Star.
London, England, 1826-12-14 00:00:00

LONDON IMPROVEMENTS.

TROM rill MEW 11101 MILT .
[Concluded from the &SAS of 'Monday.]
In Crooked lane, (what associations does not the
very name insp're!) there yet remains a proud relique
of what London was, when about a century or two
younger. You cannot miss it, though it seems to shrink
from its neighbour buildings, as if fearful of contami-
nation. It is an ivory-turner's, of the very oldest
school. Disdaining the modern auxiliaries of shop-
windows or doors, the achievements of the art court the
. regards of the passers-by, in stoutly fashioned glazed
cases, black with the accumulated smoke of at least a
century. What an assemblage of antiques! Hornbooks,
bone-alphabets, wooden-spoons and forks, lemon-
squeezers, and punch-stirrers! Alas! literature dis-
dains the aid of the first ; and, for the last. punch
has clean gone out of fashion. At the back of the
shop is a dark retreat, some two yards square, like the
inner den of a spider's web. A tall and somewhat
stately damsel, rather quaintly attired, and over whose
head forty summers, at least, seem to have passed, sits
there from morn till eve, watching the advent of cus-
tomers, whose visits, I fear, are " few and far between,"
and beguiling the lengthy intervals by the industrious
employment of her needle. Strange speculations had
occasionally floated in my brain as to all these matters.
A thousand fancies had flitted across my imagination,
as to whose was thf. shop, who was the dame, and who
the damsel; and determined not to " burst in igno.
ranee," I ventured a small purchase, to obtain the de-
sired information. I was served by the junior Lady
herself; and truly, a very pleasant and communicative
maiden I found her. I say " maiden," for, alack-a-
day ! she owned with a sigh that she was a spinster.
She was delighted with my veneration for the " dreary
pile," and readily detailed all its history. Certainly, it
was very old; she could not say how old; but coeval,
at least, with the Monument. Her father, who died
eleven years ago, had been a resident there five and
fifty years. He had served his time in it; and became,
in due course, the successor of his master, who had like-
wise, in his turn, been a very old occupant. It was,
even in her father's time, a place of much repute; the
first ivory turner's in London. So extensive was their
trade, that a large house opposite bad been used as a
warehouie ; and Gentlefolk in their coaches (this was
uttered with a smile of infinite complacency) came far
and near to purchase their wares. Modern innovation
ultimately dethroned its proprietor from this high
eminence ; but though hints were ever and anon thrown
out as to the policy of modernizing his boutique, and his
neighbours, light and left, and opposite, evinced symp-
toms of defection by gradually becoming smitten with
the mania of smart shop-windows, nothing could in-
duce him to listen to aught that savoured of change. If
folks (he said) would rusts headlong to ruin, what was
that to him ? Why should be follow their example ?
When he first came to London, these was not a single
shop in the City with so superfluous and impertinent an
appendage. Then why should he shut out the blessed
air of Heaven? For his part, he loved flesh air; ergo,
beloved to live in Crooked-lane, and abominated shop
windows. To the visitors, who now and then dropped
into his nest to chat with him—incited more by curio- The course of Exchange has not undergone any
sity than business—he was garrulous in its praise. He material afteratioa:
bad lived there, he said, man and boy, upwards of half The number of individuals who perished in the High-
a century ; and, thank Heaven and his own industry, lands, during the late snow storm, is ascertained to have
he was pretty warm. He loved his shop ; and, with been between 27 and SO.
his own free-will, would never leave it till he was borne Upwards of 5,000 trees were blown down at Gordon
to his last home. In this wish he was gratified ; and Castle, in the Highlands, by the violence of the gale, on
his venerable relict, thoroughly imbued with the pre- Friday and Saturday se'nnight.
judices of her mate, still maintains,with becoming con- It is a singular fact, that the house of Fermor should
sistency, the primeval appearance of their ancient do- combine in their honours two titles, which are both uni.
micile. Not that the profits would now defray the venially mis-spelt. The head of the family is Earl of
board of her ti.ur.footed domestics, but she has not the Pontefract, Viscount Leominster, which are always pro-
heart to leave it, and cannot abide the rtmoval of a single flounced Pomfret and Lempster—indeed his Lordship
article attached to it, save those only which are made spells both title- as they are pronounced. His Lordship
for sale. An hour-glass, which has its prescribed the other day was shewing a snuff-box to Mr. Rogers,
station at one end of the counter, is, I will be bound, the eminent poet, and told him it bad been in his family
held so sacred, that no money could achieve its put- a hundred years. " Gad," says Rogers, " that's the
chase. I hinted that the changes that must have very thing we want up in one corner in St. James's-
passed around them; the many new occupants of the place—a cent'ry box r
neighbouring shops, they must have seen in the long Monday, a dreadful accident betel Mr. Banfield, the
period of their establishment; a truth to which the jeweller, of Cheapside. He was driving down Brixton-
kunior damsel assented with a smile of triumph.— goad in a gig, with a little girl, his only surviving child;
But there was one change, she said, more mournful when he accidentally ran agaii st a coach, and was
than any, a change that she feared her mamma would Olio kn out, with his daughter. One of the coach
never survive. Indeed, it was a doubt, whether the wheels went over his child's head, and killed it cn the
anticipation of the event would not produce all the con. put. The unfortunate Gentleman received much in •
sequences of the reality. This awful circumstance was jury, and was taken home in a deplorable condition of
the rebuilding of London Bridge, arid the consequent ;Iliad as well as of body. No blame is, we understand,
destruction that awaited Crooked-lane. I was condoling attributable to the driver of the coach.
with her on this event, and suggesting that a young SPORTING ANRCROT/1.-At one of the late grand
Lady like her should be more modern in her notions, shooting kllues, a Gentleman had several times been
and hail the alteration as a great national improvement, very nearly shot by his friend, and had repeatedly cau-
when I was interrupted by tke entrance of a smirking tioned him not to shoot so much at random; but the
Quaker, of some forty or thereabouts, who evidently caution was vain, for in an hour after he received four
came for a flirtation with the fair spinster, incited, shots in the cheek. " Where are you ?" said the
doubtless, by the well-known weight of her expecte& wounded man to his friend; " I am here," was the re-
cies. His mode of courtship was curious enough; being ply. 44 I cannot see you for the bushes; hold up your
oddly interspersed with compliments to the Lady, and hand ?" He held op his hand, and had fourteen shots
accounts of his prowess in the newly-revived science of put into it at forty yards. " Theses" said his friend,
gymnastics; the one idea which seemed to put all his " is tit fox tat ! '