FOOTNOTES:[33]Davies'Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 1784, vol. ii., p. 356.[34]"The Nine," Garrick's favourite way of addressing Hannah More.[35]Voltaire's tragedy, produced at Drury Lane.[36]A "dramatic poem," on the model of Greek tragedy.
FOOTNOTES:
[33]Davies'Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 1784, vol. ii., p. 356.
[33]Davies'Memoirs of the Life of David Garrick, 1784, vol. ii., p. 356.
[34]"The Nine," Garrick's favourite way of addressing Hannah More.
[34]"The Nine," Garrick's favourite way of addressing Hannah More.
[35]Voltaire's tragedy, produced at Drury Lane.
[35]Voltaire's tragedy, produced at Drury Lane.
[36]A "dramatic poem," on the model of Greek tragedy.
[36]A "dramatic poem," on the model of Greek tragedy.
CHAPTER VII
Garrick's Funeral from the Adelphi—Johnson's Opinion of Garrick: "A Liberal Man"—His Death "Eclipsed the Gaiety of Nations"—Topham Beauclerk and Johnson—Mrs Garrick's famous Dinner Party—Johnson and other Celebrities Present—Described by Hannah More and Boswell—Johnson's Morning Visit to Adelphi Terrace—Hannah More's Life Here—Another Dinner Party—Death of Mrs Garrick—Shakespeare's Gloves sent to Mrs Siddons from the Adelphi—Goldsmith writes from a Sponging-House to Garrick in the Adelphi—Becket, the Bookseller.
Garrick's Funeral from the Adelphi—Johnson's Opinion of Garrick: "A Liberal Man"—His Death "Eclipsed the Gaiety of Nations"—Topham Beauclerk and Johnson—Mrs Garrick's famous Dinner Party—Johnson and other Celebrities Present—Described by Hannah More and Boswell—Johnson's Morning Visit to Adelphi Terrace—Hannah More's Life Here—Another Dinner Party—Death of Mrs Garrick—Shakespeare's Gloves sent to Mrs Siddons from the Adelphi—Goldsmith writes from a Sponging-House to Garrick in the Adelphi—Becket, the Bookseller.
Thefuneral procession which wended its way from the Adelphi Terrace, through Adam Street to the Strand and thence by way of Whitehall to Westminster Abbey, on that winter's morning in February, 1779, was a lengthy and imposing one, though nowadays we should consider such pomp and circumstance very lugubrious. First of all, came four porters on horseback, their staffs, or wands of office, covered with black silk and scarves. Then came six other men, with mourning cloaks, followed by another official bearing a heavily-draped pennon. Then came other six men carrying a surcoat of arms, a helmet with crest, wreath, andmantlet. A state lid of black ostrich feathers, surrounded by escutcheons, immediately preceded the hearse, which was 'full-dressed'—that is to say, it bore at each corner and on the sides waving black ostrich plumes. A state coach, empty, and with a page on each side, was followed by a mourning coach containing the clergy from St Martin's-in-the-Fields. Then came six more mourning coaches "with the pall-bearers, two in each coach, six pages on each side. A ditto, with the chief mourners, a page on each side. A ditto, with three family ditto. A ditto, with three physicians. A ditto, with surgeon and apothecaries, a page on each side. A ditto, with Messrs Sheridan and Harris, a page on each side. Three ditto, with a deputation of twelve gentlemen, performers from Drury-Lane theatre, three pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks, etc. Three ditto, with a deputation of twelve gentlemen, performers from Covent-garden theatre, three pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks, etc. Four mourning coaches, with the members of the literary club, four pages on each side. Two men in mourning, on horseback, with cloaks. Seven coaches with intimate friends of the deceased, seven pages on each side. Mr Garrick's coach, empty. All the gentlemen's family coaches, empty."[37]Thebody was received at the great west door of the Abbey, about three o'clock, by the Bishop of Rochester, Dean of Westminster, who, attended by the clergy and choir, preceded the corpse up the centre aisle, during which time Purcell's funeral music was played and sung.[38]
Among those who followed the mournful procession from the Adelphi were Lord Camden, the Lord Chancellor; the Earl of Ossory; the Duke of Devonshire; Earl Spencer; the Right Hon. Richard Rigby, and Viscount Palmerston, who, with others, were the pall-bearers. The mourning coaches also contained Dr Johnson; George Colman, the elder, the dramatist; John Dunning, afterwards Baron Ashburton, whoseInquiry into the Doctrines lately promulgated concerning Juries, Libels, etc., was pronounced by Horace Walpole "the finest piece ... written for liberty since Lord Somers"; Edmund Burke; Colonel Isaac Barré, the Irish soldier and politician; the Hon. Charles Fox; Lord Charles Spencer; the deputy usher of the black rod; and many other distinguished men. The committee from Drury Lane consisted of Richard Yates, Tom King, Vernon, William Parsons, James Dodd—an actor who, according to Charles Lamb, "was a man of reading, and left at his death a choice collection ofold English literature"—Aickin, John Palmer—an incomparable Joseph Surface—W. Bensley—the great Malvolio of his day—William Brereton, John Moody, and Robert Baddeley. From Covent Garden, there came "Gentleman" Lewis, Lee Lewes, John Quick—George III.'s favourite comedian—and some nine other players of good repute. It was said at the time that a greater concourse of people attended than was ever known on a similar occasion.
Johnson, as all students of the stage are aware, had a sincere admiration for Garrick, a fact that is proved by several references in the pages of Boswell. A few months before the death of the player, Johnson and Boswell dined with William Scott, in his chambers in the Temple. The conversation turned upon fame, and Boswell "slily introduced" the name of David Garrick, "and his assuming the airs of a great man.Johnson: 'Sir, it is wonderful howlittleGarrick assumes. No, Sir, Garrickfortunam reverenter habet. Consider, Sir,—celebrated men such as you have mentioned have had their applause at a distance; but Garrick had it dashed in his face, sounded in his ears, and went home every night with the plaudits of a thousand in his cranium. Then, Sir, Garrick did notfind, butmadehis way to the tables, the levees, and almost the bedchambers of the great. Then, Sir, Garrick had under him a numerousbody of people; who, from fears of his power and hopes of his favour, and admiration of his talents, were constantly submissive to him. And here is a man who has advanced the dignity of his profession. Garrick has made a player a higher character.'Scott: 'And he is a very sprightly writer too.'Johnson: 'Yes, Sir; and all this supported by great wealth of his own acquisition. If all this had happened to me, I should have had a couple of fellows with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened to Cibber or to Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. Yet Garrick speaks tous' (smiling).Boswell: 'And Garrick is a very good man, a charitable man.'Johnson: 'Sir, a liberal man. He has given away more money than any man in England. There may be a little vanity mixed; but he has shown that money is not his first object.'Boswell: 'Yet Foote used to say of him, that he walked out with the intention to do a generous action, but turning the corner of a street, he met the ghost of a halfpenny, which frightened him.'Johnson: 'Why, Sir, that is very true, too; for I never knew a man of whom it could be said with less certainty to-day what he will do to-morrow, than Garrick; it depends so much on his humour at the time.'Scott: 'I am glad to hear of his liberality. He has been represented as very saving.'Johnson: 'With his domestic saving we have nothing to do. I remember drinking tea with him long ago, when Peg Woffington made it, and he grumbled at her for making it too strong. He had begun to feel money in his purse, and did not know when he should have enough of it!'"
Shortly after Garrick's death, Johnson accorded the actor praise that was even greater. The occasion was a dinner party, on April 24, 1779, at Topham Beauclerk's, at which Sir Joshua Reynolds, as well as Johnson and Boswell, was present. Boswell mentioned that John Wilkes had spoken of Garrick as a man who had no friend, a contention which Johnson allowed to be right. "'He had friends, but no friend,' he said. 'Garrick was so diffused, he had no man to whom he wished to unbosom himself. He found people always ready to applaud him, and that always for the same thing; so he saw life with great uniformity.'" Whereupon, Boswell, taking upon himself "for once, to fight with Goliath's weapons, and play the sophist," said: "'Garrick did not need a friend, as he got from everybody all that he wanted. What is a friend? One who supports and comforts you, while others do not. Friendship, you know, Sir, is the cordial drop "to make the nauseous draught of life go down"; but if the draught be not nauseous, if it be all sweet, there is no occasion for that drop.'Johnson: 'Many men would notbe content to live so. I hope I should not. They would wish to have an intimate friend, with whom they might compare minds and cherish private virtues.'" One of the company mentioned Lord Chesterfield as a man who had no friend. "Johnson: 'There were more materials to make friendship in Garrick, had he not been so diffused.'Boswell: 'Garrick was pure gold, but beat out to thin leaf. Lord Chesterfield was tinsel.'Johnson: 'Garrick was a very good man, the most cheerful man of his age; a decent liver in a profession which is supposed to give indulgence to licentiousness; and a man who gave away, freely, money acquired by himself. He began the world with a great hunger for money; the son of a half-pay officer, bred in a family whose study was to make fourpence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny do. But when he had got money he was very liberal.' I presumed to animadvert on his eulogy on Garrick, in hisLives of the Poets. 'You say, Sir, his death eclipsed the gaiety of nations.'Johnson: 'I could not have said more or less. It is the truth:eclipsed, notextinguished; and his deathdideclipse; it was like a storm.'Boswell: 'But why nations? Did his gaiety extend farther than his own nation?'Johnson: 'Why, sir, some exaggeration must be allowed. Besides, nations may be said—if we allow the Scotch to be a nation—to have gaiety—which they have not.Youare an exception, though.Come, gentlemen, let us candidly admit that there is one Scotchman who is cheerful.'Beauclerk: 'But he is a very unnatural Scotchman.' I, however, continued to think the compliment to Garrick hyperbolically untrue. His acting had ceased some time before his death; at any rate he had acted in Ireland but a short time, at an early period of his life, and never in Scotland. I objected also to what appears an anti-climax of praise, when contrasted with the preceding panegyric, 'and diminished the public stock of harmless pleasure!' 'Is notharmless pleasurevery tame?'Johnson: 'Nay, Sir, harmless pleasure is the highest praise. Pleasure is a word of dubious import; pleasure is, in general, dangerous, and pernicious to virtue; to be able, therefore, to furnish pleasure that is harmless, pleasure pure and unalloyed, is as great a power as man can possess.'"
stairs
YORK STAIRS AND WATER WORKS.
Johnson was a frequent visitor to Adelphi Terrace, for not only was he on intimate terms with Mr and Mrs Garrick, but another of his friends, Topham Beauclerk, lived there at one time. From 1757 to 1780, there are frequent and most kindly allusions to him in the pages of Boswell. In the former year, he matriculated at Oxford. Here he met another of Johnson's friends—"High, shy, and dry" Bennet Langton, the eminent Greek scholar. Beauclerk was a man of culture and of great knowledge of the world. And he had thegood fortune to win the affectionate regard of Dr Johnson. On March 10, 1768, Lady Diana Spencer, eldest daughter of the second Duke of Marlborough, was divorced from her husband, Lord St John and Bolingbroke, and, two days later, she was married to Beauclerk, to whom "she made an excellent wife." Beauclerk died, in Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, on March 11, 1780. His extensive library, which was particularly rich in English plays, history, travel, and science, was dispersed by auction in 1781.
On Friday, April 20, 1781, there was a memorable dinner party in Adelphi Terrace, the first of the kind given by Mrs Garrick since the death of her husband. "We begin now," records Hannah More, who was staying with Mrs Garrick at the time, "to be a little cheerful at home, and to have our small parties. One such we have just had, and the day and evening turned out very pleasant. Johnson was in full song, and I quarrelled with him sadly. I accused him of not having done justice to theAllegroandPenseroso. He spoke disparagingly of both. I praisedLycidas, which he absolutely abused, adding, 'If Milton had not written theParadise Lost, he would have only ranked among the minor poets: he was a Phidias that could cut a Colossus out of a rock, but could not cut heads out of cherry-stones.
"Boswell brought to my mind the whole of a verymirthful conversation at dear Mrs Garrick's, and my being made by Sir William Forbes the umpire in a trial of skill between Garrick and Boswell, which could most nearly imitate Dr Johnson's manner. I remember I gave it for Boswell in familiar conversation, and for Garrick in reciting poetry. Mrs Boscawen shone with her usual mild lustre."
Boswell, in recording this auspicious event in the history of the Adelphi, says that it was "one of the happiest days that I remember to have enjoyed in the whole course of my life. Mrs Garrick, whose grief for the loss of her husband was, I believe, as sincere as wounded affection and admiration could produce, had this day, for the first time since his death, a select party of his friends to dine with her. The company was, Miss Hannah More, who lived with her, and whom she called her chaplain; Mrs Boscawen, Mrs Elizabeth Carter, Sir Joshua Reynolds, Dr Burney, Dr Johnson, and myself. We found ourselves very elegantly entertained at her house in the Adelphi, where I have passed many a pleasing hour with him who gladdened life. She looked well, talked of her husband with complacency, and while she cast her eyes on his portrait, which hung over the chimney-piece, said, that 'death was now the most agreeable object to her.' The very semblance of David Garrick was cheering. Mr Beauclerk, with happy propriety, inscribed underthat fine portrait of him, which by Lady Diana's kindness is now the property of my friend, Mr Langton, the following passage from his beloved Shakespeare:—
'A merrier man,Within the limit of becoming mirth,I never spent an hour's talk withal.His eye begets occasion for his wit;For every object that the one doth catch,The other turns to a mirth-moving jest;Which his fair tongue (Conceit's expositor)Delivers in such apt and gracious words,That aged ears play truant at his tales,And younger hearings are quite ravished;So sweet and voluble is his discourse.'
"We were all in fine spirits; and I whispered to Mrs Boscawen, 'I believe this is as much as can be made of life.' In addition to a splendid entertainment, we were regaled with Lichfield ale, which had a peculiar appropriate value. Sir Joshua, and Dr Burney, and I, drank cordially of it to Dr Johnson's health; and though he would not join us, he as cordially answered, 'Gentlemen, I wish you all as well as you do me.'
"The general effect of this day dwells upon my mind in fond remembrance: but I do not find much conversation recorded. What I have preserved shall be faithfully given.
"One of the company mentioned Mr Thomas Hollis, the strenuous Whig, who used to send over Europe, presents of democratical books, with theirboards stamped with daggers and caps of liberty. Mrs Carter said, 'he was a bad man: he used to talk uncharitably.'Johnson: 'Poh! poh! Madam; who is the worse for being talked of uncharitably? Besides, he was a dull poor creature as ever lived: and I believe he would not have done harm to a man whom he knew to be of very opposite principles to his own. I remember once at the Society of Arts, when an advertisement was to be drawn up, he pointed me out as the man who could do it best. This, you will observe, was kindness to me. I, however, slipped away, and escaped it.'
"Mrs Carter having said of the same person, 'I doubt he was an atheist.'Johnson: 'I don't know that. He might perhaps have become one, if he had time to ripen (smiling). He might haveexuberatedinto an atheist.'
"Sir Joshua Reynolds praisedMudge's Sermons.Johnson: 'Mudge's Sermonsare good but not practical. He grasps more corn than he can make into meal; he opens a wide prospect, but it is so distant, it is indistinct. I loveBlair's Sermons. Though the dog is a Scotchman, and a Presbyterian, and everything he should not be, I was the first to praise them. Such was my candour' (smiling).Mrs Boscawen: 'Such his great merit, to get the better of all your prejudices.'Johnson: 'Why, Madam, let us compound the matter; let us ascribe it to my candour and his merit.'
"In the evening we had a large company in the drawing-room; several ladies, the Bishop of Killaloe, Dr Percy, Mr Chamberlayne of the Treasury, &c., &c. Somebody said, the life of a mere literary man could not be very entertaining.Johnson: 'But it certainly may. This is a remark which has been made, and repeated without justice; why should the life of a literary man be less entertaining than the life of any other man? Are there not as interesting varieties in such a life? Asa literary lifeit may be very entertaining.'Boswell: 'But it must be better surely, when it is diversified with a little active variety—such as his having gone to Jamaica; or—his having gone to the Hebrides.' Johnson was not displeased at this.
"Talking of a very respectable author, he told us a curious circumstance in his life, which was, that he had married a printer's devil.Reynolds: 'A printer's devil, Sir! Why, I thought a printer's devil was a creature with a black face and in rags.'Johnson: 'Yes, Sir. But I suppose he had her face washed, and put clean clothes on her. (Then looking very serious and very earnest.) And she did not disgrace him;—the woman had a bottom of good sense.' The wordbottom, thus introduced, was so ludicrous, when contrasted with his gravity, that most of us could not forbear tittering and laughing; though I recollect that the Bishop of Killaloe kept his countenance with perfect steadiness, while Miss Hannah More slily hid her face behind a lady's back who sat on the same settee with her. His pride could not bear that any expression of his should excite ridicule, when he did not intend it; he therefore resolved to assume and exercise despotic power, glanced sternly around, and called out, in a strong tone, 'Where's the merriment?' Then collecting himself, and looking awful, to make us feel how he could impose restraint, and as it were searching his mind for a still more ludicrous word, he slowly pronounced, 'I say thewomanwasfundamentallysensible'; as if he had said, hear this now, and laugh if you dare. We all sat composed as at a funeral.
"He and I walked away together; we stopped a little while by the rails of the Adelphi, looking on the Thames, and I said to him, with some emotion, that I was now thinking of two friends we had lost, who once lived in the buildings behind us, Beauclerk and Garrick. 'Ay, Sir,' said he tenderly, 'and two such friends as cannot be supplied.'"
Hannah More spent many months with Mrs Garrick—the winter at Hampton, the spring in the Adelphi—after the death of the celebrated player, and from her letters written in the Adelphi, we obtain several passages of note, apart from that of the famous dinner party of April 20, 1781. Thus, early in 1779, soon after Garrick's decease, we find that the widow and her friend were visited byvarious ladies: "Mrs Montague and Mrs Vesey have spent one afternoon with us; and these with Ladies Bathurst, Edgecombe, and Spencer, are all we have seen." She then goes on to describe her way of life as being "very different" from what it used to be in Garrick's time. "After breakfast, I go to my own apartment for several hours, where I read, write, and work; very seldom letting anybody in, though I have a room for separate visitors, but I almost look on a morning visit as an immorality. At four we dine. We have the same elegant table as usual, but I generally confine myself to one single dish of meat. I have taken to drink half a glass of wine. At six we have coffee; at eight tea, when we have, sometimes, a dowager or two of quality. At ten we have sallad and fruits. Each has her book, which we read without any restraint, as if we were alone, without apologies or speech-making." During this visit, her play,The Fatal Falsehood, was produced at Covent Garden, but, as already recorded, was not a success. It lacked the guiding hand of her old friend. "We have stolen away for a few days to town," she writes in 1781, "but I am now so habituated to quiet, that I have scarcely the heart to go out, though I am come here on purpose. As to poor Mrs Garrick, she keeps herself as secret as a piece of smuggled goods, and neither stirs out herself, or lets any body in. The calm of Hampton is suchfixed repose, that an old woman crying fish, or the postman ringing at the door, is an event which excites attention."
library
PEPYS' LIBRARY, BUCKINGHAM STREET, ADELPHI.
A little later on, Mrs Garrick and Hannah More were invited to an assembly at Mrs Thrale's. "Just as my hair was dressed, came a servant to forbid our coming, for that Mr Thrale was dead. A very few hours later, and he would have died in this assembly. What an awful event. He was in the prime of life, but had the misfortune to be too rich, and to keep too sumptuous a table, at which he indulged too freely. He was a sensible and respectable man. I am glad the poor lady has, in her distress, such a friend as Dr Johnson; he will suggest the best motives of consolation." A few days after this event, "we were a small and very choice party at Bishop Shipley's. Lord and Lady Spencer, Lord and Lady Althorpe, Sir Joshua, Langton, Boswell, Gibbon, and, to my agreeable surprise, Dr Johnson, were there." This was the first meeting between Johnson and Mrs Garrick since the latter's bereavement, and, on the next morning, Johnson paid a lengthy visit to the ladies at No. 5 Adelphi Terrace. "On Mrs Garrick's telling him she was always more at her ease with persons who had suffered the same loss with herself, he said that was a comfort she could seldom have, considering the superiority of his [Garrick's] merit, and cordiality of their union. He bore his strongtestimony to the liberality of Garrick. He reproved me with pretended sharpness for readingLes Pensées de Pascal, or any of the Port Royal authors; alleging that, as a good Protestant, I ought to abstain from books written by Catholics. I was beginning to stand upon my defence, when he took me with both hands, and with a tear running down his cheeks, 'Child,' said he, with the most affecting earnestness, 'I am heartily glad that you read pious books, by whomsoever they may be written.'" Then came the famous dinner party which Dr Johnson attended, and that was his last visit to the Adelphi, for, during Hannah More's visits to town in the subsequent years, prior to Johnson's death in 1784, the Doctor was ailing. So, with this picture in the mind's eye of the worthy Doctor, in sentimental mood, now lecturing Hannah More, anon entertaining Mrs Garrick and her friends, and, finally, looking across the Adelphi railings at the Thames, as he thought tenderly of his dead friends, we take leave of Samuel Johnson.
Mrs Garrick, who was a Catholic, be it said, was by no means prejudiced, and she gave way to Hannah More's religious scruples: "It is very considerate in Mrs Garrick, to decline asking company on Sunday on my account; so that I enjoy the whole day to myself. I swallow no small portion of theology of different descriptions,as I always read, when visiting, such books as I do not possess at home. After my more select reading I have attacked South, Atterbury, and Warburton. In these great geniuses, and original thinkers, I see many passages of scripture presented in a striking and strong light. I think it right to mix their learned labours with the devout effusions of more spiritual writers, Baxter, Doddridge, Hall, Hopkins, Jeremy Taylor (the Shakespeare of divinity), and the profound Barrow in turn. I devour much, but, I fear, digest little. In the evening, I read a sermon and prayers to the family, which Mrs G. much likes." She frequently went from the Adelphi to the Church of St Clement Dane's, in the Strand. It gave her "peculiar pleasure to think" that she "there partook of the holy sacrament with Johnson the last time he ever received it in public."
On a certain Wednesday in 1785, "we had a great dinner at home"—in the Adelphi—"for the first time this year, Mrs Garrick disliking company more and more. The party consisted of the Smelts, the Montagus, the Boyles, the Walsinghams, Mrs Carter, Mr Walpole, and Miss Hamilton. Though I like them every one separately, yet it was impossible to enjoy them altogether; and I never desire to sit down with more than six, or eight at the outside, to dinner." In 1786, she records, with a certain amount ofingenuousness: "I am this day in the full enjoyment of a most complete holiday—Mrs Garrick is gone to Hampton. I have refused all invitations, and have ordered that nobody should be let in, that I may have the luxury of one quiet uninterrupted day. I woke with great delight in the very anticipation of it."
It is a long jump from 1786 to 1814, but Hannah More had many occupations during this period, and, apparently, but little time for writing to her old friend, for, in December of the latter year, Mrs Garrick sends to her, begging for some news of the world. Her letter is addressed to "My dearest friend," and runs thus: "If you could imagine how much pleasure a letter from you gives me, you would oftener favour me with one. As writing is no trouble to you, you might now and then bestow a moment upon me, to tell me what passes in London; for I am quite unacquainted with the world of folly. I almost thanked God for my illness, during all the time that every person ran mad to see for six weeks together the same thing. Now, if I could have seen the royal strangers with ease, I should have been glad to have seen them; but as that was out of my power (if I had been in health), as I have almost out-lived my London friends, I have seen nothing, so I must trust to what I am told.
"Indeed, my beloved friend, I have been verynear parting for ever from this world; but the great care taken of me set me up again upon my feet, but not so high as my knees, for they are as yet verydoddering. But when you consider that I am six months past ninety, you would say that I am a wonder still if you were to see me. I do not often shew my teeth, as there is but one and a quarter left. God bless you all! and love me, as I do you all, from my very soul." The death of Mrs Garrick occurred on October 16, 1822—over forty-three years after the death of her husband. She had been invited by Robert William Elliston to a private view of Drury Lane Theatre, which he had just redecorated, and, while preparing to leave her house in the Adelphi, a servant handed her a cup of tea. She had hardly raised it to her lips when she fell back in her chair, and passed away peacefully, in her ninety-ninth year. She was interred in Westminster Abbey, close by the remains of her husband, on October 25. The news of her death reached Hannah More on October 20, and is thus alluded to by her: "I was much affected yesterday with a report of the death of my ancient and valued friend, Mrs Garrick. She was in her hundredth year! I spent above twenty winters under her roof, and gratefully remember not only their personal kindness, but my first introduction, through them, into a society remarkable for rank, literature,and talents. Whatever was most distinguished in either, was to be found at their table. He was the very soul of conversation." David Garrick, it may be recorded, died in the back-room of the first floor of his house, his widow in the front drawing-room.
Mrs Garrick was a native of Vienna, where, in her youth, she acquired much celebrity as a dancer. Her maiden name was Eva Maria Violetta. She was remarkably beautiful in her face and person, and it is said that she retained, until the day of her death, that erect deportment which she had acquired as a dancer. She was married to Garrick in June, 1749, first at a Protestant, then at a Roman Catholic Chapel. After the testimony already given in these pages, it is almost superfluous to say that the actor and his wife were a very happy couple. "It is remarkable," said a public journal at the time of her death, "that during the whole period of their marriage"—thirty years—"whatever invitations they received, or excursions they took, they never once slept asunder." On August 15, 1755, Walpole writes: "I dined to-day at Garrick's; there were the Duke of Grafton, Lord and Lady Rochford, Lady Holdernesse, the crooked Mostyn, and Dabreu, the Spanish minister; two regents, of which one is Lord Chamberlain, the other Groom of the Stole, and the wife of a Secretary of State. This beingsur un assez bon tonfor a player. Don't you want to ask me how I liked him? Ilikeherexceedingly; her behaviour is all sense, and all sweetness, too." In 1770, Mrs Delany, Queen Charlotte's friend, visited Garrick's house at Hampton, and recorded her appreciation of its hostess: "As to Mrs Garrick, the more one sees her, the better one must like her; she seemsneverto depart from a perfect propriety of behaviour, accompanied with good sense and gentleness of manners." In her widowhood, she twice refused the hand in marriage of Lord Monboddo, the Scottish judge, and author ofThe Origin of Language. Dr Doran says that Mrs Garrick held her own at the Bishop of London's table, "against the clever men and women who held controversy under Porteus's roof."
This gentle lady, by a codicil to her will, dated August 15, in the year of her death, made a most interesting bequest: "I give to Mrs Siddons a pair of gloves which were Shakespeare's, and were presented by one of his family to my late dear husband, during the jubilee at Stratford-upon-Avon." Information of this bequest was conveyed to the great actress, with this note from Mrs Garrick's executors:—
"5Adelphi Terrace,Oct. 30, 1822.
"Madam,—We beg leave to transmit to you the above extract from a codicil to Mrs Garrick's will, and to acquaint you that we will have the honour ofwaiting on you, for the purpose of delivering the relic therein mentioned, whenever you may be so good as to inform us that it may be convenient to you to receive our visit.—We remain, with much respect, Madam, Your most obedient humble servants,
"Madam,—We beg leave to transmit to you the above extract from a codicil to Mrs Garrick's will, and to acquaint you that we will have the honour ofwaiting on you, for the purpose of delivering the relic therein mentioned, whenever you may be so good as to inform us that it may be convenient to you to receive our visit.—We remain, with much respect, Madam, Your most obedient humble servants,
"Thos. Rackett,G.F. Belty,Executors."
This connecting link between Shakespeare, Garrick, and Sarah Siddons is one of the most interesting incidents in connection with the Adelphi. Garrick is also responsible for a side-light on the life of Oliver Goldsmith. Forster, in hisLife and Times of Goldsmith, says that the alteration of his first comedy for Garrick, even upon Garrick's own conditions, seems to have suddenly occurred to the impecunious author as a means of raising money. Goldsmith's two letters on the subject by chance survived and were transcribed by Forster, who, in regard to the first one, says that: "As well in the manner as in the matter of it, the writer's distress is very painfully visible. It has every appearance, even to the wafer hastily thrust into it, of having been the sudden suggestion of necessity; it is addressed without date[39]or place to the Adelphi; nor is it unlikely to have been delivered there by the messenger of a sponging-house.
"'My Dear Sir,—Your saying you would play myGood-Natured Manmakes me wish it. The money you advanced me upon Newbery's note I have the mortification to find is not yet paid, but he says he will in two or three days. What I mean by this letter is to lend me sixty pound, for which I will give you Newbery's note, so that the whole of my debt will be an hundred, for which you shall have Newbery's note as a security. This may be paid either from my alteration if my benefit should come to so much, but at any rate I will take care you shall not be a loser. I will give you a new character in my comedy and knock out Lofty, which does not do, and will make such other alterations as you direct.—I am yours,"'Oliver Goldsmith."'I beg an answer.'
"'My Dear Sir,—Your saying you would play myGood-Natured Manmakes me wish it. The money you advanced me upon Newbery's note I have the mortification to find is not yet paid, but he says he will in two or three days. What I mean by this letter is to lend me sixty pound, for which I will give you Newbery's note, so that the whole of my debt will be an hundred, for which you shall have Newbery's note as a security. This may be paid either from my alteration if my benefit should come to so much, but at any rate I will take care you shall not be a loser. I will give you a new character in my comedy and knock out Lofty, which does not do, and will make such other alterations as you direct.—I am yours,
"'Oliver Goldsmith.
"'I beg an answer.'
"This letter is indorsed in Garrick's handwriting as 'Goldsmith's parlaver.' But though it would thus appear to have inspired but little sympathy or confidence, and the sacrifice of Lofty had come too late and been too reluctant, Garrick's answer, begged so earnestly, was not unfavourable. He evaded the altered comedy; spoke of the new one already mentioned between them; and offered the money required on Goldsmith's own acceptance.... The second note exhibits such manifest improvement in the writing as a suddenremoval of a sore anxiety might occasion; but the writer's usual epistolary neatness is still absent. It is hastily folded up in three-cornered shape, is also sealed with wafer, and also indorsed by Garrick, 'Goldsmith's parlaver.'
"'My Dear Friend, I thank you! I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season or two at furthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. I wish you would not take up Newbery's note, but let Waller' [probably a mistake for Wallis, Garrick's solicitor] 'tease him, without, however, coming to extremities; let him haggle after him and he will get it. He owes it and will pay it. I'm sorry you are ill. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pound, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart.—Ever,
"'My Dear Friend, I thank you! I wish I could do something to serve you. I shall have a comedy for you in a season or two at furthest, that I believe will be worth your acceptance, for I fancy I will make it a fine thing. You shall have the refusal. I wish you would not take up Newbery's note, but let Waller' [probably a mistake for Wallis, Garrick's solicitor] 'tease him, without, however, coming to extremities; let him haggle after him and he will get it. He owes it and will pay it. I'm sorry you are ill. I will draw upon you one month after date for sixty pound, and your acceptance will be ready money, part of which I want to go down to Barton with. May God preserve my honest little man, for he has my heart.—Ever,
"'Oliver Goldsmith.'"
A final reminiscence of Garrick and this neighbourhood shows the actor soliciting the Adam brothers on behalf of Andrew Becket, who, when the Adelphi was being erected, had a bookseller's shop in the Strand. He was the son of Thomas Becket, the Pall Mall bookseller, whose establishment was frequented by Garrick. He must havebeen a precocious youth, for, at the age of fourteen, he had written a comedy founded on Rousseau'sEmile, and a poem entitledTheodosius and Constantia. Born in 1749, he died in 1843. He was a frequent contributor to the chief magazines of his day. He had a great grievance against Ralph Griffiths, the proprietor of theMonthly Review, for having given him only forty-five pounds for nearly five years' work—280 articles, the result of reading and condensing 590 volumes. InShakespeare Himself Again, Andrew Becket "released the original text from much muddy nonsense of commentators."[40]
mary
ST MARY ROUNCEVAL (THE ORIGINAL SITE OF NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE).
Garrick besought the corner house of Adam Street for his friend, a request that was granted. He asked for this "corner blessing," and addressed the architects as his "dear Adelphi." The house was No. 73 Strand, at the north-east corner of Adam Street. It was destroyed by fire on June 28, 1822, but rebuilt according to the original plan. Garrick, in the course of his letter to the Adams, said: "Pray, my dear and very good friends, think a little of this matter, and if you can make us happy, by suiting all our conveniences, we shall make his shop, as old Jacob Tonson's was formerly, the rendezvous of the first people in England. I have a little selfishness in this request—I never go to a coffee-house, seldom to taverns,and should constantly (if this action takes place) be at Becket's at one at noon and six at night." Garrick, no doubt, meant what he said, but there is no trace of his having visited Andrew Becket in this "corner blessing." The shop is now occupied by a firm of silversmiths.
Samuel Foote, who hated Garrick, is said to have related a story in which I have little faith. But, as it concerns the great actor and the Adelphi, I give it for what it is worth. "Garrick," said Foote, "lately invited Hurd to dine with him in the Adelphi, and after dinner, the evening being very warm, they walked up and down in front of the house. As they passed and repassed the dining-room windows, Garrick was in a perfect agony, for he saw that there was a thief in one of the candles which was burning on one of the tables; and yet Hurd was a person of such consequence that he could not run away from him to prevent the waste of his tallow." This story was put into print by Samuel Rogers, who was a boy of sixteen at the time of Garrick's death. Foote died in 1777, when Richard Hurd was Bishop of Lichfield and Coventry.
FOOTNOTES:[37]Davies'sGarrick, vol. ii., p. 445.[38]See also Hannah More's description of the funeral in the Appendix.[39]It was written in 1773, soon after Garrick had left Southampton Street, Strand, for the Adelphi.[40]Haunted London, p. 99.
FOOTNOTES:
[37]Davies'sGarrick, vol. ii., p. 445.
[37]Davies'sGarrick, vol. ii., p. 445.
[38]See also Hannah More's description of the funeral in the Appendix.
[38]See also Hannah More's description of the funeral in the Appendix.
[39]It was written in 1773, soon after Garrick had left Southampton Street, Strand, for the Adelphi.
[39]It was written in 1773, soon after Garrick had left Southampton Street, Strand, for the Adelphi.
[40]Haunted London, p. 99.
[40]Haunted London, p. 99.
CHAPTER VIII
The celebrated Quack, Dr Graham—His Temple of Health in the Adelphi—Satirised by Colman and Bannister—"Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health"—Emma Lyon, Lady Hamilton—Osborn's Hotel—The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands—Their Death in the Adelphi—Isaac D'Israeli—The Earl of Beaconsfield—Thomas Hill, the Original of Paul Pry—Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens—David CopperfieldandPickwick—Ivy Lane—The Fox-under-the-Hill—The Adelphi "Dark Arches."
The celebrated Quack, Dr Graham—His Temple of Health in the Adelphi—Satirised by Colman and Bannister—"Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health"—Emma Lyon, Lady Hamilton—Osborn's Hotel—The King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands—Their Death in the Adelphi—Isaac D'Israeli—The Earl of Beaconsfield—Thomas Hill, the Original of Paul Pry—Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens—David CopperfieldandPickwick—Ivy Lane—The Fox-under-the-Hill—The Adelphi "Dark Arches."
TheAdelphi has had its share of quacks, the most impudent of them all being Dr Graham, a Scotchman, who flourished here from the summer of 1780 until the May following, when he migrated to Pall Mall. He occupied the middle house in Adelphi Terrace, and in this place Emma Lyon—afterwards Lady Hamilton—posed as the Goddess of Health. James Graham was then approaching the end of his extraordinary career, for, born in the Cowgate, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1745, he died in 1794. Although he studied medicine in the University of Edinburgh, it is not certain that he took his degree, for, so late as 1783, he is described as "the person calling himself Dr Graham." He passed his earlierlife in Pontrefact, being married there in 1770. Subsequently, he travelled in America, as an oculist and aurist. Returning to England in 1774, he practised at Bristol and Bath, and, a year later, established himself in Pall Mall, nearly opposite St James's Palace. At Bath, in 1777, he met Catherine Macaulay, who, a few months later, married his younger brother, William. Through his treatment of her, he declared, he made his first real start in life. Be this as it may, he gained the ear of the public about this time, although he was denounced as a quack by the medical profession. After a visit to the continent, during which he received many testimonials from people in the first rank of society, he came to the Adelphi in 1779. His house and apparatus, it was stated, cost him £10,000. The entrance hall was adorned with crutches which had been discarded by his "patients," and, in the rooms above, were large, gaudily-decorated electrical machines, glass globes, marble statues, and figures of dragons; the windows were of stained glass, and the air was laden with the perfume of incense. The door was guarded by huge footmen. One apartment was devoted to Apollo, and contained "a magnificent temple, sacred to health." He lectured at enormous prices and obtained fabulous sums for his quack remedies. For a night in the "celestial bed," which ensured a beautiful progeny, his feewas £100; his "elixir of life" brought him a fee of one thousand pounds, but his "earth-bath" was only a modest guinea, while a magneto-electric bed could be slept in for £50 a night.
In August, 1780, Horace Walpole visited "The Temple of Health" in the Adelphi, and pronounced it "the most impudent puppet-show of imposition I ever saw, and the mountebank himself the dullest of his profession, except that he makes spectators pay a crown apiece for admission only." The place acquired notoriety so rapidly that, on September 2, George Colman, the elder, produced at the Haymarket Theatre a skit entitledThe Genius of Nonsense, in which John Bannister, in the character of the Emperor of Quacks, mimicked Graham. "His satin sofas on glass legs, his celestial bed, his two porters in long, tawdry greatcoats and immense gold-laced cocked hats, distributing handbills at the door, while his goddess of health was dying of a sore throat from squalling songs at the top of the staircase, were all hit off by a speaking harlequin, who also caricatured the doctor's sliding walk and bobbing bows."[41]The impostor was prevented from buying the "bill of the play," a burlesque on his own handbill, so that he could not bring an action for libel.
The following is an exact copy of one of Graham's advertisements:—
Temple of Health, Adelphi.To their Excellencies theForeign Ambassadors,To theNobility,Gentryand toPersonsofLearningandTaste,This Eveningexactly at Eight o'Clock,The Celestial Brilliancyof theMedico-electrical Apparatus, in all theApartments of theTEMPLE,Will be exhibited byDr Grahamhimself,
Who will have the honour of explaining the true Nature and effects of Electricity, Air, Music, and Magnetism, when applied to the human body.
In the introductory Oration, the whole art of enjoying health and vigour, of body and of mind, and of preserving and exalting personal Beauty and Loveliness; or, in other words, of living with health, honour, and happiness in this world, for at least a hundred years, is pointed out and warmly inculcated.Previous to the display of the electrical Fire, the Doctor will delicately touch upon theCelestial Beds, which are soon to be opened in theTempleofHymen, in Pall-mall, for the propagation of Beings rational, and far stronger and more beautiful in mental as well as in bodily endowments—than the present puny, feeble, and nonsensical race of probationary immortals, which crawl and fret, and politely play at cutting one another's throats for nothing at all, on most parts of this terraqueous globe.This apparatus, which visibly displays, as it were, the various faculties of the material soul of universal and eternal Nature, is acknowledged by all who have seen it, to be by far the largest, most useful, and most magnificent that now is, or that ever was, in the world; and it may be inspected every day, from Ten o'clock in the Morning till four in the Afternoon. Admittance at night, 5s.; in the day, 2s. 6d.
In the introductory Oration, the whole art of enjoying health and vigour, of body and of mind, and of preserving and exalting personal Beauty and Loveliness; or, in other words, of living with health, honour, and happiness in this world, for at least a hundred years, is pointed out and warmly inculcated.
Previous to the display of the electrical Fire, the Doctor will delicately touch upon theCelestial Beds, which are soon to be opened in theTempleofHymen, in Pall-mall, for the propagation of Beings rational, and far stronger and more beautiful in mental as well as in bodily endowments—than the present puny, feeble, and nonsensical race of probationary immortals, which crawl and fret, and politely play at cutting one another's throats for nothing at all, on most parts of this terraqueous globe.
This apparatus, which visibly displays, as it were, the various faculties of the material soul of universal and eternal Nature, is acknowledged by all who have seen it, to be by far the largest, most useful, and most magnificent that now is, or that ever was, in the world; and it may be inspected every day, from Ten o'clock in the Morning till four in the Afternoon. Admittance at night, 5s.; in the day, 2s. 6d.
In another announcement he stated that "Vestina, the Rosy Goddess of Health, presides at theevening lecturesat the Temple of Health, Adelphi, assisting at the display of the Celestial Meteors, and of that sacred VitalFireover which she watches, and whose application in theCure of Diseasesshe daily has the honour of directing." Graham's "Rosy Goddess of Health" was Emma Lyon, who, in the winter of 1780, when she posed in the Adelphi, was barely twenty years of age. Young as she was, she had lived a strange life, even then. The daughter of a Cheshire blacksmith, she was quite a child when, in the capacity of nurse-maid, she entered the service of Mrs Thomas, wife of a surgeon practising at Hawarden; and she canhardly have been more than fifteen or sixteen years of age when she first came to London. "Here, for a short time, she is said to have been in service: first, with Mrs Linley, of Drury Lane Theatre; secondly, with Dr Budd, one of the physicians of St Bartholomew's Hospital; and finally at a fruiterer's in St James's Market. One of the customers at this shop, 'a lady of fashion,' attracted by the girl's manner, her beautiful face, and her wonderful auburn hair, engaged her in the capacity of companion. But, fortunate as the change at this time may have appeared to her, it speedily put an end to her opportunities of earning an honest living. No long time after, we hear of her as living for a time with Captain (afterwards Admiral) John Willett Payne, who is by some surmised to be the father of a girl to whom she gave birth about the end of 1779 or the beginning of 1780. However this may be, it is certain that, before she had completed her seventeenth year, she did give birth to a child, and that, as soon as possible, it was transferred to the care of her old grandmother at Hawarden."[42]Her poverty drove her to the quack doctor of the Adelphi. Soon after her appearance here, she "kept house," in extravagant fashion, for Sir Harry Fetherstonshaugh, "a dissolute baronet," at Up Park, Sussex, and became "a daring and accomplished horse-woman." At this time she called herself Emma Hart, but on her marriage, in 1791, to Sir William Hamilton, she signed the register as Amy Lyon. The subsequent career of Nelson's Lady Hamilton is too well known for repetition.
house
SUFFOLK (SUBSEQUENTLY NORTHUMBERLAND) HOUSE.
In the spring of 1781, Graham removed from the comparative quiet of the Adelphi to more aristocratic quarters in Schomberg House—part of the existing War Office—in Pall Mall. His charges were slightly lower than in the Adelphi, the use of his "celestial bed" costing but fifty pounds. In November, 1782, his property was seized for debt, and was advertised for sale on December 20, and the following days. He made his misfortunes an opportunity for advertisement, bought in most of his goods, and threatened one publication with an action for libel for having published "an incorrect, mutilated, and nonsensical farrago, which they impudently and falsely call Dr Graham's celebrated lecture on generation." In March, 1783, he announced that the "High Priestess of his Temple delivered lectures to ladies, and that the rosy, athletic, and truly Gigantic Goddess of Health and of Hymen, on the Celestial Throne," took part in the lectures. Graham's London career practically ceased in 1783. Ten years later he described himself, in a book on earth-bathing, as "formerly sole institutor, proprietor, and director of the Temple of Health in the Adelphi and inPall Mall." His earth-bathing consisted of remaining without clothing in the earth six hours at a time, for eight days in succession, and for twelve hours on the ninth day. In 1791, Graham and a young woman, at Newcastle, "stripped into their first suits," and "were each interred up to the chin, their heads beautifully dressed and powdered, appearing not unlike two fine full-grown cauliflowers."
Graham subsequently became a religious enthusiast, took to opium, and was confined in his own house in Edinburgh as a lunatic. A few months before his death, he made an affidavit, in which he stated that from the last day of December 1792, to January 15, 1793, he neither ate, drank, nor took anything but cold water, sustaining life by wearing cut-up turfs against his naked body, and by rubbing his limbs with his own nervous æthereal balsam. He died suddenly at his house, opposite the Archers' Hall, Edinburgh, on June 23, 1794. Graham, though a quack, and possibly a madman, was not without some knowledge. He was against flesh-eating and excess in alcohol, and believed in cold bathing, open windows, sleeping on mattresses, and other points of severe hygiene; at one time, he stated, he never ate more than the worth of four or six pence a day. He asserted that all diseases were caused by wearing too much clothing, and he wore no woollen clothes. Southey saw this "half knave, half enthusiast" thrice, oncein his mud-bath. He says that latterly Graham "would madden himself with opium, rush into the streets, and strip himself to clothe the first beggar he met."[43]
At Osborn's Hotel, which still exists, under the name of the Adelphi Hotel, at the corner of John and Adam Streets, the King and Queen of the Sandwich Islands died, from small-pox, in 1824. Rhio-Rhio was the son and successor of the first king, Tamehameha, who placed the Islands under British protection. The Queen died on July 8. "The King," said a contemporary print, "in the midst of this deep sorrow manifests a firmness of mind which has penetrated everybody about him with a feeling of respect. Though very anxious to express his grief in the manner of his country, and to show the marks of deference which are usually paid to the dead there, he submits, with good sense and patience, to every suggestion which our habits dictate." The King died, at the same place, on September 14. The visit of King Tamehameha and his consort to England gave rise to the popular song, "The King of the Cannibal Islands." This hotel was originally called "The Adelphi New Tavern and Coffee-House," and was opened in October, 1777, "being completely fitted up in the most elegant and convenient manner for the entertainment of noblemen and gentlemen." Gibbon,writing to Lord Sheffield on August 8, 1787, from the Adelphi Hotel, imparts a piece of "Intelligence extraordinary. This day (August the seventh) the celebrated E.G. arrived with a numerous retinue (one servant). We hear that he has brought over from Lausanne the remainder of hisHistoryfor immediate publication." In 1813, George Crabbe, the poet, and his wife stayed in the Adelphi during a visit to London. Dr Thomas Munro, Turner's patron, resided here, and on April 22, 1827, Thomas Rowlandson, the famous caricaturist, died here. Isaac D'Israeli, the author ofCuriosities of Literature, and father of the Earl of Beaconsfield, stayed at Osborn's Hotel after his wedding tour, in 1802.
It is generally supposed that Benjamin Disraeli was born in the Adelphi. The authority for this statement is Lord Barrington, who, during the Earl of Beaconsfield's last illness, questioned him on the point. "I was born in the Adelphi," was the reply, "and I may say in a library. My father was not rich when he married. He took a suite of apartments in the Adelphi, and he possessed a large collection of books; all the rooms were covered with them, including that in which I was born." Mr Wheatley, however, says that "careful investigation has left little doubt that this was not the case, as Isaac D'Israeli had left the Adelphi"—where he had a lease of the first floor of No. 2James Street—"for King's Road (now Theobald's Road) before the birth of Benjamin."
In James Street, on the second floor of No. 1, there lived and died a celebrated character, Thomas Hill (1760-1840), the book-collector and patron of Bloomfield and Kirke White. He was the fussy, good-natured Hull of Theodore Hook's novel,Gilbert Gurney(1836). More notable still, he was the original of Paul Pry, in Poole's comedy (1825). Paul Pry is an idle, inquisitive, meddle-some fellow who, without any occupation of his own, is for ever thrusting himself upon other people with the apology, "I hope I don't intrude." John Liston (1776-1846) was the first stage representative of the character, and the part was frequently acted by the late John Lawrence Toole. "Tommy" Hill, as he was familiarly called, always boasted that he had whatever was wanted: "Cards, sir? Pooh! pooh! Nonsense! thousands of packs in the house." Planché says of him: "Hisspécialitéwas the accurate information he could impart on all the petty details of the domestic economy of his friends, the contents of their wardrobes, their pantries, the number of pots of preserve in their store-closets, and of the table-napkins in their linen-presses, the dates of their births and marriages, the amounts of their tradesmen's bills, and whether paid weekly or quarterly. He had been on the press, and was connected with theMorning Chronicle. He used to drive Mathews crazy by ferreting out his whereabouts when he left London, and popping the information in some paper."
strand
THE STRAND FRONT OF NORTHUMBERLAND HOUSE.
Two of the most celebrated literary names connected with the Adelphi are Thomas Hood and Charles Dickens. Hood, soon after his marriage in 1824, lived in chambers at No. 2 Robert Street, his acquaintanceship at that time including Charles Lamb, Hazlitt, and De Quincey. His association with the Adelphi continued until the end of his career, for hisMagazine, established in 1844—the year before his death—was published from No. 1 Adam Street. Dickens knew the Adelphi well. As a boy he frequented its underground passages, and, later on, he used Osborn's Hotel (the Adelphi Hotel) for a scene inPickwick.[44]Heis recording his own experiences when, inDavid Copperfield, he says: "I was fond of wandering about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place, with those dark arches. I see myself emerging one evening from some of these arches, on a little public-house close to the river, with an open space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing; to look at whom, I sat down upon abench. I wonder what they thought of me!" This was also the scene of the meeting of the Micawbers and Copperfield prior to the departure of the impecunious Wilkins for Australia: "The Micawber family were lodged in a little, dirty, tumble-down public-house, which in those days was close to the stairs, and where protruding wooden rooms over-hung the river. The family, as emigrants, being objects of some interest in andabout Hungerford, attracted so many beholders, that we were glad to take refuge in their room. It was one of the wooden chambers upstairs, with the tide flowing underneath.... I went down again next morning to see that they were away. They had departed, in a boat, as early as five o'clock. It was a wonderful instance to me of the gap such partings make, that although my association of them with the tumble-down public-house and the wooden stairs dated only from last night, both seemed dreary and deserted, now that they were gone."[45]
This "little, dirty, tumble-down public-house" of Dickens was the "Fox-under-the-Hill." It stood at the bottom of Ivy Lane. The ram-shackle building disappeared with the formation of the Victoria Embankment and Gardens, but the passage in question still remains, and, although it is not noticed by the thousands of people who walk by it daily, Ivy Lane is one of the most interesting bits of old London. Stow, in hisSurvey, alludes to it thus: "Ivy Bridge, in the High Street, which had a way under it leading to the Thames, the like as sometime had the Strand Bridge, is now taken down, but the lane remaineth as afore; or better, and parteth the liberty of the Duchy (of Lancaster) and the city of Westminster on that south-side." Strype adds that the lanewas "very bad and almost impassable." As it was very narrow, and the descent was steep, its inconvenience is easily understood. The passage is still here, but, at the river end, it is enclosed by gates. Ivy Bridge, or Pier, was the landing-place for the halfpenny steamboats which plied between the Strand and London Bridge. Here a lamentable explosion, by which many people were killed, occurred in August, 1847, on theCricket, and, soon afterwards, the "Fox" landing-stage was disused.
From the "Fox-under-the-Hill" it is an easy transition to the "dark arches" which made such an impression on the mind of Charles Dickens. They form a small town in themselves, and although tenanted by wine-merchants, and other law-abiding people, they are still "mysterious" enough to strike one with wonderment that such a dreary spot can exist within hail of the busy Strand. "The Adelphi arches, many of which are used for cellars and coal-wharves," wrote John Timbs, half a century ago, "remind us, in their grim vastness, of the Etruscan cloaca of ancient Rome. Beneath the 'dark arches,' as they were (and are) called, the most abandoned characters used to lurk; outcasts and vagrants came there to sleep; and many a street-thief escaped from his pursuers, before the introduction of gas-lights and a vigilant police. Even now tramps prowl in a ghastlymanner down the dim-lit passages." The condition of things has not changed much during these fifty years, and a stranger would be well-advised in not venturing on a voyage of discovery through this strange region, alone. Augustus Egg placed the scene of one of his most tragic pictures on the banks of the river by the Adelphi arches. In these caverns a battery of guns was held in readiness in connection with the great Chartist meeting, on Kennington Common, on April 10, 1848. The piers on which the arches rest having shown signs of insecurity, the entire structure was underpinned, and strengthened in other ways, in the years 1872-4.
The Adelphi arches were a source of wonderment to Londoners in the middle of the last century. Thomas Miller, the poet and novelist, writing in 1850, gives a vivid description of them: "Thousands who pass along the Strand never dream of the shadowy region which lies between them and the river—the black-browed arches that span right and left, before and behind, covering many a rood of ground on which the rain never beats, nor the sunbeam sleeps, and at the entrance of which the wind only seems to howl and whine, as if afraid of venturing further into the darkness. Many of our readers will, no doubt, conclude that such a dreary place as this must be deserted and tenantless: such is not the case. Here many ofthose strong horses, which the countryman who visits London looks upon with wonder and envy, are stabled—strong, broad-chested steeds, such as may be seen dragging the heavily-laden coal-waggons up those steep passages which lead into the Strand, and which seem 'to the manner born.'
"Cows are also kept here, which, rumour says, never saw any other light beyond that of the gas which gleams through their prison-bars, or, by way of change, the cheering rays from a lantern, when they are milked or fed; that here many of them were calved, and have lived on, giving milk to a good old age—buried like the main-pipe that supplies us with water and finds its way into our houses without our once enquiring how. We have often pitied the London cows, which we have seen driven up one street and down another, and have fancied that what little milk they had must have been churned into indifferent butter, as they ran on, to escape the stones thrown after them by boys, while mongrels were ever sallying out, and either biting or barking at their heels; but we had not seen those which are doomed to dwell in the unbroken darkness of the Adelphi arches, without ever breathing any other than the sepulchral air which stagnates this murky purgatory. Assuredly they ought to be taken out for a little fresh air now and then, and be led by the horns to
'Fresh fields and pastures new';
for we can readily conceive how pleased and patiently they would go 'blinking' along, compared to those horned blackguards who come with a butt and a 'boo' at us as they return from Smithfield, and, before we have time to say 'Now, stupid!' pitch us over the battlements of one of the bridges, and leave us to sink or swim.
"The Adelphi arches form a little subterranean city; there is nothing like it in England: in some places you catch a glimpse of the river, a small loop-hole that lets in the light like the end of a railway tunnel, yet seeming to diminish more than these tunnels, on account of the steep descent, until one of the steamers, in passing, appears to fill up the opening like a half-closed door. Beside these arches there are narrow passages which go dipping down to the water-side, where on either hand houses stand looking at one another in the openings between the darkness. There is a dismal and solitary look about these tall imprisoned houses; you cannot conceive how they are entered, for there appears to be no way to them, and you conclude that they are empty. Or, if they are inhabited, you wonder if the people ever look out of those dim, dirt-ditched windows at the dead-looking walls opposite. We have turned back, and hunted up and down looking from below, but nowhere could we obtain a view of the entrance to those murderous-looking houses. We once saw a butterflywhich had lost its way, and got into the little light which had stolen out to look at the entrance of these arches: it went up and down, and hither and thither, seeming to become feebler every moment, as if it had given up all hope of ever swinging with folded wings, like a pea-bloom, on the flowers again, and we doubted not but that it found a grave amid the green decay of some rotten water-butt." The cows have disappeared, and the muddy wharves have been replaced by pleasant gardens and the busy hum of workshops, but the "subterranean city" is likely to exist in its present form for many years to come. The embankment, the construction of which involved the abolition of the Adelphi wharves, was opened in 1870 by the Prince of Wales (Edward VII.), as the representative of Queen Victoria. This magnificent example of engineering was begun in 1862, and the cost was about £2,000,000.