CHAPTER I.

SHOREDITCH.

READER, were you ever in Shoreditch? If you are an inhabitant of London, you may know all about it ; if not, get a map of London, and you will see that the locality named Shoreditch forms part of one of the great highways leading northwards from the centre of the city towards the suburbs. The part of this highway nearest the city, including about half a mile. of houses on both sides, is called Bishopsgate Street, from the fact that here stood one of the ancient gates of the city, erected by a Saxon bishop of some early century; beyond that, for about a quarter of a mile, the thoroughfare is called Norton Folgate, or, as it was originally pronounced, the Northern Foldgate; after which, extending for another quarter of a mile, and terminating in Hackney, is Shoreditch proper, the principal street of a populous parish of the same name. Tradition ascribes the origin of the name to the

circumstance that Jane Shore, the mistress of Edward IV., ended her life here,

"Within a ditch of loathsome scent,

Which carrion dogs did much frequent,'

as the ballad says: but old Stow settles that matter by saying, he could prove by record that as early as four hundred years before his time the place had been called Soersditch. However this may be, the place deserves its name. There is, indeed, no vestige of a ditch now perceptible to one passing through the locality, whatever a more strict investigation might disclose; but the neighbourhood has not a very pleasant or wholesome look. The aspect which Shoreditch proper now presents is that of a broad, bustling street of old-fronted houses, full of heterogeneous shops, some of them exhibiting considerable displays of cheap hats, haberdashery, shoes, ready-made clothes, groceries, and the like; but others belonging rather to the costermonger species. Narrower streets, of more mean appearance, branch out from it on both sides. Altogether, Shoreditch is not the part of London where a literary man of the present day would voluntarily seek lodgings; and the case was probably much the same in Chatterton's time. Indeed, long before that, Shoreditch, partly perhaps on account of the peculiar suggestiveness of its name, had obtained an unenviable reputation as a low neighbourhood. "To die in

Shoreditch" was synonymous, in the writings of the wits of Dryden's time, with dying like a profligate and having hags for one's nurses.

It was here, however, that Chatterton lodged when he first came to London. We have already mentioned that the only definite arrangement he seems to have made for his sojourn in London, before leaving Bristol, consisted in his having written to Mrs. Ballance, a distant relative of his mother, who lived in the house of a Mr. Walmsley, a plasterer, in Shoreditch, asking her to secure a lodging for him against his arrival. Mrs. Ballance, whom we picture as an elderly female, the widow of some seafaring man, living in London in a meagre, eleemosynary way, appears to have replied to this letter by writing to Mrs. Chatterton that Thomas had better come at once to Mr. Walmsley's, where he could be accommodated in the meantime at least, and where she would do her best to make him comfortable.

Accordingly, it was to Mr. Walmsley's, in Shoreditch, that Chatterton, on his arrival in London, on the evening of Wednesday, the 25th of April, 1770, contrived to make his way. Where the Bristol coach of that day stopped we do not know, though even that might be ascertained if we were very anxious about it; but, as it must have been in the yard of some inn near the heart of the city, Chatterton had not far to go

before introducing himself to Mrs. Ballance, if, indeed, the good woman did not make her appearance at the coach to meet her young relative. It shows the impatience and the spirit of the young stranger, thus deposited in the streets of London, that, late as it was when he arrived at Mr. Walmsley's (it must have been between five and six o'clock in the evening), and tired as he must have been with his twenty hours' journey, he did not remain within doors any time, but, having seen his boxes safe, and escaped the assiduities of Mrs. Ballance, sallied out for a ramble, and to make calls on the persons through whose patronage he hoped to gain a footing in literary circles. So much, at least, we infer from the following letter to his mother, written on the morning of the 26th, after he had slept his first night at Mr. Walmsley's, and giving an account of his journey and his first proceedings in London :—

"LONDON, April 26th, 1770. "DEAR MOTHER,-Here I am, safe and in high spirits. To give you a journal of my tour would not be unnecessary. After riding in the basket to Brislington, I mounted the top of the coach, and rid easy, and was agreeably entertained with the conversation of a Quaker in dress, but little so in personals and behaviour. This laughing Friend, who is a carver, lamented his having sent his tools to Worcester, as otherwise he would have accompanied me to London.

I left him at Bath; when, finding it rained pretty fast, I entered an inside passenger to Speenhamland, the half-way stage, paying seven shillings. 'Twas lucky I did so, for it snowed all night, and on Marlborough Downs the snow was near a foot high.

"At seven in the morning I breakfasted at Speenhamland, and then mounted the coach-box for the remainder of the day, which was a remarkable fine one. Honest Gee-ho complimented me with assuring me that I sat bolder and tighter than any person who ever rid with him. Dined at Stroud most luxuriously with a young gentleman, who had slept all the preceding night in the machine, and an old mercantile genius, whose school-boy son had a great deal of wit, as the father thought, in remarking that Windsor was as old as our Saviour's time.

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Got into London about five o'clock in the evening. Called upon Mr. Edmunds, Mr. Fell, Mr. Hamilton, and Mr. Dodsley. Great encouragement from them; all approved of my design. Shall soon be settled. Call upon Mr. Lambert; show him this; or tell him, if I deserve a recommendation, he would oblige me to give me one: if I do not, it will be beneath him to take notice of me. Seen all aunts, cousins-all welland I am welcome. Mr. T. Wensley is alive, and coming home. Sister, grandmother, &c. &c. &c., remember. 'I remain your dutiful son,

“T. CHATTERTON."

It is a curious corroboration of Chatterton's account of the weather during his journey that, in the meteorological registers of the Gentleman's Magazine, Wednes