Front matter (continued 4)

At the beginning of this century the Bank on the south side was of the same extent as now; on the east side also it extended to Lothbury, on the west it reached to about half the length of the present Princes Street, which, however, then did not proceed in a straight line, as it does now, but took a sharp turn to north-east, coming into Lothbury at a point nearly opposite St. Margaret's Church, and thus cutting off a corner of the Bank site, which would otherwise have been nearly square. But when, early in this century, Princes Street was extended in a straight line to Lothbury, the condensed portion of the street, together with a block of houses on the west side of it, were added to the Bank site, and the Bank assumed its present shape. But great architectural improvements had in the meantime been introduced. The original or central portion, eighty feet in length, which was of the Ionic order raised on a rusticated basement, was altered to what it now is; the attic seen on it was added in 1850. This original portion was from the design of George Sampson. The east and west wings were added by Sir Robert Taylor, after whom Sir John Soane was appointed the Bank architect, and he rebuilt many of those parts constructed by Sampson and Taylor; and on Sir John's death in 1837 Mr. Cockerell succeeded him in the position. He again greatly modified many features of the building. The eighty feet of the original south side now extend to 365 feet; the length of the west side is 440 feet, of the north side 410 feet, and of the east side 245 feet. Both internally and externally classical models have been followed. The hall known as the Three Per Cent. Consol (three per cent., alas! gone) Office, ninety feet long by fifty wide, is designed from models of the Roman baths, as are the Dividend and Bank Stock Offices. The chief cashier's office is forty-five feet by thirty, and designed after the Temple of the Sun and Moon at Rome. The Court Room of the composite order, about sixty feet long and thirty-one wide, is lighted by large Venetian windows on the south, overlooking what once was the churchyard of St. Christopher's Church, and into which in 1852 a fountain was placed, which throws a single jet, thirty feet high, amongst the branches of two of the finest lime-trees in London. The north side of the Court Room is remarkable for three exquisite chimney-pieces of statuary marble. The original Rotunda was roofed in with timber, but in 1794 it was found advisable to take it down, and the present Rotunda was built, which measures fifty-seven feet in diameter, and about the same in height; it is of incombustible material, as are all the offices erected by Sir John Soane. There are a number of courts within the outer walls of the buildings; they are all of great architectural beauty; the one entered from Lothbury is truly magnificent. It has screens of fluted Corinthian columns, supporting a lofty entablature, surmounted by vases. This part of the edifice was copied from the beautiful temple of the Sybils, near Tivoli. A noble arch, an imitation of the arch of Constantine at Rome, gives access to the Bullion Court, in which is another row of Corinthian columns, supporting an entablature, decorated with statues representing the four quarters of the globe. The north-west corner of the Bank is modelled on the temple of Vesta at Rome. We have yet to mention the Old Lady's Drawing-Room, or the pay-office, where bank-notes are issued, or exchanged for cash. It is a fine hall, seventy-nine feet long by forty wide, and we have left the mention of it to the last because it suggests to us some particular reflections. We have seen that Paterson was the real founder of the Bank of England, and we may take this opportunity of adding that Charles Montague and Michael Godfrey are entitled to share in Paterson's glory for the assistance they lent him in this undertaking; but the Bank ignores its founder, and had not even a portrait of him till Mr. James Hogg, the founder of London Society, presented them with one. In the Pay Hall stands the statue of William III., and in the Latin inscription underneath he is called 'founder of the Bank.' It is the old story: when a prize is taken at sea the biggest share of it, the lion's share, goes to the 'Flag'; the real fighters must put up with the leavings.

Let us end with another philosophical reflection. Facts are more astounding than fiction, as we will show by two facts. Gaboriau's novel 'La Dégringolade' (The Downfall), in one of its earliest chapters describes the opening of a grave in the Parisian cemetery of Montmartre, to discover whether it contains the body of a certain person or not. The coffin is found to be empty. This is a fiction, but are we not likely to see its realization shortly? Paul Féval's romance 'Les Mystères de Londres' gives a long account of the fictitious attempt of some villains to get at the treasures in the cellars of the Bank of England by digging a tunnel under Threadneedle Street; they are, of course, foiled in the end. But now, according to accounts published at the end of the month of November, 1898, in the Daily Mail, the tunnel is actually dug by a railway company, and so close to the walls of the Bank as to actually compel its governors and directors to call in the assistance of Sir John Wolfe Barry to advise means to avert the danger which threatens the building, already affected by the excavations. Truly fact is stranger than fiction.

XIV.

THE OLD DOCTORS.

The lines of modern doctors have fallen in pleasant places. Their position is certainly somewhat different from what it was in the days when they were contemptuously called leeches, when their scientific investigations exposed them to persecution and death. Vesalius, the father of modern anatomy, was condemned to death by the Inquisition for dissecting a human body, but by the intervention of King Philip II., whose physician he was, the punishment was reduced to a pilgrimage to the Holy Land; on his return the ship was lost on the island of Zante, where he perished of starvation in 1564. Now Government licenses doctors to practise vivisection! At Dijon, in 1386, a physician was fined by the bailiff fifty golden francs, and imprisoned for not having completed the cures of some persons whose recovery he had undertaken. In a schedule of the offices, fees, and services which the Lord Wharton had with the Wardenry of the city and castle of Carlisle in 1547, a trumpeter was rated at 16d. per day, and a surgeon only at 12d. Edward III. granted Counsus de Gangeland, an apothecary of London, 6d. a day for his care and attendance on him while he formerly lay sick in Scotland. A knowledge of astrology was in those days requisite for a physician; the herbs were not to be gathered except when the sun and the planets were in certain constellations, and certificates of their being so were necessary to give them reputation. Sometimes patients applied to astrologers, who were astrologers only, whether the constellations were favourable to the doctor's remedies. Then, if the man died, the astrologer ascribed the death to the inefficacy of the remedies, while the doctor threw the blame on the astrologer, he not having properly observed the constellations. Then the latter would exclaim that his case was extremely hard; if he made a mistake, his calculation being wrong, heaven discovered it, whilst if a physician was guilty of a blunder, the earth covered it. Even then doctors were considered like the potato plant, whose fruit is underground. To see the doctor's carriage, whose motto should be 'Live or die,' or 'Morituri te salutant,' attending a funeral, reminds a cynic of a cobbler taking home his work.

In England the medical profession rose in public estimation from the time when Henry VIII., with that view, incorporated several members of the profession into a body, community, and perpetual college, since called the College of Physicians. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their opposite characteristics of vulgarity and romance, of squalor and luxury, of ignorance and grand discoveries in science, of prejudice and intelligence, were highly conducive to the formation and cultivation of individualism and originality of character; hence those two centuries abounded in 'oddities' and 'eccentricities,' and in no section of society more than in the medical. The members of that profession could very readily and appropriately then be divided into two great schools—the Rough and the Smooth, the fierce dispensers of Brimstone and the gentle administrators of Treacle. The present century, with its levelling tendencies, opposed to all originality and so-called eccentricity in speech, custom, and costume, reducing all gentlemen in full dress to the rank of waiters, has nearly abolished the sulphury Galen; in fact, he would scarcely be tolerated now. People submit to certain foolish pretensions now, such as those of thought-reading and pin-hunting cranks, and similar mental eccentricities; but they must be administered mildly, there must be a treacly flavour about them, for—

'This is an age of flatness, dull and dreary,

Society is like a washed-out chintz,

Which scandal renders somewhat foul and smeary;

And yet, without its malice, lies, and hints,

E'en fashion's children would at last grow weary

Of looking at the faded cotton prints

To which respectability subdues

Our uncontrolled imagination's hues.'

Hence the medical showmen of the present day must accompany the 'exhibition' of their nostrums with dulcet sounds and honeyed speeches, especially when treating those nursed in the lap of affluence; and, accustomed as they are to adulation, the medico who can condescend to feed them with well-disguised flattery, or assume the tone of abject servility, has too often the credit of possessing superior skill and science. And the patients, in the words of Byron, travestied—

'They swallow filthy draughts and nauseous pills,

But yet there is no end of human ills.'

It was, of course, not every doctor who could, at the beginning of his career, go in for the brimstone system. Unless he was backed by very powerful patronage, or wrote a book or pamphlet which attracted attention—as Elliotson's practice rose from £500 to £5,000 a year through his papers in the Lancet—or was by some lucky accident pitched into a position which by itself alone inspired the public with an overwhelming belief in his skill, the experiment of treating his patients with rudeness and indifference would have been fatal to his prospects. But let him once make a hit, either by being luckily on the spot when a king or prince was thrown off his horse, or by a successful operation, or by writing a book which 'caught on,' and the public were at his feet, and he could trample on them as much as he liked. But it did not follow that, after such success, he must necessarily abuse his privileges. Dr. Arbuthnot, the son of a non-juring clergyman in Scotland, came to London about the time of the Restoration, and at first earned a living by teaching mathematics, though he had studied medicine. He happened to be at Epsom on one occasion when Prince George, who was also there, was suddenly taken ill. Arbuthnot was called in, and having effected a cure, was soon afterwards appointed one of the physicians in ordinary to the Queen. And, of course, his practice was established on a solid foundation, and he carried it on with considerable professional distinction. But his success did not spoil him, for he was a man of a genial disposition, who turned neither to brimstone nor to treacle, but always maintained a dignified demeanour. He was a wit and a man of letters, and enjoyed the esteem of such men as Swift, Pope, and Gay. Before coming to London he had chosen Dorchester as a place to practise as a physician, but the salubrity of the air was opposed to his success, and he took horse for London. A friend meeting him, asked him where he was going. 'To leave your confounded place, where I can neither live nor die.' It was said of him that his wit and pleasantry sometimes assisted his prescriptions, and in some cases rendered them unnecessary. He died at the age of sixty from a complication of disorders, so little is the physician able to cure himself.

Sir Astley Cooper (b. 1768, d. 1841) also did not belong to the brimstone school. His surgical skill was very great, and he liked to display it. He always retained perfect self-command in the operating theatre, and during the most critical and dangerous performances on a patient, he tried to keep up the latter's courage by lively and facetious remarks. When he was in the zenith of his fame, a satirical Sawbones said of him:

'Nor Drury Lane nor Common Garden

Are, to my fancy, worth a farden;

I hold them both small beer.

Give me the wonderful exploits,

And jolly jokes between the sleights,

Of Astley's Amphitheatre.'

When Sir Astley lived in Broad Street, City, he had every day a numerous morning levee of City patients. The room into which they were shown would hold from forty to fifty people, and often callers, after waiting for hours, were dismissed without having seen the doctor. His man Charles, with more than his master's dignity, would say to disappointed applicants when they reappeared on the following morning: 'I am not sure that we shall be able to attend to you, for our list is full for the day; but if you will wait, I will see what we can do for you.' During the first nine years of his practice Sir Astley's earnings progressed thus: First year, £5 5s.; second, £26; third, £64; fourth, £96; fifth, £100; sixth, £200; seventh, £400; eighth, £600; ninth, £1,100. Eventually his annual income rose to more than £15,000; the largest sum he ever made in one year was £21,000. A West Indian millionaire gave him his highest fee; he had successfully undergone a painful operation, and sitting up in bed, he threw his nightcap at Cooper, saying, 'Take that!' 'Sir,' replied Sir Astley, 'I'll pocket the affront;' and on reaching home he found in the cap a cheque for one thousand guineas.

Dr. Matthew Baillie (b. 1761, d. 1823) was a physician who occasionally indulged in the brimstone temper, and was disinclined to attend to the details of an uninteresting case. After listening on one occasion to a long-drawn account from a lady, who ailed so little that she was going that evening to the opera, he had made his escape, when he was urged to step upstairs again that the lady might ask him whether, on her return from the opera, she might eat some oysters. 'Yes, madam,' said Baillie; 'shells and all!'

Dr. Richard Mead (b. 1673, d. 1754) was physician to George II., and the friend of Drs. Radcliffe, Garth, and Arbuthnot, and a great patron of literary and artistic genius. In his house in Great Ormond Street he established what may be called the first academy of painting in London. His large collection of paintings and antiquities, as well as his valuable library, was sold by auction on his death in 1754. In 1740 he had a quarrel with Dr. Woodward, like himself a Gresham professor; the two men drew their swords, and Mead having obtained the advantage, he commanded Woodward to beg his life. 'No, doctor,' said the vanquished combatant, 'that I will not till I am your patient.' But, nevertheless, at last he wisely submitted. In Ward's 'Lives of the Gresham Professors' is a view of Gresham College, with a gateway, entering from Broad Street, marked 25. Within are the figures of two persons, the one standing, the other kneeling; they represent Dr. Mead and Dr. Woodward. Dr. Mead was of a generous nature. In 1723, when the celebrated Dr. Friend was sent to the Tower, Mead kindly took his practice, and, on his release by Sir Robert Walpole, presented the escaped Jacobite with the result, £5,000.

Dr. Mead, about 1714, lived at Chelsea; about the same date there lived in the same locality Dr. Alexander Blackwell, whom we introduce here chiefly on account of his singularly unfortunate life and very tragical end. Blackwell was a native of Aberdeen, studied physic under Boerhaave at Leyden, and took the degree of M.D. On his return home he married, and for some time practised as a physician in London. But not meeting with success, he became corrector of the press for Mr. Wilkins, a printer, and some time after commenced business in the Strand on his own account, and promised to do well, when, under an antiquated and unjustly restrictive law, a suit was brought against him for setting up as a printer without his having served his apprenticeship to it. Mr. Blackwell defended the suit, but at the trial in Westminster Hall a dunderheaded jury, probably of narrow-minded tradesmen, all anxious to uphold their objectionable privileges, found a verdict against him, in consequence of which he became bankrupt, and one of his creditors kept him in prison for nearly two years. By the help of his wife, who was a clever painter and engraver, he was released. She prepared all the plates for the 'Herbal,' a work figuring most of the plants in the Physic Garden at Chelsea, close to which she lived. A copy of this book eventually fell into the hands of the Swedish Ambassador, who sent it over to his Court, where it was so much liked that Dr. Blackwell was engaged in the Swedish service, and went to reside at Stockholm. He was appointed physician to the King, who under his treatment had recovered from a serious illness. Dr. Blackwell had left his wife in England; she was to follow him as soon as his position was placed on a solid basis. But ere this could take place he was accused of having been engaged with natives and foreigners in plotting to overturn the constitution of the kingdom. He was found guilty, and sentenced to be broken alive on the wheel, his heart and bowels to be torn out and burnt, and his body to be quartered. He was said, under torture, to have made confession of such an attempt, but the real extent of his guilt must always remain problematical. That he, a person of no influence, and unconnected with any person of rank, should have aimed at overthrowing the constitution seems very improbable. It is more likely that he was made a scapegoat to strike terror into the party then opposed to the Ministry. The awful sentence passed on him, however, was commuted to beheading, which fate he underwent on July 29, 1747. He must have been a man of great nerve and a humorist, for, having laid his head wrong, he remarked jocosely that this being his first experiment, no wonder he should want a little instruction!

The Dr. Woodward we mentioned above seems to have been a very irascible and objectionable individual. He so grossly insulted Sir Hans Sloane, when he was reading a paper of his own before the Royal Society in 1710, that, under the presidency of Sir Isaac Newton, he was expelled from the Society.

Among medical oddities of the rougher sort we may reckon Mounsey, a friend of Garrick, and physician to Chelsea Hospital. His way of extracting teeth was original. Round the tooth to be drawn he fastened a strong piece of catgut, to the opposite end of which he fastened a bullet, with which and a strong dose of powder he charged a pistol. On the trigger being pulled, the tooth was drawn out. Of course, it was but seldom he could prevail on anyone to try the process. Once, having induced a gentleman to submit to the operation, the latter at the last moment exclaimed: 'Stop! stop! I've changed my mind.' 'But I have not, and you are a fool and a coward for your pains,' answered the doctor, pulling the trigger, and in another instant the tooth was extracted.

Once, before setting out on a journey, being incredulous as to the safety of cash-boxes and safes, he hid a considerable quantity of gold and notes in the fireplace of his study, covering them with cinders and shavings. A month after, returning luckily sooner than he was expected, he found his housemaid preparing to entertain a few friends at tea in her master's room. She was on the point of lighting the fire, and had just applied a candle to the doctor's notes, when he entered the room, seized a pail of water which happened to be standing near, and throwing its contents over the fuel and the servant, extinguished the fire and her presence of mind at the same time. Some of the notes were injured, and the Bank of England made some difficulty about cashing them.

'When doctors disagree,' etc. Do they ever agree? Yes, when, after a consultation over a mild case which has no interest for any of them, they over wine and biscuits agree that the treatment hitherto pursued had better be continued. To discuss it further would interrupt the pleasant chat over the news of the day! But when they meet over a friendly glass at the coffee-house they go at it hammer and tongs. Dr. Buchan, the author of 'Domestic Medicine,' of which 80,000 copies were sold during the author's lifetime, and which, according to modern medical opinion, killed more patients than that—doctors like cheap medicine as little as lawyers like cheap law—Dr. Gower, the urbane and skilled physician of Middlesex Hospital, and Dr. Fordyce, a fashionable physician, whose deep potations never affected him, used to meet at the Chapter Coffee-House, and hold discussions on medical topics; but they never agreed, and with boisterous laughter used to ridicule each other's theories. But they all agreed in considering the Chapter punch as a safe remedy for all ills.

Dr. Garth, the author of the 'Dispensary,' a poem directed against the Apothecaries and Anti-Dispensarians, a section of the College of Physicians, was very good-natured, but too fond of good living. One night, when he lingered over the bottle at the Kit-Kat Club, though patients were longing for him, Steele reproved him for his neglect of them. 'Well, it's no great matter at all,' replied Garth, pulling out a list of fifteen, 'for nine of them have such bad constitutions that not all the physicians in the world can save them, and the other six have such good constitutions that all the physicians in the world cannot kill them.' The doctor here plainly admitted the uselessness of his supposed science, as in his 'Dispensary' he admitted drugs to be not only useless, but murderous.

'High where the Fleet Ditch descends in sable streams,

To wash the sooty Naiads in the Thames,

There stands a structure[#] on a rising hill,

Where Tyros take their freedom out to kill.'

[#] Apothecaries' Hall. A doctor, I forget his name, having obtained some mark of distinction from the Company of Apothecaries, mentioned at a party that the glorious Company of Apothecaries had conferred much honour on him. 'But,' said a lady, 'what about the noble army of martyrs of patients?'

In Blenheim Street lived Joshua Brookes, the famous anatomist, whose lectures were attended by upwards of seven thousand pupils. His museum was almost a rival of that of John Hunter, and was liberally thrown open to visitors. One evening a coach drew up at his door, a heavy sack was taken out and deposited in the hall, and the servants, accustomed to such occurrences, since their master was in the habit of buying subjects, were about to carry it down the back-stairs into the dissecting-room, when a living subject thrust his head and neck out of one end and begged for his life. The servants in alarm ran to fetch pistols, but the subject continued to beg for mercy in such tones as to assure them they had nothing to fear from him. He had been drunk, and did not know how he got into the sack. Dr. Brookes ordered the sack to be tied loosely round his chin, and sent him in a coach to the watch-house. How he got into the sack may easily be surmised: Some body-snatchers, a tribe then very much to the fore, had no doubt found the man dead drunk in the street, and knowing the doctor to be a buyer of subjects, had taken him there, in the hope that the doctor might begin operating on the body before it recovered consciousness, so as to enable them afterwards to claim the price. In the days when there were dozens of executions in one morning at Newgate, the doctors had a good time of it, for the bodies of the malefactors were handed over to them for dissection. In fact, under the steps leading up to the front-door of Surgeons' Hall, a handsome building which stood next to Newgate Prison, there was a small door, through which the corpses were introduced into the building. Surgeons' Hall was pulled down in 1809, to make room for the new Sessions House.

The doctors of the previous two centuries were mostly Sangrados, who bled and purged their patients most unmercifully; but we must say this to their credit, they did not descend to the sublime atrocity of microbes, bacilli, and all the other horrors of the microscopic mania now sending unnumbered nervous people into lunatic asylums. And so they had not, like their modern compeers, the chance of amusing themselves and paying one another professional compliments by sending glass tubes, filled with the deadly spawn, from one country to another by ship and rail. Fancy one of those tubes getting accidentally broken, or being intentionally smashed for a lark on board a passenger steamer. Why, this would speedily become a vessel laden with corpses! At least, according to modern teaching, which, entre nous, we have no more faith in than we have in many other medical dicta. A man is ill from over gorging or drinking, a child ails from a surfeit of sweets or from catching a disease playing with other children in the streets or at school. The doctor is called in, and instead of telling the man, 'You have made a beast of yourself,' or correctly indicating the cause of the child's illness, he sniffs about and says: 'There is something the matter with your drains: I can smell sewer-gas.' And presently the sanitary inspector arrives, and orders the pulling up and renewal of the drains, and for days the house is filled with the effluvia supposed to be poisonous. How is it the whole family do not die off? Well, scavengers who daily deal with offal and garbage of the most offensive kind, the men who work down in the sewers, enjoy robust health; the latter only suffer when they are suddenly plunged into an excess of sewer-gas, but it is the quantity and not the quality that injures.

The excessive treacliness of modern doctors, as we have just shown, is as objectionable as was the brimstone treatment of some of their predecessors. A principle with modern doctors is never to acknowledge themselves nonplussed. The old doctors now and then confessed themselves beaten. Said an Æsculapius who had been called in to prescribe for a child, after diagnosing, as the ridiculous farce of tongue-speering and pulse-squeezing is called: 'This here babe has got a fever; now, I ain't posted up in fevers, but I will send her something that will throw her into fits, and I'm a stunner on fits.' And modern doctors, indeed, have no occasion to admit ignorance since the invention of the liver. When they cannot tell what is the matter with a man, or they are too urbane to reproach him with his excesses, his liver is out of order—and that is an organ which cannot possibly be examined and its condition be verified so as to prove or disprove the practitioner's assertion. I assume that nine out of ten people don't know where or what the liver is—I'm sure I don't, and don't want to; but as Sancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep, the doctors should bless their colleague who invented the liver! Abernethy, of whom more hereafter, with all his eccentricity, was honest enough to confess that he never cured or pretended to cure anyone, which only quacks did. He despised the humbug of the profession, and its arts to mislead and deceive patients. He only attempted to second Nature in her efforts. He admitted that he could not remove rheumatism, that opprobrium of the faculty, and no doctor can; a residence in a warm and ever sunny clime, or a long course of Turkish baths, can do it. Hence sings Allan Ramsay's 'Gentle Shepherd':

'I sits with my feet in a brook,

And if they ax me for why,

In spite of the physic I took,

It's rheumatiz kills me, says I.'[#]

[#] In searching for material for these pages I had occasion to read the lives of a good many doctors; half of them, I should say, died of rheumatism and gout.

This was the desperate remedy taken by Caroline, Queen of that brute George II., when he expected her to take her usual walk with him, though both her feet were swollen with rheumatism. She plunged them in a bath of cold water, and managed to go out with him that afternoon.

I read in some publication—London Society, I think—in an article on medicine, that it is a sensible plan, adopted by some wise people, to pay a medical man a yearly sum to look up a household periodically and keep them in good health. This seems to me as insane a plan as can well be imagined. Fancy the physicking such a family, especially the children and servants, must all the year round undergo! For the doctor does not like to take his money and do nothing for it; so, if there happens to be no real illness, he must exhibit his draughts and pills, just to show that he is honestly earning his fee. The regular attendant, the family doctor, means that the family are hospitalizing all the year round. Better go and live in the island of Sark. Sir Robert Inglis, in his account of the Channel Islands, says that at Sark there is no doctor, and that in the years 1816 and 1820 there was not one death on the island, containing a population of five hundred persons, and that on an average of ten years the mortality is not quite one in a hundred. But let us return to the old doctors.

Dr. George Fordyce, who came in 1762 from Edinburgh to London, very speedily made himself a name by a series of public lectures on medical science, which he afterwards published in a volume entitled 'Elements of the Practice of Physic,' which passed through many editions. Unfortunately he was given to drink, and though he never was known to be dead drunk, yet he was often in a state which rendered him unfit for professional duties. One night when he was in such a condition, he was suddenly sent for to attend a lady of title who was very ill. He went, sat down, listened to her story, and felt her pulse. He found he was not up to his work; he lost his wits, and in a moment of forgetfulness exclaimed: 'Drunk, by Jove!' Still, he managed to write out a mild prescription. Early next morning he received a message from his noble patient to call on her at once. Dr. Fordyce felt very uncomfortable. The lady evidently intended to upbraid him either with an improper prescription or with his disgraceful condition. But to his surprise and relief she thanked him for his prompt compliance with her pressing summons, and then confessed that he had rightly diagnosed her case, that unfortunately she occasionally indulged too freely in drink, but that she hoped he would preserve inviolable secrecy as to the condition he had found her in. Fordyce listened to her as grave as a judge, and said: 'You may depend upon me, madam; I shall be as silent as the grave.'

Another doctor who made his reputation by lecturing was Dr. G. Wallis, of Red Lion Square. He had originally established himself at York, where he was born, but being much attached to theatrical amusements, and a man of wit, he had written a dramatic piece, entitled 'The Mercantile Lovers: a Satire.' It contained a number of highly caustic remarks, either so directly levelled at certain persons of that city, or taken by them to themselves, that he lost all professional practice, and had to leave York, when he came to London, and, as already mentioned, commenced lectures on the Theory and Practice of Physic. He published various medical works, and died in 1802.

In the reign of James I. lived Dr. Edward Jorden, whom we mention on account of two curious circumstances in his life. The doctor, being on a journey, benighted on Salisbury Plain, and not knowing which way to ride, met a shepherd of whom he made inquiry what places were near where he could pass the night. He was told there was no house of entertainment for travellers near, but that a gentleman of the name of Jordan, and a man of great estate, lived close by. Looking on the similarity of the names as a good omen, Jorden applied at the house, where he was kindly received, and made so good an impression on his host that the latter bestowed on him his daughter with a considerable fortune.

The second circumstance was this: James, as is well known, was a firm believer in witchcraft. Now, it happened that a girl in the country was said to have been bewitched by a neighbour. The King had her sent for, and placed under the care of Dr. Jorden, who very soon discovered the girl to be a cheat; in fact, she confessed as much, saying that her father, having had a quarrel with a female neighbour, had induced her (his daughter) to accuse the woman of having bewitched her and brought upon her the fits she simulated. This confession Jorden reported to the King, the doctor not being courtier enough to see what James wanted, namely, a witch to burn. But as the girl had for a short time given him the prospect of such a treat, the King, though she by her own confession was a diabolical liar—for everyone in those days knew that the charge of witchcraft involved the risk of losing life by a fiery death—James actually gave her a portion, and she was married, 'and,' as the account naïvely observes, 'thus was cured of her inimical witchery.'

Of Dr. Francis J. P. de Valangin (b. 1719, d. 1805), of the College of Physicians, London, though a native of Switzerland, it was said that to his patients he was kind and consolatory in the extreme—nothing of the rough element in him; he was, as the obituary notice of him says, the friend of mankind and an honour to his profession. About the year 1772 de Valangin purchased ground in Pentonville, near White Conduit House, where he erected a residence on a plan laid down by himself; and as the design was not that of ordinary builders or architects it was called fanciful, chiefly because of a high brick tower rising from it, which the doctor built for an observatory. Of course the next tenant, a timber merchant, had nothing more pressing to do than immediately to pull down the features which distinguished the building from the dulness of orthodox architecture. Valangin had christened the elevation on which his house stood 'Hermes Hill,' after Hermes Trismegistus, the fabled discoverer of the chemist's art.

Dr. Anthony Askew, one of the celebrities of St. Bartholomew's in the last half of the last century, was as famous in literature as he was in medicine. He had a collection of Greek MSS., purchased at great expense in the East, more numerous and more valuable than that of any other private gentleman in England. His house in Queen Square was, moreover, crammed with printed books; the sale of his library in 1775, which lasted twenty days, was the great literary auction of the time.

Another famous physician of St. Bartholomew's was Dr. David Pitcairn, who died in 1809. He also was distinguished as a literary man and lover of art. His earnings were very large, for he was frequently requested by his brethren for his advice in difficult cases. His manners as a physician were simple, gentle, and dignified, and always sufficiently cheerful to inspire confidence and hope. It is said that he was occasionally affected in his speech; thus he is reported to have asked a lady for a pinch of snuff in the following terms: 'Madam, permit me to immerse the summits of my digits in your pulveriferous utensil, to excite a grateful titillation of my olfactory nerves.'

Of Dr. John Radcliffe, the physician of the reigns of William III. and Queen Anne, many strange anecdotes are told, for he was a man of rough Abernethy manners, even with kings. When called in to see King William at Kensington, finding his legs dropsically swollen, he said: 'I would not have your two legs, your Majesty, not for your three kingdoms.' The remark gave great offence. But on another occasion he was even more brusque. 'Your juices,' he said to the King, 'are all vitiated, your whole mass of blood corrupted, and the nutriment mostly turned to water. If your Majesty will forbear making long visits to the Earl of Bradford' (where the King was wont to drink very hard), 'I'll engage to make you live three or four years longer, but beyond that time no physic can protract your Majesty's existence.' On one occasion, when he was sent for from the tavern, to which he resorted but too often, by Queen Anne, he flatly refused to leave his bottle. 'Tell her Majesty,' he bellowed, 'that it's nothing but the vapours.' He advised a hypochondriacal lady, who complained of nervous singing in the head, to 'curl her hair with a ballad.' He cured a gentleman of a quinsy by making his own two servants eat a hasty-pudding for a wager, which caused the patient to break out into such a fit of laughter as to burst the quinsy. Sir Godfrey Kneller and Radcliffe were at one time neighbours in Bow Street, Covent Garden, and the painter having beautiful pleasure-grounds, a door was opened for the accommodation of his neighbour. But in consequence of damage done to his flower-beds, Sir Godfrey threatened to close the door, to which Radcliffe replied, he might do anything with it but paint it. 'Did Dr. Radcliffe say so?' cried Sir Godfrey. 'Go and tell him, with my compliments, that I can take anything from him but his physic.' In spite of his cynicism and rudeness, he made a very large income, on the average twenty guineas a day, and when he was told that the £5,000 he had invested in South Sea stock was lost, he could with placid sangfroid say: 'Well, it is only going up another 5,000 stairs.' But though he so heavily taxed his patients, he was very much opposed to paying his debts, especially such as he owed to tradespeople. A pavior, whom he had employed and constantly put off paying, at last waited for him at his (the doctor's) door, and, when his carriage drove up, roughly asked for his money. 'Why, you rascal,' said the doctor, 'do you expect to get paid for such a bad piece of work? You have spoiled my pavement, and covered it with earth to hide your bad work!' 'Doctor,' replied the pavior, 'mine is not the only bad work the earth hides.' 'You dog, you!' cried the doctor, 'you must be a wit, and want the money. Come in.' And he paid him. Curiously enough, the man who left the splendid library, known by his name, to Oxford, at one time, on being asked where his library was, pointed to a few phials, a skeleton, and a herbal, in one corner of his apartment, and said, 'Sir, there is my library!' He was a Tory in politics, and it was said that he kept Lady Holt alive out of pure political animosity to the Whig Chief Justice Holt, because she led her lord such a life.

Of a more genial disposition, though no less original character, was Dr. John Cookley Lettsom. He was born in a small island near Tortola, called Little Van Dyke, which belonged to his father. A view of it may be seen in the Gentleman's Magazine, December Supplement, 1815. When only six years of age he was sent to England for his education, being entrusted to the care of a Mr. Fothergill, then a famous preacher among the Quakers. His father dying before he came of age, that gentleman became his guardian, and with a view to his future profession sent him to Dr. Sutcliffe. For two years he attended St. Thomas's Hospital, and then returned to his native place in the West Indies to take possession of any property that might remain; but on his arrival he found himself £500 worse than nothing, his elder brother, then dead, having run through an ample fortune, leaving to his younger brother only a number of negro slaves, whom he at once emancipated. He entered on the medical profession, and in five months made the astonishing sum of £2,000, with which he returned to Europe, visited the medical schools of Paris and Edinburgh, took his degree of M.D. at Leyden in 1769, and was admitted a licentiate of the College of Physicians of London in the same year. His rise in his profession was rapid. In 1783 he earned £3,600; in 1784, £3,900; in 1785, £4,015; in 1786, £4,500; and in some years his income reached £12,000. But he was at the same time giving away hundreds—nay thousands—in gratuitous advice, and the poorer order of the clergy and struggling literary men received not only gratuitous advice, but substantial aid. He was one of the original projectors and supporters of the General Dispensary, of the Finsbury and Surrey Dispensaries, of the Margate Sea-Bathing Infirmary, as well as of many other charitable institutions. In 1779 he purchased some land on the east side of Grove Hill, Camberwell, where he erected the villa which for years was associated with his name, and where he entertained some of the most eminent literati of his time. The house contained a library of near ten thousand volumes, and a museum full of natural and artistic curiosities. The grounds were most tastefully laid out and adorned with choice trees, shrubs and flowers. The avenue of elms, still retaining the name of Camberwell Grove, formed part of the small estate and the approach to the house. It is sad to relate that Dr. Lettsom's excessive devotion to science and literature impaired his resources, and compelled him eventually to quit Grove Hill. He died in 1815, aged seventy-one years. He being in the habit of signing his prescriptions 'J. Lettsom,' some wag, putting forth the lines as the doctor's own composition, wrote thus:

'When patients comes to I,

I physics, bleeds, and sweats 'em;

Then, if they choose to die,

What's that to I? I lets 'em.'

Everyone has heard, and has a story to tell, of Dr. John Abernethy (b. 1764, d. 1831), so we do not know whether in telling our stories of him we shall be able to tell the reader anything new; but as he was a medical eccentricity, we cannot omit him from our portrait gallery. But let us premise that if we call him eccentric we refer to his manners only, in which he did not take after his chief instructor, Sir Charles Blick, who was a fashionable physician of the extra-courteous school. In scientific knowledge Abernethy greatly excelled all his colleagues, though he got less fame by that than by his oddities. When he had made up his mind to marry he wrote off-hand to a lady a note of proposal, saying that he was too busy to attend in person, but he would give her a fortnight for consideration. His irritable temper at times rendered him very disagreeable with patients and medical men who consulted him. When the latter did so, he would walk up and down the room with his hands in his pockets and whistle all the time, and end by telling the doctor to go home and read his (Abernethy's) book. On being asked by a colleague whether a certain plan he suggested would answer, the only reply he could obtain was: 'Ay, ay, put a little salt on a bird's tail, and you will be sure to catch him.' He could hardly be induced to give advice in cases which appeared to depend on improper diet. A farmer of immense bulk came from a distance to consult him, and having given an account of his daily meals, which showed an immense amount of animal food, Abernethy said: 'Go away, sir; I won't attempt to prescribe for such a hog!' A loquacious lady he silenced by telling her to put out her tongue; she having done so, 'Now keep it there till I have done talking,' said Abernethy. A lady having brought her daughter, he refused to prescribe for her, but told the mother to let the girl take exercise. Having received his guinea, he gave the shilling to the mother and said: 'Buy the girl a skipping-rope as you go along.' When the late Duke of York consulted him, he stood whistling with his hands in his pockets, and the Duke said: 'I suppose you know who I am?' 'Suppose I do,' was the uncourtly reply, 'what of that?' To a gentleman who consulted him for an ulcerated throat, and wanted him to look at it, he said: 'How dare you suppose that I would allow you to blow your stinking, foul breath in my face!' But sometimes he met a Tartar. A gentleman who could not succeed in getting the doctor to listen to his case, suddenly locked the door, put the key into his pocket, and took out a loaded pistol. Abernethy, alarmed, asked if he meant to murder him. No, he only wanted him to listen to his case, and meant to keep him a prisoner till he did. The patient and the surgeon afterwards became great friends. The Duke of Wellington having insisted on seeing him out of his usual hours, and abruptly entering his room, was asked by the doctor how he got in. 'By that door,' was the reply. 'Then,' said Abernethy,' I recommend you to make your exit by the same way.' He refused to attend George IV. until he had delivered his lecture at the hospital, in consequence of which he lost a royal appointment. To a lady who complained that on holding her arm over her head she felt pain, he said: 'Then what a fool you must be to hold it up!' He was fond of calling people fools. A countess consulted him, and he offered her some pills, when she said she could never take a pill. 'Not take a pill! What a fool you must be!' was the courteous reply.

Abernethy usually cut patients short by saying: 'I have heard enough. You have heard of my book?' 'Yes.' 'Then go home and read it.' This book gives admirable rules for dieting and general living, though few persons would be willing to comply with them rigidly; he himself did not. When someone told him that he seemed to live like most other people, he replied: 'Yes, but then I have such a devil of an appetite!' One day a lawyer suffering from dyspepsia, brought on by want of exercise and good living, went to consult Abernethy. As he came out of the consulting-room he met another lawyer, a friend of his. 'What the devil brought you here?' said one, and the other echoed the question, and the reply of each was the same. 'What has he prescribed for you?' asked the newcomer. The prescription was produced and read as follows: 'Read my book, p. 72. J. Abernethy.' The first lawyer agreed to wait for his friend whilst he went to consult the doctor. In about a quarter of an hour he came out, well pleased apparently with his interview. 'Well, what is your prescription?' inquired lawyer number one. Number two produced a slip of paper, on which was written: 'Read my book, p. 72. J. Abernethy.' That was what each got for his guinea. But Abernethy deserves praise for three utterances, viz., that mind is a miraculous energy added to matter, and not the result of certain modes of organization, as modern scientists maintain; that an operation is a reproach to surgery, and that a patient should be cured without recourse to it; and that vivisection experiments are morally wrong and physiologically unsafe, because unreliable.

That Dr. Abernethy, with his uncouth manners and vulgar repartee, should have been so successful in his profession is a marvel; certainly few people of the present day would tolerate such rudeness as his. Possibly in former days the doctor's distinctive dress had a secret influence of its own. The gold-headed cane, the elaborate shirt-frill, the massive snuff-box, tapped so argumentatively in consultation, the pompous manner and overbearing assurance, no doubt exercised a spell with which we are unacquainted now.

Abernethy had imitators, but they had been pupils of his. Tommy Wormald, or 'Old Tommy,' as the students called him, was Abernethy over again in voice, style, appearance and humour. To an insurance company he reported on a bad life proposed to them: 'Done for.' When an apothecary wanted to put him off with a single guinea at a consultation on a rich man's case, he said: 'A guinea is a lean fee, and the patient is a fat patient. I always have fat fees from fat patients. Pay me two guineas instantly; our patient is a fat patient.' Some rich but mean people would drive to St. Bartholomew's to get advice gratis as out-patients. To this Tommy meant to put a stop. Seeing a lady dressed in silk, he thus addressed her before a roomful of people: 'Madam, this charity is for the poor, destitute invalids; I refuse to pay attention to destitute invalids who wear rich silk dresses.' The lady quickly disappeared. Will no Old Tommy arise at the present day and put an end to the abuse, which is as rampant as ever?

Doctors are not agreed as to what constitutes medical science. By an empiric a quack is meant. Now, an empiric goes by observation only, without rational grounds; yet Sir Charles Bell asserted that physiology was a science of observation rather than of experiment, which is the rational ground the quack is said to disregard. Who is right? Without attempting to answer the question, which would lead us too far, we must rest satisfied with the fact that the profession and the public have agreed to stigmatize certain individuals as quacks who, with or without any medical training, pretend to cure diseases by charms, manipulations, or nostrums, which have no scientific or rational basis. Quacks have existed at all times, for mankind, especially suffering mankind, has ever been credulous. Henry VIII. endeavoured to put down those of his own times by establishing censors in physic, but the public would not be enlightened, and so the quacks flourished. In 1387 one Roger Clerk, of Wandsworth, pretending to be a physician, got twelve pence in part payment from one Roger atte Haccke, in Ironmonger Lane, for undertaking the cure of his wife, who was ill. He put a charm, consisting of a piece of parchment, round her neck, but it did her no good, whereupon Roger brought him before the chamber at Guildhall for his deceit and falsehood, and Roger Clerk was sentenced to be led through the middle of the city with trumpets and pipes, he riding on a horse without a saddle, the said parchment and a whetstone[#] for his lies being hung about his neck, a urinal also being hung before him, and another on his back. In the reign of Edward VI. one Grig, a poulterer in Surrey, was set in the pillory at Croydon, and again in the Borough, for cheating people out of their money by pretending to cure them by charms or by only looking at the patient.

[#] Early in English history we find the whetstone as the symbol of a liar. Why? Does lying imply a sharpened wit, as a whetstone sharpens a blade? The custom is referred to in 'Hudibras,' II., i. 57-60.

Was Valentine Greatrakes, whom Charles II. invited to his Court, a quack? If he was, he was a harmless one, since he gave no physic, but only pretended to cure by magnetic stroking. Our modern magnetizers are not so modest; they have added much hocus-pocus to Valentine's simple process.

From among the medical oddities of the latter part of the last century we must not omit Dr. Von Butchell, who lived in Mount Street, and pretended to cure every disease. He applied for the post of dentist to George III., but when the King's consent was obtained he said he did not care for the custom of royalty. When his wife died, he had her embalmed and kept in his parlour, where he allowed his patients to see the body; so that the modern showman who exhibited the dead body of his wife at Olympia was, after all, only a copyist. But whilst the doctor was half-mad, the world was altogether mad; for his exhibiting the corpse of his wife was not considered as eccentric as his letting his beard grow, which then was held to be the height of madness. And there seems to have been method in his madness, for he sold the hairs out of his beard at a guinea each to ladies who wished to have fine children. He used to ride about the West End on a pony painted with spots by the doctor himself. There is an engraving extant of him, showing him astride on it. The horse was afterwards, in consequence of a dispute with the stable-keeper who had charge of it, sold at Tattersall's, where, as a curiosity, it fetched a good price. There was a wonderful inscription on the outside of his house, extending over the front of the next, and his neighbour rebuilding his frontage, half the inscription was obliterated. Butchell was also a great advertiser, and his advertisements even now afford amusing reading. He never would visit a patient, though as much as £500 was offered him for a visit—patients had to go to his house. 'I go to none,' he said in his advertisements. Many persons used to visit him, not for getting advice, but simply to converse with such an original. He was twice married. His first wife he dressed in black, and his second in white, never allowing a change of colour. He was one of the earliest teetotalers. The profits he and some of his contemporaries made on their quack draughts and pills led, in 1788, to the imposition of the tax on 'patent medicines.'

But to come down to more recent times, in 1700 one John Pechey, living at the Angel and Crown, in Basing Lane, an Oxford graduate and member of the College of Physicians, London, advertised that all sick people might for sixpence have a faithful account of their diseases and plain directions for their cure, and that he was prepared to visit any sick person in London for 2s. 6d.; and that if he were called by any person as he passed by, he would require but one shilling for his advice. A physician who in our day advertised like this would be deprived of his diploma. In 1734 one Joshua Ward became a celebrity even among quacks by his pills, which he extensively advertised, and which were patronized by the Queen herself. There was a rhyming quack, Dr. Hill, who also wrote a farce, and wanted Garrick to produce it, till the latter published the following distich on him:

'For farces and physic his equal there scarce is,

His farces are physic, his physic a farce is.'

A Dr. Hannes, a contemporary of Dr. Radcliffe, ordered his servant to stop a number of coaches between Whitehall and the Royal Exchange, and to inquire at each whether it belonged to Dr. Hannes, as he was called to a patient. Entering Garraway's Coffee-House, the servant put the same question. Dr. Radcliffe happening to be there, he asked who wanted Dr. Hannes. The servant named several lords who all wanted him. 'No, no, friend,' said Radcliffe; 'Dr. Hannes wants the lords.'

Quacks were never more flourishing than they are now, and they always will be, for the public like mysterious remedies, and are anxious to recommend them and to force them on their friends. In nothing is a little knowledge more dangerous than in medicine; mothers and nurses especially, who have acquired some smattering of it from their conversations with doctors, may do a lot of mischief. To them are due nearly all so-called diseases of children—as if children must necessarily have diseases—a superstition which is shared by some doctors, who also encourage the reading of their books. The reading of those books has physically the same effect on the body that the reading or hearing of ghost stories has morally on the mind: the reader or hearer everywhere feels dis-ease and sees ghosts; ergo beware of medical books and goblin stories—both are unwholesome. Modern invalids are fortunate in escaping the tortures inflicted on patients in earlier days. Edmund Verney thus writes concerning his father, Sir Ralph Verney, of Claydon House, in 1686: 'He hath been blooded, vomited, blistered, cupt and scarified, and hath three physicians with him, besides apothecary and chirurgian.' And then he wonders that 'he still continues very weak.' The marvel was that he survived at all. Had not Molière a few years before the above date said: 'You must not say that a man died of such and such a disease, but of so many physicians, surgeons and apothecaries'?

The most pungent and most witty definition of the doctor's character probably is that given, I think, by Talleyrand. When Napoleon, in a fit of despondency, said that he would forsake war and turn physician, the sarcastic courtier said sotto voce: 'Toujours assassin?'

XV.

THE LOST RIVERS OF LONDON.

London is deficient in two conditions to render it picturesque: it lacks diversity of surface, and it lacks water. In so vast an expanse of ground as is covered by London, Ludgate Hill and Notting Hill are mere molehills.[#] As to water, it has the Thames, but that is accessible at short and broken intervals only. There is the Embankment from Blackfriars to Westminster; a short bit at Chelsea, and the Albert Embankment. But the City people during the day have no time to waste on their Embankment, and in the evening they are gone to the suburbs, and so this grand promenade is given up to occasional country cousins' visits, and to permanent ruffianism. For, of course, no one from the more northern parts of London ever thinks of coming so far to take a stroll on that Embankment, from which nothing is to be seen but mud-banks in the near prospect, as by a perverse arrangement of nature it is generally low water when you want to take a walk; on the opposite bank only dismal wharves present themselves. As to the Chelsea Embankment, that is patronized by the dwellers in that region only, if they do not neglect it altogether, as people generally do who live in a rather picturesque locality. The less we say about the Albert Embankment the better; its characteristics are dingy hovels and smoke-belching pottery chimneys on one side, smoke and cinders from passing steam-barges and penny steamers on the river, and a dreary outlook on the opposite side, scarcely relieved by the Tate Gallery, which, for reasons unknown to the general public, but self-evident to those who can see the wire-pulling behind, has been pitched, like a King Log, into the Pimlico swamp. All other parts of the river are inaccessible to the public, and therefore as good as non-existent for the Londoner.

[#] The highest point north is Hampstead Hill, 400 feet above sea-level; to the south Sydenham Hill, 365 feet; Primrose Hill, about 260 feet; Herne Hill, about 180 feet; Denmark, about 100 feet; Orme Square, 95 feet; Broad Walk, 90 feet; North Audley Street, 83 feet; Tottenham Court Road, 85 feet; Regent Circus, 90 feet; Cornhill, 60 feet; Charing Cross, 24 feet; Euston Road, 90 feet; Cheapside, 59 feet; Farringdon Street, 28 feet; St. Katherine's, Regent's Park, 120 feet; Camberwell Green, 19 feet.

Thus much for the Thames. As to other pieces of water to be found in public parks, they are mere ponds, and of benefit only locally. As to public fountains, which form the peculiar charm of so many Continental cities, where the melodious splash of water is heard day and night, London possesses none. True, there are two squirts in Trafalgar Square, and the Shaftesbury fountain is making asthmatic efforts to assert itself, whilst the Angel at the top seems to be shooting Folly as it flies all around him in the savoury purlieus of the Haymarket. The small drinking fountains found here and there are evidences of philanthropy, which may be grateful to children and tramps, to horses and dogs, but do not add much to the aquatic features of London. There are canals, it is true, but they are private property, and so fenced, hoarded, and walled in, as to be of no use to the public. And as a rule their water is so dirty that no one with a nose would walk by the side of them, even if allowed to do so.

But London was not always so deadly level and so waterless as it is now. In ancient days there were high hills and deep valleys in the very heart of it. From the river Lea to the river Brent on the northern side of London there were numerous rivulets and brooks descending from the northern heights through the City and its western outskirts into the Thames, brooks and rivulets which at times assumed such dimensions as to cause serious inundations. It was the same in the south of London, where from the Ravensbourne to the Wandle similar watercourses reached the Thames from the southern hills.

All those brooks between the four rivers we have named, and which alone are still existing, have totally disappeared. What were their features, when they still flowed from northern and southern heights, and what were the causes and the process of their disappearance, we now intend to investigate, by proceeding from east to west, and taking the northern shore of the Thames first.

The site on which the Romans founded London was the rising ground on the northern bank of the Thames, from the present Fish Street Hill, or Billingsgate, to the Wallbrook. At a later date of their occupation they extended the City eastward to the Tower, and westward to the valley of the Fleet. Then the valley of the Wallbrook divided the City into two portions of almost equal size. To the north the buildings extended to the present Aldgate and to Moorfields, and westward to Newgate and Ludgate. The wall which encompassed the town began at the Tower, and in a line with various bends in it terminated at the Arx Palatina, somewhere near the present Times office. On the east of the town, where the country was flat, there was a marsh, extending to the river Lea. To the north-west were dense forests stretching far into Middlesex, and abounding with deer, wild boar, and other savage animals. This forest was partly the cause of the many brooks, which in those days watered London from the northern heights; it being a well-known fact that trees absorb and retain moisture.

It is doubtful whether there were any Roman buildings west of the Fleet; Fleet Street and the Strand certainly were then undreamt of, and did not come into existence till centuries after the Romans had left our island. To the west of the present Strand, the ground lying very low, it was frequently inundated by the river, and there are persons still living who can remember Belgravia and Pimlico as a dismal swamp. Westminster Abbey stood on an island, which rose above the marshy environs, and even as late as the times of Charles II. occasional high tides converted the palace of Whitehall into an island.

The great forest of Middlesex above mentioned came close to the City wall; it had, in fact, occupied a portion of the site on which the City was built, and as much of it had been cut down, and so much space cleared, as the builders required for their operations. But the nature of the forest ground could not be as readily changed. It was still full of moisture, and numerous rills continued to flow through it. Now, one of the most important of them was the Langbourne.

This watercourse, so called because of its length, took its rise in ground now forming part of Fenchurch Street. It ran swiftly through that street in a westward direction, across Grass, now Gracechurch Street, into and down Lombard Street—where many Roman remains have been discovered—to the west of St. Mary Woolnoth Church, where it turned sharply round to the south and gave name to Sherbourne Lane, so termed of sharing or dividing, because there it broke into a number of rills and so reached the Thames. From this watercourse Langbourne Ward took its name. Thus says Stow, but he adds that in his day (1598) this bourne had long been stopped up at the head, and the rest of the course filled up and paved over, 'so that no sign thereof remaineth more than the name aforesaid.'

Some modern historians, Mr. Loftie, for instance, deny the existence of the Langbourne altogether. 'Stow says that the Langbourne rose in Fenchurch Street and ran down Lombard Street. It does not seem to have occurred to him that the course indicated is up hill,' Mr. Loftie objects. But Fenchurch Street was then, as it is now, considerably higher than the outfall of the Langbourne into the Thames, and what do we know of the then levels of the streets through which it was said to have run? Upwards of thirty feet under the present level of Lombard Street Roman remains have been found, and the Langbourne, as we know from various documents, was covered in as early as the latter part of the twelfth century, a time when building increased rapidly under Fitz-Alwyn, the first Mayor of London; moreover, the fenny condition of Fenchurch Street is said to have been due to the overflowing of the Langbourne at its source. Mr. Loftie says that the original name of the Langbourne was Langford; but a ford implies a watercourse, and not a mere ditch or artificial trench, which, receiving the drainage of the immediate locality, fell into the Wallbrook, as Mr. Burt would have us believe. If the Langbourne never existed, whence did Langbourne Ward derive its name?

Proceeding westward, we come to a much more important stream, namely, the Wallbrook.

No more striking instance of the changes which Time will effect in the topographical aspect of a locality can be found than that which the disappearance of the Wallbrook has produced within the limits of its own course and in its surroundings. Where now a smooth expanse of asphalte paving covers firm ground (except where rendered treacherously dangerous by sewer-like railway tunnels, in which human beings are shot to and fro like so many rats enclosed in traps in a drain!), extending from Princes Street right across to the Mansion House, and to and down the street called Wallbrook, there, centuries ago, yawned a wide ravine with precipitous sides, at the bottom of which flowed the brook called the Wall-brook, because, rising in the upper fenny grounds of Moorfields, it entered the city through an opening in the wall, somewhere near the northern end of the present Moorgate Street. The brook, towards its southern termination, must have been of considerable width, for barges could be rowed up to Bucklersbury—a fact commemorated by Barge Yard, formerly a kind of dock, but now solid ground, opening into Bucklersbury. The width of the Wallbrook near its outfall was no doubt increased by tributaries, which, flowing from the opposite portion of the City, found an exit on the western bank. There is no doubt that there was a watercourse along the line of Cheapside; the fact is stated positively by Maitland. He says: 'At Bread Street corner, the north-east end, in 1595, one Thomas Tomlinson causing in the High Street of Chepe a vault to be digged, there was found at fifteen feet deep a fair pavement, like that above-ground, and at the further end, at the channel, was found a tree, sawed into five steps, which was to step over some brook running out of the west towards Wallbrook. And upon the edge of the said brook there was found lying the bodies of two great trees, the ends whereof were then sawed off, and firm timber as at the first when they fell. It was all forced ground until they went past the trees aforesaid, which was about seventeen feet deep, or better. Thus much has the ground of this city been raised from the main. And here it may be observed that within fourscore years and less, Cheapside was raised divers feet higher than it was when St. Paul's was first built, as appeared by several eminent marks discovered in the late laying of the foundation of that church.' The mention of Cheapside as a highway does not go back to very early times. In the eleventh century it must have been a mere bog; for, when in 1090 the roof of Bow Church was blown off by a tempest, the rafters, which were twenty-six feet long, penetrated more than twenty feet into the soft soil of Cheapside. The course of the brook just mentioned west of Bread Street is not known; it is doubtful whether it struck off northward by about Gutter Lane, and so towards springs known to exist near Cripplegate, or whether it came from further westward, from the springs which supply the ancient baths in Bath Street (formerly called Bagnio Court), north of Newgate Street.

But we must return to the Wallbrook itself; and, first, as to its course. After entering the City through the opening in the wall, it curved eastward, ran along Bell Alley, crossed Tokenhouse Yard and Lothbury, close by St. Margaret's Church, curved westward again, passing through ground now covered by the north-west corner of the Bank of England; crossing the present Princes Street and the Poultry, it ran under what is now the National Safe Deposit, whence, by an almost semicircular bend, it reached Cannon Street, which it crossed, turning westwardly towards St. Michael's Church, and crossing Thames Street, flowed past Joiners' Hall into the Thames. There were various bridges over the said watercourse. There was one close to Bokerelsberi (Bucklersbury), which in 1291 four occupiers of tenements adjoining the bridge were ordered to repair, according to clauses in their tenancies. There was another over against the wall of the chancel of the church of St. Stephen, which it was the duty of the parishioners to repair, as they were ordered to do, for instance, in 1300. At Dowgate Hill, at the outfall of the Wallbrook into the Thames, there was discovered in 1884 an ancient landing-stage, a Roman pavement in tile, set upon timber piles, with mortised jointing. The stage stood on the left bank of the Wallbrook, facing not the Thames, but the brook. It was twenty-one feet below the present level of Dowgate Hill, and below the churchyard of St. John's. A large quantity of stout oak-piling was also in situ, and the sill of the bridge which crossed from east to west at this spot was seen very plainly. Another landing-stage appears to have existed on the brook at a spot now covered by the National Safe Deposit: it consisted of a timber flooring supported by huge oak timbers, and running parallel with the stream. Adjoining this were evidences of a macadamized roadway, which extended in a line with Bucklersbury, until it reached the apparent course of the brook. Upon the opposite side similar indications appeared, so that here also a bridge may have existed. Another bridge seems to have spanned the brook near London Wall, in Broad Street Ward, with yet another a little more south. It appears that in the year 1300 both these bridges required repairs, and that the Prior of the Holy Trinity, who was liable for those of the first, and the Prior of the New Hospital without Bishopsgate, who was bound to do those of the second, were in that year summoned by the Mayor and Aldermen of London 'to rebuild the said bridges and keep them in repair.'

When in the seventies the National Safe Deposit Company dug down some forty feet into the ground, and reached the ancient course of the Wallbrook, they found in its bed, among other debris, enormous quantities of broken vessels and kitchen utensils. No doubt the careless cooks and housemaids of the ancient Romans found the brook handy for getting rid of the evidences of mishap or recklessness; but their successors on the banks of the stream seem to have treated it with even greater disrespect. In the records of the City we find constant references to the disgraceful condition of the Wallbrook. In 1288 the Warden and Sheriffs of the City of London had to order that the watercourse of the Wallbrook should be made free from dung and other nuisances, and that the rakes should be put back again upon every tenement extending from Finsbury Moor to the Thames. In 1374 the Mayor and Aldermen granted to Thomas atte Ram, brewer, a seven years' lease of the Moor, together with charge of the watercourse of Wallbrook, without paying any rent therefor, upon the understanding that he should keep the said Moor well and properly, and have the Wallbrook cleansed for the whole of the term, clearing it from dung and other filth thrown therein, he taking for every latrine built upon the said watercourse twelve pence yearly. And if, in so cleansing it, he should find aught therein, he should have it for his own. But it would seem that Thomas atte Ram did not properly perform his contract, for at the expiration of it, namely in 1383, we find by an Ordinance of the Common Council that, 'whereas the watercourse of the Wallbrook is stopped up by divers filth and dung thrown thereinto by persons who have houses along the said course, to the great nuisance and damage of all the City, the Aldermen of the Wards of Coleman Street, Broad Street, Chepe, Wallbrook, Vintry and Dowgate, through whose wards the said watercourse runs, shall inquire if any person dwelling along the said course has a stable or other house, whereby dung or other filth may fall into the same; or otherwise throws therein such manner of filth by which the said watercourse is stopped up, and they (the Aldermen) shall pursue all such offenders. But it shall be lawful for those persons who have houses on the said stream to have latrines over it, provided they do not throw rubbish or other refuse through the same ... and every person having such latrines shall pay yearly to the Chamberlain two shillings for each of them.'

With such arrangements, and the constant increase of buildings on the brook, and the decrease of water supplied to it by the springs in Moorfields, which were gradually being laid dry, the Wallbrook, from a clear stream, became a foul ditch, an open sewer, so that it was found necessary to convert it into a covered one in reality. The brook was filled up with all kinds of debris and partially bricked over, so that when Stow wrote (in 1598) he was obliged to say: 'This watercourse ... was afterwards vaulted over with brick, and paved level with the streets and lanes ... and since that houses also have been built thereon, so that the course of Wallbrook is now hidden underground, and thereby hardly known.' The stream was covered in at least three centuries before the covering in of the Fleet river, but its course can still be traced by the many important buildings which lined its banks. Commencing at its influx to the Thames, there were along its course on the western side the halls of the Innholders, the Dyers, the Joiners, the Skinners, the Tallow-chandlers, and the Cutlers; the churches of St. John, St. Michael, St. Stephen (which originally stood on the western side), St. Mildred, and St. Margaret; also the Grocers' and the Founders' Halls, the estates of the Drapers and Leathersellers, and in Bucklersbury Cornet's Tower, a strong stone tower which was erected by Edward III. as his 'Exchange of money there to be kept.' In the sixteenth century it seems to have come into the possession of one Buckle, a grocer, who intended to erect in its place a 'goodly frame of timber,' but, 'greedily labouring to pull down the tower,' a part thereof fell upon and killed him.

In 1835 a curious discovery, the import of which was then unsuspected, was made close to the Swan's Nest, a public-house in Great Swan Alley, Moorgate Street. A pit or well was laid open, in which was found a large quantity of earthen vessels of various patterns. This well had been carefully planked over with stout boards; the vases it contained were placed on their sides, embedded in mud or sand, which had settled so closely round them that a great number were broken in the attempt to extricate them. A coin and some iron implements were also found in the well, which was about three feet square, and boarded on each side with narrow planks about two feet long. The object with which these vessels, etc., had been deposited in this well was not at the time surmised, but it was made clear by a subsequent discovery. When the National Safe Deposit Company's premises, already referred to, were built, a similar wooden framework was discovered at a depth of about thirty feet below the present level of the street. It was of oak, and about three feet square, and the contents of the box were similar to those found at the Swan's Nest. Fortunately this find came under the observation of Mr. John E. Price, F.S.A., and Honorary Secretary of the London and Middlesex Archæological Society, who recognised the remains as those of an arca finalis, a monument employed by the Roman surveyors to indicate the situation of limits of public or private property, answering to a landmark or boundary stone. Similar structures, occasionally of stone or tiles, have been discovered in other parts of England, as also on the Continent. It is therefore evident that the box found higher up the stream was also such an area.

To return once more to Wallbrook. A bridge across it we have not yet mentioned was Horseshoe Bridge, situate where the brook crossed Cloak Lane, which was a famous shopping-place of the ladies of those early days, fancy articles being mostly on sale there. It is, however, time to leave the Wallbrook; let us part from it with such a picture on our minds as will leave a vivid and pleasant impression. Remember that its banks were favourite sites for villas, as is proved by all the evidences of wealth and luxury of the ancient dwellers on the Wallbrook ravine and adjoining streets, now buried fathoms deep underground, which have been found on and near the banks of the river. 'A villa in beautiful grounds on the Wallbrook to be let'—think of that!

From the valley of the Wallbrook the ground of the City rises gently towards St. Paul's, and Panyer's Alley, the highest point; thence it falls almost precipitously towards the valley of the Fleet River, so precipitously, indeed, that one of the descents from the Old Bailey to Farringdon Street obtained the name of Breakneck Steps. When the increase of the population of the old City rendered it desirable to seek new habitations, the citizens looked across the river Fleet, and saw the opposite Holborn, Back, and Saffron Hills as yet unoccupied, stretching out as open country—though roads had begun to be established thereon, such as Field Lane, then in the fields—and began to erect dwellings on the western bank of the river. This led to the erection of bridges; we think Holborn Bridge was the first to be built. But before we enter into an account of the bridges, it is necessary to speak of the river itself.

The Fleet, then, which once formed so important a feature of London topography, took its rise in the dense clay of the district just below Hampstead; at Kentish Town its volume was increased by an affluent from Highgate Ponds; it then made its way through the hill near College Street—whence some writers infer that the name of Oldbourne, by which the river was known for some distance, was really a corruption of Hole-bourne—and entered the valley formed by the hills of Camden Town and the Caledonian Road, pursuing its course to Battle Bridge—since 1830 known as King's Cross—where it received an affluent from the west, which rose in the high ground to the south of the Hampstead Road. From Battle Bridge the river bent round to the east, and flowed through the grounds of Bagnigge Wells, once the residence of Nell Gwynne, and thence, still with an easterly trend, past the walls of the House of Correction, thence across Baynes Row, where it received another western affluent, taking its rise at the western end of Guilford Street. Thence it flowed to the northern end of Little Saffron Hill, and in this part of its course it sometimes was called the River of Wells, because it was fed by a number of wells or springs, all situate in Clerkenwell, and known as Clerks' Well, Skinners' Well, Faggs' Well, Loder's Well, Rad Well, and Todd's Well, this latter a corruption of its proper name, God's Well, from which Goswell Street took its name. The river thence flowed down the valley between the old City and the Holborn hills, and here it occasionally went by the name of Turnmill Brook, because of the mills which here stood on its banks. On its eastern side was a street called Turnmill Street, which in later days acquired a very bad reputation, its inhabitants being abandoned characters. Originally it was a respectable street, the houses having gardens going down to the river, which was fenced on both sides. In its southward course the river presently reached Holborn Bridge, where it received the affluent called the Hol-bourne, which rose somewhere near St. Giles'. The existence of this brook is denied by some topographers, but it is distinctly shown in a very old map of the manor of Blemundsbury (Bloomsbury), reproduced in Mr. W. Blott's 'Chronicle of Blemundsbury,' 1892. And we see no reason for doubting the correctness of the map, and therefore adopt the Holbourne as a fact. The Fleet then passed under Chick Lane, afterwards called West Street, which crossed the river at right angles, and in quite recent times was the refuge of thieves, burglars, and other criminals; and means of concealment and of escape by way of the river were revealed when, in the forties and fifties, West Street was pulled down for the improvements then in progress in that locality. After passing under Holborn Bridge, the river was known as the Fleet, not because of the fleetness of its course, as some writers would have it, for it never had much of that quality, but because of the flood or high tide it participated in with the rise of the Thames.

Having thus traced the river from its source to its mouth, we may describe the bridges which crossed it.

In the northern part of its course the river, where it passed through what in the early days was still country, was no doubt here and there crossed by bridges, but they were probably wooden bridges of light construction, as the traffic was but limited. The first solid bridge we have any record of is the one which existed at Battle Bridge, which derived its name from the battle between Suetonius Paulinus and Boadicea, the Queen of the Iceni, which is said to have been fought on the spot, and from the brick bridge which in early times there crossed the Fleet. Originally it was built of wood, but at an uncertain date later on it was replaced by one of brick, consisting of a number of arches. Battle Bridge, from the lowness of its situation, was exposed to frequent inundations. In the Gentleman's Magazine, May, 1818, we read: 'From the heavy rain which commenced yesterday ... Battle Bridge, St. Pancras, and part of Somers Town was inundated. The water was several feet deep in many of the houses, and covered an extent of upwards of a mile. The carcases of several sheep and goats were found ... and property was damaged to a very considerable amount.' Various Acts were passed at the beginning of this century for the improvement of the locality: the river was completely arched over, and in 1830 the spot assumed the name of King's Cross from the ridiculous structure erected in the centre of the cross roads; it was of octagon shape, surmounted by a statue of George IV. The basement was for some time occupied as a police-station, then as a public-house, and the whole was taken down in 1845, and a tall lamp erected on the spot.

The Fleet was next crossed by an ornamental, somewhat rustic bridge in the grounds of Bagnigge Wells; of course it disappeared with the gardens and buildings of the Wells in 1841. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Clerkenwell, from an almost rural became an urban district, streets began to cross the Fleet, such as Baynes Row, Eyre Street Hill, Mutton Hill, Peter Street, and others. The next old bridge we came to was Cow Bridge, by Cow Lane, or the present Cow Cross. It dated from the middle of the sixteenth century. Stow, writing, it will be remembered, in 1598, says: 'This bridge being lately decayed, another of timber is made by Chick Lane.' In the time of Elizabeth the ground from Cow Cross towards the Fleet River, and towards Ely House, on the opposite bank, was either entirely vacant or occupied with gardens.

We next come to Chick Lane, afterwards known as West Street. Stow, writing in 1603, refers to Chicken Lane, 'toward Turnmill Brook, and over that brook by a timber bridge into the field.' This must have been Chick Lane, which was really a bridge of houses, the most noticeable of which was one which once had been known as the Red Lion Inn, and which at its demolition is supposed to have been three hundred years old. For the last hundred years of its existence it was used as a lodging-house, and was the resort of thieves, coiners, and other criminals. Its dark closets, trap-doors, sliding panels, and secret recesses rendered it one of the most secure places for robbery and murder; openings in the walls and floors afforded easy means of getting rid of the bodies by dropping them into the Fleet, which for many years before its final abolition was only known as the Fleet Ditch. The history and description of the houses in West Street were rendered so well known at the time of their demolition that we need not enter into them here; besides, they are beyond the scope of our inquiries.

South of Chick Lane was Holborn Bridge, which was built of stone, and, according to Aggas' map of London in 1560, had houses on the north side of it. The date of its original foundation is not given in any chronicle, but it must have gone far back, probably was coeval with the building of London Bridge, since it was on the great highway from east to west. At first it was, like all the other bridges on the Fleet, constructed of wood; after its erection in stone, with a width of some twelve feet, it seems to have been gradually widened to accommodate the increasing traffic. According to Mr. Crosby, a great authority on the antiquities of the Fleet valley, Holborn Bridge consisted of four different bridges joined together at the sides. Yet in 1670 the bridge was found to be too narrow for the traffic, and it had to be rebuilt, so that the way and passage might run in a 'bevil line' from a certain timber-house on the north side, known by the name of the Cock, to the Swan Inn. Wren built the new bridge on the north or Holborn side accordingly, and the name of William Hooker, Lord Mayor in 1673-74, was cut on the stone coping of the eastern approach. What was meant by the 'bevil line' is to us obscure, and we are not much enlightened by what Sir William Tite says, who in 1840 was present at the opening of a sewer at Holborn Hill, and saw the southern face of the old bridge disinterred. 'The arch,' he says, 'was about twenty feet span. The road from the east intersected the bridge obliquely, and out of the angle thus formed a stone corbel arose to carry the parapet.' Of course, with the disappearance of the Fleet Ditch the bridge also vanished.

The next bridge we come to started from Fleet Lane on the east side to Harp Alley on the Holborn side. As it was about half-way between Holborn and Fleet Street bridges, it was sometimes called Middle Bridge. It was built of stone, with a stone rail and banister, and was ascended by fourteen steps, and as high as Bridewell and Fleet bridges, to allow vessels with merchandise to pass under it. It had been erected in 1674, and disappeared with the other bridges on the covering in of the Fleet.

The Fleet Bridge, which we reach next, joined Ludgate Hill to Fleet Street. This bridge was, in 1431, repaired at the charges of John Wels, Mayor. It was destroyed by the Great Fire, and the new one erected in its stead was of the breadth of the street, and ornamented with pineapples and the City arms. But though larger in breadth, it had not the length of the old bridge, the channel having then been already considerably narrowed. The bridge was taken down in 1765.

To the south of Fleet Bridge the river was spanned by a building, which seems to have been a dwelling or a warehouse. It is distinctly shown on Aggas' map.

Bridewell Bridge, the last over the Fleet before its entering the Thames, and the last built (in the sixteenth century), was at first a timber bridge, between Blackfriars and the House of Bridewell, on the site of the Castle Mountfiquet, which originally stood there. In 1708, or thereabouts, it was replaced by one of stone, much higher than the street, being ascended by fourteen steps. It was for foot passengers only. It was pulled down in 1765.

We may now conclude our account of the Fleet with a few statements concerning the vicissitudes it passed through.

A great many antiquities—British, Saxon, and Roman—have been found in the bed of this river, such as coins of silver, copper, and brass, but none of gold; lares, spur rowels, keys, daggers, seals, medals, vases, and urns. An anchor, three feet ten inches in height, encrusted with rust and pebbles—a sketch of which is given in the October number of the Gentleman's Magazine, 1843—is said to have been discovered near the site of Holborn Bridge, which may be genuine, as ships are known to have ascended so far up the river in the fourteenth century. But early in that century already the river was choked up 'by the filth of the tanners and others, and by the raising of wharves, and especially by a diversion of the water in the first year of King John (1200) by them of the New Temple for their mills without Baynard's Castle, and by other impediments, the course was decayed, and ships could not enter as they were used.' Upon this complaint of Henry Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, the river was cleansed, the mills removed, and other means taken for its preservation; but it was not brought to its former depth and width, and so was soon filled with mud again. The scouring of the river seems to have been necessary every thirty or forty years, at a great expense to the City. We find that it was so cleansed in 1502, and once more rendered navigable for large barges, but the dwellers on its banks would continue to make it the receptacle of all the refuse, and the wharves built on its banks proved unsuccessful, as vessels could not approach them. Consequently, in 1733 the City of London, seeing that all navigation had ceased, and that the ditch, as it was then called, was a danger to the public on account of its unsanitary state, and because persons had fallen in and been suffocated in the mud, began covering it in, commencing with the portion from Fleet Bridge to Holborn Bridge, and the new Fleet Market was erected on the site in 1737. The part from Fleet Street to the Thames was covered in when the approaches to Blackfriars were completed between 1760 and 1768. One stubborn citizen, however, would not surrender a small filthy dock; a barber, from Bromley, in Kent, was, in 1763, found in it standing upright and frozen to death.

Like all brooks descending from hills, the Fleet was liable to sudden increases of volume, causing inundations.[#] The melting of snow and ice by a sudden thaw and heavy and long-continued rains have frequently turned the Fleet into a mighty and destructive torrent flood. In 1679 it broke down the back of several wholesale butcher-houses at Cow Cross, and carried off cattle dead and alive. At Hockley-in-the-Hole barrels of ale, beer, and brandy floated down the stream. In 1768 the Hampstead Ponds overflowing after a severe storm, the Fleet grew into a torrent, and the roads and fields about Bagnigge Wells were inundated; in the gardens of the latter place the water was four feet deep; in Clerkenwell many thousand pounds' worth of damage was done. In 1809 a sudden thaw produced a flood, and the whole space between St. Pancras and Pentonville Hill was soon under water, and for several days people received their provisions in at their windows. In 1846 a furious thunderstorm caused the Fleet Ditch to blow up. The rush from the drain at the north arch of Blackfriars Bridge drove a steamer against one of the piers and damaged it. The water penetrated into basements and cellars, and one draper had £3,000 worth of goods ruined. From Acton Place, Bagnigge Wells Road, to King's Cross, the roads were impassable. In 1855 the Fleet, as one of the metropolitan main sewers, became vested in the then newly-established Metropolitan Board of Works. Shortly after the Metropolitan Railway was planned, and in 1860 the work was commenced. One of the greatest initial difficulties the engineers of that enterprise had to contend with was the irruption of the Fleet Ditch into their works; the Fleet gave, as does the last flare of an expiring candle, its 'last kick,' made a final effort to assert itself. The ditch, under which the railway had to pass two or three times, suddenly though not unexpectedly filled the tunnel with its dark foetid liquid, which carried all before it; scaffoldings constructed of the stoutest timbers and solid stone and brick walls and piers. But the Metropolitan Board of Works and the railway company, by gigantic and skilfully-conducted efforts, succeeded in forming an outlet for the flood into the Thames; the damage was made good, and the work was successfully carried out.