DICKENS, indeed, is so bound up with the old places of London that it may be said that he has lent a peculiar flavour and charm to all town peregrination. He certainly must be considered to have been the best interpreter of the City to us. He supplied the tragic and comic grotesque meaning of the old courts, shops, alleys, “all-alones,” “rents,” etc. “The reminiscences of his stories,” says a late visitor, “meet us at every turn, in the ancient churches, hemmed in on all sides by gigantic warehouses, in their melancholy deserted graveyards, with their ragged grass, their blackened trees, and neglected gravestones. In the odd boarding-houses and unaccountable inns that had buried themselves up strange courts, and lurked, half hidden, in unaccountable alleys, and presented themselves in quiet behind-the-age squares. In the spacious halls of opulent companies, which showed but an old-fashioned porch in a narrow quiet lane, but which presented to those who were permitted to enter their portals a superb range of apartments teeming, mayhap, with old furniture and valuable pictures, and doubtless giving on a quiet garden, worth no one knows what a square foot for building purposes, but preserved from the ravages of the builder, merely to gladden the eyes of the plump City sparrows, and of the master, the wardens, and the clerk of these most worshipful corporations. So too in the curious old banking-houses, in the mouldy old counting-houses where so much money was made; in the difficult-to-find but cosy chop-houses where you could get a chop or a steak—and such a chop or a steak!—hissing hot from the gridiron; in the methodical old clerks, the astonishing octogenarian housekeepers, the corpulent beadles in their splendid gaberdines, in the ticket porters, the bankers’ clerks chained to their pocket-books, the porters, the dockmen, the carters, the brokers. Down by the waterside, along Thames Street, through the narrow lanes and passages leading thereto, you continually saw some spot, some character or incident that recalled something in one of the stories you knew so well.”

With such a guide the old streets and houses long since demolished and being fast demolished every day, revive before us; with them rises the oldfashioned London, its humours, its society of fifty years ago. One of the results of this association is that as we walk through some of these old-world quarters, such as Goswell Street or “Lant Street, Boro’” (where Bob Sawyer gave his party), the whole Pickwick, or rather Dickens flavour seems to pour out, and the figures live again. It is not surprising that this connection between the gifted writer and the old bricks of London should have become a study, and a very engaging study, and in antiquaries’ accounts of the great city it is now become customary to trace the haunts and localities of the places described in his novels. In an unpretending but lively little book Mr. Allbut has undertaken this labour of love, and furnished a very useful little handbook to the Dickens explorer. From this one might profitably glean a few passages. It will be noted what a poetical instinct the great writer had in this respect, and he caught the true “note” as it were of making selection of what was best fitted for his purpose. This power of vividly imprinting the locality on the mind might be illustrated by that dismal gate and alley, “Tom all alone’s,” of which the site only remains in Bedfordbury, just out of Chandos Street, where the huge Peabody Buildings rise, though it has been claimed for other localities. Indeed, close to the upper end of Shaftesbury Avenue there is a strange forlorn alley with a dilapidated tottering old inclosure beyond, which would exactly serve for the original. And in Russell Court, that curious winding passage leading to the pit door of “Old Drury,” we fancy we see the gate of the dismal burial ground on whose steps Lady Deadlock was found. It still looks exactly as in the print, “with houses looking on on every side, save where a reeking little tunnel of a court gives access to the iron gate.” This depressing intramural burial ground has been garnished up into a recreation inclosure, and is but a trifle less gloomy than a cheerful mortuary house built at one side.

Dickens always delighted in the mystery attendant on banks and their cashiers, old mouldy mercantile houses where yet a large and safe business was done; and these things he could interpret and give significance to, just as Wordsworth and the later poets did with their favourite district. When Temple Bar was removed in 1878, there was removed with it a building which touched it, and was as old and grimy, Child’s venerable bank. It is difficult to call up either structure now, though the frequent “omnibus outside” may have occasionally turned his eyes to the blackened walls and to the windows in the Bar, a sort of store room where were kept stacked away all the old account books of the firm. The late Peter Cunningham was allowed, I believe, to rummage here, and discovered some curious documents, among which were cheques drawn by Nell Gwynne, who kept her account with the Childs or the predecessors of the firm. Speaking of the old house Dickens says, in the “Tale of Two Cities”:

“Tellson’s Bank, by Temple Bar, was an old-fashioned place even in the year 1780. It was very small, very dark, very ugly, very incommodious. Any one of the partners would have disinherited his son on the question of rebuilding Tellson’s. Thus it had come to pass that Tellson’s was the triumphant perfection of inconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic obstinacy with a weak rattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson’s down two steps, and came to your senses in a miserable little shop, with two little counters; where the oldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled it, while they examined the signature by the dingiest of windows, which were always under a shower-bath of mud from Fleet Street, and which were made the dingier by their own iron bars proper and the shadow of Temple Bar.”

Dickens just lived to see the extraordinary wholesale reformation that took place in the construction of the Holborn Viaduct, with the levelling and sweeping away of some of his most popular localities. The Holborn Valley before lay between two steep hills, of which Snow Hill was one, and on Snow Hill was “The Saracen’s Head,” where Mr. Squeers invariably put up. This old hostelry stood close to St. Sepulchre’s Church, on the ground, Mr. Allbut states, now covered by the new police office.

“The Wooden Midshipman,” one of the most effective and playful conceits of Dickens, might be pointed out as an illustration of his mode of illustrating stories. Take away the little figure from the associations of Cap’n Cuttle and Sol Gills, and much life and colour seems abstracted. Only so late as the close of 1881 the “Midshipman” was flourishing at a house in Leadenhall Street, nearly opposite the India House. In that year some tremendous operations in demolition and re-erection were being carried out, and the “Wooden Midshipman” received notice to quit. A pleasant writer, Mr. Ashby Sterry, with a specially delicate touch, and who has written some “Tiny Travels”—so called—because they are merely visits to places familiar and close at hand, often more enjoyable than the official far-off showplaces—heard of what was going to be done, and made a hasty pilgrimage to take a last look. He tells us how he was affected. “With his quadrant at his round black knob of an eye, and his figure in the old attitude of indomitable alacrity, the midshipman displayed his elfin small clothes to the best advantage, and, absorbed in scientific pursuits, had no sympathy with worldly concern. When I was a boy, the very first book of Dickens’s that I read was ‘Dombey and Son.’ Passing down Leadenhall Street shortly afterwards, I noted the ‘Wooden Midshipman,’ and at once ‘spotted’ it as the original of Sol Gills’s residence. The description is so vivid and exact that it is unmistakable.” This was the old-established firm of Norie and Wilson, nautical instrument makers, established since 1773, and which, as it seems to me, had a thoroughly Dickens flavour—that name Norie. The firm had associations with Nelson, kept up diligently their old-fashioned connections, and took pride in their Midshipman.

“A more popular little officer in his own domain than our friend it would be difficult to find. At one time the Little Man used to get his knuckles severely abraded by passing porters carrying loads, and was continually being sent into dock to have a fresh set of knuckles provided. Old pupils, who had become distinguished naval officers, would pop in to inquire what had become of the genius of the place, and many have been the offers to buy him outright and remove him. Several Americans have been in lately and have offered his proprietors very large sums if they might be allowed to purchase him and take him to New York. It is furthermore on record that King William the Fourth on passing through Leadenhall Street to the Trinity House raised his hat to him as he passed by.” All this is quaint enough. But before this account appeared he had been already taken away carefully, and set up at his new quarters, No. 156, Minories, where he still continues to take his observations. But he is sadly out of keeping. The old shop is described as being curiously appropriate, so snug, and so unobtrusive, so ancient and conservative in its fittings. On the eve of the levelling of the place, the visitor was invited in by the owner, “It is with a sad heart,” he says, “that I accept the courteous invitation of Mr. Wilson to take a last look at the premises, and listen to much curious gossip about the old shop and its frequenters. The interior of the shop, with its curious desks and its broad counter, is fully as old-fashioned as its exterior.” He then went upstairs, passing up “a panelled staircase with a massive handrail and spiral balusters to the upper rooms. I look in at Walter’s chamber, and see the place in the roof where Rob the Grinder kept his pigeons. I spend some time in a cheerful panelled apartment, which at one time was the bedchamber of Sol Gills.” There is something, however, too remote in thus identifying minutely the various rooms and scenes; for Dickens, as the writer has shown, like all good writers, “abstracted” in all his creations or adoptions, and would have found a loss of power had he copied strictly. It was the tone of the place that inspired him. When I myself came by that way a little later, the whole was gone.

Again, many have noted in the vicinity of Clare Market, in Portsmouth Street, the old overhanging shop devoted to the sale of waste paper and bones. Some years ago it was boarded up and shored up, and it became known of a sudden that the original of Dickens’s “Old Curiosity Shop” was doomed to “demolition.” Then was witnessed one of those strange rushes after “fads” so peculiar to the Londoner. “All day long on Saturday the narrow pavements of Portsmouth Street—that quaint southwestern outlet from Lincoln’s Inn Fields—were besieged by a crowd of sympathetic sight-seers, who had journeyed there from all parts of London ‘to worship at the shrine of Little Nell.’ They stood four deep in front of the ‘Crooked Billet,’ staring curiously over the way at the rickety old timber house with a projecting story, on the plaster face of which was boldly inscribed, ‘The Old Curiosity Shop’, Immortalised by Charles Dickens. Here and there among them was an artist, busy with pencil and note-book taking down sketches of the tumble-down old place; and one could not fail to distinguish the noisy demonstration of the American traveller, as he demanded to know, with nasal eagerness, ‘If that really was the home of Little Nell.’ For a year or two past, at any rate, it had been one of the stock visiting places of American tourists. ‘They went there to worship,’ a neighbouring shopkeeper said; ‘took off their hats when they got through the doorway, and asked questions about Quilp and the Grandfather as if they had been actual persons. The ladies were the worst. I have known them get down on their knees and burst out crying about Little Nell.’ Miss Mary Anderson might have been seen there more than once, with her heart full of tenderness for the little maiden; and so delighted was the fair American with the ancient dwelling and its overhanging story that the doors of the Lyceum were opened to the fortunate occupant whenever she chose to go.” The place had been condemned by the Board of Works, but that body moved very slowly, or there had been a reprieve. With American shrewdness, the American actress, Lotto, brought this scene into an adaptation of the story she was about to play.

Latterly it is becoming a pleasant hobby, notably in the case of the Americans, to diligently follow in the footsteps of Dickens, and visit and identify all the scenes he placed in his novels. Year by year these are disappearing. Numerous pleasant articles have appeared in American magazines, with pretty illustrations, and carried out in a very fond and tender spirit. Indeed, this culte of Dickens is growing every day; but it will be a serious loss when all his houses and haunts have been pulled down. There will be a link lost then between him and us.[9] We have only to walk to the Marble Arch, and there we see his last town residence, No. 5, Hyde Park Place, a solemnly genteel, if not monotonous, residence, that belonged to Mr. Gibson. It is astonishing, indeed, how every step, turn, and corner in London is somehow associated with this great master of fiction—chambers, old streets, slums, etc. The secret is, he delighted himself to associate his fancies with some particular locality, and this feeling inspired him. There is a remarkable passage in his life where he deplores the difficulty of writing, when far away from the bustle and motion of London streets. It will be remembered how he set off to “choose a house” for Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks. It is impossible to look at Bevis Marks now without calling up that strange character. You feel he must have lived there. So with Lant Street, Borough, the residence of Mr. Sawyer, and which has the suitable dinginess: all this is pleasant to the pedestrian, the scenery being so much in keeping. In a few years, when everything is altered and pulled down, we shall have only the site left by which to recall old associations.

Near the bottom of Parliament Street, and almost opposite the Home Office, is a narrow lane leading into Cannon Row, whence could be long seen the rear of the unfinished Opera house. At the corner stands a third-rate public-house, suggesting one of the extraordinary incidents in London, where meanness and opulence are ever side by side. This public-house is associated with the hardships of Dickens’s boyhood, in a very characteristic recollection, which he relates himself. “I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my father, and was going back to the Borough over Westminster Bridge), that I went into a public-house in Parliament Street, which is still there, though altered, at the corner of the short street leading into Cannon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar, ‘What is your very best—the very best—ale, a glass?’ For the occasion was a festive one, for some reason: I forget why. It may have been my birthday, or somebody else’s. ‘Twopence,’ says he. ‘Then,’ says I, ‘just draw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good head to it.’ The landlord looked at me in return, over the bar, from head to foot, with a strange smile on his face; and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now, in my study in Devonshire Terrace. The landlord in his shirt-sleeves, leaning against the bar window-frame; his wife, looking over the little half-door; and I, in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I was employed, etc., etc. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I suspect it was not the strongest on the premises; and the landlord’s wife, opening the little half-door and bending down, gave me a kiss that was half-admiring and half-compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure.”

When a bachelor, he lived in Furnival’s Inn, No. 15, on the right as you enter, but on his marriage removed to 48, Doughty Street. In this clean little street there is a prim monotony, every house being of the same cast—small, and suited for a clerk and his family. These seem indeed miniature Wimpole Street houses; but they have a snug, comfortable air, and it is something to pause before No. 48 and think of “Oliver Twist” and “Nicholas Nickleby” written in this study. With increasing prosperity he moved from this humble but snug quarter to a more pretentious mansion, “Tavistock House,” where he lived for ten years. There are three houses standing together in this rather forlorn-looking waste, which stands in a cul de sac, and his is the first. “In Tavistock Square,” says Hans Andersen, “stands Tavistock House. This and the strip of garden in front of it are shut out from the thoroughfare by an iron railing. A large garden, with a grass plat and high trees, stretches behind the house and gives it a countrified look in the midst of this coal and gas steaming London. In the passage from street to garden hung pictures and engravings. Here stood a marble bust of Dickens, so like him, so youthful and handsome; and over a bedroom door were inserted the bas-reliefs of Night and Day, after Thorwaldsen. On the first floor was a rich library, with a fireplace and a writing table, looking out on the garden; and here it was that in winter Dickens and his friends acted plays.” Turning out of the road one is struck by the rather stately air of the mansion. During these ten years he made it re-echo with his gaiety and cheery spirit. It had, however, a damp or dampish air, which all such edifices seem to contract. The trees and the verdure generally do not flourish. Later it become the residence of Mrs. Georgina Weldon, nÉe the beautiful Miss Treherne.

DOUGHTY STREET.

Where the last portion of “Pickwick” was written.