XV.]

ALSATIA.

307

cealed from the officers of the law, or to defy efforts made to arrest them for crimes which were of almost daily occurrence within the limits of " the liberty."

To these were added reckless adventurers who had deserted, or returned, from serving in the inefficient force reluctantly sent by James to recruit the army of his son-in-law, the Elector Palatine. These semi-military, but not always courageous, scoundrels, gave to the locality the cant name of Alsatia.

This border-land beyond law and order was called after the territory of Alsatia, the frontier province of France, on the Rhine, well known to soldiers in the Low Country as a frequent scene of hostilities in defiance of the laws and claims of the adjoining Powers, which were under a settled Government, and may thus be said to have been represented by Fleet Street, and especially by the Temple, the seat of law adjoining Whitefriars.

Ram Alley, Mitre Court, and an adjoining lane, called by the cant name of Lombard Street, represented the main portion of Alsatia; and the locality maintained its evil notoriety till late in the reign of William III., when an Act of Parliament was passed for the suppression of "all such pretended privileged places upon penalties."

Speaking of this, Strype says:-"This place was formerly, since its building in houses, inhabited by gentry; but some of the inhabitants taking upon them to protect persons from arrests, upon a pretended privilege belonging to the place, the gentry left it, and it became a sanctuary unto the inhabitants, which

they kept up by force against law and justice; so that it was sufficiently crowded with such disabled and loose kind of lodgers.

'But, however, upon a great concern of debt, the sheriff, with the posse comitatus, forced his way in to make a search, and yet to little purpose; for the time of the sheriff's coming not being concealed, and they having notice thereof, took flight either to the Mint, in Southwark-another such place or some other private place, until the hurly-burly was over and then they returned.”

In Otway's play (1681) The Soldier of Fortune, and in Shadwell's Squire of Alsatia (1688), this notorious precinct holds a prominent pari; and in the latter the descriptions of the dramatis persona indicate the characters of the inhabitants. Readers of Sir Walter Scott will remember the vivid picture of Alsatia in "The Fortunes of Nigel," and the graphic description of the locality, the aspect of the shops, and the lively doings of the City apprentices, who feared neither Alsatian bully, "pert Templar," nor Court gallant.

Conflicts between the Templars and their unsavoury neighbours in Whitefriars were frequent, and often resulted in serious injuries. Any attempt by the gamesters, bullies and thieves of Alsatia to invade the precinct of the Temple was instantly resented, and the intruders would at once be assailed in a fashion which mostly drove them back to their own quarter, where the clash of steel, the cries, yells, and curses of men, the shrill shrieks of women, and, perhaps, the

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occasional sound of a pistol shot, would show that a desperate struggle was going on, in which the constables were mostly reluctant to interpose.

James the First, in one of his speeches in the Star Chamber, declared, in reference to the proclamation against the enormous increase of visitors and occupants of houses, that only three classes of people had a right to settle in London-the courtiers, the citizens, and the gentlemen of the Inns of Court. As at that time there were at each Inn of Court about 180 "fellows" studying law, as well as sixty barristers and twenty readers, the lawyers made a very considerable contingent, when we remember that later, in 1631, the Lord Mayor, in answer to a question from the Privy Council, computed "the number of mouths" in the City of London and the liberty to be 130,280. In the following year, 1632, Mr. Palmer, a large landholder in Sussex, was fined £1,000 by the Star Chamber for living in London (in one year) beyond the period prescribed for the residence of country gentlemen visiting the metropolis.

Amidst all the tumult and conflict in the purlieus of Whitefriars and the Temple, the retired and secluded portion of the latter does not seem to have been greatly disturbed, and the learned Selden, in his chambers in Paper Buildings, pursued his studies, and sent forth his wise and witty essays and sayings without other molestation except from the censorship of the press, ordered by a king whose jealousy, suspicion, and self-conceit made it difficult any author so to trim his sails as to steer clear of

for

punishment by fine, imprisonment, or the burning of his books. As to excisions, they were so numerous that few books, either serious or satirical, except those by the King himself, or by his order, appeared as they were originally written. Printers were kept in constant apprehension lest they should incur the royal displeasure and perhaps lose their ears; and James, whose belief in his own ability to detect heresy and sedition was as strong as his belief in witchcraft, devoted as much time as he could spare from the favourite of whom he was afraid and the bottle which supported his courage and weakened his resolution, to the ordination of the literature, as well as of the law and the Gospel, of the country.

CHAPTER XVI.

EARLY NEWSPAPERS AND PAMPHLETS.

The Mercuries-Scurrilous News-letters-Pepys in Fleet Street ---His Diary The Court-The Stage-Prize Fights-The RumpCoaches-Elias Ashmole-Freemasonry-Lilly, the Astrologer— Roasting the Rumps in Fleet Street-The Great Fire-St. Dunstan's and the Giants-- Ned Ward-Cowper-The Booksellers' Tokens The Rainbow-The Cock-Tennyson in the Highway of Letters-Will Waterproof-The Violet of a Legend amidst the Chops and Steaks--Pepys Making Merry at the Cock Tavern -Bankers in Fleet Street-The Grab of the Stuarts - Child's Bank-Christopher Wren-Titus Oates-Roger North at the Green Dragon-Petitioners and Abhorrers-Burning the Pope at Temple Bar-The New Temple Bar-The Heads above it-Goldsmith and Johnson-Aubrey-Dryden-Great Preachers in Fleet Street-Will's Coffee House-Addison-Defoe.

IN speaking of Fleet Street as the Highway of Letters it must be remembered that it is only in the later part of its history that it has become the Highway of Newspapers. Though it is usually believed that the first newspaper was the English Mercurie, printed by Christopher Baker, printer to Queen Elizabeth, and containing some intimations of what was going on in the world after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, there is considerable doubt as to the authenticity of the date of that publication, two of the existing three copies being printed in comparatively modern type, and the third, a manuscript, showing evidences of belonging to the 18th century.

Nor would the small quarto pamphlets occasionally