churchyard rails. What could this horse have
been? Was he the Bavicca of some Cid of the
Strand who had come here to woo— I have said
how popular sweethearting is in the Precinct
— to love and to ride away? Was he the solitary
sample of equine merchandise offered here
in a horse market held under charter of some
Plantagenet kings, but now well-nigh fallen into
desuetude? I little knew at the time that this
meek-nosed dobbin was a charger of prodigious
speed, that he was the renowned horse belonging
to the Meteor evening newspaper, the horse
that is supposed to publish the third and fourth
editions of that post meridian sheet as he careers
through the Strand. I met him at last in the
City, hot, rampant, covered with foam, a boy and
a bundle of newspapers on his back. He
enfiladed seemingly impassable blocks-up of carts
and carriages. He struck fire from the pavement.
He came and there was a clatter; he
went and there was steam. And when I
returned to the Precinct I found him, as of yore,
quietly tethered to the churchyard railings and
rubbing his meek nose against the cool iron.

Little by little I found out the secrets of
this charmed spot; but to this day I have not
been able to discover why members of the
theatrical orchestras of the metropolis should
be so fond of taking afternoon refreshment in
the Palace parlour. The Precinct itself is on
the wrong side of the way to be in a theatrical
neighbourhood: why should the primo violino,
the contrabasso, the oboe, and the kettle-drum
come hither? To be sure, Garrick lived in the
Adelphi, and Doctor Burney in Adam-street,
and the House of the Society of Arts is close
by; but there must be some deeper reason
for this musical affection for the spot than a
mere remembrance of dramatic and lyric
tradition. Was the Precinct originally built by
Old King Cole? Why the typographers from
the Meteor and the Orb (the opposition evening
journal) should patronise the down-stairs parlour
of the Palace is easy of comprehension. The
frequenting of the bar by the industrious
gentlemen who collect murders, fires, and dreadful
accidents on the public behalf, is likewise to be
satisfactorily explained, for are not the offices
both of the Meteor and the Orb in the busy
Strand close by? Again, one knows that there
are great brewers and coal-merchants' wharfs
at the river extremity, and this at once renders
accountable the constant presence of coalheavers
and draymen.

They don't make so much noise as might be
expected, these coalies and pale-ale tunners. The
drags are of course carefully adjusted to the
broad wheels of the drays and waggons; the
incline to the wharfs is easy; when any
Precinctian is dangerously ill, straw is laid down
before his door, and the charioteers are enjoined
to be careful; and, on the whole, I think the
Precinct people like the slow lumbering wains,
and regard the drowsy grinding of the wheels
at night as a drowsy lullaby. The Precinctians
are not much given to the utterance of
violent opinions, under any circumstances. They
are quiet folks, dwelling peaceably in the little
houses, with the white door-steps and the green
blinds, which nestle round the church of
St. Mary-le-Chou and the Heileger Sauerkraut, High
Dutch Lutheran chapel. As to vocation, from
the brass plates on their doors, and from their
smooth bald heads and subdued whiskers, I take
them to be mainly accountants, clerks, retired
tradesmen, commission-agents, and employés,
interested in pale ale, in pickles, and Wallsend
coals. There is one ancient gentleman, in a
white beard and gaiters, who dwells all by himself
in a house in a corner, and who, I am certain,
is the original " oldest inhabitant," not only of
the Precinct, but of the entire liberties of
Westminster. He looks old enough to remember
Jack Cade and the Kentish rebels. The matrons
of the Precinct are ruddy, and given to the
wholesome practice of early marketing. Pretty
servant maids and handsome daughters abound
— the latter not too proud to fetch the dinner
and supper beer from the Palace with their own
fair hands, and sometimes indulging in a little
Platonic sweethearting in the silvery moonlight
under the churchyard walls. But Platonic,
mind! No goings on, no shocking doings in
the chaste and decorous Precinct. The policeman
is not popular among the female population.
Nigger melodies are never heard. A Life Guardsman
once swaggered into the Palace bar— it is
true it was Easter time— made a feint of drinking
Miss Coppinger's supper half-and-half; winked
at Mrs. Turniptop; offered to chuck the barmaid
under the chin, and otherwise behaved in a
Richelieu and Lovelacian manner, but he was soon
frowned down by the landlord and the regular
customers. He slunk away at last, and was never
seen in the Precinct again. Turniptop, a placable
but resolute man when need was, declared that if
ever this abandoned dragoon darkened his doors
more— such were the terms he used— he would
give him a piece of his mind, and, what was
more, " report" him: threats dreadful to think
of!

So run the sands of life through this quiet
hourglass. So glides the Life away in the Old
Precinct. At its base, a river runs for all the world;
at its summit, is the brawling raging Strand; on
either side, are darkness and poverty and vice;
the gloomy Adelphi Arches, the Bridge of Sighs,
that men call Waterloo. But the Precinct troubles
itself little with the noise and tumult, and
sleeps well through life, without its fitful fever.

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