The Thames and his Tributaries
by Charles McKay.
Originally published in Bentley's Miscellany (Richard Bentley) vol.5 (1839).
Man speaks of the "Mother Earth," from whence he came, and whither he returns; but, after all, the honour of his maternity belongs to Water. Earth is but the nurse of another's progeny; she merely nourishes the children of a more prolific element, by whom she herself is fed and clothed in return. Water is the universal mother,—the beneficent, the all-fructifying,—beautiful to the eye, refreshing to the touch, pleasant to the palate, and musical to the ear. What should we be without her? We have only to imagine the condition of the moon, and the question is answered. Men with great telescopes, who have looked over her surface, and examined every hole and cranny in her, have decided that there are no Rivers in her, and, for want of water, she is nothing but a dry and uninhabitable rock. There is neither salt water nor fresh in all her extent. She is the abode of no living thing,—the Gehenna of desolation,—the mere skeleton of a world, which the sun may light, but cannot warm. No wonder that she looks so pale and woe-begone as she sails along the sky, and that lovers and poets, ignorant of her peculiar misfortune, have so often asked her the reason of her sorrow. I 'faith, they would be sorry too, if they had no more moisture in their composition than she has.
Rivers all over the world are rich in remembrances. To them are attached all the poetry and romance of a nation. Popular superstition clings around them, and every mile of their course is celebrated for some incident,—is the scene of a desperate adventure, a mournful legend, or an old song. What a swarm of pleasant thoughts rise upon the memory at the sole mention of the Rhine!—what a host of recollections are recalled by the name of the Danube, the Rhone, the Garonne, the Meuse, the Seine, the Loire, the Tagus, the Guadalquivir!—even the low-banked and unpicturesque Elbe and Scheldt are dear as household things to the neighbouring people. Their praises are sung in a hundred different idioms; and the fair maidens who have dwelt upon their banks, and become celebrated for their beauty, their cruelty, or their woe, have their names mingled with that of the river in the indissoluble bands of national song.
To the man who has a catholic faith in poetry, every river in Scotland may be said to be holy water. Liddell, and Tweed, and Dee,—Tiviot, and Tay, and Forth,—and doleful Yarrow, sanctified by a hundred songs. Poetry and romance have thrown a charm around them, and tourists from every land are familiar with their history. Great writers have thought it a labour of love to collect into one focus all the scattered memoranda and fleeting scraps of ballads relating to them, until those insignificant streams have become richer than any of our isle in recollections which shall never fade.
"And what has been done for these, shall none be found to do for thee, O Thames?" said we to ourselves, as we thought of these things one fine summer morning. "Art thou of so little consequence among the rivers, that no one will undertake to explore thee from Cotteswold to the sea, and in a patient but enthusiastic spirit gather together all thy memorabilia?" There being no person present, we looked round our study with an air of satisfaction, and exclaimed, "We will do it. We have been cabined and cribbed amid smoke too long: we pine for a ramble among the hills, and a gulp of the sweet air. We will go in search of wisdom and of health along the banks of the Thames, and drink its pure water from its very fountain-head, among the hills of Gloucestershire.
It is in this pilgrimage, O gentle reader, that we ask thee to accompany us. We will be as entertaining a cicerone as we can. We will not bore thee, if we can help it, by telling thee too many things that thou knowest already; and if we do now and then touch upon them, we may take a different view of them from any thou hast yet been accustomed to, and throw a new light upon an old picture. If thou art a lover of poetry, a delighter in old songs, thou art a reader after our own heart, and thou shalt be as pleased with us as we are with thee. If thou art an antiquary, we also have some sneaking affection for thy hobby, and will now and then throw thee a tit-bit for it. If thou art an angler, and fishest with a rod, we will show thee all the best places in the river from Vauxhall Bridge to Cricklade; or, if thou preferest to cast thy nets, we will accompany thee from London Bridge to Margate. If thou lovest water-sports, we will discourse to thee on that subject, and tell thee a thing or two worth knowing about river-pageants, boat-races, and sailing-matches, and something also about some rare old games of the water, which have now fallen into disuse. If thou art a mere skimmer of books, a lover of small-talk and pleasant gossip, even in that case we shall not be caviare to thee. And last of all, if thou art an Utilitarian and a Political Economist, which we hope not, we may take it into our heads to throw a crumb of comfort even to thee, and furnish thee with a fact or two for thy edification, wherewithal thou mayest build up a theory if thou feelest inclined.
Not only do we propose to explore Thames,
"Great father of the British floods,"
but all his tributary streams,
"The winding Isis, and the fruitful Thame;
The Kennet swift, for silver eels renowned;
The Lodden slow, with verdant alders crowned:
Coln, whose dark streams his flowery islands lave;
And chalky Wey, that rolls a milky wave:
The blue transparent Vandalis appears;
The gulfy Lee his sedgy tresses rears;
And sullen Mole that hides his diving flood:
And silent Darent stained with Danish blood;
and other rivers, which did not come within the circuit of Pope's song; the Medway, whose bridal is so sweetly sung in the "Faery Queene," and who is also celebrated in the Poly-olbion, with
"Teise, clear Beule, and Lenn, who bear her limber train;"
and many others, which contribute their mingled waters to the Thames.
This, O reader, is our intent. We go as an inoffensive tourist, in search of traditions, in search of antiquities, in search of poetry, in search of fresh breezes, in search of fish. Sometimes we may travel at railroad speed, and at others we may linger about for days in one spot, sauntering over the hills, sitting under trees by the river-side, but conning all the while something for thy edification and amusement.
Being, for our sins, a dweller among the smoke, our journey must perforce commence from London. From London Bridge, then, we shall proceed upwards to the hills of Cotteswold, availing ourselves of the steam-boat as far as it will carry us, but, for the most part, tramping it leisurely and independently, after the old fashion, with our stout shoes on, and an oaken cudgel in our fist, a miniature edition of the Fairy Queen in one pocket, and Shakspeare's neglected but most delicious poems in the other. When we have in this manner explored Thames and all his tributaries to the west, we shall return eastward, taking another glimpse of London, and follow his windings to the sea, diverging to the right hand or to the left, wherever there is a pleasant view to be had, a relic to be seen, or an old ballad to be elucidated.
And now, reader, thou hast only to fancy thyself at London Bridge, on board the Richmond steam-boat, awaiting the bell to ring as the signal for starting. Here we are, then, over the very spot where the old bridge stood for nearly a thousand years. The waters roll over its site, coal-barges and wherries are moored over its foundations, and its juvenile successor, a thing of yesterday, rears its head proudly, close alongside. In the interval of time that separates the erection of the two structures, how vast are the changes the world has seen! The physical world has seen none; the tides still roll, and the seasons still succeed each other in the same order; but the mind of man—that world which rules the world—how immense the progress it has made! Even while that old bridge lasted, man stepped from barbarism to civilization. Hardly one of the countless thousands that now pour in living streams from morning to night over the pathway of its successor, has time to waste a thought on the old one, or the lesson it might teach him. Its duration was that of twenty generations of mankind; it seemed built to defy time and the elements, and yet it has crumbled at last. Becoming old and frail, it stood in people's way; and being kicked by one, and insulted by another, it was pulled to pieces without regret, twenty or thirty years, perhaps, before the time when it would have fallen to destruction of its own accord. All this time the river has run below, unchanged and unchangeable, the same as it flowed thousands of years ago, when the now busy thoroughfares on either side were swamps inhabited only by the frog and the bittern, and when painted savages prowled about the places that are now the marts of commerce and the emporium of the world.
A complete resumé of the manners and character of the people of England might be gleaned from the various epocha in the age of the old bridge. First, it was a crazy wooden structure, lined on each side with rows of dirty wooden huts, such as befitted a rude age, and a people just emerging from barbarism. Itinerant dealers in all kinds of goods, spread out their wares on the pathway, making a market of the thoroughfare, and blocking it up with cattle to sell, or waggon-loads of provender. The bridge, while in this primitive state, was destroyed many times by fire, and as many times built up again. Once, in the reign of William Rufus, it was carried away by a flood, and its fragments swept into the sea. The continual expense of these renovations induced the citizens, under the superintendence of Peter of Colechurch, to build it up of stone. This was some improvement; but the houses on each side remained as poor and miserable as before, dirty outside, and pestilential within. Such was its state during the long unhappy centuries of feudalism. What a strange spectacle it must have afforded at that time!—what an emblem of all the motley characteristics of the ruled and the rulers! Wooden huts and mud floors for the people,—handsome stone chapels and oratories, adorned with statues and stained glass, for the clergy,—and drawbridges, portcullises, and all the paraphernalia of attack and defence at either end, to show a government founded upon might rather than right, and to mark the general insecurity of the times; while, to crown all, the awful gate towards Southwark, but overlooking the stream, upon which, for a period of nearly three hundred years, it was rare for the passenger to go by without seeing a human head stuck upon a pike, blackening and rotting in the sun. In 1471, after the defeat of the famous Falconbridge, who made an attack upon London, his head and nine others were stuck upon the bridge together, upon ten spears, where they remained visible to all comers, till the elements and the carrion crows had left nothing of them but the bones. The legs of Sir Thomas Wyatt were exhibited from the same spot, during the reign of Mary. Even the mayors of London had almost as much power to kill and destroy as the kings and queens, so reckless was the age of the life of man. In 1335, the mayor, one Andrew Aubrey, ordered seven skinners and fishmongers, whose only offence was rioting in the streets, aggravated by personal insult to himself, to be beheaded without form of trial. Their heads were also exposed on the bridge, and the mayor was not called to account for his conduct. Jack Cade, in the hot fervour of his first successes, imitated this fine example, and set up Lord Saye's head at the same place, little thinking how soon his own would bear it company.
How different are the glories of the new bridge. It also is adorned with human heads, but live ones, thousands at a time, passing and repassing continually to and fro. Of the millions of heads that crowd it every year, busy in making money or taking pleasure, not one dreads the executioner's knife. Every man's head is his own; and if either King or Lord Mayor dare to meddle with it, it is at his peril. We have luckily passed the age when law-makers could be law-breakers, and every man walks in security. While these human heads adorn, no wooden hovels disfigure the new bridge, or block up the view of the water. Such a view as the one from that place was never meant to be hidden. The "unbounded Thames, that flows for all mankind," and into whose port "whole nations enter with every tide," bearing with them the wealth of either hemisphere, is a sight that only needs to be seen to be wondered at. And if there is a sight from John o' Groat's house to the Land's End of which an Englishman may be proud, it is that. Other sights which we can show to the stranger may reflect more credit upon the land, but that does honour to the men, and is unequalled among any other nation on the globe.
But the signal-bell has rung—away we go up the ancient highway of the city towards Westminster, in the track of all the lords mayor since Norman, in the year 1454. This worthy functionary was very fond of the water, and first began the custom, regularly continued since his day, of proceeding to Westminster Hall by water, with a grand city pageant. The boatmen took him in great affection in consequence, and one of them wrote a song upon him, the burden of which was,
"Row thy boat, Norman,
Row to thy leman."
What a formidable array of steeples is to be seen as we get out of sight of the shipping! No city in Europe can show such a forest of ships, or such a forest of steeples, as London. The most prominent object in the view is St. Paul's, rearing his head as fat and saucy as if he were a bishop with forty thousand a-year. Around him are gathered the inferior dignitaries of the Church, some of them looking in good condition enough, but most of them as tall and thin as if they had a wife and six children, and only a curacy of eighty pounds a-year to support them.
What a contrast there is now, and always has been, both in the character and appearance of the two sides of the river. The London side, high and well-built, thickly studded with spires and public edifices, and resounding with all the noise of the operations of a various industry; the Southwark and Lambeth side, low and flat, and meanly built, with scarcely an edifice higher than a coal-shed or a timber-yard, and a population with a squalid, dejected, and debauched look, offering a remarkable contrast to the cheerfulness and activity visible on the faces of the Londoners. The situation upon the low swamp is, no doubt, one cause of the unhealthy appearance of the dwellers on the south of the Thames; but the dissolute, rake-hellish appearance of the lower orders of them must be otherwise accounted for. From a very early age, Southwark and Lambeth, and the former especially, were the great sinks and common receptacles of all the vice and immorality of London. Up to the year 1328, Southwark had been independent of the jurisdiction of London,—a sort of neutral ground, which the law could not reach,—and, in consequence, the abode of thieves and abandoned characters of every kind. They used to sally forth in bands of one and two hundreds at a time, to rob in the city; and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen for the time being had not unfrequently to keep watch upon the bridge for nights together, at the head of a troop of armed men, to prevent their inroads. The thieves, however, upon these occasions took to their boats at midnight, and rowing up the river, landed at Westminster, and drove all before them, with as much valour and as great impunity as a Highland chieftain upon a foray into Cumberland. These things induced the magistrates of London to apply to Edward the Third for a grant of Southwark. The request was complied with, and the vicious place brought under the rule of the city. Driven in some measure from this nest, the thieves took refuge in Lambeth, and still set the authorities at defiance. From that day to this the two boroughs have had the same character, and been known as the favourite resort of thieves and vagabonds of every description. It was here, under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester, that all the stews existed for centuries, being licensed by that prelate for a fee. Their inhabitants and frequenters were long known in London as the "Bishop of Winchester's birds." Players also, then ranking with these and similar characters, under the common designation of "vagabonds," flocked to the same spot, together with fraudulent bankrupts, swindlers, debtors, and all men who had misunderstandings with the law, and were fearful of clearing them up, lest their goods and bodies might be demanded in expiation. Here in former days stood the privileged "Mint" and "Clink;" and here in the present day stands the privileged "Bench," within whose "Rules" are congregated the same vicious and demoralized class of people that always inhabited it. Stews also abound, though no bishop receives fees from them; and penny theatres, where the performers are indeed vagabonds, and the audience thieves.
Passing under the iron bridge, and then under Blackfriars, which we dismiss with no other comment, than that in its present state it is a disgrace to London, we arrive at a different scene. A plot of fresh green grass—an oasis of trees and verdure amid the wilderness of brick and mortar that encompasses it on every side. The houses that form this pleasant square are high and regular, and have a solemn and sedate look, befitting the antiquity and historical sanctity of their site, and the grave character of the people that inhabit them. Here are the Temple Gardens, sacred to the goddess of Strife. Their former occupants, the Knights Templars, were quarrelsome folk enough, God knows; and the new tenants of their abode keep themselves respectable out of the proceeds of contention, fatten upon contention, buy themselves wigs and gowns out of contention. Woe betide the wight whom they entangle in their meshes! They will put the vulture of litigation in him to gnaw out his entrails, and will tie a millstone round his neck, which they call "costs," to drag him down to ruin. In those gloomy chambers, so pleasantly situated, sits Law, as upon a throne. Sweet are all the purlieus of the spot:—flowers blossom, trees cast a refreshing shade, and a fountain maketh a pleasant murmur all the year; but each room in that precinct is a den inhabited by a black spider, who will suck the blood of all foolish flies who, by quarrelling and fighting, struggle themselves into the toils. It is fair outside, to make the world believe that it is the abode of justice and equity; but its beauty is but a cheat and a lure, to hide Sen too common observers the revenge, rapacity, and roguery that lie beneath the surface.
Hoity toity!—quoth we to ourselves—what a fuss about nothing! What a gross injustice we have given utterance to! What a foul libel we have penned upon that learned and eminent body!—and all for the sake of what? For the mere sake of saying something pungent or ill-natured, which with many people is all the same. Forgive us, O shades of learned Sir Thomas More, of upright Sir Matthew Hale, of philosophic Lord Bacon!—forgive us, spirits of Clarendon, Camden, and Mansfield!—forgive us, living Denman, Tindal, Brougham, that we should have so slandered the profession of which ye have been or are the ornaments! Wit, worth, and wisdom are associated with your names, and with hundreds of others, both alive and dead, whom we could specify, if there were any need for it.
"We never were known for a railer,
In fun all this slander we spoke;
For a lawyer as well as a sailor
Is not above taking a joke."
Sailing onwards from the Temple, we arrive at that magnificent structure which spans the bosom of the Thames at its widest breadth within metropolitan limits, and is named in honour of the great battle which last gave peace to Europe. Around its arches clings half the romance of modern London. It is the English "Bridge of Sighs," the "Pons Asinorum," the "Lover's Leap," the "Arch of Suicide." Well does it deserve all these appellations. Many a sad and too true tale might be told, the beginning and end of which would be "Waterloo Bridge." It is a favourite spot for love assignations; and a still more favourite spot for the worn and the weary, who long to cast off the load of existence, and cannot wait, through sorrow, until the Almighty Giver takes away his gift. Its comparative loneliness renders it convenient for both purposes. The penny toll keeps off the inquisitive and unmannerly crowd; and the foolish can love or the mad can die with less observation from the passers than they could find anywhere else so close to the heart of London. To many a poor girl the assignation over one arch of Waterloo Bridge is but the prelude to the fatal leap from another. Here they begin, and here they end, after a long course of intermediate crime and sorrow, the unhappy story of their loves. Here, also, wary and practised courtezans lie in wait for the Asini, so abundant in London, and justify its cognomen of the Pons Asinorum. Here fools become entrapped, and wise men too sometimes, the one losing his money, and the other his money and self-respect. But, with all its vice, Waterloo Bridge is pre-eminently the "Bridge of Sorrow." There is less of the ludicrous to be seen from its smooth highway than from almost any other in the metropolis. The people of London continually hear of unhappy men and women who throw themselves from its arches, and as often of the finding of bodies in the water, which may have lain there for weeks, no one knowing how or when they came there,—no one being able to distinguish their lineaments. But, often as these things are heard of, few are aware of the real number of victims that choose this spot to close an unhappy career,—few know that, taking one year with another, the average number of suicides committed from this place is about thirty.
Notwithstanding these gloomy associations, Waterloo Bridge is a pleasant spot. Any one who wishes to enjoy a panoramic view unequalled of its kind in Europe, has only to proceed thither, just at the first faint peep of dawn, and he will be gratified. A more lovely prospect of a city it is impossible to imagine than that which will burst upon him as he draws near to the middle arch. Scores of tall spires, unseen during the day, are distinctly seen at that hour, each of which seems to mount upwards to double its usual height, standing out in bold relief against the clear blue sky. Even the windows of distant houses, no longer, as in the noon-tide view, blended together in one undistinguishable mass, seem larger and nearer, and more clearly defined; every chimney-pot stands alone, tracing against the smokeless sky a perfect outline. Eastward, the view embraces the whole of ancient London, from "the towers of Julius" to its junction with Westminster at Temple Bar. Directly opposite stands Somerset House, by far the most prominent, and, were it not for the egg-shell on the top of it, the most elegant building, St. Paul's excepted, in all the panorama; while to the west rise the hoary towers of Westminster Abbey, with, far in the distance, glimpses of the hills of Surrey crowned with verdure. The Thames, which flows in a crescent-shaped course, adds that peculiar charm to the view which water always affords to a landscape. If the visiter has time, and has besides the eye of a painter and the heart of a poet, he will do well to linger for a few hours on the spot till all the fires are lighted, and the haze of noon approaches. He will gradually see many objects disappear from the view. First of all, the hills of Surrey will be undistinguishable in the distance; steeples far away in the north and east of London will vanish as if by magic; houses half a mile off, in which you might at first have been able to count the panes of glass in the windows, will agglomerate into shapeless masses of brick. After a time, the manufactories and gasworks, belching out volumes of smoke, will darken all the atmosphere; steam-boats plying continually to and fro will add their quota to the general impurity of the air; while all these mingling together will form that dense cloud which habitually hangs over London, and excludes its inhabitants from the fair share of sunshine to which all men are entitled.
While thus gossipping with thee, O reader, we have passed under the arch, shot like an arrow by Hungerford Market, and arrived at another green spot, amid surrounding houses. It is a fair lawn, neatly trimmed, and divided into compartments by little walls. In the rear rises a row of goodly modern houses, the abodes of ministers, and ex-ministers, and "lords of high degree." But it is not so much for what it exhibits, as for what it hides, that this spot is remarkable. The row of houses screens Whitehall and its historical purlieus from the view. Just behind the house with the bow-windows, inhabited by Sir Robert Peel, is the spot where the head of Charles the First rolled on the scaffold. In a nook close by, as if purposely hidden from the view of the world, there is a very good statue of a very bad king. Unknown to the thousands of London, James the Second rears his brazen head in a corner, ashamed, apparently even in his effigies, to affront the eyes of the nation he misgoverned.
Still sailing up the stream, we next pass under the arches of Westminster Bridge. This edifice was commenced in 1738, and finished in 1750. The Corporation of London had a notion that it would injure the trade of the city; and while the bill relating to it underwent discussion in the legislature, they opposed it by every means in their power. For many years afterwards, London aldermen thought it pollution to go over it, and passed by it as saucily and with as much contempt as a dog would by a "stinking brock." So highly was the bridge esteemed by its projectors, that they procured the admission of a clause into the act of Parliament, by which the punishment of death without benefit of clergy was declared against any one who should wilfully deface or injure it. Dogs also were kept off it with as much rigour as they are now excluded from Kensington Gardens. It does not appear, however, that dog or man was ever hanged either for defiling or defacing the precious structure.
"O happy age! O good old times gone by!
Even dogs might howl, and pipe their sorrowing eye,
Were ye restored to us, and our posterity!"
And now we are clear of the bridge, the river opens out before us in a longer sweep. To the right are the ruins of the houses of Lords and Commons, with hundreds of workmen busily employed in laying the foundations of a new and more splendid edifice, worthy to be the seat of the British Legislature. On the left, a little higher up, is the grey and venerable palace of Lambeth, the residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury ever since the Norman Conquest. How many recollections are excited by the mention of this spot! It was here that the Archbishop Simon Sudbury was cruelly murdered by the rebels under Wat Tyler; it was here that the unfortunate Earl of Essex was imprisoned by Queen Elizabeth before his final commitment to the Tower; here also Archbishop Laud was attacked by the riotous London 'prentices, a very short time before his execution. Upon this place also, the bigots under Lord George Gordon vented a portion of their fury in 1780. Close by the same spot, under the walls of Lambeth Church, the unfortunate Mary D'Este remained hidden with her infant son, in the midst of the bitter storm of the 6th of December 1688, for a whole hour, awaiting a coach to convey her, a fugitive and an outcast from the land where she had reigned as a queen.