Already have I spoken of the Leicester Square gold and silver smith's style and titles. It is meet that you should peruse them in full:—
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So to Cranbourn Street, Leicester Fields, is William Hogarth bound for
seven long years. Very curious is it to mark how old trades and old types
of inhabitants linger about localities. They were obliged to pull old
Cranbourn Street and Cranbourn Alley quite down before they could get rid
of the silversmiths, and even now I see them sprouting forth again round
about the familiar haunt; the latest ensample thereof being in the shop of a
pawnbroker—of immense wealth, I presume, who, gorged and fevered by
multitudes of unredeemed pledges, has suddenly astonished New Cranbourn
Street with plate-glass windows, overflowing with plate, jewellery,
and trinkets; buhl cabinets, gilt consoles, suits of armour, antique china,
Pompadour clocks, bronze monsters, and other articles of virtù. But don't
you remember Hamlet's in the dear old Dædalean, bonnet-building Cranbourn
Alley days?—that long low shop whose windows seemed to have no
end, and not to have been dusted for centuries; those dim vistas of dish-covers,
coffee biggins and centre-pieces. You must think of Crœsus when
you speak of the reputed wealth of Hamlet. His stock was said to be
worth millions. Seven watchmen kept guard over it every night. Half
the aristocracy were in his debt. Royalty itself had gone credit for plate
and jewellery at Hamlet's. Rest his bones, poor old gentleman, if he be
departed. He took to building and came to grief. His shop is no more,
and his name is but a noise.
