Ten thousand years the Isle of Dogs,Lay sunk in mire, and hid in fogs,Rats, cats and bats, and snakes and frogs—The tenants of its scenery.No pic-nic parties came from town,To dance with nymphs, white, black, or brown,(They stopped at Greenwich, at the Crown,Neglecting all its greenery.)Dut Dog-land saw another sight,When serjeants cried, “Eyes left, eyes right,”And jackets blue, and breeches white,Were seen upon its tenantry.Then tents along the shore were seen,Then opened shop the gay Canteen,And floated flags, inscribed,—“The Queen.”All bustle, show, and pennantry.There strutted laughter-loving Pat,John Bull (in spirits rather flat,)And Donald, restless as a rat,Three nations in their rivalry.There bugle rang, and rattled drum,And sparkled in the glass the rum,Each hero thinking of his plum,The prize of Spanish chivalry.At last, Blue-Peter mast-high shone,The Isle of Dogs was left alone,The bats and rats then claimed their ownBy process sure and summary.The bold battalions sail’d for Spain,Soon longing to get home again,Finding their stomachs tried in vainTo live on Spanishflummery.
Ten thousand years the Isle of Dogs,Lay sunk in mire, and hid in fogs,Rats, cats and bats, and snakes and frogs—The tenants of its scenery.
No pic-nic parties came from town,To dance with nymphs, white, black, or brown,(They stopped at Greenwich, at the Crown,Neglecting all its greenery.)
Dut Dog-land saw another sight,When serjeants cried, “Eyes left, eyes right,”And jackets blue, and breeches white,Were seen upon its tenantry.
Then tents along the shore were seen,Then opened shop the gay Canteen,And floated flags, inscribed,—“The Queen.”All bustle, show, and pennantry.
There strutted laughter-loving Pat,John Bull (in spirits rather flat,)And Donald, restless as a rat,Three nations in their rivalry.
There bugle rang, and rattled drum,And sparkled in the glass the rum,Each hero thinking of his plum,The prize of Spanish chivalry.
At last, Blue-Peter mast-high shone,The Isle of Dogs was left alone,The bats and rats then claimed their ownBy process sure and summary.
The bold battalions sail’d for Spain,Soon longing to get home again,Finding their stomachs tried in vainTo live on Spanishflummery.
A cloud of smoke, which the wrath of Æolus poured upon our vessel, as a general contribution from all the forges along shore, here broke my reverie, by nearly suffocating the ship’s company. But the river in this quarter is as capricious as the fashions of a French milliner, or the loves of a figurante. We rounded a point of land, emerged into blue stream and bright sky, and left the whole Cyclopean region behind, ruddied with jets of flame, and shrouded with vapour, like a re-rehearsal of the great fire of London.
I had scarcely time to rejoice inthe consciousness that I breathed once more, when my ear was caught by the sound of a song at the fore-part of the deck. The voice was of that peculiar kind, which once belonged to the stage coachman, (a race now belonging alone to history,)—strong without clearness; full without force; deep without profundity, and, as Sydney Smith says, “a great many other thingswithouta great many other things;” or, as Dr. Parr would tell mankind,—“the product of nights of driving and days of indulgence; of facing the wintry storm, and enjoying the genial cup, the labours of the Jehu, and the luxuries of the Sybarite,”—it was to Moore’s melody,—
——“My dream of lifeFrom morn till night,Was love, still, love.”
——“My dream of lifeFrom morn till night,Was love, still, love.”
Oh, the days were brightWhen, young and light,I drove my team,My four-in-handAlong the Strand,Of bloods the cream.But time flies fast:Those days are past,The ribbons are a dream:Now, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.The Bristol Mail,Is but a snail,The York stands still,The LiverpoolIs but a stool—All gone down hill.Your fire you poke,Up springs your smoke,On sweeps the fiery stream:Now, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.Along the skyThe sparkles fly,Youfly below,—You leave behindTime, tide, and wind,Hail, rain, and snow.Through mountain coresThe engine snores,The gas lamps palely gleam:Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.You see a hill,You see a mill,A bit of sky;You see a cow,You see a plough,All shooting by.The cabins prance,The hedgerows dance,Like gnats in Evening’s beam:Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.You hear a sound,You feel a bound,You all look blue.You’ve split a horse,A man’s a corse.All’s one to you.Upon the roadYou meet a load,In vain you wildly scream.Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.You come full frontUpon a hunt,You hear a yell;You dash along,You crush the throng,Dogs, squires, pell-mell.You see a van;The signal manIs snugly in a dream.Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.You see a flash,You feel a crash,From toe to chin.You touch a bank,You top a tank,You all plump in.You next engageThe three-mile stage,And long for my old team,Your trial’s o’er, you trust no more,To steam, steam, steam!
Oh, the days were brightWhen, young and light,I drove my team,My four-in-handAlong the Strand,Of bloods the cream.But time flies fast:Those days are past,The ribbons are a dream:Now, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
The Bristol Mail,Is but a snail,The York stands still,The LiverpoolIs but a stool—All gone down hill.Your fire you poke,Up springs your smoke,On sweeps the fiery stream:Now, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
Along the skyThe sparkles fly,Youfly below,—You leave behindTime, tide, and wind,Hail, rain, and snow.Through mountain coresThe engine snores,The gas lamps palely gleam:Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
You see a hill,You see a mill,A bit of sky;You see a cow,You see a plough,All shooting by.The cabins prance,The hedgerows dance,Like gnats in Evening’s beam:Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
You hear a sound,You feel a bound,You all look blue.You’ve split a horse,A man’s a corse.All’s one to you.Upon the roadYou meet a load,In vain you wildly scream.Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
You come full frontUpon a hunt,You hear a yell;You dash along,You crush the throng,Dogs, squires, pell-mell.You see a van;The signal manIs snugly in a dream.Oh, there’s nothing half so quick in lifeAs steam, still, steam.
You see a flash,You feel a crash,From toe to chin.You touch a bank,You top a tank,You all plump in.You next engageThe three-mile stage,And long for my old team,Your trial’s o’er, you trust no more,To steam, steam, steam!
The romantic disappears from the world every day. Canals and docks now vulgarize this tract of the shore, and the whole scene will yet undergo the fate of Billingsgate. But it has a story as romantic as that of Romeo and Juliet; excepting the masquerade, the moonlight, and the nightingales of Verona.
The Isle flies from me, and I must give but the outline.
The daughter of the old Baron de Bouvraye, one of the followers of William the Norman, and lord of the country for leagues along the northern shore of the Thames, was the court beauty of the time. With the Norman dignity of form, she had the Saxon beauty of countenance; for the Baron had wedded a Saxon heiress. The charms of the Lady Blanche de Bouvraye, were the theme of the whole race of troubadours; and the most popular poem of Guido de Spezzia was written on the incident of her dropping her wimple at a court ball. It was said that she had a thousand lovers; but it is certain, that suitors crowded from every part of Christendom to claim her hand—a number probably not diminished by the knowledge that she was to succeed to the immense possessions of the barony.
But, to the sorrow of some, the indignation of others, and the astonishment of all, the Lady Blanche laughed at the idea of love. William, not accustomed to have his orders disputed, commanded the beautiful heiress to fall in love with some one or other at a moment’s delay. But she laughed at the herald who bore the command, and bade him tell his master, that though armies might be commanded, and crowns conquered, Blanche de Bouvraye would be neither. William was indignant, and ordered the herald to prison for a month, and to be fed on bread and water, for the audacity of bringing back such an answer. But the lady was unchanged. The Baron remonstrated, and demanded whether she was prepared to see his line extinguished, and his lands go to strangers. She laughed and said, that as the former could not be while she lived, and the latter could take place only after she was dead, she saw no reason why she should concern herself on the subject. The abbess of the famous convent of the Celestines, near the ford of the river Rom, where the town of Romford has since grown up, was sent to argue with her. But her answer was the question, “Why had not the abbess herself married?” Her father confessor was next sent to her. But she sportively asked him, “Where werehiswife and children?”—a question which, though put in all innocence, so perplexed the good father, that, not desiring to be the penitent instead of the confessor, he returned with all possible speed to his convent.
Yet the Lady Blanche’s eye often exhibited the signs of weeping, and her cheek grew pale. All was a problem, until a handsome youth, the son of a knight on the Kentish shore, was seen one night touching a theorbo under her window, and singing one of the Tuscan love songs, which the troubadours had brought into England.
This was enough for the suspicions of the Baron. The young minstrel was seized, and sent to join the Crusaders then embarking for the Holy Land; and the lady was consigned to the Baron’s castle in Normandy. As Shakspeare said four hundred years after,The course of true love never does run smooth.It would take the pen and song of ten troubadours to tell the adventures of the lady and the youth. In the fashion of the age, they had each consulted an astrologer, and each had been told the same fortune, that they should constantly meet, but be constantly separated, and finally be happy.
In Normandy, the Baron’s castle and the lady had fallen together into the hands of the troops who had rebelled against William, when a band of the crusaders on the march, commanded by her lover, rescued her. The lady was next ordered to take up her abode in a convent in Lombardy, of which her father’s sister was the abbess. The vessel in which she embarked was driven up the Mediterranean by a storm, and wrecked on the shore where the army of the crusaders was encamped. Thus the lovers met again. By the Baron’s order, the lady returned once more to Europe; but when in sight of the Italian coast, the felucca was captured by an Algerine, and, to her astonishment, she found in the pirate’s vessel her lover, who had been wounded and taken prisoner in battle with the Saracens, and sold into slavery. Again theywere separated; the lady was ransomed by her father; and the lovers seemed to have parted for ever.
But the stars were true. The lover broke his Moorish chains, and the first sight which the lady saw on her landing at Ancona, was the fugitive kneeling at her feet.
I hasten on. As the vessel in which they sailed up the Thames approached the baronial castle, they saw a black flag waving from the battlements, and heard the funeral bell toll from the abbey of the Celestines. The Baron had been laid in the vault of the abbey on that day. Their hopes were now certainty: but the lady mourned for her father; and the laws of the church forbade the marriage for a year and a day. Yet, this new separation was soothed by the constant visits of her lover, who crossed the river daily to bask in the smiles of his betrothed, who looked more beautiful than ever.
The eve of the wedding-day arrived; and fate seemed now to be disarmed of the power of dividing the faithful pair; when, as the lover was passing through a dark grove to return to the Kentish shore for the last time, he was struck by an arrow shot from a thicket, fainted, and saw no more.
The morning dawned, the vassals were in array, the bride was in her silk and velvet drapery, the bride’s maids had their flower-baskets in their hands, the joy-bells pealed, a hundred horsemen were drawn up before the castle gates,—all was pomp, joy, and impatience,—but no bridegroom came.
At length the mournful tidings were brought, that his boat had waited for him in vain on the evening before, and that his plume and mantle, dabbled with blood, had been found on the sands. All now was agony. The bank, the grove, the river, were searched by hundreds of eager eyes and hands, but all in vain. The bride cast aside her jewels, and vowed to live and die a maid. The castle was a house of mourning; the vassals returned to their homes: all was stooping of heads, wringing of hands, and gloomy lamentation.
But, as the castle bell tolled midnight, a loud barking was heard at the gate. It was opened; and the favourite wolf-hound of the bridegroom rushed in, making wild bounds, running to and fro, and dragging the guard by their mantles to go forth. They followed; and he sprung before them to the door of a hut in a swampy thicket a league from the castle.
On bursting open the door, they found a man in bed, desperately torn, and dying from his wounds. At the sight, the noble hound flew on him; but the dying man called for a confessor, and declared that he had discharged the arrow by which the murder was committed, that he had dug a grave for the dead, and that the dog had torn him in the act. The next demand was, where the body had been laid. The dying man was carried on the pikes of the guard to the spot; the grave was opened; the body was taken up; and, to the astonishment of all, it was found still with traces of life. The knight was carried to the castle, restored, wedded, and became the lord of all the broad acres lying between the Thames and the Epping hills.
He had been waylaid by one of his countless rivals, who had employed a serf to make him the mark for a cloth-yard shaft, and who, like the Irish felon of celebrated memory, “saved his life by dying in jail.” The dog was, by all the laws of chivalry, an universal favourite while living; and when dead, was buried under a marble monument in the Isle; also giving his name to the territory; which was more than was done for his master; and hence the title of the Isle of Dogs. Is it not all written inGiraldus Cambrensis?
——Enter Limehouse Reach.—The sea-breeze comes “wooingly,” as we wind by the long serpent beach; the Pool is left behind, and we see at last the surface of the river. Hitherto it has been only a magnified Fleet-ditch. The Thames, for the river of a grave people, is one of the most frolicsome streams in the world. From London Bridge to the ocean, it makes as many turns as a hard-run fox, and shoots round so many points of the shore, that vessels a few miles off seem to be like ropemakers working in parallel lines, or the dancers in a quadrille, or Mr. Green’s balloon running a race with his son’s (the old story of Dædalus and Icarus renewed in the 19th century);or those extravaganzas of the Arabian Nights, in which fairy ships are holding a regatta among meadows strewn with crysolites and emeralds, for primroses and the grass-green turf.
But what new city is this, rising on the right? What ranges of enormous penthouses, covering enormous ships on the stocks! what sentinels parading! what tiers of warehouses! what boats rushing to and fro! what life, tumult, activity, and clank of hammers again? This is Deptford.
“Deep forde,” says old Holinshed, “alsoe called the Goldene Strande, from the colour of its brighte sandes, the whiche verilie do shine like new golde under the crystalle waters of the Ravensbourne, which here floweth to old Father Thamis, even as a younge daughtere doth lovinglie fly to the embrace of her aged parente.”
But Deptford has other claims on posterity. Here it was that Peter the Great came, to learn the art of building the fleets that were to cover the Euxine and make the Crescent grow pale. At this moment I closed my eyes, and lived in the penultimate year of the 17th century. The scene had totally changed. The crowds, the ships, the tumult, all were gone; I saw an open shore, with a few wooden dwellings on the edge of the water, and a single ship in the act of building. A group of ship carpenters were standing in the foreground, gazing at the uncouth fierceness with which a tall wild figure among them was driving bolts into the keel. He wore a common workman’s coat and cap; but there was a boldness in his figure, and a force in his movement, which showed a superior order of man. His countenance was stern and repulsive, but stately; there was even a touch of insanity in the writhings of the mouth and the wildness of the eye; but it did not require the star on the cloak, which was flung on the ground beside him, nor the massive signet ring on his hand, to attest his rank. I saw there the most kingly of barbarians, and the most barbarian of kings. There I saw Peter, the lord of the desert, of the Tartar, and of the polar world.
While I was listening, in fancy, to the Song of the Steppe, which this magnificent operative was shouting, rather than singing, in the rude joy of his work, I was roused by a cry of “Deptford!—Any one for Deptford? Ease her; stop her!”
I sprang from the bench on which I had been reclining, and the world burst upon me again.
“Deptford—any one for Deptford?” cried the captain, standing on the paddle-box. None answered the call, but a whole fleet of wherries came skimming along the surge, and threw a crowd of fresh passengers, with trunks and carpet-bags numberless, on board. The traveller of taste always feels himself instinctively drawn to one object out of the thousand, and my observation was fixed on one foreign-featured female, who sat in her wherry wrapt up in an envelope of furs and possessing a pair of most lustrous eyes.
A sallow Italian, who stood near me, looking over the side of the vessel, exclaimed, “Fanni Pellmello,” and the agility with which she sprang up the steps was worthy of the name of that most celebrated daughter of “the muse who presides over dancing,” as the opera critics have told us several million times.
The sallow Italian was passed with a smile of recognition, which put him in good spirits at once. Nothing vivifies the tongue of a foreigner like the memory of theCoulisses, and he over-flowed upon me with the history of this terrestrial Terpsichore. It happened that he was in Rome at the time of that memorable levee at which Fanny, in all her captivations, paid her obeisance at the Vatican; an event which notoriously cost a whole coterie of princesses the bursting of their stay-laces, through sheer envy, and on whose gossip thehaut tonof the “Eternal City” have subsisted ever since.
The Italian, in his rapture, and with the vision of the danseuse still shining before him at the poop, began toimprovisethe presentation. All the world is aware that Italian prose slides into rhyme of itself,—that all subjects turn to verse in the mind of the Italian, and that, when once on his Pegasus, he gallops up hill and down, snatches at every topic in his way, has no mercy on antiquity, and would introduce King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, dancing a quadrille with Prince Albert and Queen Victoria.
The month was September,The day I remember,(’Twas thecongéof Clara Novello),I saw troops under arms,Dragoons and gendarmes,Saluting sweet Fanny Pellmello.At St Peter’s last chimeA chorus sublime(By-the-by, from Rossini’s Otello),Was sung by Soprani,In homage to Fanny,The light footed Fanny Pellmello.As she rush’d on their gaze,The Swiss-guard in amaze,Thought they might as well stand a Martello;All their muskets they dropp’d,On their knees they all popp’d,To worship sweet Fanny Pellmello.To describe thedanseuse,Is too much formymuse;But if ever I fight a “duello,”Or quarrel at mess,It will be to possessSuch a jewel as Fanny Pellmello.On her brow a tiara,Like the lady’s in Lara,Or a portrait of thine, Biandello;With a twist and a twirl,All diamond and pearl,In bounded sweet Fanny Pellmello.All the men in the cowls,Were startled like owls,When the sunbeam first darts in their dell, O;As she flash’d on their eyes,All were dumb with surprise—All moon-struck with Fanny Pellmello.As she waltzed through the hall,None heard a foot fall,All the chamberlains stood in a spell, O;While, silent as snow,She revolved on her toe,A la Psyche—sweet Fanny Pellmello.Whomshe knelt to withinI can’t say, for my sin;Those are matters on which I don’t dwell, O;But Iknowthat a QueenWas nigh bursting with spleenAt the diamonds of Fanny Pellmello.Were I King, were I Kaiser,I’d have perish’d to please her,Or dared against all to rebel, O;I’d have barter’d a throneTo be bone of thy bone,Too exquisite Fanny Pellmello.If Paris had seenHerpas seulon the green,When the goddesses came to his cell, O,Forgetting the skies,He’d have handed the prizeTo all-conquering Fanny Pellmello.Achilles of GreeceThough famed for caprice,Would have left Greek and Trojanin bello,Cut country and king,And gone off on the wingTo his island with Fanny Pellmello.Alexander the Great,Though not over sedate,And a lover of more than I’ll tell, O,Would have learn’d to despiseAll his Persians’ black eyes,And been faithful to Fanny Pellmello.Marc Antony’s selfWould have laid on the shelfHis Egyptian so merry and mellow;Left his five hundred doxies,And found all their proxiesIn one, charming Fanny Pellmello.The renown’d Julius Cæsar,With nose like a razor,And skull smooth and bright as a shell, O,Would his sword have laid down,Or pilfer’d a crown,At thy bidding, sweet Fanny Pellmello.His nephew Augustus,Not famous for justice,(Unless when the gout made him bellow,)His nose would have curl’dAt the pomps of the world,For a cottage with Fanny Pellmello.The Emperor Tiberius,(A rascal nefarious,)Though all things on earth he would sell, O,Would have bid Rome adieu,To the Alps flown with you,And play’d shepherd to Fanny Pellmello.That Bluebeard, young Nero,(Not much of a hero,For a knave earth has scarce seen his fellow,)Though his wife he might smother,Or hang up his mother,Would have worshipp’d sweet Fanny Pellmello.Nay, Alaric the Goth,Though he well might be loathHis travelling baggage to swell, O,Would have built you a carriage,—Perhaps offer’d marriage,—And march’d off with Fanny Pellmello.Fat Leo the Pope,In tiara and cope,Who the magic of beauty knew well, O,Would have craved your permissionFor your portrait, by Titian,As Venus—sweet Fanny Pellmello.The Sultan MahmoodWho the Spahis subdued,And mow’d them like corn-fields so yellow,Would have sold his Haram,And made his salāmAt thy footstool, sweet Fanny Pellmello.Napoleon le GrandWould have sued for thy hand,Before from his high horse he fell, O;He’d have thought JosephineWas not fit to be seen,By thy beauties, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
The month was September,The day I remember,(’Twas thecongéof Clara Novello),I saw troops under arms,Dragoons and gendarmes,Saluting sweet Fanny Pellmello.
At St Peter’s last chimeA chorus sublime(By-the-by, from Rossini’s Otello),Was sung by Soprani,In homage to Fanny,The light footed Fanny Pellmello.
As she rush’d on their gaze,The Swiss-guard in amaze,Thought they might as well stand a Martello;All their muskets they dropp’d,On their knees they all popp’d,To worship sweet Fanny Pellmello.
To describe thedanseuse,Is too much formymuse;But if ever I fight a “duello,”Or quarrel at mess,It will be to possessSuch a jewel as Fanny Pellmello.
On her brow a tiara,Like the lady’s in Lara,Or a portrait of thine, Biandello;With a twist and a twirl,All diamond and pearl,In bounded sweet Fanny Pellmello.
All the men in the cowls,Were startled like owls,When the sunbeam first darts in their dell, O;As she flash’d on their eyes,All were dumb with surprise—All moon-struck with Fanny Pellmello.
As she waltzed through the hall,None heard a foot fall,All the chamberlains stood in a spell, O;While, silent as snow,She revolved on her toe,A la Psyche—sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Whomshe knelt to withinI can’t say, for my sin;Those are matters on which I don’t dwell, O;But Iknowthat a QueenWas nigh bursting with spleenAt the diamonds of Fanny Pellmello.
Were I King, were I Kaiser,I’d have perish’d to please her,Or dared against all to rebel, O;I’d have barter’d a throneTo be bone of thy bone,Too exquisite Fanny Pellmello.
If Paris had seenHerpas seulon the green,When the goddesses came to his cell, O,Forgetting the skies,He’d have handed the prizeTo all-conquering Fanny Pellmello.
Achilles of GreeceThough famed for caprice,Would have left Greek and Trojanin bello,Cut country and king,And gone off on the wingTo his island with Fanny Pellmello.
Alexander the Great,Though not over sedate,And a lover of more than I’ll tell, O,Would have learn’d to despiseAll his Persians’ black eyes,And been faithful to Fanny Pellmello.
Marc Antony’s selfWould have laid on the shelfHis Egyptian so merry and mellow;Left his five hundred doxies,And found all their proxiesIn one, charming Fanny Pellmello.
The renown’d Julius Cæsar,With nose like a razor,And skull smooth and bright as a shell, O,Would his sword have laid down,Or pilfer’d a crown,At thy bidding, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
His nephew Augustus,Not famous for justice,(Unless when the gout made him bellow,)His nose would have curl’dAt the pomps of the world,For a cottage with Fanny Pellmello.
The Emperor Tiberius,(A rascal nefarious,)Though all things on earth he would sell, O,Would have bid Rome adieu,To the Alps flown with you,And play’d shepherd to Fanny Pellmello.
That Bluebeard, young Nero,(Not much of a hero,For a knave earth has scarce seen his fellow,)Though his wife he might smother,Or hang up his mother,Would have worshipp’d sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Nay, Alaric the Goth,Though he well might be loathHis travelling baggage to swell, O,Would have built you a carriage,—Perhaps offer’d marriage,—And march’d off with Fanny Pellmello.
Fat Leo the Pope,In tiara and cope,Who the magic of beauty knew well, O,Would have craved your permissionFor your portrait, by Titian,As Venus—sweet Fanny Pellmello.
The Sultan MahmoodWho the Spahis subdued,And mow’d them like corn-fields so yellow,Would have sold his Haram,And made his salāmAt thy footstool, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
Napoleon le GrandWould have sued for thy hand,Before from his high horse he fell, O;He’d have thought JosephineWas not fit to be seen,By thy beauties, sweet Fanny Pellmello.
——But the Thames, like the world, is full of changes. As the steamer ran close in under the right shore, I observed a small creek, as overgrown with sedge, as silent and as lonely as if it had been hid in a corner of Hudson’s Bay. It was once called Julius Cæsar’s bath, from the tradition, that when marching at the head of the Tenth Legion, on a visit to Cleopatra, then resident in Kent! he ordered his whole brigade to wash the dust from their visages preparatory to appearing before her majesty and her maids of honour. But this was the age of romance. An unwashed age followed, and the classical name gave way to the exigencies of things. The creek was called the “Condemned Hole,” and was made the place for impounding vessels caught in the act of smuggling, which were there secured, like other malefactors, in chains. It may not unnaturally be concluded, that the spot was unpopular to the tribe of gallant fellows, who had only followed the example of Greek, Saxon, Dane, and Norman; and who saw the beloved companions of many a daring day and joyous night (for if the sailor loves his ship, the smuggler adores her) laid up under sentence of firewood. By that curious propensity, which makes the fox so often fix his burrow beside the kennel, the surrounding shore was the favourite residence of the smuggler; and many a broad-shouldered hero, with a visage bronzed by the tropic sun, and a heart that would face a lion, a fire-ship, or any thing but his wife in a rage, was seen there taking his sulky rounds, and biting his thumb (the approved style of insult in those days) at the customhouse officers, who kept their uneasy watch on board. With some the ruling passion was so strong, that they insisted on being buried as near as possible to the spot, and a little churchyard was thence established, full of epitaphs of departed gallantry and desperate adventure—a sort of Buccaneer Valhalla, with occasional sculptures and effigies of the sleepers below.
Among those the name of Jack Bradwell lived longest. The others exemplified what Horace said of the injustice of fame, they “wanted a poet” to immortalize them; but Jack took that office on himself, and gave the world anesquisseof his career, in the following rough specimen of the Deptford muse of 1632:—
Fulle thirtie yeares, I lived a smuggler bolde,Dealing in goode Schiedam and Englishe golde.My hande was open, and my hearte was lighte;My owners knew my worde was honour brighte.In the West Indies, too, for seven long yeares,I stoutlie foughte the Dons and the Mounseers.Commander of the tight-built sloop, the Sharke,Late as the owle, and early as the larke,I roamed the sea, nor cared for tide or winde,And left the Guarda Costas all behinde.Until betrayed by woman’s flattering tongue,In San Domingo my three mates were hung.I shot the Judge, forsook the Spanish Maine,And to olde Englande boldlie sailed againe.Was married thrice, and think it rather harde,That I should lie alone in this churchyarde.
Fulle thirtie yeares, I lived a smuggler bolde,Dealing in goode Schiedam and Englishe golde.My hande was open, and my hearte was lighte;My owners knew my worde was honour brighte.In the West Indies, too, for seven long yeares,I stoutlie foughte the Dons and the Mounseers.Commander of the tight-built sloop, the Sharke,Late as the owle, and early as the larke,I roamed the sea, nor cared for tide or winde,And left the Guarda Costas all behinde.Until betrayed by woman’s flattering tongue,In San Domingo my three mates were hung.I shot the Judge, forsook the Spanish Maine,And to olde Englande boldlie sailed againe.Was married thrice, and think it rather harde,That I should lie alone in this churchyarde.
But the march of mind is fatal to sentiment. A few years ago all vestiges of Jack were swept away. A neighbouring tanner had taken a liking to the spot, purchased it, planted his pits in it, and carried off Jack’s monument for a chimney-piece!
——But what hills are those edging the horizon, green, soft, and sunny. I hear a burst of sonorous bells—
Over this wide-watered shore,Swinging slow with sullen roar.
Over this wide-watered shore,Swinging slow with sullen roar.
No; Milton’s bells are monastic; the solemn clang of some huge cathedral, calling the brethren to vespers, and filling the air with the melancholy pomp of the antique cloister.—These are gay, glad, tumultuous, a clang of joy. It is the Queen’s accession. Flags are flying on every ship and steeple, and I hear a distant cannonade. The guns of Woolwich are firing in honour of the day.
And what palace is looming on my right? Greenwich Hospital. A façade worthy of Greece; ranges of Corinthian columns; vast courts expanding in front; groves and green hills in the rear; and on the esplanade, a whole battalion of one-legged or one-armed heroes, formed in line, and, as we arrive, giving three cheers to the “glory” of her Majesty.
I leave the chroniclers to tell, that this noble establishment was founded by William the Dutchman, of freedom-loving and French-hating memory; that the call for public munificence was answered, as such calls always are, by England; and that at this hour it pensions nearly forty thousand as brave veterans as any in the world.
What magnitude of benevolence was ever equal to this regal and national benefaction? In what form could public gratitude have ever been more nobly displayed? Or by what means, uniting the highest charity to the most just recompense, could comfort have been more proudly administered to the declining days of the British seaman. In the long course of a hundred and fifty years, what thousands, and tens of thousands, must have been rescued, by this illustrious benevolence, from the unhappiness of neglected old age! To what multitudes of brave old hearts must it have given comfort in their distant cottages, and what high recollections must the sight of its memorials and trophies revive in the men who fought under Rodney and Howe, St. Vincent and Nelson! Those are the true evidences of national greatness. Those walls are our witnesses to posterity, that their fathers had not lived in vain. The shield of the country thrown over the sailor and the soldier, against the chances of the world in his old age, is the emblem of a grander supremacy than ever was gained by even its irresistible spear.
——But the steamer has made a dash to the opposite bank, and we glide along the skirts of a small peninsula, marked by a slender stone pillar, where the border of Essex begins.
At this spot, a couple of hundred years ago, a mayor of London had been hanged; for what reason, Elkanah Settle, the city laureate, does not aver, further than that “wise people differed much on the subject,”—some imagining that it was for bigamy; others, that it was for having, at a great banquet given to the king by the corporation of spectacle-makers, mistaken the royal purse for his own; but the chief report being, “that he was hanged for the bad dinners which he gave to the common-councilmen.” The laureate proceeds to say, that at this spot, whenever the mayor of London went down with the Companies in their visitationof the boundaries, the barges all made a solemn stop. The mayor, (he was not yet a lord,) with all the aldermen, knelt on the deck, and the chief chaplain, taking off his cap, repeated this admonition:—
Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor,Of a sinner’s death beware.Liveth virtue, liveth sinNot without us, but within.Man doth never think of ill,While he feedeth at his will.None doth seek his neighbour’s coin,When he seeth the sirloin.No man toucheth purse or life,While he thus doth use his knife.Savoury pie and smoking haunchMake the hungry traitor staunch.Claret spiced, and Malvoisie,From ill Spirits set us free,Better far than axe or swordIs the City’s well filled board.Think of him once, hanging there,Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor,Chorus.—Beware, Beware, Beware!
Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor,Of a sinner’s death beware.Liveth virtue, liveth sinNot without us, but within.Man doth never think of ill,While he feedeth at his will.None doth seek his neighbour’s coin,When he seeth the sirloin.No man toucheth purse or life,While he thus doth use his knife.Savoury pie and smoking haunchMake the hungry traitor staunch.Claret spiced, and Malvoisie,From ill Spirits set us free,Better far than axe or swordIs the City’s well filled board.Think of him once, hanging there,Mister Mayor, Mister Mayor,Chorus.—Beware, Beware, Beware!
The various corporate bodies chanted the last line with unanimous devotion; the mayor and aldermen then rose from their knees, and the whole pageant moved on to Blackwall toDine.
Who has not heard of Blackwall? more fashionable for three months in the year than Almacks itself for the same perishable period; fuller than Bond Street, and with as many charming taverns as Regent Street contains “Ruination shops,” (so called by Lady J. the mostriantewit of the day,) those shops where one can purchase every thing that nobody wants, and that few can pay for. Emporiums, as they name themselves, brilliant collections of all that is dazzling and delightful, from a filigree tooth-pick, up to a service of plate for a royal visitation.
Blackwall is a little city of taverns, built by white-bait, as the islands in the South Sea are built by the coral insect. The scenery is a marsh, backed by the waters of a stagnant canal, and lined with whitewashed warehouses. It is in fact a transfer of Wapping, half-a-dozen miles down the Thames. But Blackwall disdains the picturesque; it scorns exterior charms, and devotes itself to the solid merits of the table, and to dressing white-bait with a perfection unrivalled, and unrivalable in the circumference of the terrestrial globe.
Blackwall deserves to be made immortal, and I gave it a passport to posterity, in an Ode.
Let me sing thy praise, Blackwall!Paradise of court and city,Gathering in thy banquet-hallLords and cockneys—dull, and witty.Spot, where ministers of state,Lay aside their humbug all;Water-souchy, and white-bait,Tempting mankind to Blackwall.Come, ye Muses, tuneful Nine,Whom no Civil List can bribe,Tell me, who come here, to dine,All the great and little tribe,Who, as summer takes its rounds,O’er Whitechapel, or Whitehall,From five shillings to five pounds,Club for dinner at Blackwall.There the ministerialOuts,There the ministerialIns,One an emblem of the pouts,T’other emblem of the grins;All, beneath thy roof, are gay,Each forgetting rise or fall,Come to spendonehonest day,——All good fellows, at Blackwall.There I see an old Premier,Very like a “Lord at nurse,”Rathernear, rather near,Dangling a diminish’d purse.Grieving for the days gone by,When he had a “house of call,”Every day his fish and pie,Gratis—notlike thine, Blackwall.There I see an Irish brow,Bronzed with blarney, hot with wine,Mark’d by nature for the plough,Practising the “Superfine.”Mumbling o’er a courtly speech,Dreaming of a palace Ball,Things notquitewithin his reach,Thoughquite asyat Blackwall.There the prince of Exquisites!O’er his claret looking sloppy,(All the ladies know, “he writes,”Bringing down the price of poppy,Spoiling much his scented paper,Making books for many a stall,)Sits, with languid smile, Lord Vapour,Yawning through thy feast, Blackwall.By him yawning sits, Earl Patron,Well to artists (toowell) known.Generous as a workhouse matron,Tender-hearted as a stone:Laughing at the pair, Lord ScofferWhispers faction to F—x M—le.Askingan “official offer,”Ainsi va le mondeBlackwall.But, whence comes that storm of gabble,Piercing casement, wall, and door,All the screaming tongues of Babel?’Tis the “Diplomatic corps,”Hating us with all their souls,If the knaves have souls at all.I’d soon teach them otherroles,Were I Monarch of Blackwall.Then, I hear a roar uproarious!——“There a Corporation dine,”Some are tipsy, some are “glorious,”Some are bellowing for wine;Some for all their sins are pouting,Some beneath the table fall;Some lie singing, some lie shouting,—Now, farewell to thee, Blackwall.
Let me sing thy praise, Blackwall!Paradise of court and city,Gathering in thy banquet-hallLords and cockneys—dull, and witty.Spot, where ministers of state,Lay aside their humbug all;Water-souchy, and white-bait,Tempting mankind to Blackwall.
Come, ye Muses, tuneful Nine,Whom no Civil List can bribe,Tell me, who come here, to dine,All the great and little tribe,Who, as summer takes its rounds,O’er Whitechapel, or Whitehall,From five shillings to five pounds,Club for dinner at Blackwall.
There the ministerialOuts,There the ministerialIns,One an emblem of the pouts,T’other emblem of the grins;All, beneath thy roof, are gay,Each forgetting rise or fall,Come to spendonehonest day,——All good fellows, at Blackwall.
There I see an old Premier,Very like a “Lord at nurse,”Rathernear, rather near,Dangling a diminish’d purse.Grieving for the days gone by,When he had a “house of call,”Every day his fish and pie,Gratis—notlike thine, Blackwall.
There I see an Irish brow,Bronzed with blarney, hot with wine,Mark’d by nature for the plough,Practising the “Superfine.”Mumbling o’er a courtly speech,Dreaming of a palace Ball,Things notquitewithin his reach,Thoughquite asyat Blackwall.
There the prince of Exquisites!O’er his claret looking sloppy,(All the ladies know, “he writes,”Bringing down the price of poppy,Spoiling much his scented paper,Making books for many a stall,)Sits, with languid smile, Lord Vapour,Yawning through thy feast, Blackwall.
By him yawning sits, Earl Patron,Well to artists (toowell) known.Generous as a workhouse matron,Tender-hearted as a stone:Laughing at the pair, Lord ScofferWhispers faction to F—x M—le.Askingan “official offer,”Ainsi va le mondeBlackwall.
But, whence comes that storm of gabble,Piercing casement, wall, and door,All the screaming tongues of Babel?’Tis the “Diplomatic corps,”Hating us with all their souls,If the knaves have souls at all.I’d soon teach them otherroles,Were I Monarch of Blackwall.
Then, I hear a roar uproarious!——“There a Corporation dine,”Some are tipsy, some are “glorious,”Some are bellowing for wine;Some for all their sins are pouting,Some beneath the table fall;Some lie singing, some lie shouting,—Now, farewell to thee, Blackwall.
——Stopped for five minutes at the handsome pier, waiting for the arrival of the railway passengers from London. The scene was animated; the pier crowded with porters, pie-men, wandering minstrels, and that ingenious race, who read “moral lessons” to country gentlemen with their breeches’ pockets open, and negligent of their handkerchiefs.
——Stepped on shore, and, tempted by the attractions of one of the taverns, ordered a bottle of claret, on the principle of the parliamentary machines for cleansing the smoke-conveying orifices of our drawing-rooms. The inconceivable quantity of fuliginous material, which I had swallowed in my transit down the river, would have stifled the voice of aprima donna. The claret gave me the sense of a recovered faculty, and as I inhaled, with that cool feeling of enjoyment which salutes the man of London with a consciousness that sea-breezes are in existence, I had leisure to glance along a vista of superb saloons, which would have better suited a Pasha of Bagdad, than the payers of the income tax in the dingiest and mightiest city of the known world.
Yet all was not devoted to the selfish principle. In a recess at the end of the vista was a small bust—a sort of votive offering to the “memory of Samuel Simpson, formerly a waiter in this tavern for the space of fifty years,” this bust having been “here placed by his grateful master, Thomas Hammersley.”
I am proud to have seen, and shall be prouder to rescue, the names of both those Blackwall worthies from oblivion. They have long slept without their fame; for the bust is datedA.D.1714, the year which closed the existence of that illustrious queen, Anna, whose name, as Swift rather saucily observed, like her friendships,Both backward and forward was always thesame.An honour shared in succeeding ages only by the amiable Lord Glenelg.
But inscribed on the pedestal was an epitaph, which I transferred to my memoranda.
Bacchus! thy wonders fill the wondering world!Thrones in the dust have by thy cups been hurl’d.Yet, still thou had’st for mankindonesurprise:There wasonehonest drawer! and here he lies.Sam Simpson, of the Swan, who, forced to winkAt drinking hard in others, didnotdrink.A man who, living all his life by sots,Yet fairly drew, and fairly fill’d his pots.Steady and sure, his easy way held on,Nor let his chalk scoretwo, when called forone.If man’s best study is his fellow man,Reader, revere this hero of the Can.’Twere well for kings, if many a king had beenLike him who sleeps beneath yon Churchyard-green.
Bacchus! thy wonders fill the wondering world!Thrones in the dust have by thy cups been hurl’d.Yet, still thou had’st for mankindonesurprise:There wasonehonest drawer! and here he lies.Sam Simpson, of the Swan, who, forced to winkAt drinking hard in others, didnotdrink.A man who, living all his life by sots,Yet fairly drew, and fairly fill’d his pots.Steady and sure, his easy way held on,Nor let his chalk scoretwo, when called forone.If man’s best study is his fellow man,Reader, revere this hero of the Can.’Twere well for kings, if many a king had beenLike him who sleeps beneath yon Churchyard-green.
“There is nothing new under the sun,” saith Solomon; and as the late Lord Mayor said, “I am quite of Solomon’s opinion.” Here is Crabbe, fifty years before he was born. Here is his pomp and his particularity; his force and his facility; his pungency and his picturesque. Is the theory of transmigration true? and has the Blackwall tavern-keeper only reappeared in the Rutlandshire parson? Let the antiquarians settle it among them. I leave it to occupy the life of some future Ritson, to poison some future Stephens with his own ink; and to give the whole race of the Malones the shadow of an excuse for their existence in this world.
But, I hear the snort of the locomotive; I see the cloud of steam rushing towards the pier. The bell rings, the chaos of trunks and passengers is rolled on board. I follow, and Blackwall fades in the distance, as the poets say, “like a dream of departed joys.”
——Came in sight of a promontory, Purfleet, flanked by an immense row of dark-roofed ominous-looking buildings,—these are the gunpowder depôts of the navy and army of the empire. I pretend to no exclusive poltroonery; but I must acknowledge that I highly approved of the speed which carried us past them. If they had blown up at the moment, in what region of the atmosphere should we have been, steamer and all, in five seconds after. Yet, how many things might have turned our whole cargo into gas and carbon at the instant? a flash of lightning; the wire of a Voltaic machine, apparently as harmless as a knitting needle in the hands of an old spinster; the spark of a peasant’s pipe; the scrape of a hob-nailed shoe! Within a hundred yards of us there lay, in “grim repose,” a hundred thousand barrels of gunpowder. We might have lighted them from the sparks of our funnel, and committed an involuntary suicide on the most comprehensive scale.
But we should not have perished unknown. As the maid, in Schiller’s famous Monologue, sings,—