187 SKINNER-STREET. THE fate of streets, as of persons, is strangely uncertain. The dark narrow lanes and passages, which at no remote period formed the neighbourhood of Oxford-street, have brightened, and widened, and prospered into the noblest of our thoroughfares-Regent-street; while Skinner-street, projected by the Alderman of that name in 1802, to avoid the difficult pass of Snow, or Snore, or Sore Hill-with capital houses, a wide gangway, and an immense traffic— has never flourished or put on an inviting look. As a building scheme it was a failure; when the dwellings were ready for occupation, tall and substantial as they really were, the high rents frightened intending shopkeepers; tenants were not to be had; and in order to get over the money difficulty, a lottery, sanctioned by Parliament, was announced. Lotteries were then common tricks of finance, and nobody wondered at the new venture; but even the most desperate fortune-hunters were slow to invest their capital, and the tickets hung sadly on hand. The day for the drawing was postponed several times, and when it came, there was little or no excitement on the subject; and whoever rejoiced in becoming a house-owner on such easy terms, the original projectors and builders were understood to have suffered considerably. The winners found the property in a very unfinished condition; few of the dwellings were habitable, and as funds were often wanting, a majority of the houses remained empty, and the shops unopened. After two or three years, things began to improve; the vast many-storied house which then covered the site of Commercial-place was converted into a warehousing depôt; a capital house, opposite the Saracen's Head, was taken by a hosier of the name of Theobald-who, opening his shop with the determination of selling the best hosiery, and nothing else, was able to convince the citizens that his hose was first-rate, and desiring only a living profit, succeeded, after thirty years of unwearying industry, in accumulating a large fortune. Theobald was possessed of literary tastes, and at the sale of Sir Walter Scott's manuscripts was a liberal purchaser. He also collected a library of exceedingly choice books, and when aristocratic customers purchased stockings of him was soon able to interest them on matters of far higher interest. The worthy cit-the last of the old class. of tradesmen who delighted in the oneness of business, and were mercers, cutlers, hosiers, drapers (exclusively), and had no notion of monster stores for the sale of everything from a pin to a pedestal-has long passed away, but the hosiery trade is still carried on in the same premises, and should you require a merino waistcoat, a pair of women's blacks, or some fine white cotton hose, you can hardly do better than visit Skinner-street. You smile at the phrase," women's blacks." Well, it's the trade term, and Theobald greatly advanced his fortune by purchasing, at a low figure, a shipload of the article which had been prepared for the use of the sable ladies of Sierra Leone. The next remarkable shop--but it was on the left-hand side, at a corner house-was that established for the sale of children's books. It boasted an immense extent of window-front, extending from the entrance into Snowhill and towards Fleet Market. Many a time have I lingered - with loving eyes over those fascinating story-books so rich in gaily-coloured prints-such careful editions of the marvellous old histories "Puss in Boots "" "Cock Robin"-"Cinderella," and the like. Fortunately, the front was kept low, so as exactly to suit the capacity of a childish admirer. At the corner, looking immediately upon Holborn Hill, there is a large bow-fronted shop, then occupied as coffee-rooms. It was never a genteel lounge. Tired or thirsty clerks, indigent politicians, wishing to be refreshed and to read a daily journal for twopence, were its chief customers; and occasionally, when I was in my eighteenth year, I whiled away half an hour there, chiefly because it was almost within sight of a printing-office where the sheets of my first work were then passing through the press. I usually teased my printer at least three times a day (how weary he must have been of me and my poem !), and one evening of a dark October day he handed me a complete copy. "Tis pleasant, sure, to see one's name in print A book's a book, although there's nothing in't." Of course I was impatient to cut the leaves, and revel in all the beauties of " Sensibility," &c. My home was so far off-the coffee-house so near, that I made a dash at the seedy ark of literature, and, allowing the coffee and muffin to get stone cold, was quickly lost among the "First Leaves of a Young Tree." I have not been in that room for nearly forty years, and yet could make a catalogue of every item of furniture it contained. You observe, then, that Skinner-street was my favourite resort; still it did not prosper much, and never could compete with even the dullest portions of Holborn. I have spoken of some reputable shops; but you know the proverb, "One swallow will not make a summer;" and it was a declining neighbourhood almost before it could be called new. In 1810, the commercial depôt, which had been erected at a cost of £25,000, and was the chief prize in the lottery, was destroyed by fire, never to be rebuilt-a heavy blow and discouragement to Skinner-street, from which it never rallied. Perhaps the periodical hanging-days exercised an unfavourable influence, collecting, as they frequently did, all the thieves and vagabonds of London. I never sympathized with Pepys or Charles Fox in their passion for public executions, and made it a point to avoid such ghastly sights; but early of a Monday morning, when I had just reached the end of Giltspur-street, a miserable wretch had been just turned off from the platform of the debtors' door, and I was made the unwilling witness of his last struggles. That scene haunted me for months, and I often used to ask myself-who that could help it would live in Skinner-street? The next unpropitious event in these parts was the unexpected closing of the child's library. What could it mean? Such a well-to-do establishment shut up. Yes, the whole army of shutters looked blankly on the inquirer, and forbade even a single glance at "Sinbad" or "Robinson Crusoe." It would soon be re-opened-we naturally thought--but the shutters never came down again. The whole house was deserted; not even a messenger in bankruptcy or an ancient Charley was found to regard the playful doubleknocks of the neighbouring juveniles. Month followed month, but the sole change was for the worse. Gradually the glass of all the windows got broken in; a heavy cloud of black dust-solidifying into inches thick gathered on sills, and doors, and brickwork, till the whole frontage grew as gloomy as "Giant Despair's Castle." Not long after, the adjoining houses shared the same fate, and they remain, from year to year, without the slightest sign of life-absolute scarecrows, darkening with their uncomfortable shadows the busy streets. Within half a mile-in Stamford-street, Blackfriars-road- there are seven dwellings in a similar predicament-window-glass demolished, doors cracked from top to bottom, spiders' webs hung from every projecting sill or parapet. What can it mean? The loss in the article of rent alone must be over £1,000 annually. If the real owners are at feud with imaginary owners, surely the property might be rendered profitable, and the proceeds invested. Even the lawyers can derive no profit from such hopeless abandonment. I am told the whole mischief arose out of a Chancery suit. Can it be the famous "Jarndyce v. Jarndyce" case? And have all the heirs starved each other out? If so, what hinders our lady the Queen from taking possession? Any change would be an improvement, for these dead houses make the streets they cumber as dispiriting and comfortless as graveyards. Busy fancy will sometimes people them, and fill the dreary rooms. with strange guests. Do the victims of guilt congregate in these dark dens? Do wretches, "unfriended by the world, or the world's law," seek refuge in these deserted nooks, mourning in the silence of despair over their former lives, and anticipating the future in unappeasable agony ? Such things have been-the silence and desolation of these doomed dwellings make them the more suitable for such tenants. We venture a few memorabilia in addition to our gossip about Skinner-street and the neighbourhood. At No. 41, Godwin, the author of "Caleb Williams," kept a bookseller's shop, and published school-books in the name of Edward Baldwin. On the wall there is a stone carving of Esop reciting one of his fables to children. In front of No. 58, in 1817, Cashman, a sailor, who in a riot had plundered the gunsmith's shop there, was executed. At a shop on Snowhill, Vandyke saw a picture by Dobson, which induced him to search for the artist, who was |