EDITED BY GEOFFREY G. HILLER, PETER L. GROVES, ALAN F. D ILNOT An Anthology of London in Literature ‘Flower of Cities All’ An Anthology of London in Literature, 1558–1914 Geoffrey G. Hiller · Peter L. Groves Alan F. Dilnot Editors An Anthology of London in Literature, 1558–1914 ‘Flower of Cities All’ Editors Geoffrey G. Hiller (1942–2017) Peter L. Groves Glen Iris, VIC, Australia Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia Alan F. Dilnot Monash University Melbourne, VIC, Australia ISBN 978-3-030-05608-7 ISBN 978-3-030-05609-4 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05609-4 Library of Congress Control Number: 2018964113 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifcally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microflms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifc statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affliations. Cover illustration: “Westminster Bridge, with the Lord Mayor’s Procession on the Thames. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection” This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland This book is dedicated to the memory of Geoffrey G. Hiller (1942–2017), a scholar and a gentleman: Of studie took he moost cure and moost hede, And gladly wold he lerne, and gladly teche. PREFACE This anthology brings together extracts from some of the fnest writing in English on the subject of that ancient and fascinating city, chosen from the period in which the London we now know was mainly created: the three-and- a-half centuries that separate the accession of Elizabeth I from the onset of the First World War, which transformed it from a large town still intimately connected to the neighbouring countryside to the sprawling metropolis of an empire that covered a quarter of the globe. London has always been more than a place to live and work: always the cultural heart of England, for example, and always larger by at least an order of magnitude than any other city in Britain—indeed, for much of this period the largest city in the world. But beyond this, London is a city of the mind, an imaginary space haunted by the great mythopoeic cities of Western culture: Rome, Athens, Babylon, Jerusalem. This is why it has kindled the imagination of some of the greatest writers of English, and why it forms the subject of this anthology. The 142 extracts, which are in all but one case in modernised spelling and punctuation (though including traditional punctuational aids to scansion), are annotated (simple one-word glosses are incorporated into the text in square brackets) and grouped into four sections by historical period, being numbered within those sections: cross-references will take the form “[2.14]” or “(see [4.27])”. Each extract has a brief head-note, and references to the head-note of an extract are indicated by “HN”. References to footnotes will take the form “(see [2.20], n.107)”. Each of the four sections is introduced by an Introduction, an account of the various contexts from which the passages are drawn: historical, social, cultural, even geographic (London grew by 25 times and developed beyond recognition throughout the period covered by the anthology). vii viii PREFACE The General Introduction provides a broader context for the extracts as literature, exploring the mythological sources and literary forms and infuences that lie behind them. Glen Iris, Australia Geoffrey G. Hiller Melbourne, Australia Peter L. Groves Melbourne, Australia Alan F. Dilnot CONTENTS 1 Period 1: London—Birth of a New Order (1558–1659) 1 INTRODUCTION 1 1.1 John Lyly: London the Ideal City 6 1.2 Donald Lupton: London Bridge 7 1.3 Robert Herrick Laments Leaving His Native London 8 1.4 Herrick’s Joyful Return to London 9 1.5 John Webster: The Decrepitude of Some London Buildings 10 1.6 John Donne: The Lively Streets of London 11 1.7 William Habington: In Praise of London in the Long Vacation 15 DRAMA AND THE THEATRE 16 1.8 Philip Stubbes: Puritan Objections to Stage Plays 16 1.9 Shakespeare: “On Your Imaginary Forces Work” 17 1.10 Shakespeare: The Best Actors Are but Shadows 18 THE PLAGUE 20 1.11 Thomas Nashe: “Adieu, Farewell, Earth’s Bliss” 20 1.12 Thomas Dekker: The Plague and Its Victims in 1603 21 THE COURT AND COURTIERS 22 1.13 Sir John Davies: “Our Glorious English Court’s Divine Image” 22 1.14 Edmund Spenser: Another View of Love at Court 24 1.15 Anon.: A Courtier 25 1.16 Thomas Dekker: “How a Young Gallant Should Behave Himself in an Ordinary” 26 WHO SHOULD ’SCAPE WHIPPING? 27 1.17 John Earle: A Shopkeeper 27 1.18 Thomas Middleton: A Goldsmith Gulled 28 1.19 Barnabe Rich: Vanity Fair 29 1.20 Thomas Harman: An Abraham Man 30 1.21 Robert Greene: Beware of Pickpockets 30 1.22 Middleton: Roaring Girls 32 ix x CONTENTS 1.23 Ben Jonson: Pickpockets at Bartholomew Fair 33 1.24 John Earle: A Prison 34 1.25 Donald Lupton: Bedlam 35 1.26 Dekker and Middleton: Entertainment Provided by the Inmates of Bedlam 37 THE COMING OF THE COMMONWEALTH 37 1.27 Andrew Marvell: The Execution of Charles I 37 1.28 John Evelyn: “The Funeral Sermon of Preaching” 38 1.29 Evelyn: Persecution of Royalist Churchgoers 39 References 40 2 Period 2: London in the Enlightenment (1660–1780) 41 INTRODUCTION 41 2.1 Celia Fiennes: Some Topographical Features of London 48 2.2 Daniel Defoe: London Surging in Size 50 THE RESTORATION 52 2.3 John Evelyn: Charles II’s Triumphal Entry into London 52 2.4 Evelyn: Bodies of Cromwell and Others Exhumed 53 2.5 Evelyn: Gambling and Debauchery at the Court of Charles II 53 2.6 Evelyn: James II’s Ill-Timed Feast for the Venetian Ambassadors 54 THE GREAT PLAGUE 55 2.7 Samuel Pepys Describes the Plague 55 2.8 Daniel Defoe’s Imaginative Reconstruction of the Great Plague 56 THE GREAT FIRE 58 2.9 John Dryden: London on Fire 58 2.10 Pepys’ Buried Treasures 62 2.11 Defoe: London Before and After the Fire 62 INSTITUTIONS 64 2.12 John Evelyn: Some Unusual Proceedings of the Royal Society 64 2.13 Ned Ward: The Rebuilding of St Paul’s Cathedral 65 2.14 Joseph Addison: The Royal Exchange 66 2.15 Ned Ward: Crowds at the Entrance to the Royal Exchange 67 2.16 Defoe: Westminster Abbey 68 ALL THAT LIFE CAN AFFORD 70 2.17 Samuel Johnson in Praise of London 70 2.18 John Gay: The Labyrinthine Streets of London 70 2.19 Gay on Pall Mall 71 2.20 Jonathan Swift: “A Description of a City Shower” 72 2.21 Tobias Smollett: Ranelagh and Vauxhall Gardens 74 2.22 Hannah More: The Bluestocking Circle 76 2.23 Ned Ward: Pork Sellers at Bartholomew Fair 77 2.24 Benjamin Franklin: “Work, the Curse of the Drinking Classes” 78 CONTENTS xi A WALK ON THE WILD SIDE 80 2.25 John Gay: Perils of London by Night 80 2.26 James Smith: Sex-Workers in the Strand 81 2.27 Daniel Defoe on Shoplifting 82 2.28 Defoe: Newgate Prison 83 2.29 Samuel Richardson: An Execution at Tyburn 84 2.30 Samuel Johnson: The Crime of Poverty 86 2.31 Thomas Holcoft: The Gordon Riots 87 References 90 3 Period 3: London—New Riches, New Squalor (1781–1870) 91 INTRODUCTION 91 AN OPENING MISCELLANY 98 3.1 Charlotte Bronte: London as Life and Freedom 98 3.2 Mary Robinson: “London’s Summer Morning” 99 3.3 Charles Dickens: A London ‘Pea-Souper’ 101 3.4 William Cobbett: The Great Wen 103 3.5 William Wordsworth: Alienation and Anonymity 104 3.6 Alfred, Lord Tennyson: The Noise of Life Begins Again 105 3.7 William Blake: “Marks of Woe” 106 3.8 Charles Dickens: A Sunday in London 107 3.9 William Makepeace Thackeray: “Going to See a Man Hanged.” 108 DELIGHTS AND BEAUTIES 110 3.10 Thomas Hood: Let’s All Go Down the Strand 110 3.11 John Ruskin Recalls a Childhood Paradise at Herne Hill 111 3.12 William Wordsworth: “Composed Upon Westminster Bridge, September 3, 1802” 113 3.13 Matthew Arnold, “Lines Written in Kensington Gardens” 113 3.14 George Borrow on Cheapside 115 3.15 Frederick Locker-Lampson, “St. James’s Street,” 1867 118 3.16 Charles Dickens: Going Up the River 120 3.17 Nathaniel Hawthorne: A London Suburb 121 INSTITUTIONS 123 3.18 William Blake: St Paul’s Cathedral on Holy Thursday 123 3.19 Thomas De Quincey: Tourists Must Pay to See the Sights of St Paul’s Cathedral 124 3.20 Charles Dickens: The Building of a Railway 125 3.21 Henry Mayhew and George Cruikshank: The Great Exhibition and the Crystal Palace 126 3.22 John Ruskin: The Crystal Palace 128 3.23 Thomas de Quincey: The Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, Destroyed 129 3.24 Benjamin Disraeli: A View of Politicians 130 xii CONTENTS MIDDLE CLASS LIFE 131 3.25