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LITTLE BRITAIN
LITTLE BRITAIN WASHINGTON IRVING This quarter derives its appellation from having been in
ancient times the residence of the Dukes of Brittany. As
London increased however rank and fashion rolled off to the
west and trade creeping on at their heels took possession of
their deserted abodes. For some time Little Britain became the
great mart of learning and was peopled by the busy and
prolific race of booksellers; these also gradually deserted it
and emigrating beyond the great strait of Newgate Street
settled down in Paternoster Row and St. Paul's Churchyard
where they continue to increase and multiply even at the
present day.
But though thus falling into decline Little Britain still bears
traces of its former splendor. There are several houses ready
to tumble down the fronts of which are magnificently enriched
with old oaken carvings of hideous faces unknown birds
beasts and fishes; and fruits and flowers which it would
perplex a naturalist to classify. There are also in Aldersgate
Street certain remains of what were once spacious and lordly
family mansions but which have in latter days been subdivided
into several tenements. Here may often be found the family of
a petty tradesman with its trumpery furniture burrowing
among the relics of antiquated finery in great rambling time-
stained apartments with fretted ceilings gilded cornices and
enormous marble fireplaces. The lanes and courts also contain
many smaller houses not on so grand a scale but like your
small ancient gentry sturdily maintaining their claims to equal
antiquity. These have their gable ends to the street; great bow-
windows with diamond panes set in lead grotesque carvings
and low arched door-ways.
In this most venerable and sheltered little nest have I passed
several quiet years of existence comfortably lodged in the
second floor of one of the smallest but oldest edifices. My
sitting-room is an old wainscoted chamber with small panels
and set off with a miscellaneous array of furniture. I have a
particular respect for three or four high-backed claw-footed
chairs covered with tarnished brocade which bear the marks
of having seen better days and have doubtless figured in some
of the old palaces of Little Britain. They seem to me to keep
together and to look down with sovereign contempt upon
their leathern-bottomed neighbors: as I have seen decayed
gentry carry a high head among the plebeian society with which
they were reduced to associate. The whole front of my sitting-
room is taken up with a bow-window on the panes of which
are recorded the names of previous occupants for many
generations mingled with scraps of very indifferent
gentlemanlike poetry written in characters which I can scarcely
decipher and which extol the charms of many a beauty of
Little Britain who has long long since bloomed faded and
passed away. As I am an idle personage with no apparent
occupation and pay my bill regularly every week I am looked
upon as the only independent gentleman of the neighborhood;
and being curious to learn the internal state of a community so
apparently shut up within itself I have managed to work my
way into all the concerns and secrets of the place.
Little Britain may truly be called the heart's core of the city;
the stronghold of true John Bullism. It is a fragment of
London as it was in its better days with its antiquated folks
and fashions. Here flourish in great preservation many of the
holiday games and customs of yore. The inhabitants most
religiously eat pancakes on Shrove Tuesday hot-cross-buns on
Good Friday and roast goose at Michaelmas; they send love-
letters on Valentine's Day burn the pope on the fifth of
November and kiss all the girls under the mistletoe at
Christmas. Roast beef and plum pudding are also held in
superstitious veneration and port and sherry maintain their
grounds as the only true English wines; all others being
considered vile outlandish beverages.
Little Britain has its long catalogue of city wonders which its
inhabitants consider the wonders of the world: such as the
great bell of St. Paul's which sours all the beer when it tolls;
the figures that strike the hours at St. Dunstan's clock; the
Monument; the lions in the Tower; and the wooden giants in
Guildhall. They still believe in dreams and fortune-telling and
an old woman that lives in Bull-and-Mouth Street makes a
tolerable subsistence by detecting stolen goods and promising
the girls good husbands. They are apt to be rendered
uncomfortable by comets and eclipses; and if a dog howls
dolefully at night it is looked upon as a sure sign of a death
in
the place. There are even many ghost stories current
particularly concerning the old mansion-houses; in several of
which it is said strange sights are sometimes seen. Lords and
ladies the former in full bottomed wigs hanging sleeves and
swords the latter in lappets stays hoops and brocade have
been seen walking up and down the great waste chambers on
moonlight nights; and are supposed to be the shades of the
ancient proprietors in their court-dresses.
Little Britain has likewise its sages and great men. One of
the most important of the former is a tall dry old gentleman of
the name of Skryme who keeps a small apothecary's shop. He
has a cadaverous countenance full of cavities and projections;
with a brown circle round each eye like a pair of horned
spectacles. He is much thought of by the old women who
consider him a kind of conjurer because he has two of three
stuffed alligators hanging up in his shop and several snakes in
bottles. He is a great reader of almanacs and newspapers and
is much given to pore over alarming accounts of plots
conspiracies fires earthquakes and volcanic eruptions; which
last phenomena he considers as signs of the times. He has
always some dismal tale of the kind to deal out to his customers
with their doses; and thus at the same time puts both soul and
body into an uproar. He is a great believer in omens and
predictions; and has the prophecies of Robert Nixon and
Mother Shipton by heart. No man can make so much out of an
eclipse or even an unusually dark day; and he shook the tail of
the last comet over the heads of his customers and disciples
until they were nearly frightened out of their wits. He has
lately got hold of a popular legend or prophecy on which he
has been unusually eloquent. There has been a saying current
among the ancient sibyls who treasure up these things that
when the grasshopper on the top of the Exchange shook hands
with the dragon on the top of Bow Church Steeple fearful
events would take place. This strange conjunction it seems has
as strangely come to pass. The same architect has been engaged
lately on the repairs of the cupola of the Exchange and the
steeple of Bow church; and fearful to relate the dragon and
the grasshopper actually lie cheek by jole in the yard of his
workshop.
"Others" as Mr. Skryme is accustomed to say "may go star-
gazing and look for conjunctions in the heavens but here is a
conjunction on the earth near at home and under our own eyes
which surpasses all the signs and calculations of astrologers."
Since these portentous weathercocks have thus laid their heads
together wonderful events had already occurred. The good
old king notwithstanding that he had lived eighty-two years
had all at once given up the ghost; another king had mounted
the throne; a royal duke had died suddenly--another in
France had been murdered; there had been radical meetings in
all parts of the kingdom; the bloody scenes at Manchester; the
great plot of Cato Street; and above all the queen had returned
to England! All these sinister events are recounted by Mr.
Skryme with a mysterious look and a dismal shake of the
head; and being taken with his drugs and associated in the
minds of his auditors with stuffed sea-monsters bottled
serpents and his own visage which is a title-page of
tribulation they have spread great gloom through the minds of
the people of Little Britain. They shake their heads whenever
they go by Bow Church and observe that they never expected
any good to come of taking down that steeple which in old
times told nothing but glad tidings as the history of
Whittington and his Cat bears witness.
The rival oracle of Little Britain is a substantial
cheesemonger who lives in a fragment of one of the old family
mansions and is as magnificently lodged as a round-bellied
mite in the midst of one of his own Cheshires. Indeed he is a
man of no little standing and importance; and his renown
extends through Huggin Lane and Lad Lane and even unto
Aldermanbury. His opinion is very much taken in affairs of
state having read the Sunday papers for the last half century
together with the "Gentleman's Magazine" Rapin's "History of
England" and the "Naval Chronicle." His head is stored with
invaluable maxims which have borne the test of time and use
for centuries. It is his firm opinion that "it is a moral
impossible" so long as England is true to herself that anything
can shake her; and he has much to say on the subject of the
national debt which somehow or other he proves to be a
great national bulwark and blessing. He passed the greater part
of his life in the purlieus of Little Britain until of late
years
when having become rich and grown into the dignity of a
Sunday cane he begins to take his pleasure and see the world.
He has therefore made several excursions to Hampstead
Highgate and other neighboring towns where he has passed
whole afternoons in looking back upon the metropolis through
a telescope and endeavoring to descry the steeple of St.
Bartholomew's. Not a stage-coachman of Bull-and-Mouth
Street but touches his hat as he passes; and he is considered
quite a patron at the coach-office of the Goose and Gridiron
St. Paul's churchyard. His family have been very urgent for
him to make an expedition to Margate but he has great doubts
of those new gimcracks the steamboats and indeed thinks
himself too advanced in life to undertake sea-voyages.
Little Britain has occasionally its factions and divisions and
party spirit ran very high at one time in consequence of two
rival "Burial Societies" being set up in the place. One held its
meeting at the Swan and Horse Shoe and was patronized by the
cheesemonger; the other at the Cock and Crown under the
auspices of the apothecary; it is needless to say that the latter
was the most flourishing. I have passed an evening or two at
each and have acquired much valuable information as to the
best mode of being buried the comparative merits of
churchyards together with divers hints on the subject of
patent-iron coffins. I have heard the question discussed in all
its bearings as to the legality of prohibiting the latter on
account of their durability. The feuds occasioned by these
societies have happily died of late; but they were for a long
time prevailing themes of controversy the people of Little
Britain being extremely solicitous of funereal honors and of
lying comfortably in their graves.
Besides these two funeral societies there is a third of quite a
different cast which tends to throw the sunshine of good-
humor over the whole neighborhood. It meets once a week at
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