the Thoughtful Men is, we learn, the leading contributor to a newspaper of large circulation, and, under his signature of 'Locksley Hall,' rouses the sons of toil to a sense of the dignity and rights of labour, and exposes the profligacy and corruption of the rich to the extent of a column and a quarter every week. A shrewd, hard-headed man of business, with a perfect knowledge of what he had to do, and with a humorous twinkle of the eye, My Grand went steadily through his work, and gave the Thoughtful Men his epitome of the week's intelligence. It seemed clear that the Cogers had either not read the newspapers, or liked to be told what they already knew. They listened with every token of interest to facts which had been published for days, and it seemed difficult to understand how a debate could be carried on when the text admitted so little dispute. But we sadly underrated the capacity of the orators near us. The sound of My Grand's last sentence had not died out when a fresh-coloured, rather aristocratic-looking elderly man, whose white hair was carefully combed and smoothed, and whose appearance and manner suggested a very different arena to the one he waged battle in now, claimed the attention of the Thoughtful ones. Addressing 'Mee Grand' in the rich and unctuous tones which a Scotchman and Englishman might try for in vain, this orator proceeded, with every profession of respect, to contradict most of the chief's statements, to ridicule his logic, and to compliment him with much irony on his overwhelming goodness to the society 'to which I have the honour to belong. Full of that hard northern logic' (much emphasis on 'northern,' which was warmly accepted as a hit by the room)—'that hard northern logic which demonstrates everything to its own satisfaction; abounding in that talent which makes you, sir, a leader in politics, a guide in theology, and generally an instructor of the people; yet even you, sir, are perhaps, if I may say so, somewhat deficient in the lighter graces of pathos and humour. Your speech, sir, has commanded the attention of the room. Its close accuracy of style, its exactitude of expression, its consistent argument, and its generally transcendant ability will exercise, I doubt not, an influence which will extend far beyond this chamber, filled as this chamber is by gentlemen of intellect and education, men of the time, who both think and feel, and who make their feelings and their thoughts felt by others. Still, sir,' and the orator smiles the smile of ineffable superiority, 'grateful as the members of the society you have so kindly alluded to ought to be for your countenance and patronage, it needed not' (turning to the Thoughtful Men generally, with a sarcastic smile)—'it needed not even Mee Grand's encomiums to endear this society to its people, and to strengthen their belief in its efficacy in time of trouble, its power to help, to relieve, and to assuage. No, Mee Grand, an authoritee whose dictum even you will accept without dispute—mee Lord Macaulee—that great historian whose undying pages record those struggles and trials of constitutionalism in which the Cogers have borne no mean part—me Lord Macaulee mentions, with a respect and reverence not exceeded by Mee Grand's utterances of to-night' (more smiles of mock humility to the room) 'that great association which claims me as an unworthy son. We could, therefore, have dispensed with the recognition given us by Mee Grand; we could afford to wait our time until the nations of the earth are fused by one common wish for each other's benefit, when the principles of Cogerism are spread over the civilised world, when justice reigns supreme, and loving-kindness takes the place of jealousy and hate.' We looked round the room while these fervid words were being triumphantly rolled forth, and were struck with the calm impassiveness of the listeners. There seemed to be no partisanship either for the speaker or the Grand. Once, when the former was more than usually emphatic in his denunciations, a tall pale man, with a Shakespeare forehead, rose suddenly, with a determined air, as if about to fiercely interrupt; but it turned out he only wanted to catch the waiter's eye, and this done, he pointed silently to his empty glass, and remarked, in a hoarse whisper, 'Without sugar, as before.'"