When I go up that quiet cloistered court, running up like a little secure haven from the stormy ocean of Fleet Street, and see the doctor's gnarled bust on the bracket above his old hat, I sometimes think the very wainscot must still be impregnated with the fumes of his seething punch-bowl.

Washington Irving.

My Bosom's Lord declares that it is more of a smell than a street; but there is not a journalist of any literary pretension in Britain who does not regard Fleet Street as the Mecca of his craft, and instinctively turn his face towards it when he has occasion to say his prayers.

It is the focus, the magnetic centre, and very heart of London's Fairyland—the Capital of the Territory of Brick and Mortar Romance.

Its enchanted courts are the inner sanctuary of Haunted London. It is the most astonishing sensation to step out of the hum and moan and fret of the rushing and turbulent City's most bustling and roaring street, into the absolute, cloistered stillness of, for instance, the Temple; where, within fifty yards of Fleet Street, you may stand by Oliver Goldsmith's grave and hear no sound save the cooing of pigeons and the splashing of a fountain.

Fleet Street's air is the quintessence of English History. From the Plague and the Fire to the Jubilee Procession, everything has passed here. All the literary eminence of the day comes to do business here. These paving-stones have felt the weight of George R. Sims, Clement Scott, Bernard Shaw, and the Poet Craig. It is the world's main artery, the centre of the Empire's nervous system, the brain and soul of England.

Be that as it may, I am conscious of an increase in my stature since I became a part of Fleet Street—a stretching of my boots since I began to walk in the footsteps of Swift, Steele, Pope, Goldsmith, Johnson, and all the other giants whose seething punch-bowls have impregnated the wainscot of the neighbouring taverns.

The chief of the ghosts, of course, is the burly lexicographer—the man with the inky ruffles, the dirty large hands, the shabby brown coat, and shrivelled wig. Methinks I see him now, clinging to his door in dingy Bolt Court, and waking the midnight echoes[119]
[120]
[121] with his Cyclopean laughter, as he listens to a parting from fluent Burke or snuffy Gibbon.

There were no footpaths in Fleet Street in those days; spouts projected the rain-water in streams from the house-tops, and there were no umbrellas. The swinging of broad signs in high winds would sometimes bring down a wall—an accident which killed, on one occasion, in Fleet Street, "two young ladies, a cobbler, and the king's jeweller."

And yet the daintiest and prettiest of women came tripping down Fleet Street, and up the narrow court, to see the blustering, pompous Lichfield bear; unless, indeed, Miss Burney, witty Mrs. Montague, charming Miss Reynolds, and shrewd Miss Piozzi only called to caress Hodge, the doctor's cat.

(Happy thought! who knows? Mem.: We must get a cat.)

It was Dr. Johnson who set the excellent Fleet Street fashion of tempering the fierce delights of literary achievement with staid and lingering meditation in the pleasant taverns.

In fact, the Fleet Street taverns are visited by reverend pilgrims to this day as monuments consecrate to the great lexicographer; and at all times of the day one may find faithful congregations of Fleet Street men of letters devoutly lingering there to pour out libations to his glory.

It was at the Cheshire Cheese, whilst the chops hissed on the grid, that Dr. Johnson was wont to snub Boswell, quiz Goldsmith, and brutally beat down his opponents with his "Why, sir," "What, sir?" and "What then, sir?"

"Here, sir," he himself admitted, "I dogmatise and am contradicted, and I love this conflict of intellect and opinion." It was in another tavern, up another narrow court, that the pompous author of Rasselas said to his delighted biographer, "Sir, give me your hand; I have taken a liking to you." And it was under the influence of this place that Boswell wrote:—

The orthodox High Church sound of the Mitre, the figure and manner of the celebrated Dr. Johnson, the extraordinary power and precision of his conversation, and the pride arising from finding myself admitted as his companion, produced a variety of sensations and a pleasing elevation of mind beyond what I had ever before experienced.

Dear, garrulous, faithful old Bozzy! I have myself seen literary men mentally elevated in the same hallowed atmosphere, but never have I met any who expressed his emotions with nicer precision.

But the first and foremost to me of all Fleet Street's illustrious ghosts—as actual and inevitable a feature of the famous thoroughfare as the taverns, the restaurants, the overhanging signs, the newspaper offices, the Griffin, and the Law Courts—is our old friend and colleague the Bounder.

I cannot walk from Ludgate Circus to the Griffin without meeting him. I see him stalking into Edwards', with solemn visage and weighty stride, for the momentous function of dinner. I see him with beaming countenance and abdominal "Haw, haw!" of full content, nimbly stepping out of Bower's, his "percentage restored" and his soul "satisfied in Nature." I see him striding gloomily with downcast eyes, hands in fob, and bludgeon under his arm, oblivious of the traffic and the world, wrestling in desperate conflict with the reluctant Muses, for a happy phrase or eccentric rhyme.

His Gargantuan figure is never absent from my Fleet Street. Were he to slap me on the back, I should say "Hello, Ned," as naturally as if he had never left us.

Ah me! how we get carried away from those by whose side we would have chosen to fight!

Happily, there is no settled sadness in the Bounder's ghost.

One of the earliest recollections I have of him is connected with a tÊte-À-tÊte dinner (the tater-tart came many years after) in one of the Fleet Street taverns.

We had finished our ample meal, when in came my old friend Tom Sutton, of the Athletic News, and seeing nothing but empty plates before us, cheerily invited us to dine.

I was about to explain the situation, when the Bounder, to warn me off, winking sideways, affably answered, "All right, old chap. I'll have a steak and a tankard of stout."

This he consumed, together with several accessories and supplements pressed upon his easy acquiescence by our genial host.

At last came the solemn moment

Tom Sutton looked, and looked again, pulled his moustache, and called the waiter.

"I say," he protested, "there's a mistake here. We haven't had all this."

"Mistake, sir?" said the waiter. "No, dere vas no mistake, sir; I haf charge for dat gentleman all his two dinner. Dat gentleman always have two dinner sometimes. No mistake."

"Two dinners? Why"—

But at that moment Tom looked across the table, saw the Bounder's huge frame shaking with inward chuckles, which rose to a roar as their eyes met, and then he paid and said no more.

The Bounder was of course the Mentor who introduced me to Bower's. I was "up" for a day, and of course we "signified the same in the usual manner."

"Albert," said the Bounder, "bring me a glass of my port—from behind the glue-pot."

I said I would take the same, and put down half a crown.

Albert brought tenpence change.

As I counted it, I began, "I say, is this change"—

The Bounder, who had been watching, at once interrupted me. "Don't expose your untutored provincial ignorance," he said; "tenpence a time. Always have it with provincials. Tenpence left? Order another."

It was soon after the Clarion removed its headquarters to London, that I paid my first visit to the Cheshire Cheese, the primitive tavern, with "nicely sanded floor," which, in a dingy Fleet Street court, still rears its antique head in proud and successful defiance of the gimcrack modern amply-mirrored restaurant.

It was a damp, cold, miserable November night, and I had been tramping with the partner of my joys all day through slush and mire in search of houses.

Looking in for letters at the Clarion's gloomy little office in Bouverie Street, I found Fay crouching disconsolately over a handful of expiring embers in the grate.

He had been ill for many weeks, and had been reduced to a painful diet of buns and milk, but yet, if he might not feast, he could still take an interest in other people's feasting. Doctors could not rob him of that comfort.

So he inquired with touching interest where we proposed to dine.

My Bosom's Lord, with native Cornish trend, asked where was food the cheapest.

"Tut tut," said the Bounder. "Are you blessed with an appetite, yet grudge its entertainment? Is dinner-time a time to think of thrift? Go to, woman. Do you never give thanks? It is Saturday night. The Cheshire Cheese pudding is now on. Take this poor victim of your avarice to the Cheshire Cheese, and let him for once be decently fed."

"All right," answered my frugal spouse; "if it's the Board's orders, and the Board pays, I don't object," and with a laughing "Good-night," she prepared to depart.

But as we were crossing the threshold the Bounder stopped me. "Are you going to the Cheese?" he asked.

"I expect so."

"Hum! and I'm doomed to the bun-and-milk shop." His voice quivered as he spoke. Then suddenly—"No, hang it! I'll come with you. That doctor of mine is an ass. I'll try the pudding."

And he did—several times; though I, in robust health, could stomach no more than one helping of the rich and bilious compound.

As we came out he walked on his heels and slapped his chest. "Haw! haw!" he said, "I never felt better in my life. That doctor is an ass. Bread and milk? Bah!" And he swaggered all the way down Fleet Street.

On the next evening I found him crouching again over the little fire in Bouverie Street. I could feel his "hump" as soon as I opened the door. He was very bad.

"What's the matter, old chap? Don't you feel well?"

"No," he said, very ruefully; "I'm very bad. You know, I begin to think my doctor is a fool. I've been trying this perishing bread-and-milk diet for nearly two months, and, upon my word, I never felt worse. Really, I've given this doctor a fair trial, but, hang it all, the fellow does not understand me at all!"

Oh the gaps left by the passing years in a man's little circle of friends!

Time was when the cordial hand-grip of friends met me in Manchester at every corner, and almost every face in the streets was familiar.

I was there last Christmas, and I walked for half a day without a welcoming voice or smiling countenance to greet me. I thought of them that I had known, and walked with, and drank and eaten with there, and desolation fell upon me. To stroll through the crowded, bustling thoroughfare was like walking through a graveyard at midnight. The buildings loomed upon my gaze like monuments of the departed; and the only inhabitants I saw were spectres of the dead.

It was holiday time, and the passers-by were many. Their laughter sounded in my ears like the sobbing of wind through willows.

Then I fell into a cluster of survivors from the fray, a band of staunch and hearty friends of old, who took me by the hand and "trated me dacent."

"Well, I am glad to see you," said one; then another, then another, and all together in lusty chorus.

That was good.

Then they began to talk. "Do you remember being here with Tom Sutton on such a night? Ah, poor old Tom! His death was an awful shock!"

And, "You heard how Jones's two boys went down in the pleasure yacht? Jones has been out of his wits ever since."

And so on, and so on, till I rejoiced to hear the signal of parting.

We'll have no more of these reminiscences of graves and worms and epitaphs. "Some grief shows much of love; but much of grief shows still some want of wit."