more; and the all-powerful lyre, whose
sweeping chords would rouse the soul to rage or melt it into pity, is
now, and perhaps FOR EVER, mute and unstrung!
These observations, which you may think too enthusiastic, were elicited
by the perusal of an article in your No. 388, entitled "A Desultory
Chapter on Localities." Your Correspondent states, that "it is needless
to travel to foreign countries in search of localities. In our own
metropolis and its environs a diligent inquirer will find them at every
step." The following Collection will serve to confirm the truth of his
statement, and should you deem it worthy "a local habitation" in your
excellent journal, I doubt not it will prove interesting, if not quite
new to many of your readers.[1]
[1] Is not this very interesting extract by Leigh Hunt?--We have
not his _Indicator_ at hand for reference.
C.E.
"In St. Giles' Church lie Chapman, the earliest and best translator of
Homer; and Andrew Marvell, the wit and patriot, whose poverty Charles
II. could not bribe.--Who would suppose that the Borough was the most
classical ground in the metropolis? And yet it is undoubtedly so. The
Globe Theatre was there, of which Shakspeare himself was a proprietor,
and for which he wrote his plays. Globe-lane, in which it stood, is
still extant, we believe, under that name. It is probable that he lived
near it: it is certain that he must have been much there. It is also
certain that on the Borough side of the river, then and still called the
Bank-side, in the same lodging, having the same wardrobe, and some say,
with other participations more remarkable, lived Beaumont and Fletcher.
In the Borough, also, at St. Saviour's, lie Fletcher and Massinger in
one grave; in the same church, under a monument and effigy, lies
Chaucer's contemporary, Gower; and from an inn in the Borough, the
existence of which is still boasted, and the site pointed out by a
picture and inscription, Chaucer set out his pilgrims and himself on
their famous road to Canterbury.
"To return over the water, who would expect any thing poetical from East
Smithfield? Yet there was born the most poetical even of poets, Spenser.
Pope was born within the sound of Bowbell, in a street no less
anti-poetical than Lombard-street. So was Gray, in Cornhill. So was
Milton, in Bread-street, Cheapside. The presence of the same great poet
and patriot has given happy memories to many parts of the metropolis. He
lived in
|