Even if you have never been to London but have a pretty good imagination you may be able to see the scenes of the centuries of this old city from the selected menagerie of paragraphs which I have pulled from an old book.
In the late 1800's C W Heckethorn wrote a few interesting books including one laying out the good the bad and the ugly facts about the long history of the city of London. I plucked these curious little beasts from just one chapter titled London's Immortal Animals
Our London tour begins,
"Well, living animals are not immortal, we know, therefore ours
must be dead ones, and so they are—dead in stone, bronze, cement, wood, or any other material you please, and therefore to some degree immortal, for most of those I am going to speak about have preceded, and are likely to outlive, us by a good many years. And they constitute quite a little menagerie, not in bas-relief or haut-relief, nor painted, nor embossed, but of solid, full-bodied, stereostatic figures—in fact, the exact counterparts of the living animals.
And all these artificial replicas have their appointed positions, their fixed points, and, like the policemen so placed, are full of information, if you only know how to draw it from them.
They are very useful to the topographer and antiquary, the inquirer into history, political, social, artistic, and supply many hints to the philosopher with cynical tendencies. As they are scattered over all parts of London, our tour of visits to them will be rather erratic, but it may prove all the more amusing."
Lets first look to the lion, that one that was the crest of the Percies, the long line of a family that is known for its role in the medieval Stuart and Tudor times and another
that lived on the top of a brewery, where they once faced down each other on opposing sides of the road, ...
" Some antiquaries are of opinion that the beer lion is the lion of the zodiac. They argue thus: this beer lion is known as Leo Cerevisiae. Here is more than a mere allusion to Ceres. Now, we know that Ceres, or Virgo, or the Virgin—that is, Venus—is the sign next to Leo; we further know from Swiveller’s ‘ Diversions’ that beer and rosy wine are synonymous ; we know, moreover, from ‘ Revelations of the Police Courts ’—any volume you like—that Ceres—that is, Venus—is always accompanied by Bacchus; ergo, this lion really represents Bacchus in the zodiacal sign of Leo. This reasoning seems conclusive."
Is there more to this story? Bacchus is of course the god of wine and as the story goes faced off with Kings of Thrace and Thebes, and it didn't end well for the Kings. But Heckethorn references Swiveller, a character of Charles Dickens. And what are the volumes of 'Revelations of the Police Courts' he references. Heckethorn says of all the animals, they "have their appointed positions" which mark the boundaries of the City, and "their fixed points" the stars of the zodiac, "and, like the policemen, are full of information if you only know how to draw if out of them."
Sounds like codes being used doesn't it? [It may be useful to point out here that Heckethorn also wrote a book of two volumes on Secret Societies which we will come to later.] There are some modern day stories that question "did Dickens pay the police for stories in his magazine?" these details and links are in the SIDE NOTES to this article.
Next up we see the gryphon, or griffin, a mythical creature, or maybe just extinct, with a head and wings as those of an eagle and a body of a lion. Pointy ears and legs somewhat like the eagle's.
"There, on a gingerbread—no, that is not what we meant—on a marble pedestal the griffin rears its majestic and mysterious form. In a certain author we find the following record of this antique :
"A work of art which can evoke poetry so sublime as this must be sublime itself, and the griffin is sublime, and its erection and preservation are powerful evidence of the appreciation of, and respect for, high art, which distinguish the citizens of London; ..."
"But let us describe this thing of beauty. It represents that well-known domestic animal the griffin. The appearance of the beast is extremely fierce ; its widely extended wings, faithfully copied from the antique pantomime, inspire awe," ...
"The animal’s position is what heralds designate as rampant, and correctly so, for is not the griffin the guardian angel, the champion of the City, the dragon watching over the gold-encumbered caves of London, the treasure-house of the world, the temple of Mammon, whose high priests are bankers, brokers, and swindlers, and therefore bound always to be on the rampage ? The colour of the material composing the griffin leads our country visitors to imagine that it is carved out of green cheese, but we Londoners know it to be made of tin, supplied by the patient and long-suffering citizens of London, alloyed with brass furnished by the City fathers who stuck up the objectionable monster,..."
We'll just mosey along now to a location in central London called Holborn. Here Heckethorn engages us with two more animals which for some reason brings to mind an image of Wall Street.
"Let us on to Holborn, where we encounter two fine animals. A noble black swan here has charge of a whisky distillery"... "On the other side of Holborn we are cheered by the sight of another fine animal, a black bull—a splendid addition to our menagerie. .. "This bull’s gilt horns and hoofs and golden belly-band form a striking ornament to otherwise dingy Holborn,"
By way of wrapping up the tour lets take on one final allegory of the history and mystery of this city of empirical financiers and aristocracy.
"I suppose, of the British Lion, which with his paw grasps the world, and will growl if you merely make believe that you want him to release his hold. He is an amiable and placid-looking beast, till you interfere with him; and if you tease him till he begins to lash his sides with his tail, then look out for squalls. And you may be sure those lions think no small beer of themselves, as from their elevation they look down upon the unceasing activity, the boundless wealth, the moral and material progress they behold on all sides."
"With reference to the figure of the Lion and Ball, we may add that it owes its origin to the medieval notion that a lion or tiger deprived of her young might be prevented from following them by casting a spherical looking-glass in her way, so that she could see her own image reduced as it rolled under her paw, and thus mistake it for her cub. In sculpture it could only be represented by a ball, which in time became a terrestrial globe, and the lion resting his paw on it became the emblem of royalty."
"We wiil descend to the Embankment. There, between Charing Cross and Waterloo Bridges, stands Cleopatra’s Needle, ... Facing that Needle, popularly known as an obelisk—which was set up in its original home as a gnomon—are, to the east and the west, two of those mysterious animals known as sphinxes. Strange animals they are—lions, with the heads and faces and busts of women. Now, as not everyone can be expected to be a sciolist, we may as well state, for the benefit of those who have not studied the subject, that this curious combination of lion and woman is really a duplex zodiacal sign, representing the lion, or the sun, at its highest power, and Virgo, or Ceres, or Mother Earth, the bringer-forth of all we can ever possess- the signs of July and August. The ancient Egyptians were Sabeans; they worshipped the sun and stars, and taught all nations that Mother Earth, or Eve, or Ceres, or the Virgin Mary, for they all mean the same thing, was our true mother, and the Sun our Saviour.
And this they symbolized in the Sphinx, which name is simply the Greek word for 'shutting up,' ' secrecy,' 'mystery; and to the Greeks the Sphinx, whose meaning they did not know, was a ' mystery,' just as they turned the nine female figures, representing in Egypt the labours of the nine months during which agricultural work was pursued, and who carried symbolical implements, into the nine Muses. But our Embankment sphinxes seem to be studying a mystery as great as their own-the hieroglyphics on the obelisk.
Our country cousins greatly admire the show."
Here you may exit the tour from this platform.
If you would like the full twelve page tour with no interruptions just follow the link to the next platform, or wander on to see the animal sites through a few more modern lenses.
Page 41 Chapter IV, LONDON"S IMMORTAL ANIMALS. Here are a few sites to take a look at images of London's animals.
TIME TRAVELLER CURIOUS LONDON HECKETHORN OLD BOOKS
