The chapter (32) "which is passed in the neighbourhood of Ludgate Hill," gives us an intimate glimpse of Shandon at work, under the ægis of Bungay, on the prospectus of that "Pall Mall Gazette " which was to be a power in the land, and of which even the wily publisher confessed that there was money in it. After leaving this uncongenial locality, where in the midst of destitution there was so much latent talent, Pen delivered himself of a sentiment: "It is hard to see such a man as Shandon," he said, "of accomplishments so multifarious, and of such an undoubted talent and humour, an inmate of a gaol for half his time, and a bookseller's hanger-on when out of prison." But Warrington could not see this: "I am a bookseller's hanger-on," he exclaimed, "You are going to try your paces as a hack. We are all hacks upon some road or other A deuced deal of undeserved compassion has been thrown away upon what you call your bookseller's drudge."

The purlieus of Fleet Street is still the scene of the novel in the following chapter (33). The Chambers of Finucane of the Upper Temple, the spirited proprietor of the "Pall Mall," and sub-editor of that budding journal, were often the scene of Mrs. Shandon's exposition of the troubles and griefs of her happy-go-lucky lord. Finucane, the good hearted, was always going to the Fleet Prison to confer with Shandon and to cheer his family, and once at least we find him "cutting his mutton" with Bungay and Trotter, "Bungay's reader and literary man of business," at Dick's Coffee-House. This hostelry was one of the best known in Fleet Street. Originally Richards,

from one Richard Turner who was renting the house so early as 1680, it seems to have been called indifferently Richard's and Dick's, at the close of the seventeenth century. References to it are to be found in The Tatler, and it was a resort of Steele and Addison, as well as of Cowper the poet. It was in existence occupying the site of No. 8 Fleet Street, down to 1885, in which year it was turned into a French restaurant. In 1899 it was demolished together with No. 7 next door, which had once been the residence of Tothill, the sixteenth century printer, later the premises of Jaggard, law printers of Georgian days, and in our own time of Messrs Butterworth. Thackeray must have been often within the doors of Dick's, for it stood just without the entrance to The Temple where he was a student for some years. The “ Pall Mall Gazette," the prospectus of which was, as I have said, drawn up by Shandon in the Fleet Prison, had its offices in Catherine Street, Strand, whither "Pen often came with his manuscripts in his pocket, and with a great deal of bustle and pleasure." The lower portion of Catherine Street has been cut into by the newly-formed Aldwych but most of us can remember it reaching straight down to the Strand. In earlier times the upper part was known as Brydges Street, and Ogilby in 1675, speaks of it as then being "a new made passage to Covent Garden." It contained the "pretty good tavern," mentioned by Johnson, to which the Doctor had been introduced by Cumming, the Quaker, and where he used to go sometimes, "when I drank wine," as he says.

66

For a space the story takes us to the west-end

where we find the Major exhibiting himself in the "great window" of Bays's Club, St. James's Street. Thackeray's vignette shows us that famous baywindow which was such an important adjunct to White's. The Major stands in front, and behind him is probably Sir Thomas de Boots, a regular habitué, whom we meet with in "The Newcomes." Another "topographical" illustration by the author is that representing the notorious Colonel Altamont, hanging on to the railings of a private house, what time a policeman (a peeler would be the more appropriate title) in the top-hat which then adorned the heads of the force, is evidently recommending him to move on. The mansion indicated is that in Grosvenor Place, then occupied by Sir Francis and Lady Clavering and Blanche Amory, which had been gorgeously fitted up for their reception under the supervision of the Chevalier Strong, and whose "whole exterior face presented the most brilliant aspect which fresh paint, shining plate glass, newly cleaned bricks, and spotless mortar could afford to the beholder." Grosvenor Place then exhibited many differences from its present aspect. The Lock Hospital, established there in 1747, was in existence till 1842, when it was removed to the Harrow Road. Where Grosvenor Crescent cuts through the Place, just behind St. George's Hospital, was then occupied by "Tattersalls" before that establishment went westward to Knightsbridge, and Belgrave Square was in course of formation (1825) its site being those Five Fields where people went to eat syllabubs and pluck wild flowers. In fact Grosvenor Place was still considered very much "out of London," although ever since

Horace Walpole's Lady Ossory lived there, it was regarded as fashionable. It must necessarily have been so, to fall in with the wishes of good-natured Lady Clavering, and especially those of the affected Blanche. Did they not do all that the sojourner in London in the season is bound to do: give dinners, attend receptions, drive in the Park (Foker, one remembers was always dodging about "the Arch of the Green Park" to waylay them), and eat ices, at Hunter's, a thin veil for the famous Gunter's.

Foker's devotion to the fair Blanche was boundless. It even led to his taking dancing lessons privily "at an academy in Brewer Street," which I assume to be the thoroughfare of that name, near Golden Square, leading from Great Windmill Street to Warwick Street, unless it was its name-sake in Pimlico, close to the old Stag Brewery.

6

Mention has been made both of Colonel Altamont and the Chevalier Strong. These worthies had apartments and a somewhat variable and mysterious residence in Shepherd's Inn. "Somewhere behind the black gables and smutty chimney-stacks of Wych Street, Holywell Street, Chancery Lane, the quadrangle lies hidden from the outer world,'" writes Thackeray; and he shows how, at this time, from having been a centre of more or less legal activity, the place had descended to "slop-sellers, brandy-ball and hardbake vendors, purveyors of theatrical prints for youth, dealers in dingy furniture, and bedding suggestive of anything but sleep. Here Mrs. Bolton presided over the Porter's Lodge "; here Costigan lived and was once at least visited by his daughter, Lady Mirabel, formerly The Fotheringay,