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CHAPTER XVI.
“MYSTERIES” OF THE
This will be a desultory chapter—a sort of random gossip about
persons who, although they do not occupy a very prominent position in the
literary world, are sufficiently well known to be objects of interest, and
concerning some matters appertaining to literature which concerns the reader.
There are, in
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ter-Row—or, “the Row,” as it is always termed by the Trade. Here
are the establishments of some of the great publishers, such as the Longmans’;
and, along its narrow pavements, for scores of years past, both hopeful,
anxious, and despairing authors have sauntered and saunter still. Could some of
the stones in the old houses speak, what tales of joy
and sorrow might they not reveal?
The “Row” is the big-book-mart—the place where issue goodly
quartos—the age of folios, like that of Chivalry, is gone—and bulky
octavos—with these we have, just now, little or nothing to do; we must travel
further west, for, in that direction, is the region of cheap serial
literature—works, which the magnates near Saint Paul’s would turn up their
noses at. Before we quit this locality, however, let us remark, that old Stowe
informs us, “Paternoster-Row was so called, because of stationers, or
text-writers that dwelt there, who wrote and sold all sorts of books then in
use, namely, A. B. C., with the Pater Noster, Ave, Creed, Graces, &c., &c. Here stands
Dolly’s Chop House, and near it, in days of yore, Richard Tarlton,
the celebrated Clown of Queen Elizabeth’s reign, kept an Ordinary, called “The
Castle;” and here lived Mrs. Anne Turner,
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the
inventor of Yellow Starch, and a principal in poisoning Sir Thomas Overbury.
Running parallel with the strand, from St. Clement Danes
Church to that of Saint Mary le Strand, is a dirty narrow thoroughfare—this is Holywell-Street—a thoroughfare almost entirely inhabited by
second-hand clothes sellers, publishers of cheap serials, second-hand book-sellers
and printsellers. It is an odd looking locality. High
over head you see, in clear weather, a thin strip or ribbon of sky; for, the
projection stories so nearly approach their opposite neighbours,
that the free admission of light and air are out of the question, and in no
place throughout its whole extent, is the roadway so wide that you cannot jump
across it; and strange looking are the denizens of this lane, for it deserves
no better name. From their doors, half hidden by furbished-up vestments, pounce
upon the unwary, hook-nosed Hebrews, or sallow, squab Jewesses, with “Shell yer a veskit!” or, “Vant to shell any closh?” or with
pressing invitations to you to walk in, and be assuredly done for. Here and
there you will observe dingy windows, in which, half concealed, are pages and pictures which dare not be displayed openly.
Now you stand before a tempting old book stall; and now there issueth from a low-windowed shop, the
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the
peculiar odour of newly printed sheets. At every turn
you are jostled by dingy boys who rush along, laden with damp reams or quires
of newspapers; or bundles of clothing; and, occasionally, a post-office boy
dashing along furiously, bespattering you, as he goes, with mud and mire. On
Fridays the place is all alive with business, and the principal newsvenders, who are getting their weekly supplies of cheap
literature. As you pass, you may hear them vociferously crying out to the shopman for their lists; and it is not a little amusing to
mark their cant phrases—for they have a phraseology their own—a language
peculiar to Holywell-street. I once heard an urchin,
at the top of his voice, bawling for the “Ulcerated News,” as he termed the
“Illustrated London News,” an alteration that by no means I fancy an
improvement of the title of that very respectable journal.
Innumerable are the cheap works of fiction which are daily,
hourly, sent forth from this cheap mart of literature,--but little enough is
known of the producers of them. Conspicuous among the names of the authors of the
penny a week “splendid, thrilling and romantic works,” is the name of G. W. M.
Reynolds. There is not a newsvender’s window in
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one
of his many productions may not be found. He is as fruitful as James, but there
all similitude between these writers ends. There they lie, on counters and in
windows, in heaps, each sheet adorned with a taking illustration of some sort;
and, as an additional attraction, on the covers of the monthly parts, may be
seen a portrait of Mr. Reynolds himself, looking as bland and beatific as
though he had never dipped his pen in blood and brimstone, and sent his
readers, after supping of horrors, to shiver in the streets. By the way, the
portrait is about one of the very best likenesses I ever saw; but it is not
quite right that an artist, that did not produce
it, should, by attaching his name thereto, have the credit thereof. The
painting, from which the engraving was taken, was executed by Mr. Henry S.
Parkman, an artist of
I forget how it came to pass, but I believe it was in connexion with some newspaper busi-
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ness, that I first met with Mr. G. W. M. Reynolds. At that time (about six
years ago,) he resided in apartments in King-square, Goswell-road,
over a green-grocer’s shop. I found him in a back room, wrapped in a dingy
dressing-gown, and perched in a stool at a high desk, writing away like a steam-engine.
He was a tall, well-made man, about three or four and thirty years of age. His
face was light-complexioned, and with the exception of the forehead, he was
good-looking enough. That forehead, however, was fatal to anything like
intellectual development; for it was about the lowest I have ever seen, and it
sloped away from the eyebrows like the roof of a house. At its summit—if summit
it could be called—dark curly hair was parted in the centre with some care. The
eyes were dark, and expressive, but partially concealed by spectacles, and the
whole expression of the face was that of a man who, when he looked in the
glass, felt perfectly satisfied with himself in the score of personal
appearance.
Mr. Reynolds conducted me to his parlour,
and showed me a portrait of his father, who he said was Sir Somebody
Reynolds—an admiral, or something of that sort. In the course of conversation,
I happened to mention that I had, a day or so before, met with a very [good?]
con-
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tinuation of “Don Juan.” “Ah!” said he, “I wrote in;” and after
rummaging about in a cupboard, he showed me the manuscript. Then he favoured me with portions of his history, which I do not
know I am violating any confidence in mentioning here. He had been for a long
time living at
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it
ministered to the depraved appetites of the lower classes, its popularity was
prodigious. Murders, seductions, robberies, horrors of all sorts, spiced with
the abuse of the upper orders, formed the staple of the story. And it was
written in such a taking style, that persons who would
have been ashamed to have owned that they read such a work, did so stealthily.
A quarrel with the publisher, dissolved the connexion
between him and Reynolds, and the former, relying in the popularity of the
“Mysteries,” engaged Mr. Thomas Miller, and afterwards Mr. E. L. Blanchard, to
continue the series. But it would not do. Neither Mr. Miller, nor Mr.
Blanchard, could write passages “warm” enough to suit the vitiated tastes of
Mr. Reynold’s admirers. Miller loved too well to
“babble o’ green trees and running brooks, and the delights of the green
country,” such were caviaire
to the multitude. And young Blanchard could not stain his own reputation and that
of his father’s, by linking his name with licentiousness. So after four volumes
additional the work ceased. Mr. Reynolds, however, started, as the Yankees say,
“on his own book,” and brought out the “Mysteries of the Court of London,”
which being to concocted as to please the palates of the not over fastidious,
immediately com-
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manded a large sale. Like his former work, it is a compound of
sensuality and sentiment, founded upon the intrigues of the court of the Fourth
George.
It cannot be denied that Reynolds sometimes writes
powerfully and tastefully—nothing can well be truer to nature that his
descriptions of life in London—and I happen to know that he does not always
paint without models. On one occasion he had to describe Bedlam, and I was one
of the party who accompanied him to that great Lunatic
Asylum. True, and I shall never forget it, I saw, caged like wild beasts, the
state prisoners—we were admitted into their barren den—but were not permitted
to speak—this was Oxford, the pot-boy who shot at the Queen—curly headed and
looking merry, and no more like a madman than myself; there was that wretch
Captain Johnstone of the Tory, who ought to have been hanged—there Mr. McNaugton, who mistaking Mr. Drummond for Sir Robert Peel,
shot him near Charing cross, and there too, the
unfortunate and gifted artist Dodd [sic; should read “Dadd”],
who in a fit if Insanity cut his father’s throat. A nice company for a nervous
man to be in! Oxford was engaged in making gloves and braces, a pair of which I
afterwards bought—Dodd was executing some grotesque but beautiful drawings—and Johnstone was
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walking savagely up and down his prison, glaring like a captain
tiger—he was sane enough then, for no drink, his sole cause of madness, was at
hand. Gladly I left that place of torment, and never more desire to examine
another such establishment.
There were in out party two or three other gentlemen who
were connected with the cheap press—one of them Mr. W. J. H----l, was a
schoolmaster, I believe, who filled up his leisure time in “vamping” up
articles for the London Journal—such as Histories of Impostures and that sort
of thing—and so far as they could be done, he did them well—the other was a
very stiff, very pompous, red-faced, grizzled-haired gentleman, with a macawberish roll in his voice, and a spice of dandyism in
his dress—his name was S----t; he translated for the said London Journal, Thier’s History of the Consulate and the Empire. On the
strength of this he passed as a literary man, and to look at and hear him, one
would have supposed him one of Longman’s staff at least. A third gentleman was
really a clever and extremely well informed person—tall, with dark complexion,
he looked like what he was, a West Indian—he was an acute thinker, a versatile
writer, and a first rate scholar, but unfortunately he swamped all his intellect
away in a paltry penny Journal, which
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he
edited for a publisher of the Shylock sort, an ignorant fellow who treated
authors as though they were his inferiors. This was Mr. John Wilson
Ross—brother of the Mr. Ross, who wrote a very clever book, a Yacht voyage to
Whilst Reynolds was engaged in the Dispatch newspapers, he,
on the death of Mr. Williams, who originally wrote the letters of “Publicola” in that journal, continued them for some weeks,
and so successfully imitated the style of that individual, that, as the death
of Williams was carefully concealed from the readers of the journal in
question, the substitution was never discovered. I may here mention that the
present writer of the Publicola Letters is Mr. W. J.
Fox, formerly of Moorfields Unitarian Chapel, and now
M. P. for
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Mr. Reynolds is now himself the owner of and editor of a
cheap newspaper, which bears his own name—he is also a prominent leader of the
Chartists, and now that Feargus O’Connor has gone
mad, most probably his journal will become the organ of that body. As a writer
his works will not perpetuate his name, for none of them have a vitality sufficient to reserve
them from the rubbish of the cheap and nasty school of literature.
* * * * *
A little more than twelve months ago, I was sitting in the
private room of a London Editor. The conversation turned in Editorial heats and
troubles, beside him was a large heap of contribution from all quarters of the
compass, the old fellow himself would be puzzled to make sense out of some of
them—whilst he was penning a paragraph he tossed me a handful of letters to
amuse me, and while I was hunting for such “curiosities of literature,” a knock
at the door was hear—“come in” cried my friend, and an old gentleman entered.
“Sit down Mr. Egan, pray be seated” said the Editor, and he
handed the new arrival a chair.
Egan—Egan !—I muttered to myself,
the name in familiar enough to me, and I looked at
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the
ancient gentleman and began to exercise my powers of memory.
[“] Mr. Pierce Egan,”—said the editor, introducing me, and
then the truth flashed on my recollections. Yes—yes, it was plain enough now, I
remembered all about him, and as I shook him by the hand I felt that I was
grasping the hand of an ancient book acquaintance.
Let me describe this well known (by name) character.
Apparently, he could not be far from seventy years of age,
if he was not quite that, he was feeble and shaky as might be expected, but
there was a sort of jauntiness about the old gentleman still, his grey eye was
quick and vivacious, and his brown wig ad the old sporting “cock,” the
eye-brows were large, the nose a little hooked, and the lower lip so projected
as to give a rather severe expression to the countenance. The old boy was
wrapped in a large camlet cloak with a red collar, and he hobbled with a stick.
There, thought I, as I quietly surveyed him, is a man who
has made some noise in his day, who has, like others of his crest, built up
fortunes for many others heedless of himself, and who Tom Moore himself
christened “the Plutarch of the Ring.” Five and twenty years ago his “Life in
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ther crowded houses, and Bob Logic and Corinthian Tom were all
the rage—both made the name of Pierce Egan famous. How many young bloods, who
tried to emulate the “doings” of Bob and his friends, it ruined, no one knows;
how many “Charlies,” it caused to be demolished, it
were vain to inquire. Pierce Egan was for years the great sporting authority,
his word was law, his decision final in all cases connected with London Life,
or the Ring. His “Fistiana” or “Chronicles of the
Ring,[“] in five thick octavo volumes, a work now exceedingly scarce, was a
perfect compendium of all matters connected with Fistic affairs in the high and
palmy days of pugilism, when Gully, Cribb, Molineaux, the Belchers,
Pearce, Curtis, and others, stood within the roped arena. Pierce Egan lived to
see the “Ring” disgraced, if ever that could be disgraced which was in itself
disgraceful, for I do not believe that it was ever otherwise than a hot-bed of
vice. Be that as it may, the sight of the far-famed Pierce Egan took me back to
old times, and I could not but survey this veteran sporting chronicler with a
certain degree of interest.
The old gentleman was very lively and full of anecdote.
When I spoke of “Life in
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the
editor, he related some of his reminiscences. Poor old man, it seemed he had
not, with all his renown, amassed a sufficiency to exempt him from the drudgery
of the pen in his old age, for he pulled from his coat pocket a bulky lot of
manuscript, which he left for approval. I saw it afterwards. As might be
expected, it was mere twaddle—pottering—and therefore useless, but he did not think so, evidently. This
must have been nearly—if not quite, his last literary effort, for about a month
afterwards I heard of his death.
A Pierce Egan, however, still lives—I refer to the son of
him of whom I have been speaking. For a long time he was known as Pierce Egan
the younger, but now, of course, he has dropped the junior. He, like Reynolds,
is connected with cheap literature, being editor of the “
There are some strange characters connected with the London
Press. The last time I walked through that not very choice locality of
London—Clare Market, in company with a friend, the latter called my attention
to a miserable-looking object who was standing in the
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gutter eating cat’s-meat off a skewer. This young man, for he appeared
little more than thirty years of age, had a crownless and brimless hat, an old
grey jacket, tattered and soiled, no waistcoat nor shirt, and a ragged pair of
pantaloons. His feet were encased in neither shoes nor stockings. As he stood
there, in that cold November foggy day, his eyes bloodshot, and with a week’s
beard on his dingy face, the poor wretch looked a miserable object indeed.
“Do you know him?” asked P----.
“Not I,” I replied, but at that moment the man alluded to
caught sight of and limped up to us.
“For God’s sake,” he stammered out, “give me a sixpence, I’m dying for a drop of gun.”
My friend tried to persuade him not to drink, but he grew
furious, and in a string Irish accent, whined and begged so, that to satisfy
him the coin was given and we got away.
“In Heaven’s name, who is that?” was my question when we
got into Carey Street; and to my unutterable surprise, I learned that it was no
other than M----, a gentleman who had a regular engagement in one of the most
influential sporting papers in London, and the author of several standard works
on that particular subject, to which he devoted his great
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talents. I was informed that regularly about every two months he
went “on the fly,” as it is termed—sold his clothes, for such as I saw him in,
and then acted like a madman. When sober, he was most fastidious in everything,
but drink completely metamorphosed him. A more striking instance of a great
person debased by intemperance I never saw. I have heard, without surprise, that
M---- is now dead.
Connected with the “cheap press,” is another well-known
character, whom, in
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sketches illustrative of Cockney life are capital, and we only wish
that he would abandon the “Bench” and devote his talents to some really good
periodical. However, it is scarcely probable that he will do this while,
nightly, cigars, brandy and water, and what not, come at his call, and he
remains as popular among the “fast men” of
Howitt has written “The Houses and Haunts of certain Authors;” he
has not, however, noticed one very favourite “haunt
of certain