dBooks desire

Ballad-singers come and chant here,
in deadly, guttural tones, satirical songs against the Whig
administration, against the bishops and dignified clergy, against the
German relatives of an august royal family; Punch sets up his theater,
sure of an audience, and occasionally of a halfpenny from the swarming
occupants of the houses; women scream after their children for
loitering in the gutter, or, worse still, against the husband who
comes reeling from the gin-shop. There is a ceaseless din and life in
these courts, out of which you pass into the tranquil, old-fashioned
quadrangle of Shepherd's Inn. In a mangy little grass-plat in the
center rises up the statue of Shepherd, defended by iron railings from
the assaults of boys. The hall of the Inn, on which the founder's
arms are painted, occupies one side of the square, the tall and
ancient chambers are carried round other two sides, and over the
central archway, which leads into Oldcastle-street, and so into the
great London thoroughfare.


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