The Town: Its Memorable Characters and EventsHunt, Leigh
History
The Town: Its Memorable Characters and Events
Hunt, Leigh
London (England) -- Description and travel; London (England) -- History
The neighbourhood of St. Paul's retains a variety of appellations
indicative of its former connection with the church. There is Creed
Lane, Ave-Maria Lane, Sermon Lane[48], Canon Alley, Pater-Noster Row,
Holiday Court, Amen Corner, &c. Members of the Cathedral establishment
still have abodes in some of these places, particularly in Amen
Corner, which is enclosed with gates, and appropriated to the houses
of prebendaries and canons. Close to Sermon Lane is Do-little Lane; a
vicinity which must have furnished jokes to the Puritans. Addle Street
is an ungrateful corruption of Athelstan Street, so called from one of
the most respectable of the Saxon kings, who had a palace in it.
We have omitted to notice a curious passage in Swift, in which he
abuses himself for going to the top of St. Paul's. "To-day," says he,
writing to Stella, "I was all about St. Paul's, and up at the top like
a fool, with Sir Andrew Fountain, and two more; and spent seven
shillings for my dinner, like a puppy." "This," adds the doctor, "is
the second time he has served me so: but I will never do it again,
though all mankind should persuade me--unconsidering puppies!"[49] The
being forced by richer people than one's self to spend money at a
tavern might reasonably be lamented; but from the top of St. Paul's
Swift beheld a spectacle, which surely was not unworthy of his
attention; perhaps it affected him too much. The author of Gulliver
might have taken from it his notions of little bustling humankind.
Dr. Johnson frequently attended public worship in St. Paul's. Very
different must his look have been, in turning into the chancel, from
the threatening and trampling aspect they have given him in his
statue. We do not quarrel with his aspect; there is a great deal of
character in it. But the contrast, considering the place, is curious.
A little before his death, when bodily decay made him less patient
than ever of contradiction, he instituted a club at the Queen's Arms,
in St. Paul's Churchyard. "He told Mr. Hook," says Boswell, "That he
wished to have a _City Club_, and asked him to collect one; but, said
he, don't let them be patriots."[50] (This was an allusion to the
friends of his acquaintance Wilkes.) Boswell accompanied him one day
to the club, and found the members "very sensible well-behaved men:"
that is to say Hook had collected a body of decent listeners. This,
however, is melancholy. In the next chapter we shall see Johnson in
all his glory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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