Project Gutenberg's Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442, by Various

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Title: Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442
Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852

Author: Various

Editor: Robert Chambers
William Chambers

Release Date: March 10, 2007 [EBook #20792]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.

No. 442. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, JUNE 19, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._

THE OLD HOUSE IN CRANE COURT.

The roaring pell-mell of the principal thoroughfares of London is
curiously contrasted with the calm seclusion which is often found at
no great distance in certain lanes, courts, and passages, and the
effect is not a little heightened when in these by-places we light
upon some old building speaking of antique institutions or bygone
habits of society. We lately had this idea brought strikingly before
us on plunging abruptly out of Fleet Street into Crane Court, in
search of the establishment known as the Scottish Hospital. We were
all at once transferred into a quiet narrow street, as it might be
called, full of printing and lithographic offices, tall, dark, and
rusty, while closing up the further end stood a dingy building of
narrow front, presenting an ornamental porch. A few minutes served to
introduce us to a moderate-sized hall, having a long table in the
centre, and an arm-chair at the upper end, while several old portraits
graced the walls. It was not without a mental elevation of feeling, as
well as some surprise, that we learned that this was a hall in which
Newton had spent many an evening. It was, to be quite explicit, the
meeting-place of the Royal Society from 1710 till 1782, and,
consequently, during not much less than twenty years of the latter
life of the illustrious author of the _Principia_, who, as an
office-bearer in the inst