Pleas (d. 1577), Sir Thomas Walmesley, Justice Common Pleas (d. 1612), Edmund Reeve, Justice Common Pleas (d. 1647), Sir Francis Bacon, Justice K. B. (d. 1657), were originally members of this Inn. Barnsbury, a manor of Islington, named Bernersbury, and by corruption Barnsbury, from the ancient family of Bernieres or Berners, who held the estate from the reign of the Conqueror till 1422, when, on the death of Richard Berners, it passed to Margery his daughter and heir, who married for her second husband John Bourchier, created Lord Berners. The manor comprises about 240 acres, and the descent is in gavelkind. It is now a district of commonplace dwellings, arranged in a so-called park, crescents, groves, and squares. The Barnsbury of the present day is popularly understood to lie between the Liverpool Road to Hemingford Road on the east and west, and to extend from Richmond Road northwards to Offord Road and the Barnsbury Station of the North London Railway. Beyond that is Lower Holloway. Thomas Waghorn, Lieutenant R.N., projector of the Overland Route to India, died at 2 Golden Terrace, now 18 Barnsbury Road, in 1850. Barrow Hill, adjoining Primrose Hill, and now occupied by the reservoir of the West Middlesex Waterworks. The name survives in Barrow Hill Road. The hill was also known as Greenberry Hill, and it is a curious coincidence that the three unfortunate men who were executed for the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, whose body was found here, were named Robert Green, Lawrence Hill, and Henry Berry. Narcissus Luttrell refers to this in his Diary under date October 1678: It is remarkable that the place where Sir Edmund Berry's corps was found is in old leases called Green Berry Hill, being the names of the three persons condemned for that murder.-Diary, 1857, vol. i. p. 8. Bartholomew Close, an irregular open space, or square, occupying part of the enclosed grounds or close of the ancient Priory of St. Bartholomew, "closed in with walls and gates and locked every night," 1 whence the name. It is entered from West Smithfield by an Early English archway, the ancient entrance to the Priory Close, from Little Britain, nearly opposite the gates of St. Bartholomew's Hospital, from Long Lane, through Cloth Fair, and by two or three narrow passages from Aldersgate Street. De Foe shows his familiarity with the locality by making Moll Flanders, after she has taken the bundle from the maid waiting for the Barnet coach, "turn into Charterhouse Lane, through Charterhouse Yard into Long Lane, then into Bartholomew Close, so into Little Britain, and through the Bluecoat Hospital into Newgate Street." Strype (1720) describes Bartholomew Close as "a spacious court, inhabited," and he adds that "on the east part thereof 1 Stow, p. 141. is a late-built [1708] court, with fair brick buildings, called Queen's Court. At the upper end thereof, east, is a curious picture of the late Queen Anne in full proportions." This court is now called Queen Square, but the buildings can hardly be thought fair, and the "curious picture" has disappeared. In Bartholomew Close lived Dr. Caius, the famous physician, and founder of Caius or Key's College, Cambridge.1 Here, "as a place of retirement and abscondence," in a friend's house, till the Act of Oblivion came out, i.e. from May to August, 1660, lived John Milton.2 Here Hubert Le Sœur, the sculptor, lived; and here he modelled his statue of Charles I., at Charing Cross. Here died, in 1623, Dr. Francis Anthony, inventor of the Aurum Potabile. And here, in Palmer's printing office, setting the types for the third edition of Wollaston's Religion of Nature, 1725, Benjamin Franklin worked as a common journeyman printer. Franklin himself says the second edition, but as he did not arrive in England until December 1724, and the second edition was published during the lifetime of the author, that is before October 29, 1724, it must have been the third edition upon which Franklin was employed.-See Mr. Edward Solly's article in The Bibliographer, vol. iii., 1883, PP. 3, 4. He lodged at this time in Little Britain, next door to a bookseller of the name of Wilcox. "I continued," he says, "at Palmer's nearly a year." But they must take up with Settle and such as they can get; Bartholomew Fair writers, and Bartholomew Close printers.-Dryden, Vindication of the Duke of Guise There are still printers in Bartholomew Close, though fewer than formerly. In Little Bartholomew Close was Bartholomew Chapel, a portion of St. Bartholomew's Priory, for long a noted Dissenters' meeting-house. Attached were schools, founded in 1717, for educating and clothing 60 boys and 40 girls, the children of Protestant Dissenters of all denominations. Both chapel and schools were destroyed by fire in May 1830, and not rebuilt. At No. 25 is the Royal General Dispensary, the oldest institution of the kind in the Kingdom, it having been founded in 1770. It still flourishes, and a new building was erected for its use in 1879-1880 from the designs of Mr. W. W. Lee. It affords medical aid freely to all applicants, but makes a small fixed charge for medicine (twopence for every supply) a system which is found to work well. Bartholomew Fair, a once famous fair, held every year in Smithfield, and so called because it was kept at Bartholomew Tide, and held within the precinct of the Priory of St. Bartholomew in Smithfield. The duration of the Fair was limited by Henry II. to three days (the Eve of St. Bartholomew, the day, and the morrow), and the privilege of holding it assigned by the same sovereign to the Prior of St. Bartholomew. This was for several centuries the great Cloth Fair 1 MS. Records of St. Bartholomew's Hospital. He paid four pounds a year for his house. 2 E. Philips, Godwin, p. 378. of England. Clothiers repaired to it from the most distant parts, and had booths and standings erected for their use within the precinct of the Priory, on the site of what is now called Cloth Fair. The gates of the precinct were closed at night for the protection of property, and a Court of Pie Poudre erected within its verge for the necessary enforcement of the laws of the Fair, of debts and legal obligations. In this court,according to Blackstone, "the most expeditious court of justice known to the law of England,"1-offences were tried the same day, and the parties punished, in the stocks or at the whipping-post, directly after condemnation. At the dissolution of religious houses the privilege of the Fair was in part transferred to the Mayor and Corporation, and in part to Richard Rich, Lord Rich (d. 1560), ancestor of the Earls of Warwick and Holland. It ceased, however, to be a "Cloth Fair" of any great importance in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. The drapers of London found another and more extensive market for their woollens; and the clothiers, in the increase of communication between distant places, a wider field for the sale of their manufactures. It subsequently became a Fair of a very diversified character. Monsters, motions, i.e. puppetshows, drolls, and rarities, were the new commodities to be seen. The three days were extended to fourteen, the Fair commencing on August 22 instead of September 2; and Bartholomew Fair was converted into a kind of London Carnival for persons of every condition and degree in life. The serious-minded Evelyn records his having seen "the celebrated follies," as he calls them, of the place; and in 1740 Frederick, Prince of Wales, visited the Fair in a sort of semi-state, and wearing his blue ribbon, star, and garter, Manager Rich "introducing his royal guest to all the entertainments of the place." The rarities in the way of Natural History attracted Sir Hans Sloane, who, to give an enduring remembrance to what he had seen, employed a draughtsman to draw and colour the rarer portions of the exhibition; and to the last Wombwell's and Atkins's Menageries were, next to Richardson's show, the chief attractions of the Fair. The fourteen days were found too long, for the excesses committed were very great; and in the year 1708 the period of the Fair was limited to its old duration of three days.2 Considerable restrictions were imposed on the keepers of shows and stalls in 1845; the Fair rapidly dwindled to a shabby collection of toy and gingerbread stalls and fruit barrows; and in 1855 it was suppressed as a nuisance. The Fair was opened by the Lord Mayor, and the proclamation for the purpose read before the entrance to the Cloth Fair. On these occasions it was the custom for the Lord Mayor to call upon the keeper of Newgate, and partake of "a cool tankard of wine, nutmeg, and sugar." This custom, which ceased in the second mayoralty of Sir Matthew Wood (1817), occasioned the death of Sir John Shorter, Lord Mayor in 1688, whose daughter was the first wife of Sir Robert 1 Commentaries, B. iii. c. 4, § 3. 2 Strype, B. iii. p. 240. Walpole. In holding the tankard, he let the lid flap down with so much force that his horse started, and he was thrown to the ground with great violence. He died the next day. It is worthy of observation that every year upon St. Bartholomew's Day, when the Fair is held, it is usual for the Mayor (attended by the twelve principal Aldermen) to walk in a neighbouring field, dressed in his scarlet gown. . . . When the Mayor goes out of the precincts of the City, a sceptre [mace], a sword, and a cap are borne before him, and he is followed by the principal Aldermen in scarlet gowns, with gold chains, himself and they on horseback. Upon his arrival at a place appointed for that purpose, where a tent is pitched, the mob begin to wrestle before him, two at a time; the conquerors receive rewards from the magistrates. After this is over, a parcel of live rabbits are turned loose among the crowd, who are pursued by a number of boys, who endeavour to catch them with all the noise they can make. While we were at the Show, one of our company, Tobias Salander, Doctor of Physic, had his pocket picked of his purse, with nine crowns du soleil, which, without doubt, was cleverly taken from him by the Englishman who always kept very close to him that the Doctor did not in the least perceive it.-Hentzner's Travels, A.D. 1598. On Saturday last [August 22, 1724], in the afternoon, the Lord Mayor came with great state and solemnity to Smithfield, and proclaimed Bartholomew Fair. His worship's coach stopped at the Lodge door of Newgate, where Mr. Reuse, the deputy-turnkey, appeared, in the absence of Mr. Pitt, the keeper (who is indisposed), and treated his Lordship, the Sheriffs and Alderman, with a lemonade, after a very handsome and pleasing manner; which custom is observed to all the Mayors at the proclaiming of Bartholomew Fair. -Applebee's Journal, August 29, 1724. The old amusements were wrestling and shooting, motions, puppets, operas, tight-rope dancing, and the exhibition of dwarfs, monsters, and wild beasts. Quack doctors, corn-cutters, and tooth-drawers, attended; and there were gamesters of many kinds and cut-purses plenty. Among Bagford's collections in the British Museum,1 is a Bartholomew Fair Bill of the time of Queen Anne; the exhibition at Heatly's Booth of "a little opera called the 'Old Creation of the World newly revived, with the addition of the Glorious Battle obtained over the French and Spaniards by His Grace the Duke of Marlborough!'" Between the acts, jigs, sarabands, and antics were performed, and the whole entertainment concluded with "The Merry Humours of Sir John Spendall, and Punchinello; with several other things not yet exposed." Heatly is supposed to have had no better scenery than the pasteboard properties of our early theatres. The chaos, too, he had descried And seen quite through, or else he lied; For groats at Fair of Bartholomew.-Hudibras, c. i. Another attraction was the ox roasted whole, a yearly custom, referred to by Osborn in his Works.2 Roasted pigs were among the chief allurements, and many booths were devoted to their sale. In Ben Jonson's Bartholomew Fair, a treasury of information respecting the Fair of his day, roasted pig plays a prominent part, and as Gifford remarks in his Notes, "our old authors abound in allusions to this circumstance." Nor were other attractions wanting. 1 Harl. MS., 5931. 2 Ed. 1710, p. 8. Littlewit. Win, you see 'tis in fashion to go to the Fair, Win; we must to the Fair, too, you and I, Win. Mrs. Lit. I would I might: but my mother will never consent to such a profane motion, she will call it. Lit. I have a device, a dainty device. . . . Win, long to eat of a pig, sweet Win, in the Fair, do you see, in the heart of the Fair, not at Pye Corner. Your mother will do anything, Win, to satisfy your longing. ... [In the Fair, Enter KNOCKEM and WHIT from Ursula's booth.] Knock. Gentlemen, the weather's hot: whither walk you? have a care of your fine velvet caps, the Fair is dusty. Take a sweet delicate booth, with boughs, here in the way and cool yourselves in the shade, you and your friends. The best pig and bottle-ale in the Fair, sir. Old Ursula is cook, there you may read [Points to the sign, a Pig's Head, with a large writing under it]. The pig's head speaks it. Whit. A delicate show pig, little mistress, with sweet sauce and crackling. Lit. [Gazing at the inscription]. This is fine verily. Here be the best pigs, and she does roast them as well as ever she did. The pig's head says.-Ben Jonson, Bart. Fair, Act i. Sc. 1; Act iii. Sc. 1. Now London's Mayor, on saddle new, Rides to the Fair of Bartlemew; He twirls his chain and looketh big, As if to fright the head of pig, That gaping lies on every stall.-DAVENANT. O the motions that I, Lanthorn Leatherhead, have given light to in my time! Jerusalem was a stately thing, and so was Nineveh, and the City of Norwich, and Sodom and Gomorrah, with the Rising of the 'Prentices, and the pulling down the bawdy. houses there upon Shrove Tuesday; but the Gunpowder Plot, there was a getpenny! I have presented that to an eighteen or twentypence audience nine times in an afternoon. Your home-born projects prove ever the best, they are so easy and familiar; they put too much learning in their things now o'days.-Ben Jonson, Bart. Fair, Act v. Sc. 1. Waspe. I have been at the Eagle and the Black Wolf, and the Bull with the five legs, and the dogs that dance the Morrice, and the Hare of the Tabor.-Ben Jonson, Bart. Fair, Act. v. Sc. 3. I was at Bartholomew Fair. Coming out, I met a man that would have taken off my hat; but I secured it, and was going to draw my sword, crying out, “ Begar!" "Damned Rogue!" 23 66 Morbleu!" etc., when on a sudden I had a hundred people about me crying, "Here, Monsieur, see Jephthah's Rash Vow."- -"Here, Monsieur, see the tall Dutchwoman."-"See the Tiger!" says another." See the Horse and no horse, whose tail stands where his head should do."- "See the German Artist, Monsieur."—"See the Siege of Namur, Monsieur.”—“ A Journey to London," Dr. King's Works, vol. i. p. 204. The Tiger in Bartholomew Fair, that yesterday gave such satisfaction to persons of all Qualities by pulling the feathers so nicely from live fowls, will, at the request of several persons, do the same this day; price 6d. each.—The Postman, Tuesday, September 9, 1701. Each person having a booth, paid so much per foot during the first three days. The Earl of Warwick and Holland is concerned in the toll gathered the first three days in the Fair, being a penny for every burthen of goods brought in or carried out; and to that end there are persons that stand at all the entrances into the Fair; and they are of late years grown so nimble, that these Blades will extort a penny if one hath but a little bundle under one's arms, and nothing related to the fair.-Strype, B. iii. p. 285. Trash. Mar my market, thou too proud pedlar! do thy worst, I defy thee, I, and thy stable of hobby-horses. I pay for my ground as well as thou dost.-Ben Jonson, Bart. Fair, Act ii. Sc. 1. Leatherhead. Sir, it stands me in six and twenty shillings, besides three shillings for my ground.1-Ben Jonson, Bart. Fair, Act iii. Sc. I. 1 Lord Kensington, to whom the tolls descended, sold his right to the Corporation of London in VOL. I 1830. For "Lady Holland's Mob," see Every Day Book, vol. i. p. 1229. I |