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CHAPTER IV.

HOLBORN, ST. ANDREW'S CHURCH, GRAY'S INN

LANE, ETC.

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Cock Lane Ghost- Holborn-William Dobson-Death of John Bunyan - Snow Hill — Shoe Lane — Gunpowder Alley - Lovelace and Lilly-Fetter Lane - Residents in Fetter Lane - Hatton Garden — Ely House — Southampton Buildings St Andrew's Church-Brooke Street - Gray's Inn Lane - Celebrated Residents There- Blue Boar Inn - Anecdote of Charles the First and Cromwell-Birth of Savage — King Street John Bampfylde.

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PASSING from Smithfield through Giltspur Street, on the right hand is Cock Lane, the scene of the vagaries of the celebrated Cock Lane ghost. The person to whom the apparition was said to have presented itself was a girl of twelve years of age, of the name of Parsons, the daughter of the parish clerk of St. Sepulchre, who resided in a wretched hovel, since demolished, about half-way down Cock Lane, on the north side. The ghost was said to be that of a young married lady, who had been poisoned by her husband, and who lay buried in the vaults of St. John's Church, Clerkenwell.

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The extraordinary sensation created by this impudent imposition, as well as the credulity of persons of all ranks of society, almost exceed belief. To George Montagu, Horace Walpole writes, on the 2d of February, 1762: "I went to hear the ghost, for it is not an apparition, but an audition. We set out from the opera, changed our clothes at Northumberland House, the Duke of York, Lady Northumberland, Lady Mary Coke, Lord Hertford and I, all in one hackney-coach, — and drove to the spot. It rained torrents, yet the lane was full of mob, and the house so full we could not get in. At last they discovered that it was the Duke of York, and the company squeezed themselves into one another's pockets, to make room for us. The house - which is borrowed, and to which the ghost has adjourned is wretchedly small and miserable. When we opened the chamber, in which were fifty people, with no light but one tallow candle at the end, we tumbled over the bed of the child to whom the ghost comes, and whom they are murdering by inches in such insufferable heat and stench. At the top of the room are ropes to dry clothes. I asked if we were to have rope-dancing between the acts. We had nothing. They told us, as they would at a puppet-show, that it would not come that night till seven in the morning, that is, when there are only prentices and old women. We stayed, however, till half an hour after one. The Methodists have promised them contributions;

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