Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/108

This page needs to be proofread.

102


NOTES AND QUERIES. [ 12 s.m. FEB. 10.1917.


2 blanks, bound in dark-blue flint paper covers. The frontispiece is identical with the plate inserted at p. 36 of his first work.

The third work by Wilson is later than Noble's volume ; its title is misleading : " Catalogue of Pictorial Records of London : Past and Present. Collected and arranged by James Holbert Wilson. Privately Printed." This is, in fact, a descriptive catalogue of prints and drawings illustrating Fleet Street and Temple Bar, " contained in Portfolio XVII." Very interesting notes make this itemized list a work of some topographical importance. Bound in blue cloth and lettered, the 62 pp. are nearly all printed on one side only, probably to allow of annotation. It does not describe all the prints and drawings on these subjects in the compiler's possession. Others occurred for sale when his remarkable collection was dispersed by auction in 1889.

Following Noble's work, and equally occasioned by the great popular interest in Temple Bar, there were a number of pamphlet histories, produced for sale in the gutter by street hawkers, and, no doubt, when the end came and the gate was being removed they would be in brisk demand as a kind of " last dying speech " of the in- articulate London idol :

1. ' The History of Temple Bar.' By D. J. Anderson. (London : Wood & Co.) 1874. Post 8vo, 14 pp.

2. ' Temple Bar, Past and Present.' By T. H. Good. (London : Thomas Danks.) Price One Penny. Demy 8vo, 8 pp.

3. ' Temple Bar : its History, Memorials, and Associations.' (London : John Burrill.) Fcap. 8vo, 12 pp.

4. ' The History of Temple Bar.' (London : John Burrill.) One Penny. A reissue of No. 3, with new title and illustrations.

5. ' The History of Temple Ba.r.' (London, published at 50 Holywell Street, Strand.) One Penny. 8 pp., woodcut title.

6. ' The History of Temple Bar : the City Golgotha.' By J. Bcneli. (Office of ' St. Crispin,' 7 Holywell Street.) Price One Penny (?). Small 4to, 8 pp.

In 1897 a local firm of stationers published at one shilling ' Temple Bar and State Pageants,' by Henry Johnson, illustrated by Miss Elsie M. Duff. This oblong 8vo, 32 pp., was commemorative of the Diamond Jubilee procession.

E. W. Godwin reprinted from The British Architect (Oct. 19 and 26, 1897) his useful but too brief history. Although only 22 pp., 4to, it is bound in stout bevelled boards covered with green cloth, and a considerable


number must have been published, as it is constantly met with.

That useful history, ' Fleet Street in_ Seven Centuries,' by W. G. Bell, of course- provides much information on Temple Bar, but here it is only an eddy in the great stream of history flowing through and about the " Highway of letters."

Of pamphlets and volumes on co-related subjects there is a considerable list. Alder- man Pickett's improvement scheme, in- volving the removal of Temple Bar, is represented by ' Public Improvements,' 1789 ; ' Address to the Livery,' 1790 ; ' The Representation of the Leaseholders,' 1806 ; and a volume reprinting the Acts, 1795-1804,. authorizing the sale of the property.

The late Mr. F. G. Hilton Price gave us in 1902 the excellent monograph ' The Mary- gold by Temple Bar,' which was preceded by a pamphlet on Child's Bank (1875) and two others on discoveries made on this site. Less intimately associated is Mr. Percy Fitzgerald's pamphlet on-* The Cock Tavern,' published in 1881, after its removal from near Temple Bar. But at this we must withstand the temptation to extend our list, so many buildings and sites under the- shadow of this historic gate call for inclusion.

I hoped to trace many pamphlets wherein it at least formed part of the title, even if not the subject of the work. One example has come to my notice. ' John Dutton's^ alias Prince Dutton's, Farewell to Temple Bar,' London, 1694, is only the personal narrative of a Fleet Street and Whitefriars cook who had misfortunes, but a common- place existence, and not the slightest association with Temple Bar.

As a centre of popular demonstrations Temple Bar is paramount in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The mob, pro- cessions, and bonfires after the Popish Plot the arrival of William III., and oth< occasions should have produced a numbe of pamphlets with local identifications, bu I can trace only three :

' London's Defiance to Rome, a perfect narrativ of the magnificent Procession and Solemn Burn ing of the Pope at Temple Bar, Nov. 17th, 1679 Folio.

4 The Procession : or, the Burning of the Pop in Effigie, at Temple Bar on the l?th of Novembe 168 1, being Queen Elizabeth's Birthday.' Folio.

' A Dialogue upon the Burning of the Pope an Presbyter in Effigie at Westminster, iNovembe: 1681.' Folio.

There must, however, be many morepam phlets or broadsides illustrating its story than I have been able to collect.

ALECK ABBAHAMS.