we know not, for he appears to have kept silence, retaining the preferment of the Hampdens, and remaining cloistered among their woody highlands, while the waves of that troublous world rolled on, and his great neighbour, who was buffeting among them, survived him exactly six years.
William Spurstow, a well-known nonconformist, succeeded the mild, ripe scholar, Egeon, in June, 1638. A curious note in the parish register informs us, that “he was one of those heroes who wrote against the Church and the Establishment. They were five in number: Stephen Marshall, Edmund Calamy, Thomas Young, Matthew Newcomen, and the above William Spurstow. The initial letters of their names formed the cant word Smectymnus, celebrated by Hudibras.”
When Bishop Hall wrote in favour of Episcopacy, he was answered by this celebrated treatise. William Spurstow was a busy party man. As chaplain to the Buckinghamshire Green Coats, he attended the great Colonel of that Company on his deathbed: but he was also one of the Assembly of Divines appointed by an Ordinance of Parliament to advise upon a settlement of religion, 1st July, 1643, six days after Hampden’s funeral; and we beg the reader to take note of these dates. The exciting engagements of this ardent controvertist at that moment may account for his omitting to record in the parish register the burial of his patron, in an age when such clerical duties were so grossly neglected. The entry now standing is an evident interpolation, in the hand-writing of Robert Lenthall, the succeeding rector, who was inducted in the November of the same year. We copy this often-disputed clause:—“John Hampden, Esq., Lord of Hampden, 25 June, 1643.”
PETTICOAT LANE.
Has the reader ever heard of “Petticoat Lane?” If not, let us bring it under his notice. If he have—if he remembers the crusade made against its manners and customs by a Lord Mayor some four or five years ago, let us assure him that in spite of chief magistrates—in the teeth of a double allowance of police—it is still as flourishing and as unique in its characteristics, as when one of their lordships had his pocket picked, whilst paying it a Sunday morning visit in company with a bevy of city constables. There is a pretty brisk trade done in Hamburgh on the Christian Sabbath; the Jews in the Ghetto at Rome are not idle while “the faithful” are at high mass; but though, saving Scotland, there is no country on the face of the earth in which there is a more general suspension of business on Sunday, than in England, Petticoat Lane, E., “licks all creation”—as the Yankees have it—for the transactions, legal and illegal, conducted between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., on the first day of the week. It may be premised that “Petticoat Lane” is a misnomer for the locus in quo of the operations to which we refer. Under that general term of street nomenclature, nearly a score of streets, lanes, and alleys are comprised. Petticoat Lane was the seat of the trade in its infancy. The name now rather marks the character of the traffic than the spot on which it is carried on. The central avenue of all this selling, and buying, and pocket-picking, and shouting, and screaming, and eating, and drinking, is Middlesex Street, Whitechapel. Here it is, that Jews and Gentiles “most do congregate;” though the lanes, alleys, and yards that branch off from it at right angles are scarcely less crowded, and, like the great thoroughfare itself, are at times impassable. The best way of approaching the scene is from High Street, Aldgate. The third or fourth turn on the left, after you come from Leadenhall Street, or Fenchurch Street, is Middlesex Street. At either corner is the inevitable public-house. Turn sharp round to the east, and in two or three seconds you will find yourself brought in medias res. In the Tower of Babel, the voices might have been more various; but they could scarcely have been as numerous as they are in this long and narrow avenue. Shops, or rather half-shops, for space is valuable in Petticoat Lane, are in interminable lines on each side of you. Al fresco dealings are going forward on every foot of street-room. The time is, say, noon on Sunday. Trade is at its height then. It commences at 9 a.m., and becomes slack about 3 p.m. During the daytime on Saturday nearly every house is closed, the occupiers being Jews; but on the Sunday almost every imaginable species of barter is to be witnessed here. For the length of more than a quarter of a mile in a direct line, and from side streets innumerable, you are assailed by thousands of vendors, each trying to out-shout or over-scream his or her competitor, “Who’s the buyer?” “Who vants a sheap vatch?” “A vest worth a bob for a tanner.” “Spanish olives, four a penny.” “Ice, a half-penny a glass.” “Lemonade, a half-penny a bottle.” “Boot-laces, a dozen for a penny!” Persons are fairly puzzled when they hear old-clothesmen offer to buy soleless boots, odd slippers, or sleeveless coats. A visit to Petticoat Lane will unravel the mystery. There such articles are negotiable. We witnessed the purchase of a single suspender, after a huckstering of five minutes’ duration; and nothing is more common than the barter of an odd shoe or boot. Harrow Alley connects Middlesex Street with the London Clothes’ Exchange—commonly called Rosemary Lane—and in this alley are large baskets filled with odd gloves, and stockings, shoes that have no fellows, and shirts minus a sleeve. There are two or three very large covered buildings devoted to clothing for men and women; and here persons who have been “eased” of their pocket-handkerchiefs stand a good chance of being afforded an opportunity of recovering them by purchase. The business in the clothes’ exchanges is conducted chiefly by women and girls; and the shrill clatter which they keep up is positively ear-splitting. There are a few jewellery-stands, presided over by patriarchal-looking Israelites at the end of the clothes’ mart opening into Cutler Street, Houndsditch; but it is in Middlesex Street and its branches you must witness the varied traffic for which Petticoat Lane is so remarkable. No one who spends an hour here can deny that the Jews are a utilitarian race. Mere infants are vending pencils, stationery, buttons, toys, and refreshments
