Auriol; or, The Elixir of Life

by William Harrison Ainsworth

  THE OLD LONDON MERCHANT

  _A SKETCH_

  Flos Mercatorum.--_Epitaph on Whittington_

  At that festive season, when the days are at the shortest, and thenights at the longest, and when, consequently, it is the invariablepractice of all sensible people to turn night into day; when the stateof the odds between business and pleasure is decidedly in favour of thelatter; when high carnival is held in London, and everything betokensthe prevalence and influence of good cheer; when pastrycooks are intheir glory, and green trays in requisition; when porters groan beneathhampers of game, and huge tubs of Canterbury brawn; when trains arrivingfrom the eastern counties are heavy laden with turkeys and hares; whenagents in town send barrels of oysters to correspondents in the country;when Christmas-box claimants disturb one's equanimity by day, and Waits(those licensed nuisances, to which even our reverence for good oldcustoms cannot reconcile us) break one's first slumber at night; whensurly Christians "awake," and salute the band of little carollers withjugs of cold water; when their opposite neighbour, who has poked hisnightcapped head from his window, retires with a satisfactory chuckle;when the meat at Mr. Giblett's in Bond Street, which, for the last sixweeks, has announced the approach of Christmas by its daily-increasinglayers of fat, as correctly as the almanack, has reached thene-plus-ultra of adiposity; when wondering crowds are collected beforethe aforesaid Giblett's to gaze upon the yellow carcass of thatleviathan prize ox--the fat being rendered more intensely yellow by itscontrast with the green holly with which it is garnished--as well as toadmire the snowy cakes of suet with which the sides of thatLeicestershire sheep are loaded; when the grocer's trade is "inrequest," and nothing is heard upon his counter but the jingling ofscales and the snapping of twine; when the vendor of sweetmeats, as hedeals forth his citron and sultanas in the due minced-meat proportionsto that pretty housemaid, whispers something in a soft and sugared toneabout the misletoe; when "coming Twelfth Nights cast their shadowsbefore," and Mr. Gunter feels doubly important; when pantomimes areabout to unfold all their magic charms, and the holidays have fairlycommenced; when the meteorological prophet predicts that Thursday the1st will be fair and frosty, and it turns out to be drizzling rain and asudden thaw; when intelligence is brought that the ice "bears," theintelligence being confirmed by the appearance of sundry donkey-carts,containing ice an inch thick, and rendered indisputable by the dischargeof their crystal loads upon the pavement before Mr. Grove's, thefishmonger's; when crack performers in paletots, or Mackintoshes, withskates in their hands, cigars in their mouths, and tights andfur-topped boots on their lower limbs, are seen hastening up BakerStreet in the direction of the Regent's Park; when a marquee is pitchedupon the banks of the Serpentine, and a quadrille executed by thebefore-mentioned crack skaters in tights and fur-topped boots upon itsfrozen waters; when the functionaries of the Humane Society begin tofind some employment for their ropes and punt; when Old Father Thames,who, for a couple of months, appears to have been undecided about thecolours of his livery--now inclining to a cloak of greyish dun, now to amantle of orange tawny--has finally adopted a white transparent robewith facings of silver; when, as you pass down Harley Street, the lightsin the drawing-room windows of every third house, the shadows on theblinds, and, above all, the enlivening sound of the harp and piano,satisfy you that its fair inmate is "at home"; when

  House-quakes, street-thunders, and door-batteries

  are heard from "midnight until morn"; when the knocker at No. 22 ParkStreet responds to the knocker at No. 25; when a barrel-organ and apopular melody salute your ear as you enter Oxford Street; when thedoors of the gin-palaces seem to be always opening to let people _in_,but never to let them _out_, and the roar of boisterous revelry is heardfrom the bar; when various vociferations arise from various courts andpassages; when policemen are less on the alert, though theirinterference is more requisite than usual; when uproarious jollityprevails; when "universal London getteth drunk"; and, in short, whenChristmas is come, and everybody is disposed to enjoy himself in hisown way. At this period of wassail and rejoicing it was that a socialparty, to which I am now about to introduce the reader, was assembled ina snug little dining-room of a snug little house, situated in that snuglittle pile of building denominated the Sanctuary in Westminster.

  When a man has any peculiarity of character, his house is sure topartake of it. The room which he constantly inhabits reflects his imageas faithfully as a mirror; nay, more so, for it reflects his mind aswell as his person. A glance at No. 22 St. James's Place would satisfyyou its owner was a poet. We can judge of the human, as of the brutelion, by the aspect of his den. The room marks the man. Visit it in hisabsence, and you may paint his portrait better than the limner who hasplaced his "breathing canvas" on the walls. From that well-wornelbow-chair and the slippers at its feet (the slippers of an old man arenever to be mistaken), you can compute his age; from that faded brocadedressing-gown and green velvet cap, you can shape out his figure; fromthe multiplicity of looking-glasses you at once infer that he has notentirely lost his vanity or his good looks; that gold-headed cane givesyou his carriage--it is not a crutch-handled stick, but a cane toflourish jauntily; that shagreen spectacle-case, that chased silversnuffbox with the Jupiter and Leda richly and somewhat luxuriouslywrought upon its lid, that fine Sevres porcelain, that gorgeousBerlin-ware, those rare bronzes half consumed by the true hoary greenaerugo, those little Egyptian images, that lachrymatory, that cineraryurn, that brick from the Colosseum, that tesselated pavement fromPompeii, looking like a heap of various-coloured dice, and a world ofother rarities, furnish unerring indications of his tastes and habits,and proclaim him a member of the Archaeological Society; while that openvolume of Sir Thomas Urquhart's "Rabelais" (published by the AbbotsfordClub) gives you his course of study; the _Morning Post_ his politics;that flute and those musical notes attest the state of his lungs; andthat well-blotted copy of verses, of which the ink is scarcely dry,proclaims his train of thought. The door opens, and an old gentlemanenters exactly corresponding to your preconceived notions. You requireno introduction. You have made his acquaintance half-an-hour ago.

  The apartment to which we are about to repair was a complete index tothe mind and character of its possessor, Sir Lionel Flamstead. I havecalled it a dining-room, from its ordinary application to the purposesof refection and festivity; but it had much more the air of a library,or study. It was a small comfortable chamber, just large enough tocontain half-a-dozen people, though by management double that number hadbeen occasionally squeezed into its narrow limits. The walls weredecorated with curious old prints, maps and plans, set in old blackworm-eaten frames, and representing divers personages, places, andstructures connected with London and its history.

  Over the mantelpiece was stretched Vertue's copy of Ralph Aggas's famoussurvey of our "great metropolis," made about the beginning ofElizabeth's reign, or perhaps a little earlier, when it was scarcely sogreat a metropolis as at the present time, and when novelists, gentlemenof the press, cabmen, omnibus cads, and other illustrious personageswere unborn and undreamed of; when St. Giles's, in lieu of itsmysterious and Daedalian Seven Dials (which should have for their mottoWordsworth's title, "We are Seven"), consisted of a little cluster ofcountry houses, surrounded by a grove of elms; when a turreted wallgirded in the City, from Aldgate to Grey Friars; when a pack ofstaghounds was kept in Finsbury Fields, and archers and cross-bowmenhaunted the purlieus of the Spital; when he who strolled westward fromCharing Cross (then no misnomer) beheld neither Opera House norclub-house, but a rustic lane, with a barn at one end, and a goodlyassortment of hay-carts and hay-stacks at the other; when the Thames wascrossed by a single bridge, and that bridge looked like a street, andthe street itself like a row of palaces. On the right of this plan hunga sketch of Will Somers, jester to Henry VIII., after the picture byHolbein; on the left an engraving of Geoffrey Hudson, the diminutiveattendant of Henrietta Maria. This niche was devoted to portraits of thebluff king before mentioned, and his six spouses;
that to the melancholyCharles and his family. Here, the Great Fire of 1666, with its blackprofiles of houses, relieved by a sheet of "bloody and malicious" flame,formed a pleasant contrast to the icy wonders of the Frost Fair, held onthe Thames in 1684, when carriages were driven through the lines oftents, and an ox was roasted on the water, to the infinite delectationof the citizens. There Old Saint Paul's (in the words of Victor Hugo,"one of those Gothic monuments so admirable and so irreparable"), andwhich is but ill replaced by the modern "bastard counterpart" of theglorious fane of St. Peter at Rome, reared its venerable tower (notdome) and lofty spire to the sky. Next to St. Paul's came the reverendAbbey of Westminster, taken before it had been disfigured by the towersadded by Wren; and next to the abbey opened the long and raftered vistaof its magnificent neighbouring hall. Several plans and prospects of theTower of London, as it appeared at different epochs, occupied a cornerto themselves: then came a long array of taverns, from the Tabard inSouthwark, the Boar's Head in Eastcheap, and the Devil near Temple Bar,embalmed in the odour of poesy, to the Nag's Head in Cheapside,notorious for its legend of the consecration of the Protestant bishopsin 1559; there also might you see--

  ----in Billinsgate the Salutation. And the Boar's Head near London Stone, The Swan at Dowgate, a tavern well known; The Mitre in Cheap, and then the Bull's Head, And many like places that make noses red; The Boar's Head in Old Fish Street; Three Crowns in the Vintry; And, now, of late, Saint Martin's in the Seutree; The Windmill in Lothbury; the Ship at th' Exchange; King's Head in New Fish Street, where roysters do range; The Mermaid in Cornhill; Red Lion in the Strand; Three Tuns in Newgate Market; in Old Fish Street the Swan.[1]

  [Footnote 1: News from Bartholomew Faire.]

  Adjoining these places of entertainment were others of a differentdescription, to wit, the Globe, as it stood when Shakspeare (howinsufferable is Mr. Knight's orthography of this reverendname--Shaks_pere_!) trod the stage; the king's play-house in Charlesthe Second's time; the Bear Garden, with its flag streaming to the wind;and the Folly, as it once floated in the river, opposite old SomersetHouse. Then came the Halls, beginning with Guildhall and ending with OldSkinner's. Next, the Crosses, from Paul's to Charing; then, thechurches, gateways, hospitals, colleges, prisons, asylums, inns ofcourt,--in short, for it is needless to particularise further, Londonand its thousand recollections rose before you, as you gazed around.Scarcely an old edifice, to which an historical tradition could beattached (and what old London edifice is destitute of such traditions?),was wanting. Nor were the great of old--the spirits, who gave interestand endurance to these decayed, or decaying structures, wanting. But Ishall not pause to enumerate their portraits, or make out a catalogue aslong as the list of Homer's ships, or the gallery of Mr. Lodge.Sufficient has been said, I trust, to give the reader an idea of thephysiology of the room. Yet stay! I must not omit to point out thecontents of those groaning shelves. In the goodly folios crowded thereare contained the chronicles of Holinshed and Hall; of Grafton, Fabian,and Stow; of Matthew of Paris, and his namesake of Westminster. Let himnot be terrified at the ponderous size of these admirable oldhistorians, nor be deterred by the black letter, if he should chance toopen a volume. Their freshness and picturesque details will surprise asmuch as they will delight him. From this wealthy mine Shakspeare drewsome of his purest ore. The shelves are crowned by a solitary bust. Itis that of a modern. It is that of a lover of London, and a characterof London. It is DOCTOR JOHNSON.

  Having completed the survey of the apartment, I shall now proceed to itsoccupants. These were five in number--jolly fellows all--seated round acircular dining-table covered with glasses and decanters, amidst which aportly magnum of claret, and a deep and capacious china punch-bowl, mustnot pass unmentioned. They were in the full flow of fun andconviviality; enjoying themselves as good fellows always enjoythemselves at "the season of the year." The port was delectable--old asSaint Paul's, I was going to say--not quite, however--but just "oldenough"; the claret was nectar, or what is better, it was Lafitte; thepunch was drink for the gods. The jokes of this party would have splityour sides--their laughter would have had the same effect on your ears.Never were heard peals of merriment so hearty and prolonged. You onlywondered how they found time to drink, so quick did each roar follow onthe heels of its predecessor. That they _did_ drink, however, was clear;that they _had_ drunk was equally certain; and that they intended tocontinue drinking seemed to come within the limits of probability.

  Sir Lionel Flamstead was a retired merchant--one of those high-souled,high-principled traders, of whom our City was once so justly proud, andof whom so few, in these days of railway bubbles, and other harebrainedspeculations, can be found. His word was his bond--once passed, it wassufficient; his acceptances were accounted safe as the Bank of England.Had Sir Thomas Gresham descended from his niche he could not have beentreated with greater consideration than attended Sir Lionel's appearanceon 'Change. All eyes followed the movements of his tall and statelyfigure--all hats were raised to his courteous but ceremonioussalutation. Affable, yet precise, and tinctured with something of thepunctiliousness of the old school, his manners won him universal respectand regard, even from those unknown to him. By his intimates he wasrevered. His habits were as regular as clockwork, and the glass of coldpunch at Tom's, or the basin of soup at Birch's, wound him up for theday. His attire was as formal as his manners, being a slightmodification of the prevalent costume of some five-and-thirty years ago.He had consented, not without extreme reluctance, to clothe his netherlimbs in the unmentionable garment of recent introduction; but heresolutely adhered to the pigtail. There is something, by-the-bye, in apigtail, to which old gentlemen cling in spite of all remonstrance, withlover-like pertinacity. Only hint the propriety of cutting it off toyour great-uncle or your grandfather, and you may rely on being cut offwith a shilling yourself. Be this as it may, Sir Lionel gathered hislocks, once sable as the riband that bound them, but now thickly strewnwith the silver "blossoms of the grave," into a knot, and suffered themto dangle a few inches below his collar. His shoes shone with a lustrebeyond French polish, and his hat was brushed till not a wind dared toapproach it. Sir Lionel wore a white, unstarched cravat, with a thickpad in it, sported a frill over his waistcoat, carried a black ebonycane in his hand, and was generally followed by a pet pug-dog, one ofthe most sagacious and disagreeable specimens of his species. Sir LionelFlamstead, I have said, was tall--I might have said he was verytall--somewhat narrower across the shoulders than about the hips--acircumstance which did not materially conduce to his symmetry--withgrey, benevolent eyes, shaded by bushy, intelligent brows--a lofty,expansive forehead, in which, in the jargon of phrenology, the organs oflocality and ideality were strongly developed, and which was renderedthe more remarkable from the flesh having fallen in on either side ofthe temples--with a nose which had been considered handsome and wellproportioned in his youth, but to which good living had imparted abottle form and a bottle tint--and cheeks from which all encroachment ofwhiskers was sedulously removed, in order, we conclude, that his rosycomplexion might be traced from its point of concentration, upon theprominent feature before mentioned, to its final disappearance behindhis ears. Such was Sir Lionel Flamstead.

  A NIGHT'S ADVENTURE IN ROME