LONDON ANTIQUES.
----I do walk Methinks like Guide Vaux, with my dark lanthorn, Stealing to set the town o' fire; i' th' country I should be taken for William o' the Wisp, Or Robin Goodfellow. FLETCHER.
I AM somewhat of an antiquity-hunter, and am fond of exploring London inquest of the relics of old times. These are principally to be found inthe depths of the city, swallowed up and almost lost in a wilderness ofbrick and mortar, but deriving poetical and romantic interest from thecommonplace, prosaic world around them. I was struck with an instance ofthe kind in the course of a recent summer ramble into the city; for thecity is only to be explored to advantage in summer-time, when free fromthe smoke and fog and rain and mud of winter. I had been buffeting forsome time against the current of population setting through FleetStreet. The warm weather had unstrung my nerves and made me sensitive toevery jar and jostle and discordant sound. The flesh was weary, thespirit faint, and I was getting out of humor with the bustling busythrong through which I had to struggle, when in a fit of desperation Itore my way through the crowd, plunged into a by-lane, and, afterpassing through several obscure nooks and angles, emerged into a quaintand quiet court with a grassplot in the centre overhung by elms, andkept perpetually fresh and green by a fountain with its sparkling jet ofwater. A student with book in hand was seated on a stone bench, partlyreading, partly meditating on the movements of two or three trimnursery-maids with their infant charges.
I was like an Arab who had suddenly come upon an oasis amid the pantingsterility of the desert. By degrees the quiet and coolness of the placesoothed my nerves and refreshed my spirit. I pursued my walk, and came,hard by, to a very ancient chapel with a low-browed Saxon portal ofmassive and rich architecture. The interior was circular and lofty andlighted from above. Around were monumental tombs of ancient date onwhich were extended the marble effigies of warriors in armor. Some hadthe hands devoutly crossed upon the breast; others grasped the pommel ofthe sword, menacing hostility even in the tomb, while the crossed legsof several indicated soldiers of the Faith who had been on crusades tothe Holy Land.
I was, in fact, in the chapel of the Knights Templars, strangelysituated in the very centre of sordid traffic; and I do not know a moreimpressive lesson for the many of the world than thus suddenly to turnaside from the highway of busy money-seeking life, and sit downamong these shadowy sepulchres, where all is twilight, dust, andforget-fullness.
In a subsequent tour of observation I encountered another of theserelics of a "foregone world" locked up in the heart of the city. I hadbeen wandering for some time through dull monotonous streets, destituteof anything to strike the eye or excite the imagination, when I beheldbefore me a Gothic gateway of mouldering antiquity. It opened into aspacious quadrangle forming the courtyard of a stately Gothic pile, theportal of which stood invitingly open.
It was apparently a public edifice, and, as I was antiquity-hunting, Iventured in, though with dubious steps. Meeting no one either to opposeor rebuke my intrusion, I continued on until I found myself in agreat hall with a lofty arched roof and oaken gallery, all of Gothicarchitecture. At one end of the hall was an enormous fireplace, withwooden settles on each side; at the other end was a raised platform,or dais, the seat of state, above which was the portrait of a man inantique garb with a long robe, a ruff, and a venerable gray beard.
The whole establishment had an air of monastic quiet and seclusion, andwhat gave it a mysterious charm was, that I had not met with a humanbeing since I had passed the threshold.
Encouraged by this loneliness, I seated myself in a recess of a largebow window, which admitted a broad flood of yellow sunshine, checkeredhere and there by tints from panes of colored glass, while an opencasement let in the soft summer air. Here, leaning my head on my handand my arm on an old oaken table, I indulged in a sort of reverie aboutwhat might have been the ancient uses of this edifice. It had evidentlybeen of monastic origin; perhaps one of those collegiate establishmentsbuilt of yore for the promotion of learning, where the patient monk,in the ample solitude of the cloister, added page to page and volume tovolume, emulating in the productions of his brain the magnitude of thepile he inhabited.
As I was seated in this musing mood a small panelled door in an arch atthe upper end of the hall was opened, and a number of gray-headed oldmen, clad in long black cloaks, came forth one by one, proceeding inthat manner through the hall, without uttering a word, each turning apale face on me as he passed, and disappearing through a door at thelower end.
I was singularly struck with their appearance; their black cloaks andantiquated air comported with the style of this most venerable andmysterious pile. It was as if the ghosts of the departed years, aboutwhich I had been musing, were passing in review before me. Pleasingmyself with such fancies, I set out, in the spirit of romance, toexplore what I pictured to myself a realm of shadows existing in thevery centre of substantial realities.
My ramble led me through a labyrinth of interior courts and corridorsand dilapidated cloisters, for the main edifice had many additions anddependencies, built at various times and in various styles. In one openspace a number of boys, who evidently belonged to the establishment,were at their sports, but everywhere I observed those mysteriousold gray men in black mantles, sometimes sauntering alone, sometimesconversing in groups; they appeared to be the pervading genii of theplace. I now called to mind what I had read of certain colleges inold times, where judicial astrology, geomancy, necromancy, and otherforbidden and magical sciences were taught. Was this an establishment ofthe kind, and were these black-cloaked old men really professors of theblack art?
These surmises were passing through my mind as my eye glanced intoa chamber hung round with all kinds of strange and uncouthobjects--implements of savage warfare, strange idols and stuffedalligators; bottled serpents and monsters decorated the mantelpiece;while on the high tester of an old-fashioned bedstead grinned a humanskull, flanked on each side by a dried cat.
I approached to regard more narrowly this mystic chamber, which seemed afitting laboratory for a necromancer, when I was startled at beholdinga human countenance staring at me from a dusky corner. It was that of asmall, shrivelled old man with thin cheeks, bright eyes, and gray, wiry,projecting eyebrows. I at first doubted whether it were not a mummycuriously preserved, but it moved, and I saw that it was alive. It wasanother of these black-cloaked old men, and, as I regarded his quaintphysiognomy, his obsolete garb, and the hideous and sinister objects bywhich he was surrounded, I began to persuade myself that I had come uponthe arch-mage who ruled over this magical fraternity.
Seeing me pausing before the door, he rose and invited me to enter. Iobeyed with singular hardihood, for how did I know whether a wave of hiswand might not metamorphose me into some strange monster or conjure meinto one of the bottles on his mantelpiece? He proved, however, to beanything but a conjurer, and his simple garrulity soon dispelled all themagic and mystery with which I had enveloped this antiquated pile andits no less antiquated inhabitants.
It appeared that I had made my way into the centre of an ancient asylumfor superannuated tradesmen and decayed householders, with which wasconnected a school for a limited number of boys. It was founded upwardsof two centuries since on an old monastic establishment, and retainedsomewhat of the conventual air and character. The shadowy line of oldmen in black mantles who had passed before me in the hall, and whom Ihad elevated into magi, turned out to be the pensioners returning frommorning, service in the chapel.
John Hallum, the little collector of curiosities whom I had made thearch magician, had been for six years a resident of the place, andhad decorated this final nestling-place of his old age with relicsand rarities picked up in the course of his life. According to hisown account, he had been somewhat of a traveller, having been once inFrance, and very near making a visit to Holland. He regretted not havingvisited the latter country, "as then he might have said he had b
eenthere." He was evidently a traveller of the simple kind.
He was aristocratical too in his notions, keeping aloof, as I found,from the ordinary run of pensioners. His chief associates were a blindman who spoke Latin and Greek, of both which languages Hallum wasprofoundly ignorant, and a broken-down gentleman who had run througha fortune of forty thousand pounds left him by his father, and tenthousand pounds, the marriage portion of his wife. Little Hallum seemedto consider it an indubitable sign of gentle blood as well as of loftyspirit to be able to squander such enormous sums.
P.S.--The picturesque remnant of old times into which I have thusbeguiled the reader is what is called the Charter House, originallythe Chartreuse. It was founded in 1611, on the remains of an ancientconvent, by Sir Thomas Sutton, being one of those noble charities seton foot by individual munificence, and kept up with the quaintness andsanctity of ancient times amidst the modern changes and innovationsof London. Here eighty broken-down men, who have seen better days,are provided in their old age with food, clothing, fuel, and a yearlyallowance for private expenses. They dine together, as did the monks ofold, in the hall which had been the refectory of the original convent.Attached to the establishment is a school for forty-four boys.
Stow, whose work I have consulted on the subject, speaking of theobligations of the gray-headed pensioners, says, "They are not tointermeddle with any business touching the affairs of the hospital,but to attend only to the service of God, and take thankfully what isprovided for them, without muttering, murmuring, or grudging. None towear weapon, long hair, colored boots, spurs, or colored shoes, feathersin their hats, or any ruffian-like or unseemly apparel, but such asbecomes hospital-men to wear." "And in truth," adds Stow, "happy arethey that are so taken from the cares and sorrows of the world, andfixed in so good a place as these old men are; having nothing to carefor but the good of their souls, to serve God, and to live in brotherlylove."
For the amusement of such as have been interested by the precedingsketch, taken down from my own observation, and who may wish to know alittle more about the mysteries of London, I subjoin a modicum of localhistory put into my hands by an odd-looking old gentleman, in a smallbrown wig and a snuff-colored coat, with whom I became acquaintedshortly after my visit to the Charter House. I confess I was a littledubious at first whether it was not one of those apocryphal tales oftenpassed off upon inquiring travellers like myself, and which have broughtour general character for veracity into such unmerited reproach. Onmaking proper inquiries, however, I have received the most satisfactoryassurances of the author's probity, and indeed have been told that heis actually engaged in a full and particular account of the veryinteresting region in which he resides, of which the following may beconsidered merely as a foretaste.
The Sketch-Book of Geoffrey Crayon Page 27