Key after this), to the Duke of Wellington, then as the lode-star of faction, retired, a man suddenly terribly unpopular with the English Reformers as waved a tricolour flag (it was the year, remember, he had been with the French after the battle of of the Revolution in Paris), with the word "ReWaterloo, urging him (the duke) if he came with form" painted upon it, and a preconcerted cry King William and Queen Adelaide to dine with was raised by the more violent of, "Now for the new Lord Mayor, (his worshipful self), to the West End!" About one thousand men then come "strongly and sufficiently guarded." This rushed over Blackfriars bridge, shouting, "Reform !" imprudent step greatly offended the people, who "Down with the police!" "No Peel!" "No Welwere also just then much vexed with the severities lington!" Hurrying along the Strand, the mob of Peel's obnoxious new police. The result was first proceeded to Earl Bathurst's, in Downing that the new king and queen (for the not over- Street. A foolish gentleman of the house, hearbeloved George IV. had only died in June of ing the cries, came out on the balcony, armed that year) thought it better to decline coming with a brace of pistols, and declared he would to the City festivities altogether. Great, then, fire on the first man who attempted to enter the was even the Tory indignation, and the fattest place. Another gentleman at this moment came alderman trotted about, eager to discuss the out, and very sensibly took the pistols from his grievance, the waste of half-cooked turtle, and friend, on which the mob retired. The rioters the general folly and enormity of the Lord Mayor were then making for the House of Commons, elect's conduct. Sir Claudius Hunter, who had but were stopped by a strong line of police, just shared in the Lord Mayor's fears, generously arrived in time from Scotland Yard. One hundred marched to his aid. In a published statement that and forty more men soon joined the constables, he made, he enumerated the force available for and a general fight ensued, in which many heads the defence of the (in his mind) endangered were quickly broken, and the Reform flag was capCity in the following way:tured. Three of the rioters were arrested, and taken to the watch-house in the Almonry in Westminster. A troop of Royal Horse Guards (blue) remained during the night ready in the court of the Horse Guards, and bands of policemen paraded the streets. Ward Constables ... Fellowship, Ticket, and Tackle Porters Firemen ... Corn Porters Extra men hired ... City Police or own men ... 400 250 150 100 130 54 Tradesmen with emblems in the procession... 300 The Artillery Company ... The East India Volunteers Total of all comers ... 150 150 2,284 In the same statement Sir Claudius says:"The Lumber Troop are a respectable smoking club, well known to every candidate for a seat in Parliament for London, and most famed for the quantity of tobacco they consume and the porter they drink, which, I believe, from my own observation, made nineteen years ago, when I was a candidate for that office, is the only liquor allowed. They were to have had no pay, and I am sure they would have done their best." Along the line of procession, to oppose this civic force, the right worshipful but foolish man reckoned there would be some 150,000 persons. With all these aldermanic fears, and all these irritating precautions, a riot naturally took place. On Monday, November 8th, that glib, unsatisfactory man, Orator Hunt, the great demagogue of the day, addressed a Reform meeting at the Rotunda, in Blackfriars Road. At half-past eleven, when the Radical gentleman, famous for his white hat On Tuesday the riots continued. About halfpast five p.m., 300 or 400 persons, chiefly boys, came along the Strand, shouting, "No Peel!" "Down with the raw lobsters!" (the new police); "This way, my lads; we'll give it them!" At the back of the menageries at Charing Cross the police rushed upon them, and after a skirmish put them to flight. At seven o'clock the vast crowd by Temple Bar compelled every coachman and passenger in a coach, as a passport, to pull off his hat and shout "Huzza!" Stones were thrown, and attempts were made to close the gates of the Bar. The City marshals, however, compelled them to be reopened, and opposed the passage of the mob to the Strand, but the pass was soon forced. The rioters in Pickett Place pelted the police with stones and pieces of wood, broken from the scaffolding of the Law Institute, then building in Chancery Lane. Another mob of about 500 persons ran up Piccadilly to Apsley House and hissed and hooted the stubborn, unprogressive old Duke, Mr. Peel, and the police; the constables, however, soon dispersed them. The same evening dangerous mobs collected in Bethnal Green, Spitalfields, and Whitechapel, one party of them displaying tricoloured flags. They broke a lamp and a window or two, but did little else. Alas for poor Sir Claudius and his profound computations! His 2,284 loyal fighting men dwindled down to 600, including even those strange hybrids, the firemen-watermen ; and as for the gallant Lumber Troop, they were nowhere visible to the naked eye. To Bolt Court that scourge of King George III., William Cobbett, came from Fleet Street to sell his Indian corn, for which no one cared, and to print and publish his twopenny Political Register, for which the London Radicals of that day hungered. Nearly opposite the office of "this good hater," says Mr. Timbs, Wright (late Kearsley) kept shop, and published a searching criticism on Cobbett's excellent English Grammar as soon as it appeared. We only wonder that Cobbett did not reply to him as Johnson did to a friend after he knocked Osborne (the grubbing bookseller of Gray's Inn Gate) down with a blow-"Sir, he was impertinent, and I beat him." He Cobbett grew Radical and progressive, and in 1809 was fined £500 for libels on the Irish Government. In 1817 he was fined £1,000 and imprisoned two years for violent remarks about some Ely militiamen who had been flogged under a guard of fixed bayonets. This punishment he never forgave. followed up his Register by his Twopenny Trash, of which he eventually sold 100,000 a number. The Six Acts being passed-as he boasted, to gag him-he fled, in 1817, again to America. The persecuted man returned to England in 1819, bringing with him, much to the amusement of the Tory lampooners, the bones of that foul man, Tom Paine, the infidel, whom (in 1796) this changeful politician had branded as "base, malignant, treacherous, unnatural, and blasphemous." During the Queen Caroline trial Cobbett worked heart and soul for that questionable martyr. He went out to Shooter's Hill to welcome her to London, and boasted of having waved a laurel bough above. her head. A short biographical sketch of Cobbett will not be inappropriate here. This sturdy Englishman, In 1825 he wrote a scurrilous "History of the born in the year 1762, was the son of an honest Reformation" (by many still attributed to a priest), and industrious yeoman, who kept an inn called in which he declared Luther, Calvin, and Beza the "Jolly Farmer," at Farnham, in Surrey. "My to be the greatest ruffians that ever disgraced the first occupation," says Cobbett, "was driving the world. was driving the world. In his old age, too late to be either brilsmall birds from the turnip seed and the rooks liant or useful, Cobbett got into Parliament, from the peas. When I first trudged a-field with being returned in 1832, thanks to the Reform Bill, my wooden bottle and my satchel over my member for Oldham. He died at his house shoulder, I was hardly able to climb the gates near Farnham, in 1835. Cobbett was an egotist, and stiles." In 1783 the restless lad (a plant it must be allowed, and a violent-tempered, vingrown too high for the pot) ran away to London, dictive man; but his honesty, his love of truth and and turned lawyer's clerk. At the end of nine liberty, few who are not blinded by party opinion months he enlisted, and sailed for Nova Scotia. can doubt. His writings are remarkable for vigorous Before long he became sergeant-major, over the and racy Saxon, as full of vituperation as Rabelais's, heads of thirty other non-commissioned officers. and as terse and simple as Swift's. Frugal and diligent, the young soldier soon educated himself. Discharged at his own request in 1791, he married a respectable girl, to whom he had before entrusted £150 hard-earned savings. Obtaining a trial against four officers of his late regiment for embezzlement of stores, for some strange reason Cobbett fled to France on the eve of the trial, but finding the king of that country dethroned, he started at once for America. At Philadelphia he boldly began as a high Tory bookseller, and denounced Democracy in his virulent "Porcupine Papers." Finally, overwhelmed with actions for libel, Cobbett in 1800 returned to England. Failing with a daily paper and a bookseller's shop, Cobbett then started his Weekly Register, which for thirty years continued to express the changes of his honest but impulsive and vindictive mind. Gradually-it is said, owing to some slight shown him by Pitt (more probably from real conviction)-ance of the somewhat supercilious party. Mr. Grant, in his pleasant book, "Random Recollections of the House of Commons," written circa 1834, gives us an elaborate full-length portrait of old Cobbett. He was, he says, not less than six feet high, and broad and athletic in proportion. His hair was silver-white, his complexion ruddy as a farmer's. Till his small eyes sparkled with laughter, he looked a mere dullpated clodpole. His dress was a light, loose, grey tail-coat, a white waistcoat, and sandy kerseymere breeches, and he usually walked about the House with both his hands plunged into his breeches pockets. He had an eccentric, half-malicious way of sometimes suddenly shifting his seat, and on one important night, big with the fate of Peel's Administration, deliberately anchored down in the very centre of the disgusted Tories and at the very back of Sir Robert's bench, to the infinite annoy We next penetrate into Gough Square, in search passages with a black-lead pencil, the traces of of the great lexicographer. which could be easily effaced. I have seen several of them in which that trouble had not been taken, so that they were just as when used by the copyists. It is remarkable that he was so attentive to the choice of the passages in which words were authorised, that one may read page after page of his Dictionary with improvement and pleasure; and it should not pass unobserved, that he has quoted no author whose writings had a tendency to hurt sound religion and morality." As far as can be ascertained from Boswell, Dr. Johnson resided in Gough Square from 1748 to 1758, an eventful period of his life, and one of struggle, pain, and difficulty. In this gloomy side square near Fleet Street, he achieved many results and abandoned many hopes. Here he nursed his hypochondria-the nightmare of his life -and sought the only true relief in hard work. Here he toiled over books, drudging for Cave and Dodsley. Here he commenced both the Rambler and the Idler, and formed his ac. quaintance with Bennet Langton. Here his wife died, leaving him more than ever a prey to his natural melancholy; and here he toiled on his great work, the Dictionary, in which he and six amanuenses effected what it took all the French Academicians to perform for their language. To this account Bishop Percy adds a note of great value for its lucid exactitude. "Boswell's account of the manner in which Johnson compiled his Dictionary,” he says, "is confused and erroneous. He began his task (as he himself expressly described to me) by devoting his first care to a diligent perusal of all such English writers as were most correct in their language, and under A short epitome of what this great man accom- every sentence which he meant to quote he drew plished while in Gough Square will clearly recall a line, and noted in the margin the first letter of to our readers his way of life while in that locality. the word under which it was to occur. He then In 1749, Johnson formed a quiet club in Ivy delivered these books to his clerks, who transcribed Lane, wrote that fine paraphrase of Juvenal, each sentence on a separate slip of paper and "The Vanity of Human Wishes," and brought arranged the same under the word referred to. By out, with dubious success, under Garrick's auspices, these means he collected the several words, and his tragedy of Irene. In 1750, he commenced their different significations, and when the whole the Rambler. In 1752, the year his wife died, arrangement was alphabetically formed, he gave he laboured on at the Dictionary. In 1753, the definitions of their meanings, and collected he became acquainted with Bennet Langton. their etymologies from Skinner, and other writers In 1754 he wrote the life of his early patron, on the subject." To these accounts, Hawkins Cave, who died that year. In 1755, the great adds his usual carping, pompous testimony. "Dr. Dictionary, begun in 1747, was at last published, Johnson," he says, "who, before this time, toand Johnson wrote that scathing letter to the gether with his wife, had lived in obscurity, lodging Earl of Chesterfield, who, too late, thrust upon at different houses in the courts and alleys in him the patronage the poor scholar had once and about the Strand and Fleet Street, had, for sought in vain. In 1756, the still struggling man the purpose of carrying on this arduous work, and was arrested for a paltry debt of £5 18s., from being near the printers employed in it, taken a which Richardson the worthy relieved him. handsome house in Gough Square, and fitted up 1758, when he began the Idler, Johnson is de-a room in it with books and other accommodations scribed as "being in as easy and pleasant a state of existence as constitutional unhappiness ever permitted him to enjoy." In While the Dictionary was going forward, "Johnson," says, Boswell, "lived part of the time in Holborn, part in Gough Square (Fleet Street); and he had an upper room fitted up like a countinghouse for the purpose, in which he gave to the copyists their several tasks. The words, partly taken from other dictionaries and partly supplied by himself, having been first written down with space left between them, he delivered in writing their etymologies, definitions, and various significations. The authorities were copied from the books themselves, in which he had marked the for amanuenses, whom, to the number of five or six, he kept constantly under his eye. An interleaved copy of 'Bailey's Dictionary,' in folio, he made the repository of the several articles, and these he collected by incessantly reading the best authors in our language, in the practice whereof his method was to score with a black-lead pencil the words by him selected. The books he used for this purpose were what he had in his own collection, a copious but a miserably ragged one, and all such as he could borrow; which latter, if ever they came back to those that lent them, were so defaced as to be scarce worth owning, and yet some of his friends were glad to receive and entertain them as curiosities." "Mr. Burney," says Boswell, "during a visit to the capital, had an interview with Johnson in Gough Square, where he dined and drank tea with him, and was introduced to the acquaintance of Mrs. Williams. After dinner Mr. Johnson proposed to Mr. Burney to go up with him into his garret, which being accepted, he found there about five or six Greek folios, a poor writing-desk, and a chair and a half. Johnson, giving to his guest the entire seat, balanced himself on one with only three legs and one arm. Here he gave Mr. Burney Mrs. Williams's history, and showed him some notes on Shakespeare already printed, to prove that he was in earnest. Upon Mr. Burney's opening the first volume at the Merchant of Venice he observed to him that he seemed to be more severe on Warburton than on Theobald. Oh, poor Tib' said Johnson, he was nearly knocked down to my hands; Warburton stands between me and him.' 'But, sir,' said Mr. Burney, 'You'll have Warburton on your bones, won't you?' 'No, sir; he'll not come out; he'll only growl in his den.' But do you think, sir, Warburton is a superior critic to Theobald?' 'Oh, sir, he'll make two-and-fifty Theobalds cut into slices! The worst of Warburton is that he has a rage for saying something when there's nothing to be said.' Mr. Burney then asked him whether he had seen the letter Warburton had written in answer a pamphlet addressed to the most impudent man alive.' He answered in the negative. Mr. Burney told him it was supposed to be written by Mallet. A controversy now raged between the friends of Pope and Bolingbroke, and Warburton and Mallet were the leaders of the several parties. Mr. Burney asked him then if he had seen Warburton's book against Bolingbroke's philosophy! No, sir; I have never read Bolingbroke's impiety, and therefore am not interested about its refutation.”” Goldsmith appears to have resided at No. 6, Wine Office Court from 1760 to 1762, during which period he earned a precarious livelihood by writing for the booksellers. They still point out Johnson and Goldsmith's favourite seats in the north-east corner of the window of that cozy though utterly unpretentious tavern, the "Cheshire Cheese," in this court. It was while living in Wine Office Court that Goldsmith is supposed to have partly written that delightful novel, "The Vicar of Wakefield," which he had begun at Canonbury Tower. We like to think that, seated at the "Cheese," he perhaps espied and listened to the worthy but credulous vicar and his gosling son attending to the profound theories of the learned and philosophic but shifty Mr. Jenkinson. We think now by the window, with a cross light upon his coarse Irish features, and his round prominent brow, we see the watchful poet sit eyeing his prey, secretly enjoying the grandiloquence of the swindler and the admiration of the honest country parson. "One day," says Mrs. Piozzi, "Johnson was called abruptly from our house at Southwark, after dinner, and, returning in about three hours, said he had been with an enraged author, whose landlady pressed him within doors while the bailiffs beset him without; that he was drinking himself drunk with Madeira to drown care, and fretting over a novel which, when finished, was to be his whole fortune; but he could not get it done for distraction, nor dared he stir out of doors to offer it for sale. Mr. Johnson, therefore," she continues, "sent away the bottle and went to the bookseller, recommending the performance, and devising some immediate relief; which, when he brought back to the writer, the latter called the woman of the house directly to partake of punch and pass their time in merriment. It was not," she concludes, "till ten years after, I dare say, that something in Dr. Goldsmith's behaviour struck me with an idea that he was the very man; and then Johnson confessed that he was so." "A more scrupulous and patient writer," says the admirable biographer of the poet, Mr. John Forster, "corrects some inaccuracies of the lively little lady, and professes to give the anecdote authentically from Johnson's own exact narration. 'I received one morning,' Boswell represents Johnson to have said, 'a message from poor Goldsmith, that he was in great distress, and, as it was not in his power to come to me, begging that I would come to him as soon as possible. I sent him a guinea, and promised to come to him directly. I accordingly went as soon as I was dressed, and found that his landlady had arrested him for his rent, at which he was in a violent passion. I perceived that he had already changed my guinea, and had got a bottle of Madeira and a glass before him. I put the cork into the bottle, desired he would be calm, and began to talk to him of the means by which he might be extricated. He then told me that he had a novel ready for the press, which he produced to me. I looked into it and saw its merits, told the landlady I should soon return, and, having gone to a bookseller, soiá it for £60. I brought Goldsmith the money, and he discharged his rent, not without rating his landlady in a high tone for having used him so ill.'" The arrest is plainly connected with Newbery's reluctance to make further advances, and of all |