Mrs. Fleming's accounts found among Goldsmith's would surely have carried it to the elder Newbery. papers, the only one unsettled is that for the He did not do this. He went with it to Francis summer months preceding the arrest. The manu- Newbery, the nephew; does not seem to have script of the novel seems by both statements, in given a very brilliant account of the "merit" he a raw Irish student, aged twenty-eight. just fresh from Italy and Switzerland. He was It is a little lop-sided, wedged-up house, that or Padua, had been "bear leader" to the stingy 66 How heard Voltaire talk, had won a degree at Louvain shouldered man with his hands in his pockets. It is full of holes and corners and cupboards and sharp turnings; and in ascending the stairs to the tiny smoking-room you must tread cautiously, if you would not wish to be tripped up by plates and dishes, momentarily deposited there by furious waiters. The waiters at the 'Cheese' are always furious. Old customers abound in the comfortable old tavern, in whose sanded-floored eating-rooms a new face is a rarity; and the guests and the waiters are the oldest of familiars. Yet the waiter seldom fails to bite your nose off as a preliminary measure when you proceed to pay him. should it be otherwise when on that waiter's soul there lies heavy a perpetual sense of injury caused by the savoury odour of steaks, and 'muts' to follow; of cheese-bubbling in tiny tins-the 'specialty' of the house; of floury potatoes and fragrant green peas; of cool salads, and cooler tankards of bitter beer; of extra-creaming stout and 'goes' of Cork and 'rack,' by which is meant gin; and, in the winter-time, of Irish stew and rump-steak pudding, glorious and grateful to every sense? To be compelled to run to and fro with these succulent viands from noon to late at night, without being able to spare time to consume them in comfort-where do waiters dine, and when, and how?-to be continually taking other people's money only for the purpose of handing it to other people-are not these grievances sufficient to crossgrain the temper of the mildest-mannered waiter ? Somebody is always in a passion at the 'Cheese:' either a customer, because there is not fat enough on his 'point'-steak, or because there is too much bone in his mutton-chop; or else the waiter is wroth with the cook; or the landlord with the waiter, or the barmaid with all. Yes, there is a barmaid at the 'Cheese,' mewed up in a box not much bigger than a birdcage, surrounded by groves of lemons, ones' of cheese, punch-bowls, and cruets of mushroom-catsup. I should not care to dispute with her, lest she should quoit me over the head with a punch-ladle, having a William-theThird guinea soldered in the bowl. Wine Office Court is supposed to have derived its name from an office where licences to sell wine were formerly issued. "In this court," says Mr. Noble, once flourished a fig-tree, planted a century ago by the Vicar of St. Bride's, who resided, with an absence of pride suitable, if not common, to Christianity, at No. 12. It was a slip from another exile of a tree, formerly flourishing, in a sooty kind of grandeur, at the sign of the 'Fig Tree,' in Fleet Street. This tree was struck by lightning in 1820, but slips from the growing stump were planted in 1822, in various parts of England." The old-fashioned and changeless character of the "Cheese," in whose low-roofed and sanded rooms Goldsmith and Johnson have so often hung up their cocked hats and sat down facing each other to a snug dinner, not unattended with punch, has been capitally sketched by a modern essayist, who possesses a thorough knowledge of the physiology of London. In an admirable paper entitled "Brain Street," Mr. George Augustus Sala thus describes Wine Office Court and the "Cheshire Cheese": "The vast establishments," says Mr. Sala, "of Messrs. Pewter & Antimony, typefounders (Alderman Antimony was Lord Mayor in the year '46); "Let it be noted in candour that Law finds its way of Messrs. Quoin, Case, & Chappell, printers to to the 'Cheese' as well as Literature; but the Law the Board of Blue Cloth; of Messrs. Cutedge is, as a rule, of the non-combatant and, conse& Treecalf, bookbinders; with the smaller in- quently, harmless order. Literary men who have dustries of Scawper & Tinttool, wood-engravers; been called to the bar, but do not practise; briefless and Treacle, Gluepot, & Lampblack, printing-young barristers, who do not object to mingling roller makers, are packed together in the upper with newspaper men; with a sprinkling of retired part of the court as closely as herrings in a solicitors (amazing dogs these for old port-wine; cask. The Cheese' is at the Brain Street end. the landlord has some of the same bin which served as Hippocrene to Judge Blackstone when he wrote his 'Commentaries')-these make up the legal element of the 'Cheese.' Sharp attorneys in practice are not popular there. There is a legend that a process-server once came in at a back door to serve a writ; but being detected by a waiter, was skilfully edged by that wary retainer into Wine Bottle Court, right past the person on whom he was desirous to inflict the 'Victoria, by the grace, &c.' Once in the court, he was set upon by a mob of inky-faced boys just released from the works of Messrs. Ball, Roller, & Scraper, machine printers, and by the skin of his teeth only escaped being converted into 'pie.'" Mr. William Sawyer has also written a very admirable sketch of the "Cheese" and its oldfashioned, conservative ways, which we cannot resist quoting : "We are a close, conservative, inflexible body -we, the regular frequenters of the 'Cheddar,'" says Mr. Sawyer. "No new-fangled notions, new usages, new customs, or new customers for us. We have our history, our traditions, and our observances, all sacred and inviolable. Look around! There is nothing new, gaudy, flippant, or effeminately luxurious here. A small room with heavily-timbered windows. A low planked ceiling. A huge, projecting fire-place, with a great copper boiler always on the simmer, the sight of which might have roused even old John Willett, of the 'Maypole,' to admiration. High, stiff-backed, inflexible 'settles,' hard and grainy in texture, box off the guests, half-a-dozen each to a table. Sawdust covers the floor, giving forth that peculiar faint odour which the French avoid by the use of the vine sawdust with its pleasant aroma. The only ornament in which we indulge is a solitary picture over the mantelpiece, a full-length of a now departed waiter, whom in the long past we caused to be painted, by subscription of the whole room, to commemorate his virtues and our esteem. He is depicted in the scene of his triumphs-in the act of giving change to a customer. We sit bolt upright round our tables, waiting, but not impatient. A time-honoured solemnity is about to be observed, and we, the old stagers, is it for us to precipitate it? There are men in this room who have dined here every day for a quarter of a century aye, the whisper goes that one man did it even on his wedding-day! In all that time the more staid and well-regulated among us have observed a steady regularity of feeding. Five days in the week we have our 'Rotherham steak '-that mystery of mysteries-or our 'chop and chop to follow,' with the indispensable wedge of Cheddar-unless it is preferred stewed or toasted—and on Saturday decorous variety is afforded in a plate of the worldrenowned 'Cheddar' pudding. It is of this latter luxury that we are now assembled to partake, and that with all fitting ceremony and observance. we sit, like pensioners in hall, the silence is broken only by a strange sound, as of a hardly human voice, muttering cabalistic words, Ullo mul lum de loodle wumble jum!' it cries, and we know that chops and potatoes are being ordered for some benighted outsider, ignorant of the fact that it is pudding-day." As CHAPTER XI. FLEET STREET TRIBUTARIES-SHOE LANE. The First Lucifers-Perkins' Steam Gun-A Link between Shakespeare and Shoe Lane-Florio and his Labours-"Cogers' Hall"-Famous "Cogers"-A Saturday Night's Debate-Gunpowder Alley-Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier Poet-"To Althea, from Prison"-Lilly the Astrologer, and his Knaveries-A Search for Treasure with Davy Ramsay-Hogarth in Harp Alley-The "Society of Sign Painters"Hudson, the Song Writer-"Jack Robinson "-The Bishop's Residence-Bangor House-A Strange Story of Unstamped NewspapersOldbourne Hall-Chatterton's Death-Curious Legend of his Burial-A well-timed Joke. Ar the east corner of Peterborough Court (says Mr. Timbs) was one of the earliest shops for the instantaneous light apparatus, "Hertner's Eupyrion" (phosphorus and oxymuriate matches, to be dipped in sulphuric acid and asbestos), the costly predecessor of the lucifer match. Nearly opposite were the works of Jacob Perkins, the engineer of the steam gun exhibited at the Adelaide Gallery, Strand, and which the Duke of Wellington truly foretold would never be advantageously employed in battle. One golden thread of association links Shakespeare to Shoe Lane. Slight and frail is the thread, yet it has a double strand. In this narrow sideaisle of Fleet Street, in 1624, lived John Florio, the compiler of our first Italian Dictionary. Now And now to connect Florio with Shakespeare. The industrious Savoyard, besides his Dictionary— of great use at a time when the tour to Italy was a necessary completion of a rich gallant's education-translated the Essays of that delightful old Gascon egotist, Montaigne. Now in a copy of Florio's "Montaigne" there was found some years ago one of the very few genuine Shakespeare signatures. Moreover, as Florio speaks of the Earl of Southampton as his steady patron, we may fairly presume that the great poet, who must have been constantly at Southampton's house, often met there the old Italian master. May not the bard in those conversations have perhaps gathered some hints for the details of Cymbeline, Romeo and Juliet, Othello, or The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and had his attention turned by the old scholar to fresh chapters of Italian story? No chronicle of Shoe Lane would be complete without some mention of the "Cogers' Discussion Hall," formerly at No. 10. This useful debating society-a great resort for local politicians-was it is more than probable that our great poet of your persons, humblie with gracious leave knew this industrious Italian, as we shall presently kissing your thrice-honored hands, protesteth to show. Florio was a Waldensian teacher, no doubt continue euer your Honors' most humble and driven to England by religious persecution. He bounden in true seruice, JOHN FLORIO." taught French and Italian with success at Oxford, and finally was appointed tutor to that generousminded, hopeful, and unfortunate Prince Henry, son of James I. Florio's "Worlde of Wordes" (a most copious and exact dictionary in Italian and English) was printed in 1598, and published by Arnold Hatfield for Edward Church, and "sold at his shop over against the north door of Paul's Church." It is dedicated to "The Right Honourable Patrons of Virtue, Patterns of Honour, Roger Earle of Rutland, Henrie Earle of Southampton, and Lucie Countess of Bedford." In the dedication, worthy of the fantastic author of "Euphues" himself, the author says:-"My hope springs out of three stems—your Honours' naturall benignitie; your able emploiment of such servitours; and the towardly like-lie-hood of this springall to do you honest service. The first, to vouchsafe all; the second, to accept this; the third, to applie it selfe to the first and second. Of the first, your birth, your place, and your custome; of the second, your studies, your conceits, and your exercise; of the thirde, my endeavours, my pro-founded by Mr. Daniel Mason as long ago as 1755, ceedings, and my project giues assurance. Your and among its most eminent members it glories in birth, highly noble, more than gentle; your place, the names of John Wilkes, Judge Keogh, Daniel above others, as in degree, so in height of bountie, O'Connell, and the eloquent Curran. The word and other vertues; your custome, never wearie of "Coger" does not imply "codger," or a drinker well doing; your studies much in all, most in of cogs, but comes from cogito, to cogitate. The Italian excellence; your conceits, by understanding Grand, Vice-Grand, and secretary were elected on others to worke above them in your owne; your the night of every 14th of June by show of hands. exercise, to reade what the world's best writers The room was open to strangers, but the members have written, and to speake as they write. My had the right to speak first. The society was endeavour, to apprehend the best, if not all; my Republican in the best sense, for side by side with proceedings, to impart my best, first to your master tradesmen, shopmen, and mechanics, reHonours, then to all that emploie me; my proiect porters and young barristers gravely sipped their in this volume to comprehend the best and all, grog, and abstractedly emitted wreathing columns in truth, I acknowledge an entyre debt, not only of tobacco-smoke from their pipes. of my best knowledge, but of all, yea, of more kinson has sketched the little parliament very than I know or can, to your bounteous lordship, pleasantly in the columns of a contemporary. most noble, most vertuous, and most Honorable "A long low room," says the writer, "like the Earle of Southampton, in whose paie and patronage saloon of a large steamer. Wainscoat dimmed and I haue liued some yeeres; to whom I owe and ornaments tarnished by tobacco-smoke and the vowe the yeeres I haue to live. . . . . Good parts lingering dews of steaming compounds. A room imparted are not empaired; your springs are with large niches at each end, like shrines for fullfirst to serue yourself, yet may yeelde your neigh-grown saints, one niche containing 'My Grand' in bours sweete water; your taper is to light you a framework of shabby gold, the other 'My Grand's first, and yet it may light your neighbour's candle. Deputy' in a bordering more substantial. More Accepting, therefore, of the childe, I than one hundred listeners are waiting patiently for hope your Honors' wish as well to the Father, My Grand's utterances this Saturday night, and are who to your Honors' all deuoted wisheth meede whiling away the time philosophically with bibulous of your merits, renowne of your vertues, and health and nicotian refreshment. The narrow tables of Mr. J. Par |